A closer look at the basis for Alito’s opinion, partially sampled here (more at Lit Lady’s Twitter links):
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the mother jones writer leaves it with “he got it from his father… who was a lobbyist. case closed.” i dunno. if you’re going to follow the money, actually follow it.
maybe his father - who’s used to getting paid for furthering conservative political positions - helps launder the cash. wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine him passing some “consulting fees” along
( also: how does someone run up 10s of thousands of dollars in credit card bills based on buying sports ball tickets for their friends. that explanation, if i read it right, makes no sense to me at all )
Sounds a bit laundering-y to me.
Agree they probably should have then followed the parental money.
I feel like this follow-the-money story ain’t over. But now that we are so dang distracted with the latest fuckery from SCOTUS, this story and any other kompromat or bribery or whatever is going to be pushed aside.
Ugh.
I assume he was illegally reselling tickets. He doesn’t seem to have much respect for any law.
Mainer here.
The problem is that Maine is a perfect scale model of the rest of the country: We have a little strip of blue along the Southern coast, and the other 85% of the state is deep red. That little blue strip contains half the population, 80% of the wealth and most of the tax base, and most of the colleges, industry, tourism, trade, and culture. Drive an hour Northwest, and it’s hundreds of square miles of trees, moose, and Trump flags in a land untouched by modern dentistry.
And we elected LePage and Collins for the same reason Kentucky elected McConnell and Trump- because that’s what that half of the population wants. Sometimes our side wins and sometimes we lose- Because the two sides have irreconcilable differences and both get to vote.
Okay, but that makes rural white voters sound static and irredeemable. Let’s not forget (and I’m not assuming you have) that that’s what they want because they’ve been led to believe Republican policies are better for them. And let’s also not forget that decades of Democrats’ neoliberal centrism hasn’t helped much at all to reverse the steady decline in their circumstances (if they do generally have bad teeth, for instance, it’s not because they’re like, too stupid to go to the dentist).
Republicans are far worse, of course, but Democrats haven’t fought nearly as hard for rural white votes as Republicans have–no wonder they lost that demographic. Most Democrats have been doing so little to counter the conception that they’re urban, overeducated elitists who don’t give a shit about rural white people. And really, when I think about a typical Democratic careerist climbing their way to DC fame and fortune, it’s easy to imagine that conception is pretty much true.
I will not calm down.
Neither will I. I am angry and will remain that way.
I hear everything you are saying – rural Indiana here, you forgot to mention dumping all trash and broken household items just barely outside the house and leaving it there forever – but I will counter with the fact that you’ve just described Vermont as well, which may literally be the whitest state in the country and yet, Bernie.
Meanwhile, in another edition of preaching to the choir, the medical harm (including a shocking 2 deaths out of 1,000 study participants) when abortion is denied and the pregnancy is forcibly continued:
Having just poured over the Oregon Voter’s Pamphlet in detail to complete my primary ballot, I get the opposite impression. It’s Republicans who tell their voters about the evil, liberal, urban (<-dogwhistle) elitist Democrats (even in nonpartisan races) rather than talking about policy. Because they have none. Even as they sit in their McMansions in the suburbs. It’s as much of a lie as COVID denialism and anti-vax, and a certain percentage of the population believes the lie instead of looking for the truth.
Meanwhile, there are Dem candidates who grew up in rural areas and live in rural areas and address real issues affecting rural voters, but they can’t cut through the lies because the truth isn’t as sweet as those lead-paint-chip lies.
And Maine I will remind you, has alongside Collins another senator who is a Green-leaning independent, who was also a multi-term governor.
I have a whole lot to say about Bernie and King and how actual progressives who give a shit and actually fucking DO THINGS can win over the rural voters who think Democrats are the devil and keep voting for Republicans against their own interests based on the Democratic history of doing absolutely fuckall, but I’m not sure I can say it in a civil manner any more.
Like, back to topic, we’ve all seen this Roe v Wade thing coming. Even RBG knew it was bad law*. The Democrats could have passed legislation strengthening and supporting it any of the three times in the last 20 years that they controlled a trifecta of both houses of congress and the presidency, two of which they also controlled SCOTUS, but they didn’t. They HAD the power to force through Medicare for All, and instead they made a big show of working with the GOP to give us GingrichRomneyObamaCare instead. Every time they say “if you just give us the votes, we’ll fight the Republicans”, and we do, and then they sit around with their thumbs up their asses mumbling about bipartisanship until they lose power and promise to do something THIS TIME FOR REAL if we just put them back in the majority… And I literally can’t even discuss this like a sane person any more without flying into a frothing rage.
- I just need to clarify- I don’t mean Roe v Wade is a bad thing, I mean it’s bad law. I’m speaking purely in terms of how it’s structurally put together, not about whether it’s necessary, justified, or morally correct- It absolutely IS, but it’s the legal equivalent of duct tape. We kept loading more and more weight on and trusting the tape to do the job of bolted steel brackets.
They shouldn’t have to. You could turn the amendments of the Constitution into playing cards, shuffle them, and pick any random 4 and find a valid challenge to laws against abortion. It’s discriminatory against women in terms of life, liberty, and property. Off the top of my head, most of the laws against abortion that states have put forward violate the First, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 13th, and 14th.
