Soros Watch: $45 million to sabotage America’s judiciary
Earlier this week, I noted George Soros’s $100 million contribution to open-borders, anti-Israel, anti-U.S. Human Rights Watch.
Guess what he is up to now?
Prepare yourselves for a $45 million, Soros-driven drive to undermine America’s independent judiciary.
The American Justice Partnership revealed the details today:
Over the past 10 years, a highly-coordinated, well-funded campaign has been underway to fundamentally alter the composition of America’s state courts. The campaign’s goal: exclude conservative, rule-of-law judges from the bench. This campaign has been bankrolled by George Soros, a hedge fund operator with a net worth of $13 billion, according to the Forbes 400 list of the world’s richest people.
This multi-million dollar campaign to reshape our courts encompasses efforts to revise state constitutions, rewrite judicial recusal rules, abolish democratic judicial elections, and impose a judicial selection system that will transfer power from the people to a small, unelected and unaccountable commission comprised primarily of legal elites, typically representing powerful special interest groups, such as state trial lawyers associations.
We cannot take this lying down. Your right to vote is at stake.
Read the AJP’s full investigative report here. Background here. And more from Colleen Pero on how the progressives are masking their social justice radicalism under the guise of “merit selection:”
Under “merit selection,” the power to select judges is transferred from the people to a small, unelected, unaccountable commission comprised primarily of legal elites, typically including representatives of powerful special interest groups, such as state trial lawyers associations—whose politics, not surprisingly, are more liberal than the general public.
Promoted as a method to keep “politics” out of the judicial selection process, the merit committees in many states are extremely politicized and have fueled several high-profile political controversies in the past few years. Such confrontations have prompted scholars to question whether the merit selection system serves any of its stated purposes.
Nevertheless, proponents of merit selection have continued their campaign unabated. Indeed, the campaign now uses the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—a decision that allows corporations and unions to make independent expenditures related to federal races but does not permit corporations or unions to make direct contributions to candidates—as its rallying cry, arguing that the decision will precipitate a “flood of money” into state judicial races.
Backroom Political Deals
Ironically, the same opponents of judicial elections who loudly protest about contributions negatively affecting the independence of the judiciary—a claim for which they have yet to provide any concrete evidence—are receiving and spending tens of millions of dollars to not merely influence judicial elections but eliminate them and turn judicial selection over to special interests and backroom political deals. This does not remove politics from the process but rather moves politics outside of public view.
The well-funded proponents of so-called merit selection engage in a kind of political self-dealing, promoting selection by interest groups who are more closely aligned to their liberal agenda. Those who are concerned about the influence of money in judicial elections should pay more attention to the money spent by those seeking to use “merit” selection not to eliminate politics but to embed interest group politics formally into the selection process, thereby tilting judicial selection in their political favor.
Stay informed.
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Rich man puts money into cause he believes in…. newsflash?
I work in the legal field in Georgia, and I can assure you that the elected judges we have are…. I should hold my tongue.
So when do we just decide to throw this guy and his money in jail …
OMG!!!!! The banks, auto, health, air, food, land, oil&gas, suits against our states doing what the feds are suppost to do, letting every dead&felon&illegal alien vote, and now our courts? Good goodness to heaven, we have got to stop our take over of our Republic by these people stat!
Oh, goodie…
More “brights” ruling us plebes….
All I can say is it won’t work in Texas (we elect judges). Our system has its problems, but it makes crap like this impossible.
This guy needs to go away.
letget#3,
I’m so mad I forgot my L,
L
Now that we have the banking reform bill as law, hopefully a conservative government will use that law to declare all of George Soros’ business holdings “too big to fail” and confiscate it all – lock, stock and barrel.
Seriously, this man’s dealings need to be fully investigated by every congressional committee possible. He is dangerous.
Hitler? 1936?
Just trying to guess who you are talking about.
The term you were looking for was DEMOCRATICALLY CHOSEN BY THE PEOPLE.
If this guy hates America so much, why doesn’t he go back where he came from. Spend his money there – wherever there is.
Is he a citizen?Can he be charged with treason – or something?
Soros is pure evil but even with all his money he could do nothing without those willing to sell their souls to get that money.
Just like Albert Speer.
Are there any Conservative billionaires out there willing to shell out the bucks to counter this crap, and fund OUR agenda?
Hello? Is this thing on?
On September 9th, 2010 at 3:13 pm, Dexter Alarius said:
Yes. There are.
