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There aren’t many activists who have directly influenced the course of the United States more than Leonard Leo. The right-wing money man and longtime Federalist Society honcho effectively built the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, feeding Donald Trump the justices who would go on to overturn Roe v. Wade and grant the chronically corrupt president immunity from prosecution.

Leo and his dark money network have continued to spend millions to advance his conservative agenda. He tried to get Will Scharf — who just so happened to represent Trump in his immunity case...

Amid a decisive rejection of the Democratic Party, there was, on Tuesday, a small glimmer of hope for the next four years emanating from the heart of the Bible Belt.

In Missouri, a majority of voters chose to enshrine the right to an abortion in their state’s constitution, overturning a total ban on abortion — one of the more severe bans in the nation — imposed on them by their Republican state lawmakers.

Nevermind the fact that those Republican lawmakers maintained their supermajority in the state legislature this week. The success...

In Marcellus Williams’ clemency package, his mother describes him as the only mistake she’s ever made. His father left him, too, unwanted. Now, on the brink of execution for a murder he says he did not commit, 55-year-old Williams has a legion in his corner. No one wants him to die — not the jurors who decided his fate years back, not the prosecutor’s office, not even the victim’s family. The only entity pushing for his execution, it seems, is the state of Missouri.

“The prosecutor’s office,...

It took Republicans no time at all to take the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision and use it to attack other educational initiatives intended to support people of color. On Thursday — the same day the Court declared race-conscious admissions policies unconstitutional — the state’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, dispatched a letter to colleges and universities across the state: “Missouri institutions must identify all policies that give preference to individuals on the basis of race and immediately halt the implementation of such policies.” Hours later, the University of Missouri — which...