hillbilly JD vance

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SEE JDV 2

MERRI OK

POSTER BOY INCUBATOR?

must be trumpier than josh m

pow fascism mofo pending

AUSTRIAL ECON

1789 CAPITAL CORRUPT?

THIEL FEDSOC TALK YALE LAW CLARENCE? HARLAN CROW? LEO MCCONN

AEI HERITAGE

PUTIN?

SIDLEY AUSTIN

merri ok

SATAN CATHOLIC CONVERT

KIRK JOK LOOMER

NAZI HATE TO BE CALLED WEIRD

then pivot to ctr ish? medicare soc sec

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/jd-vance/

working class hero? good old boy

bak 8 24

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AI Overview

JD Vance, an American politician, has cited economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises as early influences on his conservative political philosophy, though his recent economic policies have shifted toward populism and state-led interventionism. Both Hayek and Mises are foundational figures of the Austrian School of economics, known for advocating free markets, localized knowledge, and a strong opposition to socialism. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Friedrich Hayek and JD Vance

Initial Influence: Vance has stated that he first learned about conservatism through Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom. [1]
Policy Divergence: While Hayek argued for free markets and famously critiqued state interventionism, Vance's economic platform has evolved to embrace industrial policy and tariffs, actions which many free-market economists classify as state intervention. [1, 2]
Healthcare Stance: In a 2017 New York Times essay, Vance cited Hayek to support his argument in favor of state-funded healthcare to assist individuals with unexpected life hazards. [1, 2]

Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School

Core Philosophy: Mises is renowned for developing the economic calculation problem, which posits that a central planner cannot efficiently allocate resources in an economy without a free market and private property. [1]
The "Neoliberal" Label: Both Mises and Hayek are frequently categorized as pioneers of "neoliberal" economic thought, a system that post-liberal populists—including Vance—have recently blamed for many of America's economic grievances. , [2]
The Mises Institute: The Mises Institute continues to promote the theories of Mises and maintains a strict free-market, anti-statist ideology that often contrasts sharply with the nationalist, protectionist agendas prevalent in modern American populism. [1, 2, 3, 4]

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vaden

AI Overview

The "Yale Law Republicans" do not have a dedicated, institutional donor funder. Instead, conservative presence and organizing at Yale Law School primarily receive backing through university-recognized student groups, alumni networks, and broad-based conservative organizations with ties to the law school. [1]

Key conservative entities at the school and their associated funders include:

The Federalist Society: The prominent conservative and libertarian law student organization (founded at Yale) relies on large, national conservative foundations. Its network is heavily bankrolled by groups like the Searle Freedom Trust, the Scaife Foundation, and DonorsTrust, as well as the dark money network overseen by conservative activist Leonard Leo. , [2, 3]

Institutional Portraits & Specific Initiatives: Major conservative initiatives at the law school have been funded by specific high-profile Republican megadonors. For example, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow provided a $105,000 donation in 2018 to commission and install the official portrait of Justice Clarence Thomas in the law school. [1]

For more than two decades, Yale Law School has also served as a focal point for the broader political ecosystem, helping to foster high-profile conservative leaders and their financiers in Silicon Valley and beyond. [1, 2]

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GGL AI 6 26

When ⁠Peter Thiel spoke at ⁠Yale Law School in 2011, there was no single named host. Rather, he delivered an invited address that was part of a ⁠speaker series at the institution. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The specific details regarding this address include:

The Core Message: Thiel discussed technological stagnation and criticized elite professionals who get trapped in hyper-competitive but unrewarding career tracks. [1, 2]

Impact on Vance: A then-law student named ⁠JD Vance attended the lecture. He frequently cites it as the most significant moment of his time at Yale Law School, prompting his shift into the tech and venture capital industries. [1, 2, 3]

If you would like, I can provide more details on:

The books and ⁠philosophy of René Girard, which Thiel frequently incorporates into his lectures.

Other appearances Thiel has made at ⁠Yale University. [1, 2, 3, 4]

X DANIEL

Peter Thiel's 2011 Yale Law School talk was hosted and organized by the Yale Law School Federalist Society. The event, which deeply influenced a then-student ⁠J.D. Vance, featured Thiel criticizing elite professionals trapped in hypercompetitive but unrewarding jobs and arguing that higher education was a "bubblE.

RETWEET OF

9 MIN THUS NOT ALL

How Yale Propelled J.D. Vance’s Career

The G.O.P. vice-presidential nominee is remembered as a warm and personable student. But some are perplexed by what they see as his shift in ideology.

By Stephanie Saul

Published July 17, 2024Updated July 18, 2024

See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The New York Times on Google

When J.D. Vance applied to law school, he viewed it as a pathway out of his chaotic upbringing in working-class Middletown, Ohio.

Then he won a spot at his dream school. Yale Law not only accepted him for the fall of 2010, but also offered a nearly full ride the first year.

Over the next three years, Yale dramatically influenced the trajectory of his life, leading to important connections, a job in venture capital and marriage to a classmate.

Even his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was partly the outgrowth of a paper he wrote in a Yale class. And he leveraged the story, which chronicles his childhood and the alienation of the working class, into a best seller, a movie deal and a political career — winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2022, at age 38.

Despite Yale’s transformative role in his life, Mr. Vance’s relationship with the school could be summed up as conflicted.

Graduating from Yale was “the coolest thing” he had ever done, “at least on paper,” he wrote in his memoir. But he also portrayed himself as an outsider who flubbed law firm interviews and was baffled when asked whether he preferred chardonnay or sauvignon blanc — he had never heard of either. And his classmates remember his sarcasm and cynicism when discussing what he thought of as the school’s liberal bubble.

A correction was made on July 18, 2024

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Yale Law’s offer to J.D. Vance. The school offered him a nearly full ride the first year. The details of his financial package in the subsequent years are not clear.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn more

Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.

---

REF

https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/07/16/jd-vance-and-peter-thiel-what-to-know-about-the-relationship-between-trumps-vp-pick-and-the-billionaire/

JD Vance And Peter Thiel: What To Know About The Relationship Between Trump’s VP Pick And The Billionaire

ByAntonio Pequeño IV,

Forbes Staff.

Pequeño is a breaking news reporter who covers tech and more.

Jul 16, 2024,

Topline

JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, has had a long, collaborative relationship with GOP donor and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, one that has aided Vance from his time in venture capital to his role as an Ohio senator.

Key Facts

Vance and Thiel’s relationship dates back to 2011, when the senator met Thiel following a talk the venture capitalist gave at Yale Law School that Vance has characterized as “the most significant moment of my time” at the institution, according to a blog post he wrote for Catholic magazine The Lamp.

Vance began planning for a career pivot outside of law following the talk, noting Thiel was “possibly the smartest person” he ever met and that Thiel’s Christian faith “defied the social template I had constructed—that dumb people were Christians and smart ones atheists,” according to the post.

Thiel later became a “pretty good mentor” to Vance, according to The Washington Post, with Vance making the switch to venture capital and joining the Thiel-co-founded Mithril Capital in 2015 as a partner, according to Politico.

Vance published “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” in 2016 while still working for Mithril Capital, thrusting the venture capitalist into the limelight as he began pondering a potential run for office in the future, according to the Post.

Vance left Mithril Capital in 2017 and joined Washington D.C.-based investment firm Revolution as a managing director to invest in startups outside of major hubs like Silicon Valley and New York City.

Vance launched his own venture capital firm in 2019 under the name Narya Capital, which sought to invest in startups in overlooked cities and reportedly received backing from Thiel and other billionaire investors like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Axios reported.

Thiel also reportedly brought Vance, who had established himself as a critic of Trump, to Mar-a-Lago in 2021 to smooth over his relationship with the former president, according to The New York Times.

Following the meeting, Vance became more sympathetic to Trump and his policies, downplaying the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and securing an endorsement from the former president in his 2022 Senate run just weeks before Election Day.

Vance garnered more support from Thiel during his successful Senate run in 2022, receiving record-breaking donations of about $15 million from Thiel, which marked the largest amount of money donated to a single Senate candidate ever.

Most of Vance’s campaign advertising was outsourced to the Protect Ohio Values super PAC that Thiel donated to, Politico reported, noting Thiel helped recruit about 10 major donors for Vance including venture capitalist David Sacks, who donated $1 million.

Forbes Valuation

We estimate Peter Thiel’s net worth at $7.9 billion—largely thanks to his role as one of Facebook’s earliest investors, as well as his work as a general partner of venture capital firm Founders Fund, which is a key investor in Stripe and SpaceX. Thiel has also invested millions into Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition software firm.

Tangent

Thiel’s backing appeared to be a massive difference-maker for Vance’s 2022 Senate run, as the then-candidate lacked a funding edge over his fellow candidates and had made a litany of anti-Trump comments years before, calling the former president “reprehensible,” “cynical” and privately suggested he could be “America’s Hitler.” Vance walked back his comments in the leadup to Election Day and managed to secure an endorsement from Trump, who later said Vance “gets it now, and I have seen that in spades.”

Crucial Quote

Thiel said during an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month, “You hold a gun to my head, I’ll vote for Trump.” The comment seemingly showed reluctant support for Trump, as Thiel said if he was asked to make a pro-Trump argument, he would not, though he could “probably come up with anti-Biden arguments.” Thiel also noted he would not donate money to Trump and that he believes the former president will win in November. Thiel donated more than $1 million to Trump in 2016.

What Is Peter Thiel’s Connection To Donald Trump?

:{:{Thiel was one of Trump’s most significant donors in 2016 and has expressed a sort of reluctant support for the former president, backing congressional candidates who have echoed Trump-sourced conspiracy theories and later withdrawing further financial support for Trump.}:

Thiel told The Atlantic last year there were a lot of things he “got wrong” with his support for the former president in 2016. Thiel’s political ideology rests in disbelief of establishment institutions and criticism of progressive elites. He also has pushed for more restrictions at the border. Meanwhile, Vance has more closely aligned his politics with Trump’s, opposing nationally guaranteed abortion rights, pushing against strict gun laws and prioritizing the fight against inflation. However, Trump and Vance do not see eye to eye on everything, including their levels of public support for Project 2025.}:

Key Background

:{:{Thiel, who is also a co-founder of the CIA-backed analytics firm Palantir, has given millions of dollars in donations largely to Republican lawmakers and political action committees since 2010, occasionally donating to Democrats such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., according to campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets.}:

Thiel has donated $20 million to the Saving Arizona PAC, which supported venture capitalist Blake Masters during a failed Republican Senate run in 2022. Masters is now running as an Arizona congressional candidate. Thiel has also donated thousands of dollars to Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas. and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.}:

ANDREW LAWRENCE (GUEST): There’s this alternate universe that they’re living in and what I see happening, it’s sort of leading too – they’re really just confined inside of this conservative media bubble. And when they break out of it, that’s why they’re coming across as so weird because they’re not seeing these things that are happening, they’re not hearing about them. And Fox News is just hiding this stuff from their audience, they really are.

ALEX BERG (HOST): You mentioned the “weirdness,” I feel like every clip that I see of JD Vance, it’s just like, I don’t know, it’s like AI was tasked with making what they thought would be, like, a relatable candidate. You know what I mean?

...

LAWRENCE: This is sort of the corner Republicans have painted themselves into. If you remember, JD Vance got the nomination because Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson wanted it. Along with Peter Thiel and a bunch of the donors and stuff like that. My point is that in order to be friends with Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson and to get on Tucker’s show and Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast, you have to be weird. Like, you have to say these things about single women. And if you don’t do that, you’re not going to get on those shows. And if you don’t get on those shows, you’re not going to be up for the VP nomination. But now, it all starts coming out.

I've been seeing JD Vance on Tucker Carlson's show for years saying stuff like that and then tweeting it out, saying stuff about childless cat ladies and, you know, essentially, women are just baby incubators, you know, that type of thing. And it never really breaks out of that conservative media bubble.

Now that he's on the national stage and this is, you know, this is such an issue for the Republican Party because if he starts coming out, if he starts apologizing for these types of things, well, then he's going to lose the hard right, the incels, the groypers, the white supremacists that are backing them, and then they lose that huge part of their base voters.

But without, you know, without becoming a little bit more normal, you're not going to get independent votes. And it's really -- they have really painted themselves into a corner with this. And I don't know. It's fascinating to see from my standpoint.

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AN 8 24

Watch: JD Vance booed by room full of firefighters after he calls himself 'pro-worker'

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an 8 24

Since being chosen as Donald Trump's presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) has been deluged with criticism from Democrats as well as from Never Trump conservatives. Much of it has been in response to his widely reported "childless cat ladies" comments from 2021 and 2022, but his ties to Project 2025 and others on the far right have also been a source of scrutiny.

In a report published on August 28, The Guardian's Jason Wilson details the links between Vance, his press secretary Parker Magid and the far-right Claremont Institute.

Founded in 1979, Claremont was once a mainstream conservative think tank that championed the late Sen. Barry Goldwater's (R-Arizona) ideas. But in recent years, Claremont has taken a far-right MAGA turn and openly embraced conspiracy theorists and election deniers like attorney John C. Eastman.

READ MORE:[He 'disgusts me to my core': Ex-Trump supporters explain why they’re now 'all in' for Harris

"Parker Magid was recently appointed as Vance's press secretary and his employment history links Vance and his circle to elements of the extremist right far outside the mainstream of American politics," Wilson explains. "Vance's staffer links him to Beck & Stone (B&S) and its subsidiary political consultancy Knight Takes Rook (KTR). The brand consultancy with a business address in New York is close to Vance allies, including the far-right Claremont Institute, the serial Arizona political candidate Blake Masters and the 'counter-revolutionary' magazine IM–1776."

The Guardian reporter continues, "B&S was founded in 2014, according to statements by its founders, Andrew Beck and Austin Stone. Initial company filings in Florida date from April 2015. Its current Florida filings give an address that is a UPS store in New York City."

Wilson notes that Beck "is closely involved with the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), a secretive invitation- and men-only fraternal lodge that has been the subject of extensive previous reporting in the Guardian."

Beth Daviess of Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey has been researching SACR and described their views as "much more extreme than mainstream conservatism."

READ MORE:[Swing state GOP leader admits election 'going to be a little tighter' with Harris as nominee

SACR, according to Daviess, has been expressing troubling views on "whether government should be democratic at all."

"The link is just one of a series of connections between Vance and the so-called 'new right,' an anti-democratic movement that attacks feminism, racial equality and immigrants while centering the grievances of white men," Wilson reports. "Those connections were dramatized in an April 2023 photo resurfaced last month in which Vance posed with the staff of New Founding, a B&S-aligned venture capital firm 'for the right' that opposes what it calls “woke capital."

READ MORE:[This GOP congressman's exit is 'a case study in what's broken in national politics': columnist

*Read The Guardian's full report at this link.

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Even Trump allies 'worried' after Russia’s foreign minister 'praised' JD Vance: reports

a 824

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August 13, 2024 mma

Alan Feuer and Nick Corasaniti @ The New York Times: Former Pro-Trump County Clerk Is Found Guilty of Tampering With Voting Machines

Tina Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., was convicted on Monday of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed attempt to prove that they had been used to rig the 2020 election against former President Donald J. Trump.

Anna Merlin @ Mother Jones: Elon Musk’s Twitter Space With Donald Trump Was a Dumpster Fire

A heavily publicized Twitter conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on Monday night began with an immediate bed-shitting technical crash. When things finally kicked off 42 minutes later with a much smaller audience, Musk blamed a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which did not appear to be true, as the rest of his site continued to function as normal.

Jesse Valentine @ American Journal News: Far-right extremist Jack Posobiec to speak at event for North Carolina Trump supporters

The campaign to reelect former President Donald Trump will host a virtual training event that features Jack Posobiec, a purveyor of far-right conspiracy theories.

Zack Beauchamp @ Vox: The right’s plan to fix America: Patriarchy 2.0

> JD Vance and like-minded conservatives are theorizing a kind of “neopatriarchy.”

Media Matters: Roger Stone uses anti-LGBTQ slur to describe Tim Walz

“Now she’s picked, this guy, Tim Walz. Saw him at a rally. I mean, I hate to quote, Mel Brooks, in Blazing Saddles, but he was jumping around like a Kansas City faggot. This guy — really, really weird.”

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an 8 24

before he launched his political career, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) was a venture capitalist who funded several fledgling companies. One of those was an Eastern Kentucky-based agricultural startup with particularly hellish working conditions, according to a new report.

CNN reported Tuesday that AppHarvest — which Vance propped up with millions of dollars in seed capital — had a reputation among its employees for a brutal work environment in which basic safety measures were routinely ignored. Even though AppHarvest has since gone under, the outlet noted that the testimonies from the company's former employees undercut the Ohio senator's claims of being a champion for the impoverished Appalachian underclass.

“Eastern Kentucky is well-known for people coming and going. They start up companies, then they disappear,” former AppHarvest worker Anthony Morgan told CNN. “They didn’t care about us.”

Morgan said that initially, employees were treated well and given a benefits package that was far more competitive than other employers in the area. But once managers were pressured about increasing production quotas, employees were forced to work much longer hours, and the company cut its employer-sponsored health coverage for its workers.

“I think about the hottest that I experienced was around 128 degrees,” Morgan said. “A couple days a week, you’d have an ambulance show up and you seen people leaving on gurneys to go to the hospital.”

AppHarvest billed itself as a company dedicated to hiring people in economically distressed areas like Eastern Kentucky, and Morgan said the company was "the talk of the town" at one point due to its star-studded board. Martha Stewart once sat on the company's board alongside Vance, who at the time was a prominent anti-Trump Republican riding high from his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy. But after Morgan organized a sit-in to protest working conditions, he was fired for taking time off to receive medical care from an injury he sustained on the job.

"It was a nightmare that should have never happened," Morgan told CNN.

READ MORE:['Last straw': JD Vance's best friend reveals moment he switched from Never Trump to MAGA

Shelby Hester, who was hired at AppHarvest's 60-acre greenhouse in Morehead, Kentucky as a crop care specialist in 2021, said she was taken in by the company's lofty messaging about sustainable agriculture. A recent graduate of nearby Morehead State University (full disclosure: this author graduated from Morehead State University) Hester said she was initially performing well despite the high temperatures inside the greenhouse and long hours. However, she noted that the company didn't provide employees with adequate safety gear.

"I had to bring in my own N95 masks, because I was getting sick from the amount of mold and just nasty stuff that was in there," she said.

According to Hester, AppHarvest accounted for its high employee turnover by hiring migrant farm workers from Guatemala and Mexico. Those workers were notably sent home when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) toured AppHarvest's greenhouse.

"They brought Mitch McConnell into the greenhouse, and they sent every single Hispanic worker home before he got there,” Hester told the network. “He then proceeded to have a speech about how we were taking the jobs from the Mexicans.”

READ MORE:[Project 2025 leader as hoping for Vance pick — and got his way

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an 8 24

Months of text messages between Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and a far-right activist offer a revealing look at former President Donald Trump's 2024 running mate and his close ties to the extreme fringe of the GOP.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that 35 year-old Charles Johnson — a member of the alt right and Holocaust denier who later became a federal informant — leaked his texts via the encrypted messaging app Signal with the Hillbilly Elegy author to the publication dating back to 2022. The Post reported that Johnson positioned himself as a "mentor" to the Ohio Republican, telling him the day after he was elected that he felt a need to "keep [him] out of trouble."

However, Vance's office insisted to the outlet that the Ohio senator wasn't close with Johnson, and that the far-right conspiracy theorist frequently "spam texted" Vance.

"JD usually ignored him, but occasionally responded to push back against things he said," Vance spokesperson William Martin told the Post.

However, the texts show that Vance corresponded with Johnson and sometimes offered unsolicited takes on legislative affairs, like funding to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. After Republicans blocked a foreign aid package in 2023, Vance texted Johnson about his unwillingness to support a new round of appropriations for Kyiv.

"Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine," Vance texted. "Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. B—ing about F16s."

In June of this year, when it was revealed that Vance was on Trump's shortlist for potential running mates, Johnson texted him: "Congratulations. Good luck." Six days later, the Ohio senator replied: "For what? You assume too much."

At that point, Johnson texted Vance an ominous warning: "Don't take it when it's offered. It's a trap." This prompted the eventual 2024 GOP vice presidential nominee to respond with: "Haha. Doubt it's offered. We'll see."

Beyond their shared political views, Johnson and Vance have something else in common: Their ties to far-right billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel. The Palantir founder bankrolled Vance's 2022 Senate campaign with a massive infusion of $15 million via a super PAC that helped him win a hotly contested primary and eventually earn Trump's coveted endorsement. And Thiel worked in coordination with Johnson in his lawsuit against the now-defunct online publication Gawker.

Last year, Johnson — who has been a federal informant for several years – also outed Thiel as a federal informant dating back to 2021. Business Insider reported in October that Thiel worked with the FBI's Los Angeles office to shed light on foreign influence in the tech sector.

Click here to read the Post's report in its entirety (subscription required).

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all in on wierd label

editor's Note:This headline and storyhave been updated to reflect that there's no definitive proof Sen. J.D. Vance searched for "dolphin porn."*

Republican Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), a staunch ally of former president Donald Trump, was the subject of ridicule this weekend after attempting to post a photo on social media that took aim at content that could be found on the internet.

The Ohio senator was mocked on his own social media post because of a picture that he shared which showed a dolphin apparently attempting to mate with a woman.

"Maybe the internet was a mistake," Vance posted Saturday with the picture, which was captioned with: "Woman gets violated by a dolphin and enjoys it."

The problem, according to the commenters, is that the words "woman" and "dolphin" were highlighted in the image, suggesting that whoever took the screenshot apparently searched for those exact terms.

"Damn you, Internet, for showing people things they search for," former journalist Morten Øverbye wrote in response.

"Why you searching for dolphin porn, my guy?" asked user Matt Ortega.

Charlotte Clymer said, "The bolded words indicate the terms you searched to find this."

User Aaron Meyers echoed those sentiments: "Nuclear level self own posting that with your search terms highlighted."

Freelance writer Charlie Cy also chimed in: "Maybe electing a Senator spending his time Meme-Mill-Generating for clicks was a mistake?"

Conservative anti-Trump activist Rick Wilson also had this to say about Vance's post:

"Well, I did not have 'J.D. Vance searches for dolphin porn' on my Saturday night bingo card, but here we are. Rule 34 never fails," he wrote.

