Rightwing justice appears to offer preview of the court’s potential future rulings after decision to remove US abortion rights
Donald Trump with Clarence Thomas as Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the supreme court in October 2020. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
Many Americans reacted to the supreme court’s decision to reverse Roe v Wade and remove federal abortion rights in the US with shock, but many also asked a terrified question: what might be next?
The conservative justice Clarence Thomas appeared to offer a preview of the court’s potential future rulings, suggesting the rightwing-controlled court may return to the issues of contraception access and marriage equality, threatening LGBTQ rights.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion to the ruling on Roe.
Griswold v Connecticut established a married couple’s right to use contraception without government interference in 1965. The court ruled in the 2003 case of Lawrence v Texas that states could not criminalize sodomy, and Obergefell v Hodges established the right for same-sex couples to marry in 2015.
In the decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the conservative majority makes it clear that the decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization should not be interpreted as a threat to other major precedent cases. But the court’s three liberal justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – dismissed that logic as a farce in their fiery dissenting opinion.
“Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy or additional constitutional rights are under threat,” the liberal justices wrote. “It is one or the other.”
Thomas’s concurring opinion confirmed what many progressive lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates have feared for years. The end of Roe marks the beginning, not the end, of judicial overreach by the court’s conservative majority, they say.
“It is important that Americans understand that this supreme court and Republicans in Congress will not stop here,” said Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It is clear [Thomas] and the court’s majority have no respect for other precedents that have been won in recent decades.”
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, warned that the court’s decision to overturn Roe would only intensify its “giant legitimacy crisis” with millions of Americans.
“Five Republican justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote are routinely making hyper-partisan decisions that take away the rights of Americans,” Green said.
For now, Thomas does not seem to have the support of his conservative colleagues in overturning other major cases, as they did not join his opinion. But the majority decision written by Alito could lay the foundation for discarding decades-old precedents that have become central to the American way of life, said Paul Schiff Berman, a professor at George Washington University Law School.
“The logic of Justice Alito’s opinion, as the dissent pointed out, would absolutely threaten the constitutional legitimacy of all constitutional privacy rights,” Berman said. “It goes against the institutional obligation to respect precedent. And it also goes against, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out in his opinion, the principle that you don’t decide in a given case, more than you have to resolve in that case.”
Berman expressed concern that the Dobbs decision could weaken public trust in the supreme court, which has already been waning in recent years. According to a Gallup poll taken this month, only 25% of US adults say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the supreme court. That is the lowest reading in Gallup’s nearly 50-year history of polling public perception of the court.
“I think this opinion reflects the fact that a radical faction of the supreme court is moving in a maximalist direction, despite the fact that the American people as a whole are becoming increasingly progressive on this issue,” Berman said.
For the millions of Americans dismayed by the reversal of Roe, they have few options to change the composition of the court in the near future. Justices are appointed to lifelong terms, and the three conservative judges confirmed during Donald Trump’s presidency – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are all under 60.
Democratic lawmakers are instead looking at legislative ways to protect Americans’ fundamental rights, and demands for action will probably only intensify now that Roe has been overturned.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, issued an urgent demand for Americans to support Democrats in the midterm elections this November, thus giving them an opportunity to codify the right to abortion into federal law and protect other crucial freedoms.
“Termination of pregnancy is just the opening act,” Pelosi said on Friday. “A woman’s right to choose, reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November. We cannot allow [Republicans] to take charge so that they can institute their goal, which is to criminalize reproductive freedom.”
But some progressives are looking beyond legislation to significant reform of the court itself. Immediately after the decision in Dobbs was announced, a number of progressives reiterated their calls to expand the court, which would allow Democrats to confirm more liberal justices.
“As we fight to make abortion legal at the federal level, I continue to reject the legitimacy of such an undemocratic institution,” the progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar said on Twitter. “Expand the court.”
01:47
‘A slap in the face to women’: Nancy Pelosi condemns overturning of Roe v Wade – video
As of now, Democrats do not have the votes in the Senate needed to expand the court. That could change after November, if the American people decide to give Democrats the chance to do so.
Dozens of political committees with ties to Florida conservatives are funneling thousands of dollars toward candidates who share Gov. Ron DeSantis’ priorities.