Here’s a thought for you. Forbes lists Soros as having $13 billion. When you figure in that every other week he is throwing $100 million to this cause and a $100 million to that cause it makes you wonder how he still has any money left over.
How much you want to bet that he is taking full advantage of the evil tax breaks for the rich that the Bush administration passed……
I know in WA ST most welathy Conservatives are fearful of donating at the state level as retribution politics are played on a level that would make Rahm Emanuel Blush.
This is big news! I’m sure it will be all over ABCNNBCBS tonight!
/s
George Soros. Born a Jew. Father changes their name to escape detection. (Didn’t work.) Becomes the person who gathers the personal belongings of his fellow Jews — after they have been transported to their date with the gas chamber — and turns it over to the Nazis. To this day, he sees absolutely nothing wrong with the role he played. He sold his soul at a very young age. This might be one of the best articles written about his life.
He’s a despicable waste of plasma.
RICO his a$$.
if only……
True that…
Here, let me hold it for you. Now where did I put my blowtorch…
I would have said “mostly conservative”, or “generally honest”, but yours works also. In any case, I can see why a liberal Democrat “who works in the legal field” (which probably means a paralegal but could include a janitor who cleans the office) would be unimpressed by them. I see frequent complaints about elected judges – but seldom from voters.
Not as many since Obama closed all of the Republican car dealerships.
On September 9th, 2010 at 3:14 pm, Ragspierre said:
On September 9th, 2010 at 3:13 pm, Dexter Alarius said:
Yes. There are. Thanksfully…
David and Charles Koch…
even this New Yorker hit piece could barely lay a glove on ‘em…
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
No, tex…
THOSE were mere millionaires…
Obama is getting around to the billionaires…
There’s relatively little the state judiciary rules on that touches on ideological grounds. I’m referring to judges (Democrats and Republicans) who lack basic competence, because their sole qualification is mobilizing voters. And from what I’ve seen, judges often win elections because their name comes first alphabetically on the ballot. I would agree that voters don’t complain about elected judges, because they aren’t even aware who they are.
Idiot!
It really has nothing to do with voting them INTO office. We want to keep our vote so, if they do something we don’t like, we can vote them OUT of office!
With a “Blue Ribbon Committee” choosing the judges, we’re hosed. Hey, why not setup a committee of mostly conservatives and let them pick the legislature and executive? You don’t seem to mind a liberal committee doing this with the judiciary.
http://www.clearthebenchcolorado.org
Is he even a citizen? He’s a horrible human being and needs to just go away.
Speak about your own jurisdiction (and I doubt you speak for the majority of voters there). Like all elitists, you think yourself far more capable of running our lives than we mortals. Like all elitists, you’re barely competent to run your own lives (or as much of the government as you’ve managed to infest). We see the results of your incompetence every day. We know our judges and we pass judgement on them every election, and we like the system the way it is. You apparently would fully approve of having a conservative governor appoint a group of conservative lawyers to select conservative judges who always ruled against your employer(s), n’est-ce pas? Maybe not, although that would mean ruling according to written law instead of feelings, emotion, or the desires of the left.
It’s all about ideology, after all. What you and other leftists want isn’t justice. It’s to increase your ability to impose your preferences on the rest of society. We don’t like it, we don’t want it, and we’ll fight it – in Texas, by electing our judges and dismissing them if they don’t please us.
I wonder if this is why Gov. Ritter appointed the new uber-liberal judge to the Supreme Court this week. Ritter has nothing to worry about since he’s not running again.
Take the opposite of what the title describes, because we know that’s what they intend….
Lan Astaslem, Good read, tks for the link.
Ummm… read the article again.
The American Justice Partnership is the group that alerted us to Soros’ scheme.
Here in Hawaii a couple of appointees were deemed unqualified by the bar for reasons they chose not to state. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t but the cowards who refused to say why should be ignored. By cowards of course I meant lawyers. Heh.
My bad…I didn’t read. Goes to show what happens when you ASSUME.
Most people feel the same way about our elected officials, but do they think a dictator would be better?
Think!
I take some comfort in knowing thta the man is old and doesn’t have much time on this Earth…the sooner he is gone, the better
I have made it a point in my life to ALWAYS vote against retention of any judge coming up on a ballot. We don’t get to vote on the judge, they are appointed here, but we do get to vote for retention. JUST VOTE NO!