---

mma ### JD Vance’s right-wing media tour to clean up his attack on “childless cat ladies” is a debacle

07/29/24 11:52 AM EDT

### Laura Loomer helped JD Vance raise funds while he appeared on her show

07/29/24 9:58 AM EDT

### Daily Wire host goes on strange sexist rant: “Women cannot take care of themselves”

07/29/24

---

mma ### JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comment points to the GOP’s right-wing media problem

07/26/24 1:28 PM EDT

### Ben Shapiro says “I doubt” that Donald Trump would choose JD Vance as a running mate again

07/26/24 1:21 PM EDT

### On podcast for Project 2025 partner, JD Vance attacked journalists for being “miserable and unhappy” because their biological clocks have run out

07/26/24 1:11 PM EDT

### JD Vance said Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts is “somebody I rely on a lot who has very good advice”

07/26/24 12:44 PM EDT

### Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts: “JD Vance's selection as Trump's running mate is a masterstroke across the board”

07/26/24

===

Fox News and Newsmax have falsely suggested Kamala Harris was “border czar” 129 times since Biden’s withdrawal

07/25/24 5:27 PM EDT

### Resurfaced audio: J.D. Vance appeared on Breitbart to claim “the Kamala Harrises” “want to take our kids and brainwash them” because “they don't have kids”

07/25/24 4:10 PM EDT

### President of Project 2025 partner brags about their hands-on role passing abortion bans at the state level

07/25/24 1:36 PM EDT

### Donald Trump told Fox he “agree[s]” with parts of the radical Project 2025 agenda. Which ones?

07/25/24 12:20 PM EDT

### Michael Knowles defends J.D. Vance: “He says the country is run by childless cat ladies. Show me the lie.”

07/25/24 10:40 AM EDT

### Fox Business claims quarterly economic report showing strong growth is “fairy-tale numbers”

07/25/24 10:21 AM EDT

### The group behind Project 2025 frequently bragged in fundraising materials about its influence on Trump

07/25/24 9:53 AM EDT

### Bill O'Reilly tells Sean Hannity that Kamala Harris is “the most radical abortion person the country has ever seen”

07/24/24 5:05 PM EDT

### MSNBC panelists describe how Project 2025 intends to raise middle-class taxes in a second Trump administration

07/24/24 3:18 PM EDT

### Daily Wire host Matt Walsh attacks VP Kamala Harris for having a career

07/24/24 3:09 PM EDT

### J.D. Vance wrote the foreword to the book of Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts — and proceeds will benefit his organization

07/24/24

ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, recently named as Donald Trump’s running mate, wrote the foreword to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ forthcoming book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, the proceeds for which will partly benefit Heritage.

The Heritage Foundation is leading Project 2025, a far-right staffing and policy initiative backed by more than 100 conservative groups that seeks to remake the federal government into a vehicle for Trumpism and would severely inhibit protections around reproductive rights, LGBTQ and civil rights, and immigration, as well as climate change efforts.

IFrame Content

Vance’s foreward for Dawn’s Early Light, set to be released in September, will also financially benefit the Heritage Foundation directly, according to the Publishers Marketplace deal report that Roberts posted on X (formerly Twitter) in March 2023. The report states that the book sold “in a six-figure deal, with proceeds benefiting Heritage Foundation and aligned non-profits.”

IFrame Content

The Trump campaign has attempted to distance itself from Project 2025, despite numerous well-documented ties.

According to CNN, there are “nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump.” Unearthed videos published by Media Matters show Trump gushing over Roberts as “so incredible” and bragging that his administration “implemented 64 percent” of Heritage’s recommendations, an effort that the think tank itself has also highlighted.

Vance has his own ties to Project 2025 and Heritage. Reuters reporter Gram Slattery noted that “Vance is very close to Heritage,” and Politico described Project 2025 author Russ Vought as a “close ally” of his. On Newsmax, Vance told host Rob Schmitt that “there are some good ideas” in Project 2025, and he has previously praised Heritage for its “incredible” policy work.

When Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate, Roberts said, “Privately, we were really rooting for him,” noting that he reacted to the news with a “broad smile.”

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jdv teneo says jones a truth teller < maddow

i am a bad lawyer b/c i went to yale ah shucks

devil is real

do not dismiss wacko thiel and musk bc they can be 40 percent right

New reporting from ProPublica and Documented revealed that Trump’s vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, praised far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as a truth teller during a closed-door meeting with the Project 2025 partner organization the Teneo Network in 2021.

Meanwhile, Jones said today that he was in a meeting with Vance “a month ago.”

The Teneo Network, an “invitation-only group of young conservatives” that ProPublica and Documented said Vance joined six years ago, is one of over 100 conservative partner organizations included on the Heritage Foundation’s advisory board for Project 2025. Project 2025 is an extreme right-wing initiative to provide policy and personnel to the next Republican presidential administration.

*Note: The Teneo Network is a distinct entity that has no relation to the Teneo consulting firm.

### Vance called Alex Jones a truth teller

In a private speech in 2021 given to the Teneo Network, Vance said that he got backlash when he said that the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones “is a better source of information than Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC gal,” which he described as a “plainly obvious observation.”

He went on to add that “the most important truths often come from people who are crazy 60 percent of the time but they’re right 40 percent of the time.”

### Vance was speaking before the Teneo Network, which is a Project 2025 partner

The Teneo Network is a right-wing networking group spearheaded by prominent conservative legal activist Leonard Leo. ProPublica and Documented reported on Vance’s speech to the group and what it means for a future Trump second term:

Adding Vance to the ticket bolsters the connections between Leo’s network and the Trump 2024 campaign. It also strengthens ties between Trump’s reelection bid and the Project 2025 blueprint, which outlines plans for a second Trump administration, including firing thousands of career civil servants, shuttering the Department of Education and replacing ambitious goals to combat climate change with ramped-up fossil fuel production. In a recent TV interview, Vance said the document contained “some good ideas” but claimed that “most Americans couldn’t care less about Project 2025” and that the Trump campaign wasn’t affiliated with it."

### Jones also claimed he was recently in a meeting with Vance

On his show on July 16, Jones said he was “in a meeting with J.D. Vance a month ago,” calling him “a great guy” and adding that “he's defended me when I was being censored.”

mma

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===

an raw 7 24

former President Donald Trump's allies are working to reshape American law into a weapon to be used against their political enemies, wrote Jesse Wegman in a scathing editorial for The New York Times.

Trump's pick of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) underscores this, he wrote, because Vance embodies the far-right's commitment to a key goal of the controversial Project 2025 plan to transform the government into an authoritarian loyalty cult to the GOP.

Vance, wrote Wegman, "predicted ... that the former president, who had been recently disgraced by his insurrectionary attempt to overturn the 2020 election, would nevertheless run again in 2024. Should Mr. Trump win, Mr. Vance said, he had some advice: 'Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.' And if the courts ruled against him? No problem, Mr. Vance said: Just blow them off."

This is already happening, wrote Wegman — and another of Trump's appointees, District Judge Aileen Cannon, is showing how it will work in her move to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, which special counsel Jack Smith is already moving to appeal.

In her decision, Cannon concluded Smith, "Was not validly appointed to his post because no federal law authorizes the appointment of someone from outside the Justice Department to perform that task," wrote Wegman, noting she based this entirely on a non-majority concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas in the case granting Trump a presumption of immunity in a separate case.

ALSO READ:'Keep lying': Late night Trump rant about Harris quickly turns against him

"As a matter of law and fact, this is not merely wrong, it is flagrantly, embarrassingly wrong ... It is not a close or complicated legal question" — indeed, the Supreme Court ruled the law allows this in 1974, and Cannon pretends they didn't.

These sorts of machinations by Vance and Cannon are exactly what to expect the whole government to become should Trump get his way, Wegman concluded ominously.

"This is what a second Trump term would look like," he wrote. "Ambitious judges who may not have been Trump loyalists at first will watch what’s been happening in recent days and get the message about what it takes to advance their careers. In this way, Judge Cannon embodies the future that Mr. Vance described in 2021. She is part of a legal elite raised on Trumpism that will use their perches in the judiciary and legal world to enforce a one-sided version of law that is about power and outcomes over any liberal principle."

In other words, he said, this is a reality where "the rule of law is for suckers or, worse, only for specific people. Our people."

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an 7 24

JD Vance called Native Americans the 'enemy' and Indigenous Peoples Day a 'fake holiday'

an july

2024 Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) reportedly keeps close company with far-right activists according to a new report, and they may soon find themselves embedded high up in the federal government if former President Donald Trump returns to power this fall.

On Thursday, tech publication Wired reported on the details of Vance's Venmo account, which is a popular platform used for online payments. Because Venmo automatically sets accounts to be publicly viewable, Wired was able to comb through the profiles of the several hundred people listed as "friends" on the Ohio senator's Venmo.

Many of those are controversial figures tied to the same academic and political establishment Vance has constantly railed against in his public speeches. But others are major figures in extremist political circles.

According to Wired, names in the 2024 VP hopeful's contacts include Stop The Steal organizer Ali Alexander, conservative provocateur James O'Keefe and pro-Trump social media personality Laura Loomer. His profile also lists former Michael Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis, who also represents international mafioso Dmitry Firtash — a high-ranking member of the Russian mob.

This appears to be his actual personal contacts," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington vice president Jordan Libowitz told Wired. "[T]he more personal data that is public about someone the more points of pressure or influence there are on that person."

Earlier this week, Andrew Torba — the CEO of far-right social media app Gab — tweeted that Vance was "influenceable" given the people he's surrounded himself with. Gab was thrust into the national spotlight after reports confirmed that the perpetrator of the 2017 Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting was active on the platform and frequently posted anti-Semitic content.

"We have plenty of people in his orbit. Plenty of our guys can be put into positions of power because he’s there," Torba wrote. "Our focus should be on pulling him as far right as possible by 2028. Long game. Honey, not vinegar."

Torba's comments are particularly revealing, even though he didn't mention any particular names. After his nomination was announced, screenshots emerged of Vance in a Twitter group chat with several teenage "groypers" (the name associated with followers of white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes).

"Yo Akron Caleb is thirsty," Vance wrote in response to a former George Santos staffer asking for Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt to follow him back. "Just practicing my cool kid lingo with the simps chat."

Vance's Venmo also shows other "friends" in his contacts including a lobbyist for the Heritage Foundation (the chief organization pushing Project 2025), billionaire Todd Ricketts and Michael Flynn Jr.

*Click here to read Wired's report in its entirety.

===

July 17, 2024 rww

Carl Gibson and Maya Boddie @ AlterNet: JD Vance caught quietly deleting ‘100% pro-life’ position from his website

Abortion is one of the defining issues of the 2024 election. Now, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP’s presumptive vice presidential nominee, is trying to conceal his past opposition for the procedure in all cases.

Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey @ ProPublica: In Private Speech, J.D. Vance Said the “Devil Is Real” and Praised Alex Jones as a Truth-Teller

Vance gave the speech to the secretive Teneo Network. The GOP vice presidential nominee has been a member of the Leonard Leo-backed group, which seeks to cultivate conservative influence in business and culture.

