First of all, that kid is way too young to vote. Also he appears to have a karate rat tail, which should disqualify his mother. Sorry—I’m just gearing up for election day, which I will spend at my local polling place challenging suspicious-looking voters for the good of democracy. Judging by the number of “I voted” statuses scrolling Facebook this morning, an alarming number of my friends A) have jobs and B) already went to the polls. Probably I could have disqualified some of them, had I gotten out of the house early enough, but I am here typing so that I can bring you the very latest election results. For example, Dixville Notch was a tie.

Continue reading

Ah, freelancing—you go to sleep with one schedule for Monday and wake up with another. I had a whole plan for today’s Combat! blog, but now I have a whole day to implement the dreaded/lucrative Short Notice Rate and a Combat! plan for tomorrow. Lucky for us, Pro Publica has a box full of documents belonging to the American Tradition Partnership, which the feds found in a meth house. The papers suggest that ATP, formerly Western Tradition Partnership, directly coordinated with Republican political candidates in violation of our already very forgiving Super PAC laws. ATP happens to be the group that has worked tirelessly to overturn Montana’s campaign finance laws to make them conform to Citizens Untied v. FEC. It’s a tangled web, and you can read all about while I glare at my To Do list. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

 

 

 

Did you know that Montana operatively had no campaign finance laws for six days in early October? On October 3, Judge Charles Lovell declared the state’s contribution limits unconstitutional in light of Citizens United v. FEC. On October 9, an even better judge reinstated them, and everything went back to the way it’s been for the last hundred years. During those six days, however, the Montana Republican Party gave Hill $500,000—20 times the amount he was allowed to accept under the law. He isn’t giving it back, either. You can read about it in my column at the Indy. Did you know I write an occasional column for the Missoula Independent? It’s one of the many, many deadlines I’ve had to meet this week, and I’ve got another four of them today. You read the column while I dash about with my hair on fire. Meet me back here tomorrow for Friday links. Or eat Snak-Packs and watch pornographic videos; don’t let me tell you what to do.