Thursday Open Thread

12 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

1. Speaking of chaos as a law of nature …. AP vaguely alerts us to

   Lauren Boebert to argue her case in first Republican primary debate after hopping districts

   FORT LUPTON, Colo. (AP) — Rep. Lauren Boebert will argue her case Thursday in the first Republican primary debate for the district she switched to last month, facing off against opponents who have already attacked her with accusations of being a “carpetbagger.”

    

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   1. Will she accessorize her performance with her usual props, a vaping pen and Neil Gallagher?

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2. The mob boss issued a Fatwa last night…

   

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   1. Mysogyny and Sexual Dominance. QED.

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   2. He has also made reference to the need for investigations into the Birdbrain and her activities.

      I guess between impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas, holding a contempt hearing of Hunter Biden, impeaching Joe Biden. and investigating the Crisis at the border, Gym Jordan is going to have to add investigating the Birdbrain to his agenda.

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3. Only Definition of a "Candidate": YOU need to spend $5,000. That's it. TPM Cafe.

   There’s already ample evidence that the presidential campaign Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis largely outsourced to a super PAC was among the worst in history. But wait, there’s more! DeSantis’ super-PAC games may well have unleashed federal campaign finance’s nightmare scenario.

   A standard knock on DeSantis’ efforts is that he went too far in relying on Never Back Down, the main super PAC supporting him. 

   Not exactly. Had DeSantis gone a few steps further, he could have successfully exploited a nightmarish loophole in federal campaign-finance law: If an office-seeker gives up not some but all control of their campaign, an independent group can raise and spend an unlimited amount toward electing them to federal office and avoid all disclosure requirements.

   How? Start with a trivia question: Who is a candidate for federal office? Is it someone who (A) announces, (B) actively campaigns, or (C) wins a primary? 

   According to the Federal Election Campaign Act, it’s (D): none of the above. To be a candidate, someone must receive more than $5,000 in campaign contributions, make more than $5,000 in expenditures, or give consent for someone else to do either one. That’s it. 

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   1. Almost as much fun as what I saw yesterday:  No Labels can have "party status" in Colorado but not be subject to the FEC reporting required by political parties until they are supporting a specific candidate. 

      Who are No Labels’ donors? Democratic groups file complaints in an attempt to find out

      No Labels regularly promotes itself as a “common sense” centrist organization. But while the group has established No Labels political parties in numerous states, at the national level it is actually registered as a nonprofit with the IRS. That has enabled No Labels to operate with limited transparency while accepting unlimited sums from an anonymous set of donors — a source of financing often referred to pejoratively as “dark money.”….

      No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy disputed the suggestion that the group had run afoul of campaign finance law. He pointed to a federal case called Unity08 v. FEC, which he said established a precedent sanctioning its approach.

      Clancy said No Labels is not required to register as a political committee “so long as we are not actively supporting any specific candidate.”

       

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   2. I'm old enough to remember 1980 when John "Big John" Connally spent $8,000,000 and got precisely one convention delegate before dropping out of the race. At the time, that was considered the biggest waste of money in history. 

      Move over Big John. Meatball Ron has displaced you in the annals of campaign sqaundering history.

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4. Rose Pugliese won the state House Minority Leader election to replace Lynchburg Lynch. More to come I'm sure.

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   1. Wonder how long she will survive atop the greased pole.

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      1. If I could say one nice thing about her, I get the sense she's a survivor and predict she'll last through the session (which is almost 15% over anyway). But it's a fractious and combustible caucus, so I won't bet money on her right now.

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      2. Aaaand…I'm just now reading her ex-husband filed a restraining order against her in 2020, out of fear for life and safety. Guessing this had already been reported somewhere sometime (???) but hey, we've got fresh scandal meat mere hours into her tenure!

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