Jacob Shamsian @ Business Insider: Steve Bannon filmed Jeffrey Epstein for 15 hours. His ‘documentary’ has never surfaced

Before his 2019 death in jail, Jeffrey Epstein spent hours being interviewed on camera by Steve Bannon.

Tabitha Mueller @ The Nevada Independent: Grand jury indicts ex-Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore on wire fraud charges

A federal grand jury has indicted Michele Fiore — a former Las Vegas city councilwoman and current Nye County justice of the peace — on four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud after she allegedly defrauded donors of more than $70,000 for personal gain.

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Why the leaked phone call between Trump and RFK Jr. matters

We don’t have to wonder what Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked about, because a partial recording of candidates’ chat leaked.

Zachary Folk and Jake Lahut @ The Daily Beast: Republicans Are Wearing Ear Bandages to Copy Trump

Some attendees at the Republican National Convention are wearing fake bandages in an apparent display of solidarity with the former president.

MSNBC's Vaughn Hillyard explains how J.D. Vance would be “very astute” in implementing Project 2025

07/15/24 mma

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J.D. Vance slams 'elites' despite shared backgrounds: analysis - Alternet.org

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running for VP red tie brigade at hush money trial NY early?

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DN arlie H // ~ bk 7/16/24

thiel 10 m$ rercord narrow primary win

am’s hitler or nixon usefuletc

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college pal has diff story on change?

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) was once a face of the Never Trump movement, only to suddenly pivot to becoming one of former President Donald Trump's biggest supporters, and now his 2024 running mate. His shift was reportedly prompted not by politics, but by pop culture.

The Washington Post recently reported that the Ohio Republican — whose memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" was made into a movie directed by Ron Howard — was hoping for the film adaptation of his book to become universally celebrated by the Hollywood establishment as his book was by beltway media. But one of his closest friends said Vance was devastated when the film was laughed at by reviewers.

"When the'Hillbilly Elegy' movie came out on Netflix in 2020, it was not just critically panned but greeted with intense online mockery, and the tenuous cultural diplomacy achieved by the book seemed to unravel for good," wrote the Post's Simon van Zuylen-Wood, noting that the Rotten Tomatoes audience score was 83% while the critics’ score was 25 percent. "According to Vance’s best friend from Yale, Jamil Jivani, the wounding commentary was the 'last straw' in his falling-out with elites."

"Hillbilly Elegy" is about Vance's upbringing in a low-income suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, and how his experience growing up adjacent to working-class struggle and drug addiction shaped his worldview. The bestselling book made Vance a so-called "Trump whisperer" who was frequently invited onto cable news panels to help explain Trump's appeal to blue-collar white voters. And in that role, Vance rarely held back in his criticism of then-candidate Trump.

In one unearthed message to a friend in 2016, Vance referred to Trump as "America's Hitler" and "a cynical a—hole like Nixon." In audio that recently resurfaced from that same year while he was promoting his book, Vance agreed with Kentucky Sports Radio host Matt Jones when he repeatedly called Trump a "total fraud."

"I don't think he actually cares about folks," Vance said.

But Jivani said that Vance's resentment with the elite liberal establishment happened when he was at Yale, and he frequently encountered coastal liberals who he felt looked down on communities like the one where he grew up.

READ MORE:[JD Vance VP pick won't 'help secure Trump a particular state': expert

“You’re sitting in a seminar room, you’ve got a professor who’s written a million books, surrounded by 20 students from San Francisco, New York, mostly, all pontificating about how to help poor people in America," Jivani said. “Yale’s approach is that judges, senators, policymakers can save the world. They completely omit the role of family, community and culture in people’s lives.”

"[Vance] is... illiberal in his instincts,” he added. “I don’t mean it as a slur. I mean it in a technical sense. He is skeptical of the political project of enlightenment liberalism, like, 'We’re all just autonomous individuals trying to self-actualize and maximize our own interests.'”

Click here to read the Post's full report (subscription required).

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rww 7 24

J.D. Vance spoke at the Heritage Foundation's 50th anniversary celebration.

The Trump campaign’s recent dishonest efforts to distance itself from the deservedly reviled Project 2025 policy agenda created by his former aides and closest allies got even less convincing Monday with Trump’s choice of MAGA hardliner J.D. Vance as his running mate. Vance has praised Project 2025’s authoritarian, anti-equality, anti-freedom policy agenda.

Vance is a close ally of the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025’s primary sponsor. Vance he was “thrilled” to write the introduction to Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ new book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America.”

Heritage sponsored a “policy fest” on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Held at a symphony hall a few blocks from the secure zone, the policy fest was a day-long series of speeches and panels promoting the kinds of policies laid out in Project 2025.

Roberts addressed the RNC audience just after the lunch break. He said Heritage welcomes the recent media coverage of what he called “the conservative movement’s plans for taking back this country,” claiming that “the vast majority of American people” support the project’s efforts to undermine the federal government’s regulatory powers and dismantle the administrative state.

Roberts tried to make the case that Policy 2025 is “a plan among a unified movement to speak on behalf of the everyday American, the Forgotten American.” In reality, Project 2025 would gut the federal government’s ability to protect American workers, families, and communities from corporate wrongdoing, predatory financial institutions, irresponsible polluters, and more. Roberts’ book title is reminiscent of a joke told among Federalist Society operatives describing their long game to repeal the New Deal and reverse a century of precedent and progress: “Rome Wasn’t Burned in a Day.”

At the same time, Project 2025 would grant a future President Trump virtually unchecked power to use federal agencies to target his political opponents, personal enemies, and mainstream media. That’s why historian Heather Cox Richardson has called it “a playbook to end American democracy.”

When Vance was running for the Senate in 2022, Right Wing Watch noted his support for Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election and Vance’s contempt for democratic checks and balances:

If you’re wondering what kind of United States Vance envisions, it’s one where Trump rules with an iron fist and only employs loyalists at all levels of government. “If I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people,” Vance said.

Vance added that if the courts rule against such a move, Trump should defy them. That kind of stance explains why Vox calls Vance a “naked authoritarian” with a worldview that is “fundamentally incompatible with the basic principles of American democracy.”

Earlier this year, Jack Jenkins at Religion News Service reported on Vance’s connections to Catholic integralism, a right-wing Catholic version of authoritarian Christian nationalism.

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an 7 24

Donald Trump announced that his vice presidential running mate will be J.D. Vance, the Ohio Senator and a close friend of Trump's son Donald Jr.

While Vance has a long history of harshly criticizing Trump, he has spent the past few years working to pivot to be a MAGA loyalist.

As The Nation's Joan Walsh wrote in June, Vance became the supposed bard of the white working class after he wrote his memoirHillbilly Elegy. The New York Timespromoted it as "a tough love analysis of the poor who back Trump."

Meanwhile, PBS noted that after Trump's near-death experience at the weekend, the role of Vance is now much more significant.

Here are five things that Americans should know about Vance:

1. Onlookers have claimed Vance's morals have collapsed

According to retired professor Tom Nichols, who describes himself as a Never Trump conservative, Vance is a "contemptible and cringe-inducing clown."

Writing for The Nation in July 2021, Nichols said that the lawmaker has turned "on everything he once claimed to believe." He's a "sellout” or “backstabber." A “traitor” or “apostate.”

"Worse, Vance has not only repudiated his earlier views on Trump, but has done so with ruthless cynicism, embracing the former president and his madness while winking at the media with a What can you do? shrug about the stupidity of Ohio’s voters," said Nichols

“If I actually care about these people and the things I say I care about,” Nichols quoted Vance telling *Time* Magazine, “I need to just suck it up and support him.”

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called Vance a “pathetic loser poser fake jerk."

Cleveland News Scene said of Vance: "If politics is the art of empty gestures, J.D. was proving himself a prodigy."

2. Vance has been accused of lying about being a "working class hero."

New York Magazine reporter Sarah Jones wrote in March that Vance pretends he's fighting for working-class people but that the reality is he's trying to "reshape the Republican Party, and America too, in part by appealing to working-class voters."

She was responding to a *Politico* profile heralding that Vance was "something like an intellectual, or at least like a completely unselfconscious nerd."

The reality is, she wrote, he's become a "figurehead for the New Right," attacking anti-Trump conservatives and the left to ensure the "upper echelons of American government, business, media, entertainment and academia" are all "populated" by conservatives.

Vance isn't fighting for working-class people, she argued. His voting record in the Senate shows he opposes union organizing while marching on picket lines with the UAW.

Historian Gabriel Winant wrote Vance’s “false class politics” puts “the suffering of working-class people” in “conspiratorial rather than structural terms.”

"Vance isn’t stupid," Jones said. "And he knows that he can stitch anything onto a critique that is divorced from reality. He can peddle racism in anti-immigration ads and justify himself by his mother’s addiction... He can insist that he is still that working-class whisperer. But the truth is far uglier. The working class has many enemies in Washington, and Vance is one of them. He is selling out America’s workers to his friends and allies on the right — and they have no interest in sharing power or wealth with the masses. The New Right seeks power for itself and itself alone. In Vance’s America, workers will stay on the bottom rung."

3. Trump has complete control over Vance, critics have said.

Unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, Vance's career in Republican politics is tied to Trump. While Vance's successful book may have catapulted him to success, it is his association with Trump and MAGA that has put him in a position of power, experts have said.

As the Cleveland News Scene recalled, Trump "is a cruel master. He demanded servility from his yes-men, then belittled them for their weakness in doing so. He couldn’t resist mocking J.D. for the toady he’d become."

“J.D. is kissing my a-s he wants my support so bad,” Trump told a rally crowd in Ohio. It was a humiliation for Vance, said the Toledo Blade.

Still, the Cleveland report called Trump the "impresario of fraud," who was doing nothing more than "mocking a lesser practitioner."

4. He's been criticized as being little more than a right-wing troll

The Guardian's Jan-Werner Müller wrote, "Vance has perfected what, on the right, tends to substitute for policy ideas these days: trolling the liberals," Müller wrote. "Mobilizing voters is less about programs, let alone a real legislative record (Vance has none; his initiatives like making English the official language of the US are just virtue signaling for conservative culture warriors). Rather, it’s to generate political energy by deepening people’s sense of shared victimhood."

The column noted that "Vance has perfected what, on the right, tends to substitute for policy ideas these days: trolling the liberals."

MSNBC opinion columnist Hayes Brown highlighted another way that Vance was able to deploy his trolling beyond social media to the halls of the U.S. Senate.

In a letter to the Justice Department, Brown said that right-wing trolls are always known for asking questions they claim they're "just asking."

"Ones who pretend they aren’t necessarily arguing for any specificpoint of view or outcome but are just bravely bringing thorny subjects up," Brown said.

worse on ukraine than trump?

'They are celebrating that choice': Former GOP lawmaker says 'Moscow' wants JD Vance as VP

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an 7 24

one of Donald Trump's vice presidential shortlisters was scorched by political experts and onlookers on Saturday after the GOP lawmaker put the blame for the rally shooting attempt at the feet of President Joe Biden.

Trump earlier in the day appeared to be shot in the ear as he addressed a rally in Pennsylvania. The former president was tackled by U.S. Secret Service agents, who have been criticized for their response to the emergency threat.

Trump's statement from his social media site focused on the fact that such an event shouldn't occur in the U.S., while Senator J.D. Vance had a different take on it.

Vance stated on social media that the shooting "is not just some isolated incident."

