The Great Circle Jerk of Life

And now, the quo:

Senator Susan Collins attended a private campaign fundraising event tonight at the $4-million Northeast Harbor summer mansion of Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society.

The Federalist Society is the leading force in placing judges who oppose abortion rights on the federal bench. Leo, who has been called “Trump’s judge whisperer,” is one of several high-profile conservative judicial activists who have given large contributions to Collins following her pivotal vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Photos and video of Collins arriving at the fundraiser were posted to social media by members of Indivisible MDI, a local civic action organization whose members protested across the street from the event, holding signs reading “Collins: Coming for your bribe?” and “Thanks Susan! I can’t wait to take women’s rights away,” the latter attached as a speech bubble to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Kavanaugh.

“I’m out here because there is nothing moderate about the Federalist Society and there’s nothing moderate about the many judges they have put forward — including Brett Kananaugh — that Susan Collins has approved,” said Gail Leiser of Bar Harbor. “Susan Collins was elected as a moderate — unfortunately she has abandoned everyday Mainers and now votes in lock-step with the most rightwing elements of the Republican Party.”

Hopefully she’ll have a lot more time to spend getting high-fives on the wingnut welfare circuit starting in January 2021. I also wonder how long it will take for Collins to claim that pointing out who is funding her campaign is “harassment” and get an approving re-tweet from a prominent Times reporter.*

*As a commenter observes, if I understand Times ethics correctly, if Castro wanted to talk about maxed-out Trump donors he should have waited until they were provided to him in emails stolen by Russian ratfuckers rather than in public FEC filings:

Their ability to cook up new “norms” is truly impressive. I guess for public donor data to become fair game it needs to first get hacked by Russian military intelligence and distributed as part of a sophisticated scheme to manipulate the election.— William S. Donahue (@OchosPantalones) August 9, 2019