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Jeb Bush Super PAC Hit With Record Fine

Right to Rise USA, the super PAC that supported Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign, has been fined $390,000 by the Federal Election Commission for accepting $1.3 million from an international investment holding company owned by Chinese nationals that counted Jeb's brother Neil as a board member. (It is illegal for foreign nationals to be involved in making donations to American political campaign committees.) The FEC has also fined the company, American Pacific International Capital, $550,000.

The penalties have not been made public but were reported by Mother Jones based on FEC filings. The report claims the combined fines were the largest levied in a single case in the nine years since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling opened the political fundraising floodgates – and also the biggest FEC fine in a case of foreign national participation.


"This illegal $1.3 million is a direct result of Citizens United," since before that 2010 ruling companies were restricted in what they could give to super PACs, said Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center, the nonpartisan watchdog that first made the FEC aware of the APIC contribution.

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Could the end of “the democratic century” be the wake-up call we needed?

What the century scholars call “the democratic century” appears to have ended on January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s forty-seventh president. It came almost one hundred years after German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

Let me be clear. Trump is not America’s Hitler.

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It’s time to defend the guardrails of democracy

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Getty Images, Alexander Sikov

It’s time to defend the guardrails of democracy

Lawyers know that President Trump’s executive orders targeting individual law firms, and now, theentire legal profession, are illegal and unconstitutional. The situation puts a choice to every lawyer and every law firm. Do you fight – speak out and act out against this lawless behavior? Or do you accommodate it, keep your head down, and wait for the storm to pass?

The answer is to fight. Here’s why – and here’s what lawyers should do.

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Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Could Help Save the Democratic Process

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Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko

Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Could Help Save the Democratic Process

After contributing more than a quarter of a billion dollars to elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk has now turned his attention to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving millions of dollars to support Judge Brad Schimel, the Republican candidate.

According to The Brennan Center, this race is the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. If Musk is successful, it will tip the High Court’s balance to his political favor.

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