"The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs," he claimed on Saturday. "That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."

Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, called Vance's statement "extremely unhelpful, reckless, and dishonest."

"It turns up the heat and invites retribution," he added over the weekend. "We should demand better from our leaders."

Norman Ornstein — who is an emeritus scholar at the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute — said that Vance "is not a leader."

"He is a pandering, cowardly, disgraceful lickspittle to Trump and and Putin," he said Saturday. "That he would say this is a true reflection of who he is."

@JDCocchiarella, a Democrat, said, "F--- JD Vance and this disingenuous and dangerous statement."

Vance's statement comes after another GOP lawmaker, Mike Collins, got himself in hot water by stating that President Joe Biden himself had ordered the shot at Trump.

===

Former President Donald Trump told one of his least convincing lies last week, posting on his Truth Social platform that he “has nothing to do” with Project 2025, the devastating plan by former Trump administration officials and MAGA movement allies to “take the reins of government” if he wins in November. “I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump claimed.

Reporters and commentators were quick to call out Trump’s ridiculous claim. Rolling Stone noted, “Meanwhile, over at the Republican National Committee, at least seven of the individuals tasked with overhauling the party’s platform in anticipation of Trump’s second term in office have connections to Project 2025 — starting with Russell Vought, who was director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s administration.”

Robert Reich took on Trump’s lie in his substack newsletter Saturday, pointing out the central role played by former Trump administration officials and noting, “The Trump campaign platform is basically Project 2025. Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC is running ads calling it‘Trump’s Project 2025.‘ The Make America Great Again PAC also created the website TrumpProject2025.com.”

President Joe Biden’s campaign also weighed in on Trump’s claim, noting in a statement Saturday that Project 2025 “was written for him, by those closest to him.”

Trump’s literally unbelievable claim was repeated by campaign surrogates J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio on Sunday talk shows, suggesting that the attempt to distance Trump from Project 2025 is a strategic decision by his campaign, one driven by extensive news coverage of Project 2025’s far-reaching and devastatingly harmful agenda. Former Trump aide Stephen Miller claimed that he has “never been involved” in Project 2025 even though the organization he runs—America First Legal—is on the project’s advisory board.

Columnist Will Bunch wrote on Sunday, “Republicans are in a state of panic now that voters are paying attention to Project 2025, their plan for dictatorship.” In the two years since Right Wing Watch reported on the Heritage Foundation’s launch of Project 2025, and with greater intensity in recent months, and advocacy organizations have been digging into the agenda for simultaneously giving the president virtually dictatorial power over the federal government while gutting federal agencies’ ability to protect Americans’ safety, health, environment, and fundamental rights.

Bunch credits actress Taraji P. Henson’s warning about Project 2025 at this year’s BET awards—and her challenge “Look it up!”—for initiating a “major vibe shift.” Notes Bunch,

An electorate that largely rolled its eyes when Biden or other Democrats told them that “democracy is on the ballot” in November suddenly has an ominous, TikTok-friendly two-word catch phrase for the very real and growing fearsthat a cult-like GOP, aided by the corrupt Supreme Court it imposed on America, has a scheme for dictatorship. Indeed, “Project 2025″ sounds a lot like the kind of conspiracy theory about a run-amok government that goes viral in the Age of Disinformation — except it’s not a conspiracy. It’s real — and set in type for anyone to read.

In a conversation on Political Research Associates’ “Inform Your Resistance” podcast, I suggested that Project 2025 has actually done a bit of a public service by making it clear just how serious the threat is. By making the unpopular right-wing agenda so explicit, Project 2025 organizers have given those of us who disagree with that agenda an opportunity to remind Americans how much of the progress made over the past century could be reversed if the far right takes power.

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2025 trashed by fetterman on fox

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an 7 24

In just the first half of Sen. J.D. Vance's interview with "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker, the Ohio Republican waved his hands and snapped at her as she attempted to fact-check him.

During Vance's second outburst, the NBC host resorted to telling him, "I have to hit pause here."

What first set off the Ohio lawmaker, who is reportedly a finalist to be Donald Trump's running mate, was Welker pushing back at his claim that President Joe Biden is siccing the Department of Justice on the embattled Trump.

"The prosecution of Donald Trump in New York, which I think now has fundamentally been thrown in doubt by this immunity case, it was one of the main guys was a Department of Justice official of the Biden administration who jumped ship to join a local prosecutor's office to go after Donald Trump," Vance stated which led her to interrupt, "And yet the DOJ told Congress.." as he rambled, "...the legitimacy of the prosecution. That's a problem."

"Senator, that happens all of the time, people are appointed from Washington. The DOJ told Congress—, she instructed him just before he shouted over her.

"Are you really saying, Kristen, it happens all the time! That the number --," Vance exclaimed with Welker cutting him off and explaining, "Let me just finish this. It [Congress] reviewed all communications since Biden took office and found no contact between federal prosecutors and those involved with that case in New York. Can you stick to the substance of the question, though?"

In the second skirmish, Vance claimed the Biden administration wants to fund abortions up to birth, calling it "crazy," which led Welker to once again talk over him after putting him on "pause" and then explaining, "As you know abortions, very few abortions, take place later in pregnancy almost always because there is a medical emergency."

Watch below or at the link.

===

'This is not a serious person': JD Vance blasted for claiming to fund bill before he was even elected an 724

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AN 6 24

Trump ally Sen. J.D. Vance(R-OH) compared the former president’s election denial claims to a violent, racially-tinged disputed vote in 1876 during a New York Times interview this week — and on Saturday he got a harsh history lesson from the same newspaper.

The right-wing Republican, rumored to be on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist, whined that dismissing “Stop the Steal” grievances was taking “this very legitimate grievance over our most fundamental democratic act as a people, and completely suppress[ing] concerns about it.”

Then he compared it to the 1876 election.

“Here’s what this would’ve looked like if you really wanted to do this,” he said. “You would’ve actually tried to go to the states that had problems. You would try to marshal alternative slates of electors, like they did in the election of 1876. And then you have to actually prosecute that case, you have to make an argument to the American people.”

His comparison infuriated Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

“Let’s look at what happened in 1876,” he said.

“In that race, the Democrat, Gov. Samuel Tilden of New York, won a majority of the national popular vote but fell one vote short of a majority in the Electoral College. The Republican, Rutherford Hayes, was well behind in both. The trouble was 20 electoral votes in four states: Florida, Louisiana, Oregon and South Carolina.

“In the three Southern states, where the elections were marred by fraud, violence and anti-Black intimidation, officials from both parties certified rival slates of electors.

"Hayes believed, probably correctly, that had there been “a fair election in the South, our electoral vote would reach two hundred and that we should have a large popular majority.”

Had Blacks been allowed to vote, the election result would likely have been overturned, he wrote.

The dispute resulted in months of legal battles and a threat by Democrats to seize a statehouse by force.

“It is strange for Senator Vance to cite it as an example of what should have been done in 2020,” Bouie wrote.

“The big and most important reason is that there was actual fraud and violence and intimidation in the 1876 presidential election cycle. In one incident in Hamburg, S.C., a paramilitary death squad of white Democrats — called Red Shirts for their attire — stormed a local armory and kidnapped more than two dozen Black citizens, executing several men on the spot.”

He added, “If Trump voters had been attacked, intimidated and defrauded, then there might be reason to make the comparison with 1876 and demand serious investigation into the integrity of the vote."

“But as we know from actual litigation carried out over two months, there was no fraud to speak of. The 2020 presidential election was arguably the most secure — and among the most scrutinized — in American history.

"What Vance calls the “legitimate grievances” of the Jan. 6 rioters were actually sour grapes. They lost, they did not like it, and they were determined to change the outcome by any means necessary. There’s no reason any of us should respect their tantrum."

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JD Vance calls for Judge Merchan and his daughter to be subpoenaed so GOP can 'punish' them

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an 5 24

Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) was called out Monday over his response to a Memorial Day post on social media.

"JD Vance is praising a Memorial Day speech by Ret. Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly — the same John Kelly who confirmed on the record that Trump repeatedly disparaged US servicemembers," The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger wrote via X (formerly Twitter). "Vance also served in the Marines."

Sollenberger later[vid] , "Correction: It was a Veterans’ Day speech."

Vance was replying to a post Republican Nate Hochman shared, which includes a story Kelly told during the speech given 14 years ago, writing, "Every Memorial Day, I think of a speech that John Kelly gave to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis in 2010 — four days after his own son, a Marine, was killed in action in Afghanistan. The speech was titled 'Six Seconds to Live.'"

Vance wrote, "This is an extraordinary story. Thank you to everyone who gave the ultimate sacrifice."

Last October, NBC News reported:

*In a statement to CNN published Monday, Kelly delivered a scathing criticism of former President Donald Trump while confirming reporting in The Atlanticin 2020 that detailed the comments he made during his presidency.

'A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them,' Kelly said of Trump. 'A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.' A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.'*

Listing the Ohio senator as a Trump running mate contender earlier this month, the New York Times reported, "Vance is one of Trump’s most vigorous defenders, which sets him apart in a Senate populated with skeptics of the former president."

The Times also noted one of the "cons" of Trump picking Vance as a running mate would be that he's "fiercely anti-abortion, which could add to the party’s difficulties on that issue."

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May 20, 2024 RWW

Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: Lawsuit Exposes Internal Feuds And Inner Workings Of Stew Peters’ Extremist Media Empire

The online hate speech broadcaster has Republican connections, a lucrative corporate sponsorship, and a lot of drama in his life.

Ahmad Austin Jr. @ Mediaite: Minnesota GOP Endorses Ex-NBA Player Royce White to Run for Senate — As White’s Wild Past Comments Resurface Online

The Minnesota GOP on Saturday announced its endorsement of former NBA player Royce White to run against Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Dan Ladden-Hall @ The Daily Beast: Trump Hilariously Claims He ‘Doesn’t Freeze!’ in Viral Gaffe Pushback

Donald Trump came out swinging Monday morning, pushing back on claims that he froze up during a speech over the weekend and asserting that an apparent mishap involving a wobbly podium was, in fact, a stunning feat of his physical talents.

Brett Sholtis @ Lancaster Online: How a Lancaster charity linked to a private Christian college influences public school policy in Pa.

The Eden Bridge Foundation tells prospective donors that their support will help build “the Kingdom of God” on Earth with money flowing to Lancaster Bible College and other ministries. Over the past 14 years, the nonprofit has steered tens of millions of dollars to Christian schools, churches and charities. But some donations to the 501(c)(3) Eden Bridge Foundation routinely go to Republican-aligned groups at the center of conservative political advocacy.

Eric Hananoki @ Media Matters: Rep. Young Kim has spent years cultivating support from far-right extremist Jack Hibbs

Hibbs, a podcaster and pastor, has spouted toxic rhetoric targeting Jewish, LGBTQ, and Muslim people.

Marita Vlachou @ HuffPost: Sen. J.D. Vance Says The U.S. ‘Could Learn From’ Viktor Orbán’s Policies

> The Ohio Republican is one of the top contenders to become Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

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hypoc

an 12 23 no lnx

Busted: Jim Jordan and James Comer have a new judicial plan

Matt Laslo

andRaw Story

December 25, 2023

WASHINGTON – Republicans in Congress aren’t just doing all they can to impeach the Biden name – and possibly President Joe Biden himself – they’re also going to extraordinary lengths to protect two billionaire GOP megadonors who helped the party remake the Supreme Court in recent years.

