Right-Wing Billionaires Are Funneling Money to Stop Ohio’s Abortion Ballot

Right-wing donors across the country are pouring money into Ohio to try to influence a special August referendum and ultimately block enshrining abortion protections in the state constitution.

Abortion is currently legal in Ohio until about 22 weeks, although not for lack of GOP efforts after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Ohioans will vote in November on a constitutional amendment that would allow people to decide for themselves about all reproductive health. The state could only restrict abortion access after a doctor determines the fetus is viable, or could survive outside the uterus. And even then, abortions can be performed if the patient’s health or life is at risk.

Ohio currently requires only a simple majority of votes to amend the constitution. But Republicans have pulled out all the stops in trying to block the abortion amendment. So first, Ohioans will vote in August on a measure that would raise the threshold for constitutional amendments to a 60 percent vote.

The main “yes” campaign committee calling for the higher threshold, Protect Our Constitution, has raised a little more than $4.85 million, per a financial filing first reported in the Ohio Capital Journal.

Nearly all of that—$4 million—came from Richard Uihlein, a billionaire right-wing megadonor in Illinois. Other contributions have come from Georgia, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. In total, only 14 percent of the money raised (less than $700,000) has come from within Ohio.

Three other “yes” groups have also raised millions of dollars primarily from far afield. One of those groups, Protect Women Ohio Action, is actually based in Virginia. Its primary donor is the Concord Fund, also known as the Judicial Crisis Network, a D.C.-based organization that backs conservative judges. Protect Women Ohio Action’s two other major donors are Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Catholic Church.

To be fair, it’s a similar picture on the opposing side, which has raised $14.8 million. Only about 16 percent of those funds came from Ohio donors, while the rest came from left-leaning philanthropic organizations and a Silicon Valley psychiatrist and philanthropist named Karla Jurvetson.

Still, it’s notable that right-wing donors outside of Ohio are so determined to stop people from changing their own constitution. If the “yes” groups prevail, they could block abortion protections in the fall. GOP lawmakers insist that raising the threshold is not about abortion, but Secretary of State Frank LaRose gave the game away in June, saying, “This is 100 percent about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”

All of these right-wing efforts may still fail, because they completely ignore the will of the people. A USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll released in July found that only 26 percent of Ohio voters support increasing the amount of votes needed to amend the constitution, while 57 percent oppose it.

Another poll, released last week by the same organizations, found that 58 percent of Ohioans support the amendment to guarantee access to reproductive services, while just 32 percent oppose it. The support crosses party lines, with a third of Republicans backing the amendment, as well as 85 percent of independent women—a crucial voter demographic.

The multibillion-dollar biotech company that has used Henrietta Lacks’s cells, taken without her consent or knowledge, for 70 years is paying up, after reaching a historic settlement with her living relatives.

In 1951, Lacks was treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. During the treatment, researchers secretly sampled cells from her cervix. Lacks died of her cancer a few months later, and around the same time, researchers discovered her cells were capable of regenerating outside the body.

They shared the “HeLa” cells with other scientists, and the cells have since been used to develop vaccines for polio and Covid-19, as well as the world’s most common fertility treatment, among other things.

Her family sued the Massachusetts-based biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific in October 2021, arguing that the cells belong to Lacks and that she—and her estate—should be compensated when companies use them for research and product development.

Thermo Fisher Scientific officials had previously argued that her descendants had waited too long to sue. The company also said it was being unfairly singled out, because countless other companies around the world also use HeLa cells without paying.

But the settlement, reached late Monday, opens the door for the Lacks family to succeed in other complaints seeking compensation for and control of the HeLa cells. The terms of the settlement are confidential, but the agreement is a crucial step forward in helping Black people reclaim their agency in the medical industry.

Lacks’s ordeal is part of a long history of Black people, particularly Black women, being used for scientific experimentation without their consent. Her family’s lawsuit touched on this, arguing that “the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout history.”

“Indeed, Black suffering has fueled innumerable medical progress and profit, without just compensation or recognition. Various studies, both documented and undocumented, have thrived off the dehumanization of Black people.”

Ron DeSantis’s latest attempt to make fun of Democrats has resulted in a cringey and incomprehensible dig at people with depression.

During an event at a coffee shop in Oskaloosa, Iowa, on Friday, DeSantis tried to demonstrate how he is overhauling the main message of his campaign. He made some biting comments about Joe Biden and slammed the (actually pretty good) state of the U.S. economy. But he ended up falling back on his old favorites: fighting “woke” culture and taking the country backward on racial justice and human rights.

At one point, a 15-year-old asked about military service restrictions on people with mental health disorders. DeSantis has been playing up his military experience—a marked shift from when he would snap at reporters who asked him about his time working at Guantánamo Bay—so you’d think he’d have some good talking points prepared.