Poll workers at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department deposit peoples’ mail in ballots into an official ballot drop box on primary election day on Aug. 18, 2020 in Doral, Fla. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republicans are capitalizing on the national movement surrounding parental rights and education by jumping into local school board races with crucial endorsements and much-needed cash.
Dozens of political committees with ties to Florida conservatives are funneling thousands of dollars toward candidates who share Gov. Ron DeSantis’ priorities by campaigning against issues like critical race theory. DeSantis endorsed a slate of 10 school board candidates — a rare, if not unprecedented, move for a Florida governor that could help Republicans capture more support in the midterms from parents energized by contentious issues such as masking students during the pandemic.
“People are frustrated with the business-as-usual on these school boards,” said Christian Ziegler, vice chair of the Republican Party of Florida whose wife, Bridget, is running to keep her seat on the Sarasota County school board and has been endorsed by DeSantis.
“Payback is coming in August” when the school board elections are held, Ziegler said.
School board races in Florida are traditionally nonpartisan, sleepy down-ballot races. But Republicans, led by DeSantis, are getting more involved this year after the Covid-19 pandemic inflamed interest in education and what students are learning in schools, particularly about race and gender identity. Democrats have not shown similar levels of funding.
The candidates backed by GOP-tied cash and endorsements from DeSantis show that Republicans are gunning to unseat incumbent school leaders and reshape boards in key spots across Florida. The effort could help Republicans control nearly all levers of government in the state, from the governor’s mansion, Cabinet, state Legislature down to local school boards.
In Miami, for instance, one race is heating up between a career educator with support from GOP leadership and a longtime school board staple.
Monica Colucci, an elementary language arts teacher with 26 years of experience, claims in campaign material that she has “seen firsthand the detrimental impact of liberal policies” in Miami-Dade County schools. Colucci, who also spent a year serving as special assistant to GOP Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, was among the first candidates endorsed by DeSantis in her race against Marta Pérez, a school board member who has served for 24 years and considers herself a conservative.
“I know the challenges that parents are facing and teachers are facing day in and day out,” Colucci said in an interview. “You can be on a board for 24 years but if you’re not day to day facing the challenge yourself, you get a bit removed.”
Colucci has raised less than half as much cash as her incumbent opponent at this point in the race. But campaign finance reports show Colucci’s first fundraising haul came in May to a tune of $53,000 fundraising and included some $15,000 from committees linked to state Republicans. She followed that up by raising more than $31,000 between June 1-17, records show.
To that end, Colucci scored $1,000 donations from Nuñez as well as from state House members from south Florida and beyond, including Reps. Thomas Leek (R-Ormond Beach), Alex Rizo (R-Hialeah), Daniel A. Perez (R-Miami), Demi Busatta Cabrera (R-Coral Gables), David Borrero (R-Sweetwater) and Bryan Avila (R-Miami Springs).
Another Miami Dade school board candidate endorsed by DeSantis, Roberto Alonso, also has received $1,000 donations from committees led by Republican lawmakers such as outgoing Senate President Wilton Simpson and Sen. Ray Rodrigues (R-Estero), campaign finance records show.
And Colucci and Alonso each landed $1,000 from a committee led by state Sen. Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula), who represents some eight counties in Central Florida but not Miami-Dade, where the races are located. Albritton said in a written statement that he’s “proud to support candidates who share my values, particularly those who will have a voice on the school board.”
Alonso, who DeSantis in 2020 appointed to the Miami-Dade College trustee board, has raised more than $83,000 in his race while the candidate with the next highest contributions, Kevin Menendez Macki, is sitting on $16,555 for the wide-open seat. Alonso’s campaign is closely aligned with the Republican governor and promises to “oppose attempts to impose Critical Race Theory and other extreme liberal agendas in K-12” and “protect female athletes and female sports.”
Pérez, meanwhile, has raised $188,000 in her Miami-area race against Colucci, including $100,000 of her own money, records show. She raised nearly $23,000 between June 1-17, including $4,000 from committees tied to the local teachers union. Yet even with a financial lead, more than two decades experience and the power of incumbency behind her, Perez acknowledges that an endorsement from DeSantis would aid her reelection.
