Their rise to power in 2010 is nothing to be proud of:

In 2010, McCollum’s prison mugshot appeared on a flier the North Carolina Republican Party mailed to voters. The ad attacked Democrats who’d supported a measure to allow death row inmates the chance to present evidence that their convictions were tainted by racial bias. It suggested that if voters supported Democrats a flood of death row inmates would be let loose.

“Meet your new neighbors,” the ad said on the front, with McCollum’s picture on the back. Next to it was a menacing description, some of the type in red capital letters: “Get to know Henry McCollum. He RAPED AND MURDERED AN 11 YEAR OLD CHILD.”

Understand, it was racist ignorance like that which resulted in Henry's and Leon's wrongful imprisonment in the first place. Also understand, after investigators were presented with strong evidence they were likely not the ones who raped and murdered an 11 year-old girl, their lack of concern for finding the real perpetrator left children in that community vulnerable. But there is a lot of shame to go around in this sad tale:

Apparently small donors are just as bad as dark money groups:

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Wednesday said broad-based, small-dollar contributions given to Democratic candidates through online donor platforms is the “same exact thing” as political spending by well-heeled “dark money” groups who are allowed to conceal their funding sources.

During a Senate panel hearing about the influence of money over the federal judiciary, Tillis appeared to take aim at ActBlue, an app that helps Democrats and liberal groups collect individual contributions in amounts that are too small to trigger mandatory disclosure rules.

Bolding mine, because little Thommy seems to have a math problem. Let's go through this again, Einstein: it would take a hundred transactions of $50 a pop to equal one $5,000 check from Daddy Warbucks. And these genuine dark money groups, which often receive between $50,000 and $250,000 from individuals, would take thousands of small transactions to achieve. Why (in the name of all that's holy) would a wealthy individual go to such trouble to mask their contributions? The answer is they wouldn't, of course. This is just Tillis grasping at strawmen:

It's all about the Benjamins:

The group has spent more than $30 million lobbying Congress and millions more through its state affiliates since 2010, according to a review of state and federal lobbying data by the Investigative Reporting Workshop.

The long-term care industry has long used its political influence to push against reforms that would have increased staffing requirements, training, transparency and oversight. Now, the industry is pushing for — and in some states, successfully passing — legislation to shield nursing home owners from lawsuits during the pandemic.

In the early 2000's my father succumbed to the latter stages of Alzheimer's, and we had to put him in long-term care. Most of the staff we dealt with were really good people, dedicated to easing burdens for their patients. But there was never enough of them on duty, especially after normal "business hours." And 2 out of the 3 facilities he was placed in had corporate headquarters in another state, so straightening out billing problems became a constant nightmare. My mom provided adult diapers to save money, but every month she was charged $500-$600 erroneously, and I had to make several calls to the headquarters each month to get that fixed. Back to the staffing problems: