Good morning, premium pal!
I come to you this morning fresh from the rabbit hole of corporate-influence-over politics history. Gee whiz, there’s a lot of dirty money down there.
I’m still editing next week’s episode, so there won’t be a video teaser today. Still, the story below about the master puppeteer behind efforts to manipulate the results of future US elections should act as a tasty preview.
![Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right: Mayer, Jane: 9780307947901: Amazon.com: Books Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right: Mayer, Jane: 9780307947901: Amazon.com: Books](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa450180b-5ad1-4184-b114-d9742fce2382_1562x2409.jpeg)
As you may know, 19 states have passed new democracy-eroding voting laws in the past six months that favor Republicans. Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer who for years led the GOP’s election-law fights, recently conceded, “A party that’s increasingly old and white whose base is a diminishing share of the population is conjuring up charges of fraud to erect barriers to voting for people it fears won’t support its candidates.” A fairly cut and dry explanation.
But here’s a question: where is all the money coming from to fund efforts to pass new voting laws? Make no bones about it, a nationwide campaign to restrict people’s right to vote is very expensive. Well, strap on your tinfoil hat, because to answer that question, we ought to first explore a partnership between the CIA and a family-run company in the 1950s and 60s.
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