As a conservative, Pérez said she was “very puzzled” to see her opponent, Colucci, earn a stamp of approval from DeSantis. She touted improved graduation rates and workforce programs under her tenure on the board and how she opposed proposals that could have been linked to critical race theory.
“I just don’t understand,” Pérez said in an interview. “Because I have never had a conversation with the governor and he’s supporting someone whose agenda seems to be my agenda.”
Elsewhere in Florida, other candidates that have been — and could soon be — endorsed by DeSantis are collecting money from state Republicans.
Incoming House Speaker Paul Renner’s political committee, for example, donated $1,000 each to five school board candidates in four separate counties, including two in Duval County that were endorsed by DeSantis. These two Duval candidates — April Carney challenging an incumbent and Charlotte Joyce seeking reelection — also landed $1,000 apiece from state Rep. Clay Yarborough (R-Jacksonville), records show.
Carney, a conservative mother who “believes that families know what is best for their children — not bureaucrats or elected officials,” holds a slight financial lead over Elizabeth Anderson, a former educator and board member since 2018, with both raising more than $65,000. Joyce, who earlier this year proposed a proclamation in support of DeSantis and recent legislation that prohibits educators from leading classroom instructions on sexual orientation or gender identity for kids in kindergarten through third grade, has raised nearly $30,000 compared to almost $8,000 by her challenger, Tanya Hardaker.
“We need strong school board members who will set Florida’s children up for success, ensure parental rights in education, and combat the woke agendas from infiltrating public schools at the local school board level,” DeSantis said in a statement accompanying his endorsements.
Some candidates are linked to political committees that have donated to candidates backed by DeSantis, a possible sign of another round of contenders that could eventually get a blessing from the governor.
Jessie Thompson, a Volusia County mother, was endorsed by Renner and Republican Congressman Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), and is in a three-person race to fill a vacated seat.
And in Lee County, a GOP stronghold that’s home to Fort Myers, there have been no endorsements from DeSantis and yet at least a dozen political committees have invested a total of $22,000 in four different candidates. Among this spread are donations from committees led by Republicans like Albritton and state Reps. Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R-Fort Myers), Sam Garrison (R-Fleming Island), Lawrence McClure (R-Dover), Josie Tomkow (R-Polk City) and Mike Beltran (R-Lithia), records show.
One of those races features two challengers who are raising more cash than an incumbent and both could earn DeSantis’ endorsement.
Jason “Big Mama” Jones, a radio host and parent, is leading the pack by eclipsing $32,000 so far without donations from political committees. Jones proudly bills himself as the only parent vying for the seat and contends his local school board is missing the needs of students, something he believes puts him in line with the governor.
Jones said he would welcome an endorsement from the DeSantis, whose campaign is pushing for candidates to complete surveys gauging how they closely they align with him on issues like critical race theory and parental rights.
Jones is facing an incumbent in Debbie Jordan, the current chair of Lee’s school board, and Dan Severson, a former “Top Gun Fighter Pilot” and ex-Minnesota lawmaker.
Severson, who spent eight years as a representative of the Minnesota House, including a stint as Minority Whip, appears well aligned with DeSantis by vowing to put “parents back in control of their children’s education” and grapple with “out of control spending, infighting, and liberal policies [that] have taken the focus away.” His campaign, which has raised nearly $21,000 compared to $6,100 for the incumbent, also has ties to state Republicans, receiving $1,000 donations from Rodrigues, state Rep. Spencer Roach (R-North Fort Myers) and another committee that also donated to Colucci in Miami.
The endorsements from DeSantis are expected to shake up races leading to the Aug. 23 primary elections when school board contests — labeled as nonpartisan statewide — unfold. His name and surging political popularity attached to candidates could also help them raise cash in the coming weeks. The effects of DeSantis’ backing are already being felt, like in Miami, where Perez worries about fundraising now that DeSantis threw his support behind her opponent
“Funding for me is like I’m a pariah,” Pérez said. “I’m working like I’ve never worked in my life.”
Payback for what? What exactly have the schools done that is horrible Good luck getting teachers, Florida. Wait until the teacher retirements start en mass.
Teachers, nurses, doctors, they should just leave for another states and let Florida crumble into a shit hole state. Not a place for anyone to raise children.
