…by the Brennan Center. Here’s their notice:
Brennan Center to Track TV Ad Spending on Kavanaugh Supreme Court Nomination
This week, the Brennan Center for Justice launched a new initiative tracking all television ad spending related to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. On its webpage, “Follow The Money: Tracking TV Spending In The Fight Over Trump’s SCOTUS Pick,” the Brennan Center will make available information about the cost of individual ad buys, spenders’ identities, target markets, and more to highlight the large amount of dark money fueling the nomination fight. The tracker uses data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG, which captures ad data in the nation’s largest media markets.
As of July 27, 2018, the largest spender is the Judicial Crisis Network, a dark money organization which has already spent over $800,000, and has said it is “prepared to spend as much as $10 million” on pro-Kavanaugh ads; JCN previously spent $17 million to block Merrick Garland’s nomination and support the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch. Spending has been concentrated in a few key states: Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, Maine, North Dakota, and West Virginia; and often target Senators up for election this November.
This work builds upon the Brennan Center’s annual tracking of spending in state supreme court elections, which is ongoing for fall elections.
When those fuzzy diaper ads promoting Neil Gorsuch sidled onto my TV screen, I was startled and then fairly apoplectic. Because when in our lives were Supreme Court nominees promoted in TV commercials and sicced on us viewers in between drug ads and car commercials?
The diaper ads for Kavanaugh are coming. And let’s bless the Brennan Center (with contributions; I mean $$ contributions, not prayers) for taking up the cause of penetrating these things.
P.S. The senators these ads are now targeting are Doug Jones, Lisa Murkowski, Joe Donnelly, Susan Collins, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Manchin. You might think of getting either money or other forms of communications to them.
Note: I’m categorizing this as the Koch Bros Final Solution to Democracy.