Beto doesn’t accept donations from any PACs whatsoever. No money from corporations or special interests, just grassroots donations from regular citizens.

And Beto still managed to more than double his opponent’s 2nd quarter fundraising: Everyone’s least favorite senator, Ted Cruz, only raised only $4 million in the 2nd quarter.

Trump threatened to leave NATO if allies do not immediately increase their funding of the treaty organization — which he has derided as obsolete — ahead of a surprise news conference from Brussels.
“NATO is helping Europe more than it’s helping us,” Trump told reporters.

One reporter asked the president if he would perhaps change his mind about the demand for immediate spending hikes once he boarded his plane and had time to reflect, but Trump insisted he would not.

“Oh, that’s other people that do that,” Trump said. “I’m very consistent. I’m a very stable genius.”

Alastair Campbell, former spokesperson for Tony Blair, argued that it was impossible “to overestimate just how despised he is.”

“He might think it’s unfair… But I think people feel that America is special country and, therefore, the leadership in America should be something that British people can look up to and respect,” Campbell explained. “I’m afraid there is very little respect for him.”

“I suspect you will find that the protests will be big,” he added. “People will not want him to feel welcome at all. And I think that goes very, very far across the board.”

The bill, which was introduced by Staten Island congressman Dan Donovan, makes its target crystal clear: it’s called the “Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018.”

The legislation, which was introduced and referred to the House Judiciary Committee on Sunday, reads (emphasis added):

Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, while in disguise, including while wearing a mask, injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.

So setting aside the insanity of such a draconian punishment—a maximum possible penalty of 15 years in prison and/or an unspecified fine for wearing “a mask” while expressing your right to free speech under the First Amendment—the language of the bill is also ludicrously broad.

The whole thing is a sham. In a democracy, it makes little sense to have unelected judges deciding on some of the most contentious issues in public life. It makes no sense at all when those judges are doing so on the basis of political ideology rather than legal scholarship. Throw in the fact that seven of the nine justices are white, six are men, and four (John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Gorsuch and, now, Kavanaugh) were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and it is difficult to argue that the Supreme Court isn’t in dire need of reform.

The crucial role that the Supreme Court plays in US public life was perhaps best explained by Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1835. “The President may slip without the state suffering, for his duties are limited,” he wrote in Democracy in America. “Congress may slip without the Union perishing, for above Congress there is the electoral body which can change its spirit by changing its members.” However, de Tocqueville added, “if ever the Supreme Court came to be composed of rash or corrupt men, the confederation would be threatened by anarchy or civil war”.

So what happens when you have a court not just composed of rash and corrupt men but also appointed for life by the most rash and corrupt of men? The American people can’t say they weren’t warned.