They will ruin the education system. First, they will set up all these rules for teachers to follow, and they will chafe under them and leave. They won’t be able to fill a lot of the positions, and will lose the best teachers. Next, they won’t want to deal with boring stuff like budgets and maintenance, so the system will get wrecked from negligence, lack of any over sight, and so on. Spending will get out of control. Except corruption, and funds being channeled to bizarre things instead of maintenance and salaries. Once they have screwed it up past the hopeless point, they will declare victory over the liberals and step down. Then someone else will have to pick the pieces by raising taxes.
Majority Opposes Overturning Roe v. Wade… More than Six in Ten Say Decision Will Push Them to the Polls in November
In a majority decision, the United States Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade which, for nearly fifty years, guaranteed access to abortion in the United States. However, majorities of Americans oppose the Court’s ruling and have concerns that the decision will have broader constitutional implications. Following the decision, President Joe Biden asserted that Roe will be on the ballot in November. 61% of Americans agree, saying the Court’s decision will make them more likely to vote in this year’s midterm elections, and, by a double-digit margin (15 points), they think the decision will motivate them to vote for a congressional candidate who will support federal legislation that will restore the protections of Roe v. Wade.
Overturning of Roe v. Wade
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the 1973 decision in Roe versus Wade which guaranteed the right to abortion. Do you support or oppose the Supreme Court´s decision to overturn Roe versus Wade?
Source: NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll National Adults. Interviews conducted June 24th through June 25th, 2022, n=941 MOE +/- 4.9 percentage points. Totals may not add to 100% due to rounding.
With 55% of Americans saying they mostly support abortion rights, 56% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This includes 45% who say they strongly oppose the decision. Democrats (88%) are more than four times as likely as Republicans (20%) to oppose the decision. 53% of independents agree.
56% of Americans are concerned that the Supreme Court’s decision could also jeopardize the rights to contraception, same-sex marriage, or same-sex relationships. This includes a plurality of Americans (42%) who report they are very concerned that the Court will use the decision to reconsider other previous rulings. 89% of Democrats and 55% of independents are either concerned or very concerned about the impact of the decision. A notable 18% of Republicans agree. Women (63%) are more likely than men (49%) to worry about the ripple effects of overturning Roe v. Wade.
A majority of Americans (57%) think the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was politically motivated and not motivated by the law of the land (36%). The debate over abortion rights will most likely play out on the campaign trail. 62% of registered voters say the Supreme Court’s decision will make them more likely to vote in this year’s midterm elections. Democrats (78%) are more motivated by the decision than Republicans (54%) and independents (53%).
51% of voters nationally say the Supreme Court’s decision will make them more likely to vote for a congressional candidate who would back a law that would restore the protections of Roe. 36% would definitely vote against a candidate with that intent, and 13% are unsure. Among independents, a plurality (47%) would vote for a candidate who would restore the protections of Roe. 38% of independents think they will definitely vote against such a candidate.
Democrats (48%) currently have the advantage over the Republicans (41%) among registered voters in the congressional generic ballot question. Their advantage has slightly widened from five points (47% for the Democratic candidate and 42% for the Republican candidate) in May after the leaked draft of the Roe v. Wade decision.
“With the midterm elections less than five months away, the decision by SCOTUS has sent shockwaves through the electorate,” says Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “Men are +12 points and women are +18 points more likely to support congressional candidates who pledge to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade. Digging deeper, 63% of women, including 74% of suburban women, are also concerned that the Court’s decision is a harbinger of things to come.”
Americans’ Express Low Confidence in Supreme Court
The image of the Supreme Court has further diminished. 39% of Americans say they have either a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the Supreme Court, comparable to an already dismal 40% in May. Americans’ perceptions of the Supreme Court have plummeted since 2019 when 60% of Americans had confidence in SCOTUS.
Should the U.S. Supreme Court Be Expanded?
Despite the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a majority of Americans (54%) do not want the Court expanded to include more justices.
President Joe Biden’s Job Approval Rating
President Joe Biden’s job approval rating is 40%, inched up slightly from 38% earlier this month. By more than three to one, Americans are more likely to strongly disapprove (41%) of the job Biden is doing in office than to strongly approve (13%) of his job performance.
Abortion in the United States
About two in three Americans (66%) — including 70% of Democrats, 55% of Republicans, and 74% of independents — say they have a personal connection to someone who has had an abortion. 33% say they do not.
