Friday links! I declare weekend edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment

Barbecue

It’s almost noon in the one true time zone, so it’s basically the weekend. And not just any weekend—it’s the weekend of Memorial Day, a holiday of pure enjoyment uncomplicated by any depressing overtones. It must be party time, because my neighbors have put a smoker in our shared yard, right next to their grill, their fire pit, their canopy tent, their second grill, their chairs, their woodpile and their broken-pieces-of-palettes pile, amid the general distribution of their beer cans. Today is Friday, and I can’t escape my home office quickly enough. Won’t you bang something out and knock off with me?

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Montana has campaign contribution limits again

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 0 Comment
Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl spoiling some fun, probably

Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl spoiling some fun, probably

Montana is making news faster than I can have opinions about it. No sooner do I write a fun Indy column praising Judge Charles Lovell for striking down our campaign finance laws than he strikes them up again. It was satirical while it lasted. Probably, mooting one column is worth it to restore some limit on what political parties can give to candidates’ campaigns, as Lovell did today. With a heavy heart, I suspend my campaign for comptroller or whatever. I will still accept unlimited donations from political parties, but they’ll have to be in cash.

Gary Johnson inexplicably polling 10%

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 1 Comment

I...[coughs]...I would like to live in a perpetual war of all against all.

I…[coughs]…I would like to live in a war of all against all.

Brush off your papasan chair. You’ll want to be sitting down when you learn that Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is polling at 10% against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Did your socks fly clear across the dorm room, knocking over your bong and short-circuiting your stereo, which lurched into Sublime? That’s because Gary Fuckin’ Johnson, the man who knows there shouldn’t even be a government, is polling better than any third-party candidate since Ross Perot. So reports FiveThirtyEight with this baffling lede:

Gary Johnson might be on the verge of becoming a household name. At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Yes, Gary Johnson’s name is so ordinary as to thwart the expression “become a household name.” Maybe we should rewrite that sentence. Regardless, the takeaway here is that 10% of voters are now sophomore geography majors.

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Ways to lose to Trump: Call him poor

By Dan Brooks in 2016 Election 1 Comment
The 2016 presidential candidates and their spouses hang out at a wedding.

The 2016 presidential candidates and their spouses at a wedding in 2005.

Who says Hillary Clinton isn’t the best candidate to address wealth inequality? Racists and bros, mostly—the rest of us know better. Here’s the presumptive Democratic nominee telling the New York Times that she’s open to considering Mark Cuban or another successful businessperson as her vice president:

“Businesspeople, especially successful businesspeople, who are really successful — as opposed to pretend successful — I think, have a lot to offer,” said Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign has begun taunting Mr. Trump with a #PoorDonald hashtag on Twitter, suggesting that he is not nearly as wealthy as he claims. Mr. Trump has cited an audit by the Internal Revenue Service as his reason for keeping his tax returns private.

Clinton supporters on Twitter have begun circulating the claim that Donald Trump is not a multi-billionaire, as he says, and that his net worth is actually less than $100 million. That would put him below the Clintons’ estimated worth of $110 million, nearly all of which they made after Bill became president. Surely, voters will flock to Hillary once they start thinking of her as the richer candidate.

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