politics

“This year we selected leaders in different fields. We honored men for the first time. We thought RBG’s teachings regarding equality should be practiced. We did not consider politics,” Julie Opperman, the chairperson of the org, said in a statement. “Instead, we focused on leaders, who, in their own way, have made significant contributions to society.”

I actually don't think that the issue was that it was being given to men. I think the issue was that if you think Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch (!) are the people that Ruth Bader Ginsberg would have wanted to honor, someone needs to maroon you on an island somewhere all alone where you can't infect the others.

Wait, this award was supposed to be serious? Given the honorees I thought it was an ig nobel or Darwin award sort of thing, possibly run by the onion.

Julie Opperman according to Federal Election Commission filings, is a major Republican donor. In 2016, she donated $50,000 to Rebuilding America Now, a super PAC founded by Paul Manafort and Tom Barrack—two top Trump advisers—to support the Trump presidential campaign. That year, she also donated $2,700, the legal maximum, directly to the Trump campaign. In 2020 Opperman contributed $200,000 to Republican campaigns and PACs, including a $100,000 donation to the Take Back The House 2020 PAC and $92,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Ok. Makes sense now. She's just trying to shit all over RBG's name. So, she gave the awards to a racist, anti-LGBTQ+ billionaire, the piece of trash that has been driving GOP propaganda since Nixon, a Wall Street fraudster, and a scab who crossed the picket line during the SAG strike.

Don't buy the claims of ignorance. This was intentional.

Those were serious nominees? AND they didn't see the problem? How excruciatingly tone deaf.

…Barbra Streisand?

So why is the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation handing out awards in the name of RBG?

Can just anyone do that?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

An award named after Ruth Bader Ginsburg that was set to be given to Elon Musk and Rubert Murdoch has been cancelled.

And, while we believe each of the honorees is worthy of our respect for their leadership and their notable contributions, the Foundation has decided that the planned ceremony in April 2024 will be canceled.”

Along with Musk and Murdoch, this year’s awardees had included Sylvester Stallone, Michael Milken, and the only woman nominee: Martha Stewart.

“The justice’s family wish to make clear that they do not support using their mother’s name to celebrate this year’s slate of awardees, and that the justice’s family has no affiliation with and does not endorse these awards,” said RBG’s daughter Jane Ginsburg in a statement to the New York Times, describing the choice in this year’s awardees “an affront to the memory of our mother.”

Opperman previously told the publication that Ginsburg fought “for everyone” and they wanted to “honor both women and men who have changed the world by doing what they do best.”

Shana Knizhnik, the author of Notorious RBG, said that honoring Musk and his “anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ sentiments” and Murdoch, who “has used his immense power to undermine democracy,” dishonors Ginsburg’s legacy.

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