For one, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) are trying to stymie Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s investigation into Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.

Schwalb is looking into allegations that Leo is illegally profiting off non-profits. Jordan and Comer have responded by threatening to subpoena Schwalb.

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist’s guide to surviving Christmas with Trump-loving relatives

Meanwhile on the other side of the U.S. Capitol, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee walked out en masse, boycotting Democrats’ effort to subpoena Leo and Republican jurisprudence sugar daddy Harlan Crow over the hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts he’s given to Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni over the decades, according to a ProPublica investigation.

The GOP offensive to protect two billionaire donors is blatant hypocrisy, according to ethics watchdogs.

“There are many senators who will say anything. I mean, as long as it's their guy, they'll defend anything, and they have no consistency whatsoever and they're completely hypocritical,” Melanie Sloan, a senior adviser for nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight, told Raw Story.

ALSO READ: Florida judge’s son is a neo-Nazi patron: data leak

In today’s tribal and perpetually warring Congress, it seems even pay-to-play politics are now partisan. While Senate Republicans are vowing to use all procedural tools at their disposal to block Leo and Crow from being subpoenaed, most in the party are also backing the Biden impeachment inquiry because they say Hunter Biden was selling access to his father — an accusation for which they’ve provided no evidence to date.

On paper – paper stamped with GOP letterhead, mind you – the impeachment inquiry is focused on buying access.

“It better be, because, quite honestly, Hunter Biden's personal problems aren't the issue. The issue is whether he was selling access to a vice president willing to provide that access, and whether the vice president at the time – the current president – was enriched by it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Raw Story.

As for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in private jet travel, stays at his private retreat and luxurious free vacations aboard his 162-foot yacht that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni admitted to receiving from Harlan Crow?

“That's not enriching yourself, because you went on a boat ride for God's sake. That's not the same as cash in your checking account,” Cramer said of ProPublica’s revelations.

Cramer argues, if the trips weren’t free “maybe he wouldn't have gone on it.”

“The difference is … he’s a friend. Friends are allowed to provide hospitality for you in their home or on their boat. That's very different than a foreign adversary providing cash to a sitting vice president of the United States through his son. That's barely, barely even in the same ballpark, if at all,” Cramer said. “It’s a stretch, to say the least. It's just, it's not the same thing.”

That’s not even mentioning the free private school tuition Thomas’ nephew – who he raised like a son – received from Crow, which ProPublica estimates could have totaled upward of $150,000.

ALSO READ: Busted: These healthcare nonprofits are accepting millions from Big Tobacco

Senate Democrats, some of whom argue Thomas was in a prime position to rule on cases that effect Crow’s fortune, are particularly interested in whether Crow declared the lavish free vacations and travel as business expenses on his federal taxes.

For Leo – co-chairman of the Federalist Society, including the $1.6 billion fortune it now controls – Campaign for Accountability filed an IRS complaint alleging he’s funneling money from seven nonprofit entities he controls to his for-profit businesses, thus illegally profiting off campaign donations. The apparent interference from Jordan and Comer is appalling to watchdogs.

“Then, at the same time, they're screaming about the politicization of justice when they talk about Donald Trump, but they want to tell a sitting U.S. attorney – you know, the state's attorney for D.C. – who he can and can't look at because they don't want him looking at Leonard Leo,” Sloan said. “They just are bowing down at the altar of Leonard Leo and his $1.6 billion.”

House Republicans deny they’re interfering with an ongoing investigation.

“I’m confused. So it’s OK for Democrats to subpoena Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow, but not OK for us to look into AG Schwalb? Isn’t that literally the definition of a double standard — a.k.a Democrats can do something, but we can’t?” Russell M. Dye, communications director and counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, emailed Raw Story.

ALSO READ: ‘Too preposterous to be real’: College hires ‘pink slime’ publisher as journalism prof

Republicans say there’s no reason for an investigation, because the megadonors aren’t accused of trying to change the outcomes of specific cases before the Supreme Court.

“I really think there's like a fundamental difference here between trading favors and not, right? The difference here is the consideration. I've seen no evidence that any of the Supreme Court justices, least of all Clarence Thomas, offered to give anything back. To me, that’s the big difference,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Raw Story.

“Now look, if Harlan Crow or anybody else wrote $100 million to a Supreme Court Justice, and say, ‘Hey, please do this thing in my benefit’ — well, that raises some serious problems. But is it the standard that a Supreme Court justice can't have a rich friend?” Vance continued. “If they want to set that standard, it’s up to them, but I don't think that that raises nearly the same pay-to-play concerns as Joe Biden’s situation.”

Gifts are different than business appears to be the current GOP ethical standard for such matters.

“We're not talking about gifts. This is business. So with Hunter [Biden], this is, you know, he's on the Burisma board. He's doing these foreign business deals in Ukraine and China and lots of offices, and he is openly out there selling his dad,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story. “At the very least, he's clearly making money off his father. The question is, did the president benefit from that? That's what they need to answer. So that's why we have the inquiry.”

When pressed on the impeachment inquiry into Biden, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wasn’t up to date on the specifics, even as he proudly remembers getting the investigative ball rolling for House Republicans.

“You’re talking about the substance of it. I’m not sure I can talk about the substance of it,” Grassley told Raw Story. “Except, the process is necessary to complete what [Sen. Ron] Johnson (R-WI) and I started four years ago, and that is to get all the information that Congress is entitled to in our oversight capacity and that's what it's all about, as far as I know.”

The Supreme Court adopted a new code of ethics since the lavish gifts were first reported, so Democrats’ complaints are outdated, Grassley argues.

ALSO READ: You blew it in New Hampshire, Joe Biden. Pray it doesn’t hurt you — and then some

“Because the judicial branch put out their … new regulation, and if that doesn’t take care of it – and we won't know that for a little while, maybe a year or two – then maybe that'd be a legitimate question,” Grassley said. “But right now it’s not a legitimate question considering the initiative of the Supreme Court.”

After all, 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee walked out of the vote to subpoena Leo and Crow on November 30 – allowing Democrats to pass the measure 11-0 – Senate Republicans argue the vote broke committee rules.

“They’re not legal,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Raw Story. “Anybody who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog knows they can get those subpoenas quashed in one hearing.”

Because of wholesale GOP opposition, there doesn’t seem to be the votes to formalize the subpoenas on the Senate floor where Republicans are threatening to require a 60-vote threshold.

“You’ll never see this come to the floor,” Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Politico. “We’ll attack it legally, we’ll vote against it. It’d be a s—show.”

Even as the party hasn’t decided how it will proceed in the Senate, many Democrats expected this.

“We're going after the icons of the Republican Party, Leonard Leo, of course, and, to some, Justice Thomas. They’re very sensitive to that,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told Raw Story. “Public sentiment is overwhelmingly in our favor, so they have got to be strident in opposition.”

The two different standards for Biden and GOP donors is remarkable to Democrats.

“Republicans want to protect the court that they have packed, and they protect the court by maintaining its status as an unaccountable highest court of the land,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) told Raw Story. “It looks like they're doing everything they can to keep hidden the secret relationships that are going on at the court with powerful interests that bring cases before the court.”

To the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), this made-for-Fox-and-Newsmax drama shows how completely former President Donald Trump has remade the GOP in his own image.

“It is just sad the way that Donald Trump has completed his stranglehold over the Republican Party,” Raskin told Raw Story. “Donald Trump has taught them – from the Charlottesville riot forward – that there should be no enemies on the right. And they have no enemies on the right, and they will take no principled stance against anybody on the right, no matter how fascistic they are.”

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an 12 23

In a new column, MSNBC host Jen Psaki is warning that a conspiracy theory popular with the most far-right fringes of society has now become standard conservative orthodoxy.

On Saturday, Psaki remarked on a comment uttered by businessman Vivek Ramaswamy that went relatively unnoticed during the fourth Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night, in which he baselessly suggested that the so-called "Great Replacement Theory" is "a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform (it isn't)." That theory posits that Democrats seek to have immigrants and refugees "replace" the white population, with the overall goal of having them become registered voters to sway elections.

"The great replacement theory is definitely not a part of the Democratic Party platform. It is a conspiracy theory — one touted by neo-Nazis and avowed white supremacists," Psaki wrote. "The scary part is that it has become mainstream in Republican politics. There’s Donald Trump’s comments that immigration from the southern border was 'poisoning the blood of our country.' In the same vein, House Speaker Mike Johnson said in May that Democrats are 'intentionally' encouraging undocumented immigration to 'turn all these illegals into voters for their side.'

"It's all a part of a movement on the right wing to foment outrage and seize power by playing up the fear of the 'other,'" she added. "And it's not a strategy that is going away."

The "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory has also been popularized by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who frequently alluded to it on his primetime Fox News program to millions of nightly viewers. By the Guardian's count, Carlson mentioned it in approximately 400 episodes. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) have also been criticized for promoting the "replacement" conspiracy theory.

The growing prevalence of that conspiracy theory has led to violent and tragic outcomes. In 2022, the perpetrator of the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York grocery store mentioned it in the manifesto he wrote prior to massacring 10 people and injuring three others at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood. While he didn't specifically name Fox News, he did admit to being radicalized on the forum 4Chan.

Neo-nazi Andrew Anglin, founder of the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer, called Tucker Carlson "literally our greatest ally" and lauded him for "dropping the ultimate truth bomb on his audience" in reference to the "great replacement" theory.

They play-act': Jon Stewart torches JD Vance and Tucker Carlson over Ohio train derailment

Meaghan Ellis

February 15, 2023

Jon Stewart did not mince words when he slammed both Fox News' Tucker Carlson and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) for their reaction to the Ohio train derailment.

According to Stewart, although both expressed outrage...

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an ah 11 22

When the results of 2022 midterms came in on Election Night, one saw some patterns emerging. Democrats were performing much better than expected, and many of the Republicans who were defeating Democrats in statewide races in swing states tended to be traditional conservatives rather far-right hyper-MAGA conspiracy theorists.

Hyper-MAGA, ultra-Trumpian candidates, in fact, lost key gubernatorial races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, while many of the GOP governors who were reelected — Ohio’s Mike DeWine, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu — were more traditional conservatives. One saw some ticket splitting in New Hampshire; Sununu was reelected by around 15 percent, while far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Don Bolduc lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hasan by 9 percent.

DeWine and Sununu are often slammed as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) by the MAGA crowd, but unlike Arizona’s Kari Lake, Michigan’s Tudor Dixon or Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano — Republican gubernatorial nominees who ran on ultra-MAGA platforms — they won. Conservative Washington Post opinion columnist Henry Olsen had a blunt comment in his November 22 column: “College-educated voters just aren’t into MAGA.”

But “weird” Republicans, The New Republic’s Graham Gallagher emphasizes in an article published on November 25, aren’t going away. In fact, they have achieved more and more prominence in the GOP and are making their presence felt in some right-wing think tanks such as the Claremont Institute.

