Thread by @kohenari

I see that I missed the latest in @NEGOP-in-disarray for this election cycle: the seemingly never-ending mayonnaise fight between Julie Slama and Janet Palmtag, which is actually a proxy war between old school Nebraskans Republicans and @GovRicketts brand of alt-right d-baggery.

It’s a fight over a unicameral seat that Ricketts gave to Julie Slama, a 24 year old law student and former press secretary for his reelection campaign, the one where they also employed a white supremacist. Slama’s campaign is run by Jessica Flanagain, Ricketts’s campaign manager

In the primary, Palmtag accused Slama of failing to disclose $66k from the GOP, used for attacks ads against her, like a racist mailer inexplicably linking Palmtag to state senator and best-known Black man in Nebraska Ernie Chambers. Palmtag filed an ethics complaint.

The money was clearly a pass-through from Ricketts, who was the only listed contributor to the NE GOP from the end of April through mid-June, giving almost $200,000. He said the racist rad was totally appropriate. Former Governor Dave Heineman & Bob Kerrey slammed him and Slama.

Now Slama is tired of getting all the bad press so she’s striking back, because she got two mean emails filled with naughty language from a Palmtag supporter and volunteer. She called the State Patrol to report threats and Flanagain went after Palmtag about it. So that was today.

Ricketts used his dad’s money to orchestrate a takeover of the state’s Republican Party, which is basically run by Flanagain out of the Governor’s office. He also wants to take over the legislature by swamping opponents, including GOPers, through massive donations to his people.

He did the same thing with the new Secretary of State, Bob Evnen, who was basically given the office in 2018 in exchange for running Ricketts’s pro death penalty road show in 2016, in which Ricketts & his dad spent nearly half a million to overturn the legislature’s repeal bill.

And it’s basically a certainty that he just did it with the medical marijuana referendum, which “someone” anonymously financing the successful lawsuit to kill before it hit the ballot after Evnen allowed it to proceed (which I’m sure he got an earful about from Ricketts).

The moral of the story: if you elect a billionaire without scruples to executive office, this is what you get. That’s especially true in Nebraska, where politics is still (relatively) cheap. The money he’s spending is a rounding error to his dad. Wait til he runs for President.