If you watch TV in California, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a few hundred ads for Prop 27 (and 26). There’s an equally good chance you don’t know what the hell the propositions are about. More than $360 million has been raised by groups on either side of the propositions, and the messaging is (probably) intentionally confusing. Money tends to do that in politics, especially when there’s a lot of money at stake (which there is in this case, because the props are about sports betting in the state). Money isn’t just in politics. Money is politics. That should make you take note of this story about some very big money behind the man most responsible for today’s SCOTUS makeup. How a Secretive Billionaire Handed His Fortune to the Architect of the Right-Wing Takeover of the Courts. “An elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history — worth $1.6 billion — and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court.”