“The ascendant weird right will likely struggle to sell its deeply anti-patriotic vision to many voters,” Gallagher explains. “In these segments of the mostly young, online-influenced American right, the optimistic vision espoused by Ronald Reagan’s ‘morning in America’ has been discarded. The elite educated right has moved even beyond the overt pessimism of Donald Trump’s ‘American carnage’ — now, disgust with equitable citizenship, personal liberty, and democratic self-governance is commonplace. Fed by an endless outrage cycle and a motivated and well-resourced donor class willing to pour money into increasingly reactionary think tanks like the avowedly anti-democratic Claremont Institute, right-wing thinkers and activists have begun to identify the foundational pillars of the United States itself with immorality and adopted a new fascination with medieval Catholicism and imported European extremisms.”

Gallagher points to “the right-wing embrace of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” and former Rep. Allen West’s obsession with the Medieval Knights Templar as examples of how “bizarre” the “online weird right” can be. Others include beliefs that “real men don’t eat soybeans, seed oils are dangerous, meat substitutes will turn men into women and…. the best diet is all-meat.” And Gallagher cites some specific examples of how “weird” MAGA candidates could be in the 2022 midterms.

“Blake Masters and J.D. Vance — two Republican candidates for Senate funded in part by tech billionaire and new-right linchpin Peter Thiel — have embraced new-right ideas and actively courted the ‘weird right,’” Gallagher observes. “Vance has questioned whether women should leave violent marriages; Masters has praised domestic terrorist Theodore Kaczynski’s infamous manifesto, argued against legal access to contraception, and openly said that democracy is a smokescreen for the masses ‘stealing certain kinds of goods and redistributing them as they see fit.’ Americans on balance like democracy; legal contraception is almost universally popular; and Kaczynski’s unpopularity is so widely assumed that pollsters rarely ask about him. Masters, perhaps unsurprisingly, lost his bid to unseat Mark Kelly, and Vance badly underperformed in his blood-red home state.”

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debate

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/jd-vance-tim-ryan/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/tim-ryan-mercilessly-mocks-jd-vance-for-being-a-trump-flunky/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/postliberalism/

salon kat j

...For Hazony, the primary issue was about how conservatives understand China, the rising superpower that NatCons see as America's No. 1 rival. Their conference had banned all speakers who are "pro-Xi, pro-Putin, racists or antisemites," although that standard seems malleable at times. (As Political Research Associates' Ben Lorber reported, this year'sNatCon included a meditation on the viciously xenophobic French novel "Camp of the Saints," approving mention of antisemitic Action Française leader Charles Maurras and an address by a former Trump speechwriter fired for alleged ties to white nationalists.) But some integralists, Hazony charged, had "always had a soft spot for dictatorship, for imperialism and for China," and in recent months that had become impossible to ignore, as members of the movement wrote articles praising China's government or culture.

Then there was Compact Magazine, the hybrid "radical American journal" Ahmari co-founded last March with fellow Catholic Matthew Schmitz and Marxist populist Edwin Aponte. Its professed agenda was to wage "a two-front war on the left and the right" and promote "a strong social-democratic state that defends community — local and national, familial and religious — against a libertine left and a libertarian right."

Although Compact has declined to specify who funds the magazine, a source familiar with its operations told Salon that it was launched with significant support from right-wing tech billionaire Peter Thiel — who has funded numerous other "new right" projects, from NatCon conferences to the political campaigns of J.D. Vance, Blake Masters and Josh Hawley — and Claremont Institute chair Tom Klingenstein (another top NatCon donor). Klingenstein did not respond to requests for comment. A source close to Thiel denied that Thiel has directly funded Compact, but couldn't rule out the possibility that an entity Thiel funds has in turn donated to the magazine. In a statement, Ahmari said, "Compact is an independent, for-profit publication supported by our subscribers. A group of investors helped us jump-start it. We respect their privacy and decline to name them."

Both Thiel and Klingenstein spoke at NatCon this year, and a handful of other NatCon speakers attended the integralist conference too. But on the whole, Hazony said, Compact was a bridge too far for most NatCons. While many in the movement were open to "rethinking the commitment to the free market as an absolute principle," and might even support targeted business regulations, he said, there was "no appetite, no capacity among nationalist conservatives to accept the ideal of social democracy as an alternative to the market mechanism."

Integralists had their own complaints. Some also involved foreign policy questions, like whether NatCons' enthusiastic defense of Ukraine amounted to a creeping neoconservative revival, or whether their strident hostility to China reflected warmed-over Cold War politics. But their main concern was more fundamental: NatCons, they charged, were abandoning the populist promise of Trumpism for a seat at the establishment table.

To be sure, NatCon 3 featured critiques of big business, but, with limited exceptions, most amounted to dragging "woke corporations." Ron DeSantis (introduced in Miami as "the future president") spoke dutifully about how free enterprise should be seen as a tool to help "our own people" rather than an end in itself. But his real firepower was saved for war stories: his battle with Disney over Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law, his resolution banning state pension funds from weighing environmental or social justice concerns in investment decisions, a promised law to help Floridians sue tech companies that commit "viewpoint discrimination."

Other speakers called forblacklisting banks that disinvest in fossil fuels; seizing universities' endowments; and making it illegal for employers to ask if applicants attended college, in order to disincentivize young people from entering the "inherently liberalizing environment" of higher education. (In a more recent example, after contrarian billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter and numerous companies stopped advertising on the platform, Republicans suggested that congressional hearings into "leftist corporate extortion" might be in order.)...

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an 9 22

A former Republican congresswoman is blasting a recent speech from former President Donald Trump, calling it "humiliating" and referring to the event as a "QAnon Fest."

Barbara Comstock, who served as a GOP representative from Virginia from 2015 to 2019, spoke Sunday evening following the former president's speech. The event, which took place in Youngstown, Ohio, was a rally in support of Senate candidate J.D. Vance, someone who Trump has boosted heavily in recent months.

The speech was largely full of most of the same rhetoric that has been heard from Trump since he left office, and Comstock told CNN anchor Jim Acosta that the event was a "contribution to [Democratic challenger] Tim Ryan." She went on to say that Trump made "J.D. Vance look like a mouse, not a man."

"It was humiliating," Comstock added. "It was a QAnon fest, it was playing this strange QAnon music, they were all sort of, you know, bowing - I think Marjorie Greene was there talking about the one true leader." The event featured a number of bizarre outings, such as one moment when the rally attendees raised their hands to the former president in an apparent show of loyalty.

However, Comstock noted that, while Trump has often pushed the size of his rally crowds, the event was lightly attended.

"I think this is the last gasp of a dying cult...J.D. Vance is really a shell of a person to be there, bowing and scraping to somebody who he rightfully attacked just a few years ago," she said.

Watch video below or at this link.

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8 22 cpac rant about hotdog buns burger?

no lnx

JD Vance addresses CPAC in Texas while facing criticism for time outside Ohio

Kate Scanlon,Washington Examiner

JD Vance addresses CPAC in Texas while facing criticism for time outside Ohio

DALLAS — Ohio Republican Senate nominee J.D. Vance addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on Friday as some Republicans question how much time he is spending outside the state during a must-win Senate race for his party.

AT CPAC, TED CRUZ SAYS REPUBLICANS ‘SPEND TOO MUCH TIME PREACHING TO THE CHOIR'

In remarks to the conservative conference, Vance sought to introduce himself as a candidate to the activists in the audience, outlining his roots in rural Ohio and from what he called a "nontraditional family."

"This country, ladies and gentlemen, is a great place, especially a great place to a kid like me," he said. "And for that reason, I believe it's time to step up. It's time to fight for it, ladies and gentlemen — it is time to save this country."

Vance urged conferencegoers to back his campaign.

"I want you to support me, I want you to make phone calls for me, I want you to go out there if you're in Ohio and knock on doors for me," Vance said.

Holding the Ohio Senate seat soon to be vacated by the retiring Sen. Rob Portman (OH) is crucial to Republicans' efforts to win a Senate majority. Vance's remarks in Texas come after some recent headlines questioned his campaign's strategy when it comes to campaigning and the candidate's time outside Ohio, including a recent trip to Israel.

Ohio conservative talk radio host Bill Cunningham recently told the Daily Beast that "the Republican faithful are telling me they can't find J.D. Vance with a search warrant."

Vance's schedule has become a talking point for the Ohio Democratic Party, which has hit him for his appearances outside the state.

Vance recently attended the Ohio State Fair earlier this month, and his campaign says he will visit Pickaway County outside Columbus on an agriculture tour next week.

Original Location: JD Vance addresses CPAC in Texas while facing criticism for time outside Ohio

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an 8 22

no twt

Vance, the billionaire-backed U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio, has routinely positioned himself as an anti-opioid China-hawk, promising to rein in Big Pharma and bring jobs back to the U.S. But in recent weeks it has been revealed that Vance, a Trump-backed author, worked for a white shoe law firm that represented multiple Chinese companies and lobbied for Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. Vance then hired an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) resident who cited Purdue-funded studies to downplay the role overprescribing painkillers plays in the opioid crisis as the addiction specialist to Ohio's Appalachian region for his nonprofit, "Our Ohio Renewal."

The apparent contradiction, first reported by Politico, stems from a "vulnerability analysis" posted online by Protect Ohio Values (POV), the Super PAC through which Vance has raised millions of dollars for his Senate campaign. Because campaign finance law bars any candidates from communicating with their associated Super PACs, POV appears to have posted a trove of polling data, strategic documents, and opposition research on a low-profile Medium account for Vance to reference, detailing potential weak spots in his competitors' campaigns as well as his own.

Vance's vulnerability analysis reveals that the lawyer-turned-author, who founded a non-profit dedicated to curbing the opioid epidemic, had at one point worked for law firm Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, D.C. During Vance's time there, the firm's lobbying arm was working on behalf of Purdue Pharma, which pleaded guilty in 2020 to criminal charges and faced penalties of roughly $8.3 billion. During that same time, Sidley Austin also reportedly represented "a Chinese real estate company" and lobbied Alibaba Group, a massive Chinese e-commerce platform. But as a Senate candidate, Vance has repeatedly called for the U.S. to sever its economic ties with the country, calling globalization a "gravy train" for China.

"On one side you have people who want to go back to the America Last foreign policy, the weak on China trade policies," as Vance said in a recent Fox News interview. "And on the other side you have me, supported by President Trump, trying to bring back our manufacturing jobs from China."

The Associated Press (AP) then reported this week that Vance's charity suffered a major conflict of interest when it recruited an AEI resident who never disclosed Perdue's financial contributions to AEI while favorably citing Perdue-funded studies to argue that prescription painkillers played a significant role in the region's drastic uptick in opioid addiction. According to the AP, Dr. Sally Satel "occasionally shared drafts of the pieces with Purdue officials in advance." And as ProPublica reported in the past, AEI received financial support from Purdue totaling $800,000.

Vance's past work may prove a problem with other areas besides Big Pharma. He was with Sidley Austin while the firm filed an amicus brief in support of gay marriage back in 2015, while the Supreme Court was ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges. Since then, Vance has taken countless swipes at the LGBTQ+ community. AIn 2020, Vance excoriated the "conservative legal movement" after Supreme Court ruled that gay and trans workers cannot be fired for their gender identity or sexual orientation.

"The conservative legal movement has accomplished two things: libertarian political economy (enforced by judges) and betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists," he wrote at the time in a since-deleted tweet.