An Arkansas federal appeals court has just ruled to reverse a 2021 ruling, creating a law that requires state contractors to promise that they will not boycott doing business with Israel. If a state contractor/business refuses to pledge to not boycott the apartheid state, they’re required to reduce fees to remain a contractor, dealing a harsh blow to free speech rights in the state when it comes to political opinions. Ana Kasparian and Jessica Burbank discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET.
“A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld Arkansas’ law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel, finding the restriction is not an unconstitutional violation of free speech.
The full 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a 2-1 decision last year by a three-judge panel of the court that found the requirement to be unconstitutional.
The Arkansas Times had sued to block the law, which requires contractors with the state to reduce their fees by 20% if they don’t sign the pledge.” *
The Colorado GOP congresswoman ascended into the political spotlight partially because of her gun-themed restaurant. It may now be closing its doors soon.
Roger Sollenberger
Political Reporter
EXCLUSIVE
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/Google/Facebook
The institution at the center of Rep. Lauren Boebert’s origin story now appears to face an uncertain future.
Shooters Grill, the gun-themed Hooters parody restaurant that put Rifle, Colorado, on the map and elevated Boebert to local celebrity status, has run into some trouble with its new landlord—a marijuana retailer.
But her landlord isn’t all that new. And the story, which has gone through several iterations over the last week, isn’t exactly adding up.
On Guns and Jesus, Lauren Boebert Is a Complete Ignoramus
IT’S ALL IN THE BOOK
Matt Lewis
As it stands, the landlord has told Boebert he will revoke the restaurant’s lease at the end of August, and send Shooters packing. The rest is up in the air.
Boebert told The Daily Beast that she and her husband, Jayson Boebert, had been surprised to receive the notice last week announcing that their lease would not be renewed. The building’s ownership changed hands last month, she said, and now Shooters would either have to find new digs or shut down for good.
But the day after that notice arrived, an anti-Boebert political group somehow got word that the timeline was even tighter than that—two weeks, the group said, putting the possible ouster just days before Republicans hit the polls for primary day.
Her employees hadn’t heard that yet, so Boebert scrambled to quash that rumor, which she characterized to The Daily Beast as rank misinformation. Still, the truth stood: The restaurant she and her husband founded eight years ago was on the brink of closing.
She didn’t explain exactly why her business was being kicked out. A person familiar with the arrangement said the property manager felt he had a “moral” imperative to close the business, and had planned to lease the space to another restaurant.
Boebert told The Daily Beast at one point that she and her husband were “at peace” with ending their run, and did not plan to fight the order. But as the plot thickened politically, she bought some time.
Now she says she’s entertaining two contradictory options: The original shutdown plan, or buying the building outright from the new owners. She won’t say which she and her husband are choosing until after the primary.
Boebert: ‘When 9/11 Happened, We Didn’t Ban Planes’
PAINFUL
Shooters was central to Boebert’s rocketship ascent to federal office, but it hasn’t been a financial success. The restaurant turned in a streak of six-figure annual losses leading up to Boebert’s 2020 election, and struggled to stay above water even after she shot to fame as a MAGA darling. She said it had been a lot of work balancing the stress and drama of running a restaurant against her legislative duties 1,800 miles away, and she often found herself turning to her mom to pick up the slack. That struggle is partially why she at first saw the closure as a blessing.
Jayson Boebert also appears to have had his hands full. Between 2019 and 2020, as Shooters was losing money, he pulled in nearly $1 million as a contracted shift worker for oil and gas outfit Terra Energy—though Lauren Boebert appears to have reported the wrong source of that income on her federal financial disclosures.
Today, however, the Shooters website is down. The last time it appears active in an archive search was December 2021.
A buyout would appear unusual—and not only because the Boeberts had apparently decided less than a week ago that they would wind down the business—but also because the new owners bought the building less than a month ago. If they chose to sell, it would be a near-instant flip—morally and financially.
But they’re not exactly new owners. In fact, it’s the same family.
The company that took over the Shooters building, Milkin Enterprises, was formed days before the purchase, according to Colorado business records. And the two men on the Milkin Enterprises incorporation documents—Mike Miller and Dan Meskin—run a cannabis dispensary, Rifle Remedies, which until 2019 shared a street address with Shooters, according to state filings.
