Luke Winkie, writing for Slate, has a story that had been bubbling up in me for the exact same reasons. I’m so glad he put it out there.

The Harris campaign—now inexplicably dubbed the Harris Fight Fund—allows that, perhaps, Harris’ voters are hurting from an existential political defeat, one that has reduced morale in the party to a low not seen in two decades. Then, in a genuinely gaslighting turn, it asks for $50. (Or $75, or $100, or $500, which is a swindle that frankly approaches Stop the Steal proportions.) Why does the campaign need this money? Well, according to the email, “there are U.S. Senate and House races that are either too close to call, or within the margin of recounts or certain legal challenges.” So, if you take the campaign at its word, this money will be used to plug leaky holes across the nation—fending off, I don’t know, Kari Lake’s one-woman Jan. 6 when Ruben Gallego is certified the winner of Arizona.

The problem with that premise is, of course, that the Harris-Walz campaign is reportedly in debt to the tune of $20 million, and it appears the operation is attempting to strip the wires from the walls in order to fend off its creditors. (It’s bad enough that the campaign is allegedly shopping around its email list, which is great news for our spam filters.) This sell-off comes after Harris managed to raise more than $1 billion for her four-month campaign.

Look, campaigns are expensive. Nobody can blame the Harris-Walz campaign for emptying the coffers and leaving everything out on the field. They were trying to win an election! But it’s pretty rich for them to be soliciting donations while some of the … more questionable decisions the organization made with all of that money come to light. You know the ads they projected onto the Las Vegas Sphere? That cost $450,000 per day. The Kamala banners flown over football games in swing states? That was in the six-figure ballpark. Even if some of the rumors of millions spent on celebrity appearances may be more complicated, it seems pretty clear not every dollar of this operation was carefully considered.

I hit STOP on these emails so fast it would have made your head spin. They actively made me mad.