Strictly Legal

by HUGH IGLARSH

“In what follows it should always be remembered that there is no question of illegality involved. Everything reported is strictly legal, just as Hitler’s extermination of the Jews was legal – a little point I mention merely to suggest how much weight one may attach to the notion.”
– Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super-rich

It was not an earth-shaking decision made this past December by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, if one goes by the breadth of media coverage. (The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s article being an honorable exception, and the source for many of the facts mentioned here.) But it was certainly a judicial moment to take note of, one of those milestones a society passes as it merrily skips down the garden path toward … what, exactly? That is the question.

And here is the story behind what is perhaps the second worst judicial decision of the still-young century, a nose behind the notorious Citizens United ruling, which begot this horror.