Boebert told The Daily Beast that Shooters had cut its previous rent checks to Dan Meskin’s father—Mike Meskin, who owned the building through Meskin Enterprises. She didn’t remark on Dan, who was named in a local Post Independent story from 2016 as the building’s property manager.
It’s not clear what morality the new owners are acting on. County records indicate the father-son deed transfer went through on May 26, two days after the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas. That same day, Boebert remarked that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, “We didn’t ban planes.”
Just days after Boebert first grabbed the national political spotlight for confronting Beto O’Rourke on gun control in Aurora, Colorado—site of a movie theater massacre—the Rifle Remedies storefront changed its address from the Shooters building, according to state business records.
Neither Dan nor Mike Meskin appear to have made any political contributions. While Dan Meskin’s wife is not a big donor—about $225 total lifetime contributions—she made a few small-dollar gifts to Democrats trying to defeat Boebert in 2020 and last year. The two other Meskins don’t appear to have made any political donations.
It’s unclear why Boebert would appear unfamiliar with the “new” owners, as she suggested in phone calls. It’s also unclear why those owners wouldn’t have been familiar with Boebert, who claimed to have “first option to buy” the building—an option that Mike Meskin, and possibly his son Dan, would have given her personally.
Boebert, who repeatedly dismissed the possibility of a political motive behind the ouster, did not say whether she was offered that option to buy. But she told The Daily Beast that Milkin Enterprises now appeared open to a sale.
“He said, ‘If you’re still interested in purchasing, I’m interested in selling,’” she told The Daily Beast.
But Shooters—whose gun-packing waitresses attracted international attention as a roadside novelty long before Boebert stepped into the political arena—has never lived high off the hog.
The restaurant lost more than $600,000 in total between 2018 and 2020, according to Boebert’s financial disclosures, and it appears to have struggled with annual tax obligations, incurring a number of liens totaling nearly $20,000, the Denver Post reported.
A series of articles in 2014 boosted the novelty restaurant’s profile, turning it into something of a “tourist trap,” as one former employee described it to The Daily Beast. Shooters has marketed itself as a Second Amendment-positive business, where waitresses open-carry loaded firearms on their hips and serve up menu items like a “Swiss and Wesson” sandwich.
“The customers love that they can come here and express their rights,” Boebert said in a 2014 CBC interview. “We called it ‘Shooters’ and started throwing guns and Jesus all over the place.”
Some of those waitresses, however, were too young to carry—and a rare few chose not to, one former worker told The Daily Beast. One of them appears to have been on probation for a year in which she worked at the restaurant, and would have been prohibited from carrying a firearm.
This former employee said that, unlike some other servers, she wouldn’t pack a loaded gun at work, and soon stopped carrying altogether.
“I was tired of getting maple syrup on my Glock, running my gun into the corner of the bartop,” she explained.
The Boeberts never seemed able to keep a steady grip, the employee said, though they certainly would put in the work, with Lauren Boebert sometimes even pulling shifts as a cook.
And it was the Shooters cooking—though not Boebert’s—which caught bad press in 2017, when the restaurant’s pork sliders caused mass diarrhea at the Rifle Rodeo.
“I did not eat that day, because I saw who was cooking and I knew better,” a former employee told The Daily Beast.
“There were Mexicans back in the kitchen, and if they were cooking, I would eat. But not this cook,” she said, adding that the cook responsible for the food poisoning would often “scratch his balls” on the job and routinely “drop food on the floor.”
(The Daily Beast could not independently substantiate these claims.)
Boebert’s elevation to household name, along with her aggressive publicity operation, appear to have helped buoy the business over the last two years. While not exactly swimming in cash, Shooters is now at least above water.
Asked about those finances, the first-term congresswoman told The Daily Beast that the grill is “not in the red,” and made its June rent.
“Does a restaurant ever turn a profit?” Boebert joked. “No, we’re doing fine. We’re not in the red, we’re—we’re in the black, so it’s a lot better than last year.”
Perhaps conveniently, though, the Boeberts have tabled the family decision until after the primary.
“I had a conversation with my husband and we decided that after the election, we would get together and talk about maybe purchasing the building,” she said.
Scottie's Playtime 