You’d be wrong.

“I can’t legally vote,” the 15-year-old said, “but I struggle with major depressive disorder.”

DeSantis interrupted to quip, “It’s never stopped the other party from not letting you vote.”

It is entirely unclear what DeSantis meant with this comment. He could be complaining about letting people with mental health issues vote, which is the same as saying someone with the flu shouldn’t vote. Or he could be complaining about voting rights for minors, which does not exist. His use of a double negative makes the remark even more confusing.

(If you figure out what he’s trying to say there, please let us know.)

The teenager continued talking, and DeSantis replied blandly by saying he wasn’t sure what restrictions were in place but that any such rules are to ensure “whatever is best for the unit.”

Despite being touted early on as the natural successor to Donald Trump, DeSantis has struggled to take off as a candidate. He’s the runner-up to Trump in the polls, but by a massive margin.

In recent months, his campaign has shed more than a third of its staff and tried to pivot its messaging. Staffers have planted horrific campaign ads that attempt to show what a good conservative warrior DeSantis is but instead have backfired spectacularly. And none of this is helped by the fact that DeSantis is apparently terrible at small talk.

The DeSantis campaign made that weird meme campaign video featuring a giant Nazi symbol—and then planted it in a fan account.

The campaign last week faced backlash after a top staffer reshared a video, in which an image of DeSantis was layered with a Nazi symbol, the Florida flag, and marching soldiers. The video was first posted by the Ron DeSantis Fancams Twitter account and later deleted.

But reporting from Semafor confirmed what many had suspected: The DeSantis campaign made the video.

A Signal text message chain titled “War Room Creative Ideas” was responsible for the creation of the video, as well as a rabidly homophobic ad released earlier this month. That video too was planted in a fan account.

In the Signal channel, managed by DeSantis rapid response director Christina Pushaw, people praised the video when it was first created, according to Semafor.

“This belongs in the Smithsonian,” wrote Kyle Lamb, the campaign’s director of research and data, before the ensuing backlash. Lamb was let go days later, amid massive layoffs in the DeSantis campaign.

It’s not clear who shared the image of the Nazi symbol that made it into the video.

The far-right circular symbol is known as a “sonnenrad,” a symbol co-opted by Nazis in their attempt to claim an “Aryan heritage.” Today, it’s often found in white supremacist literature and the manifestos of far-right mass shooters.

As the very bad Nazi memes roll in, DeSantis supporters are reportedly getting fed up with the campaign’s priorities.

One donor told Rolling Stone: “If they keep blowing money on fucking memes, I’m out.”

Donald Trump’s political action committee is nearly broke, after spending tens of millions of dollars—nearly everything in its bank account—on the former president’s many, many legal fees.

Save America PAC started out last year with $105 million, but now it has less than $4 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings released on Monday.

In fact, things are so bad that Save America requested a $60 million refund it had previously given to a pro-Trump super PAC. The super PAC has already reimbursed it $12.25 million, nearly its entire intake from the first half of the year, an exchange that has increased scrutiny on the two political organizations’ spending.

Save America had already prompted closer inspection from special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump’s role in the January 6 riot, for paying lawyers representing witnesses in Trump’s lawsuits. The PAC is legally forbidden from directly spending money on his presidential campaign.

But by donating $60 million to the pro-Trump super PAC, Save America was able to skirt that law. Meanwhile, the $12.25 million refund is believed to be the largest on record in the history of federal campaigns. But by returning the money, the two political action groups may have violated a different law.

The super PAC, which is purportedly an independent entity, and Save America, which Trump controls, are forbidden from coordinating on strategy. “So for the super PAC and the Trump PAC to be sending tens of millions dollars back and forth depending upon who needs the money more strongly suggests unlawful financial coordination,” Adav Noti, a former lawyer for the FEC’s litigation division, told The New York Times.

“I don’t know that calling it a refund changes the fundamental illegality,” said Noti, who is now the legal director of the watchdog group the Campaign Legal Center.

By shuffling money back and forth, Save America and the super PAC are able to balance the two main strategies for Trump’s main goal: staying out of prison. On the one hand, Save America is bleeding money to cover legal fees for Trump and his allies. On the other, the super PAC is aggressively spending money to try to get Trump reelected. Earlier this year, the super PAC spent more than $23 million on attack ads against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is second to Trump in the polls (although by a wide margin).

But it’s no surprise that Trump is having to spend so much on lawyers. Smith is expected to indict Trump any day now for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. A similar indictment out of Georgia is expected to follow soon.

Trump has already been charged with business fraud in New York and endangering national security in Florida. He has also been found liable of sexual assault and defamation, and has been sued for defamation yet again.