LEONARD LEO

     I've been thinking about Leonard Leo lately. I've thought about him since I first learned that he contributes to our carbon footprint, and maybe his absence would be a net gain. But lately my thoughts on him extend beyond the times of my hoped for daily bowel movements. 

     Leo, if you didn't know, heads the Federalist Society and is responsible for recommending every Republican jurist in the higher courts since Clarence Thomas. He is a youngish man, on the threshold of 60. (Oh! If only he could be sliced into 60 pieces and stapled to the threshold of 60 doorsteps.) He has this irritating smile. Sort of a cross between Dick Cheney and Willy Loman. There is probably a Macchiavelian story on how he got to control this much power with literally billions of dollars of dark money to achieve whatever conservative, no heartless, thing the one-tenth of 1% desires. Delving into this sinister route through politics would take too much of the time I have left in life. Let me give my supposition: 

      Leonard Leo was the friendless nerd in high school who, while from a comfortable family, did not have the money to buy a friend. Even worse, he was a Republican nerd which, during the Reagan administration, would have driven up the cost of friendship for the teen-aged Leo about as steeply as AR-15 sales after President Obama was elected. When he graduated and earned a scholarship to a prestigious college he of course, had to become a member of the young Republicans. This is where he spent four years being, oh what is that word wingnuts like to use, the word they call teachers? GROOMED! Groomed to become a member of the Republican underworld. Diversity in the Republican party is a sensitive thing given their whiteness and recent associations with racist/white nationalists. So young Leo found himself in a kind of priviledged fraternity with the nerds to lead and the jocks to protest at  Michael Moore, or some other prominent liberals speeches, or a bar where LGBTQ plus people hang out. His ardor was rewarded because there is money to spend on recruiting Young Republicans. Much of that money coming from the usual villains in the Republican underworld, Charles Koch, Richard Uhlein, Kenneth Griffin, later Peter Thiel, characters right out of a James Bond, 007 movie. Young Leo surrounded by all of these powerful influencers and hunky jocks  must have been swimming in adrenalin and testosterone. He was smart. Smart enough to know that as a proper conservative he needed to avoid being caught with a mega-donors check in his pocket or a jock in his bedroom. He found his niche in the Federalist Society. Seriously, if you could convince somebody that the Federalists were for states rights and not strong federalism, you could sell box freezers in Alaska, which by-the-way is becoming a hotter market thanks to global warming. He was young and aggressive and had few customs to restrain him in this new group dedicated to the judicial fix. 

     Because he was surrounded by butt-kissers and too-eager hustlers, in short what is the Republican party today, he has not developed a finely tuned sense of propriety. I can see some of you out there smiling at the thought of Republicans having a finely tuned sense of propriety,  or anything, for that matter. He would thrust-they didn't parry, so his caution had evaporated. He was successful in keeping Judge Kavenaugh's gambling debts out of the press and buried Judge Gorsuch convenient mountain cabin sale to a buyer who was a lawyer with business before the courts. And then there is the spectacularly aristocratic Thomas's, Clarence and Ginny and their fabulous photo with the $5000 bottle of Chateau Petrus, perhaps the finest  Bordeux from the Polmarol region. All of these, with the possible exception of Gorsuch are connected by "friendship" to Harlen Crow a Republican multi-billionaire from Texas. And the puppetmaster of all is Leonard Leo. When he crosses a line of impropriety, he knows he will only be told by his party, "maybe you should be more cautious next time fella"

    

    A special note to the reader. Some of what I have written is highly speculative and insulting. While I don't apologize for insulting this farshtenkener, a Yiddish word for a smelly, melodorous person, I do apologize for my idle speculation. We used to not be allowed the liberty to steer so close to libel. But times and customs change. The House Republican conference changed that custom last week, the seemingly last custom of political deference. They changed it when they started an ill-supported allegation by an unknown agent at the Ukranian gas company Burisma, that President Biden accepted a measly $5 million bribe. Not to worry, this was passed to them by Rudy Guiliani. The vicious rumor is out, it will be remembered by the simple-minded folk who are too impressed with their brilliance, like Hillary's child sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor that has no basement. If there was any truth to this allegation, which thus far they cannot prove, it is an insignificant sum compared to the $2 billion schmazolis that Jared Kushner was paid by the Saudi's when the Trumps left the Whitehouse. A sum that would more than double when added to the sums paid Donald and Ivanka, with another $2 billion for Steve Mnuchin. What Saudi deed could possible be worth $7billion? Well that is speculation we all can share.