Since the beginning of his campaign, numerous critics have also called out Vance's funding as problematic. Vance has repeatedly blasted Big Tech, claiming that the industry systematically censors conservative voices. But the Republican's chief benefactor is Peter Thiel, a prominent tech billionaire responsible for co-founding PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, through which he was one of the first investors in Facebook.

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MIA?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/jd-vance-2657718764/

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open secrets

Vance surges to victory in Ohio’s record-breaking Senate primary

May 4, 2022 | Outside groups spent over $40 million ahead of Ohio's Senate primary, almost three times more than the previous record of about $15 million.

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an 4 22

As Democratic lawmakers worked to finalize the confirmation of US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a number perplexing events took place in national political theater this week. One of the most pivotal moments centered on Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison’s attack on Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) following the Republican senator's suggestion that Jackson is a Nazi sympathizer, per The Washington Post.

Harrison described Cotton as a “maggot, infested man” while collectively calling out the Republican Party and labeling it a political party “built on fraud, fear, and fascism.”

Almost immediately after Harrison made the remarks, the Republican National Committee (RNC) fired back with a response. But instead of criticizing the Democratic official for his charge about the party, the RNC focused more on his remarks targeting Cotton. In a newly published op-ed, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank highlighted the seemingly odd argument from the party.

"Interestingly, a statement from the Republican National Committee taking offense at the 'maggot-infested' charge did not dispute the “fraud, fear and fascism” formulation," Milbank wrote. "As your self-appointed fact-checker, I have therefore examined the merits of the accusation."

So, Milbank decided to discuss those three keypoints as he highlighted how they factually relate to the Republican Party. In reference to fraud, Milbank highlighted the irony Republicans' claims of fraud as he noted the evidence of fraud that has been uncovered actually proves it was likely committed by members of their own party.

"The 'big lie' about a rigged election, accepted by two-thirds of Republican voters, has spawned new frauds about the dangers of coronavirus vaccines (leading to sharply higher death rates in heavily Republican counties) and the promise, touted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) of the deworming drug ivermectin to treat covid-19; an exhaustive new study finds the drug useless," he wrote.

He went on to offer an example of the type offearmongering Republicans are responsible for invoking. "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)," Milbank highlighted, "said people like Ketanji Brown Jackson become public defenders because 'their heart is with the murderers.' Cotton said Justice Robert H. Jackson 'left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis. This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.'”

Milbank also noted recent remarks made by Ohio Senate Republican candidate J.D. Vance. In a recent ad, hesaid, “Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

Assessing Republican lawmakers' opposition to a resolution in support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Milbank explained how their perspective aligns with fascism. "Sixty-three House Republicans — 30 percent of the caucus — voted against a resolution this week affirming unequivocal support for NATO as authoritarian Russia attacks democratic Ukraine," he wrote.

On another note, he added, "A Republican National Committee resolution, never rescinded, refers to the Capitol insurrection not as an authoritarian attempt to overthrow democracy and keep the defeated Trump in power but as legitimate political discourse.' And Trump expresses regret he didn’t march to the Capitol with the insurrectionists."

He concluded, "Is the GOP 'a party built on fraud, fear, and fascism'? Certainly, not all Republicans think this way. But too many others are subverting democracy, cavorting with white nationalists, spreading racist fears and fantasizing about extrajudicial punishment for political opponents and the media. For them, the jackboot fits."

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/j-d-vances-electorally-stupid-ukraine-comment-has-doomed-his-senate-campaign-conservative/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/twisted-and-warped-maga-republicans-fears-justin-trudeau-more-than-vladimir-putin-conservative/

wingnuttery c owen no twt

'Twisted' and 'warped' MAGA Republicans fear Justin Trudeau more than Vladimir Putin: conservative

Alex Henderson February 22, 2022

At a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin appears likely to invade Ukraine, many right-wing media outlets — from Fox News to the Daily Wire to Breitbart News — are vigorously defending Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán while arguing that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the real authoritarian. Trudeau’s unforgivable sin, according to the MAGA far right, is enforcing vaccine and testing requirements for people entering Canada from the United States.

Conservative Daily Beast opinion writer and Never Trumper Matt Lewis, in a February 22 column, compares the MAGA movement’s views on Trudeau versus Putin — arguing that the American right has truly gone off the deep end when it considers Trudeau the enemy but defends Putin.

“If you want to understand someone’s values or worldview,” Lewis writes, “take a look at who and what provokes outrage and who and what evokes sympathy. The cognitive dissonance inherent in much of the American right can make such an examination problematic. That’s because some of the most prominent voices on the right today view Vladimir Putin as a misunderstood victim. Meanwhile, they cast Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as an authoritarian strongman.”

Lewis goes on to offer specific examples, noting that the Daily Wire’s Canace Owens tweeted, “STOP talking about Russia. Send American troops to Canada to deal with the tyrannical reign of Justin Trudeau Castro.”

The Never Trumper adds, “Or consider Fox News host Tucker Carlson, my friend — though we disagree profoundly on politics — and former boss. Carlson isn’t outraged over what is happening to Ukraine, but found time last week to bash ‘strongman’ Trudeau as ‘the dictator of Canada,’ while saying that ‘Canada canceled democracy.’ There’s also Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who says Trudeau has gone ‘full dictator.’And J.D. Vance, celebrated author and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, who recently declared that he ‘doesn’t really care what happens to Ukraine.’”

Lewis injects some humor into his column, noting that Marty McFly — the time-traveling Reagan-era teenager Michael J. Fox portrayed in the 1985 fantasy film “Back to the Future” — would be shocked to see so many Republicans fawning over a former KGB agent. Indeed, back in the days of Madonna, Run-D.M.C. and Duran Duran, Reagan Republicans railed against the Kremlin nonstop; now, MAGA Republicans consider Putin and his ally Orbán people to be admired.

“If the 1985 version of Marty McFly transported to 2022,” Lewis writes, “it would be impossible to explain to him why so many conservative Republicans are willing to look the other way on Russia invading a sovereign nation, while they simultaneously blast Canada for imposing consequences on protesters blocking traffic…. To be clear, Putin is a former KGB agent and an actual authoritarian. He literally kills and imprisons his critics. And don’t forget the little matter of 100,000 of his troops massed on the Ukrainian border.”

Lewis adds, “Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau is the elected leader of a free nation. He took action to restore law and order [and GNP!]after three weeks of truckers blocking traffic and generally disturbing the peace.”

The conservative Lewis has spent plenty of time bashing the left, but he has been a blistering critic of former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. And he wraps up his February 22 column by stressing that MAGA Republicans are as “warped” now as they were when Trump was still in the White House.

“If you find someone willing to defend Vladimir Putin for threatening to invade and kill his neighbors, while simultaneously calling Justin Trudeau a ‘dictator’ for shutting down a lawless protest after three weeks,you have found someone who either is intellectually dishonest or has a warped sense of reality,” Lewis warns. “If you thought the gaslighting would end with Trump, you were wrong. The American right is getting in the habit of calling evil good and good evil. It’s a truly twisted and perverse perception of a dangerous world, and the scary thing is, it’s catching on.”

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an 2 22

Because “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance comes across as such a cynical, opportunistic, insincere flip-flopper — he went from vehement Donald Trump critic to strident MAGA extremist — his detractors would love to see him lose in Ohio’s 2022 GOP U.S. Senate primary. But former Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel, Vance’s main opponent in that primary, is very much a MAGA extremist himself. And Mandel's campaign is the focus of an article by Politico reporter Michael Kruse.

The bitter, ugly, hateful mudslinging between Vance and Mandel comes down to: I’m more MAGA than you. Mandel and Vance have both focused heavily on culture war themes. And Mandel, Kruse notes, showed how far-right he is at an event in a Baptist church in January.

Kruse says of Mandel, “He called Black Lives Matter activists ‘thugs.’ He called ‘the transgender movement…. insane.’ He called COVID-19 ‘a bioweapon manufactured by the Chinese Communist Party’ to defeat Donald Trump. He talked about the ‘seep’ of ‘illegals’ at the border, describing the emigration of Haitians, Hondurans, Mexicans andGuatemalans as an ‘invasion funded’ by George Soros, ‘orchestrated’ by Barack Obama and ‘enabled’ by Joe Biden. He said he didn’t believe in the separation of church and state because ‘there’s no such thing.’”

Vance’s critics have slammed him as a shameless flip-flopper, and he was brutally mocked in a goofy Republican ad: [vid]

The Vance of 2016 predicted that Donald Trump would be a terrible president — an accurate prediction — whereas the Vance of 2022 is stridently MAGA all the way. But Mandel’s tone is also much different from what it was in the past.

“(Mandel) doesn’t act the way he used to act, and he doesn’t talk the way he used to talk, say so many Democrats and Republicans alike. And they’re right,” Kruse observes in Politico. “He used to present as more moderate, used to preach bipartisanship and diversity and civility, and no longer does. Perhaps most importantly, he once was conspicuously unsupportive of Trump, and now, he has publicly pivoted to full-fledged MAGA. Who, they wonder, is he really?”

Ohio-based Democratic strategist Dennis Eckart views Mandel’s MAGA posturing as motivated by self-serving opportunism.

Eckart told Politico, “I don’t think he’s ever really changed. He’s an opportunity-seeking opportunist.”

In addition to Mandel and Vance, Republicans competing in that U.S. Senate primary include Ohio State Sen. Matt Dolan and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken. Trump has yet to make an endorsement in the primary, which will be held on May 3. But so far, polls are showing Mandel to be the frontrunner.

“For now, this election is Mandel’s to lose, and he absolutely could,” Kruse observes. “But in a primary with no runoff, decided by not a majority, but merely the most votes, he just as surely could win.”

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an 2 22

Conservative technology mogul and billionaire investor Peter Thiel has announced that he is stepping down from the board for Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta. Thiel, who is considered one of the earliest investors in Facebook, will continue to serve in the capacity of board director until Meta's upcoming annual shareholders' meeting. At that point, he will not seek to be re-elected.

According to The Wall Street, Thiel will now be focusing his efforts on helping the Republican Party elect candidates who align with former President Donald Trump's political agenda. Speaking to Bloomberg, an insider familiar with the situation and Thiel's departure revealed which Republican candidates Thiel will be focused on helping.

“He thinks that the Republican Party can advance the Trump agenda and he wants to do what he can to support that,” a source close to Thiel told Bloomberg. “His focus will be on supporting Blake Masters,JD Vance and others who support the Trump agenda.”

In a press release following the announcement of Thiel's departure, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg applauded him for his work. “Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he has done for our company,” Zuckerberg said. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”

Thiel also spoke highly of Zuckerberg saying, “His talents will serve Meta well as he leads the company into a new era."

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gotta go hard right for trumpistas? primary flanker? i thot it was pre-emptive [self-] mockery RCS? 2.0 blog AI solves Jew Q space laser cmd or somesuch or just mirror/cryptic reversal: we are the true VICTIMS and you are the true racists/bully/oppressor/tyrant but now i think they just pick up random devil terms and see if they can be made to stick like spaghetti

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/matt-gaetz/

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., suggested on Wednesday that his office is open to hiring Kyle Rittenhouse as a congressional intern if the accused gunman is acquitted, arguing that the 18-year-old is "not guilty" for the killing of two men during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin last summer.

"You know what, Kyle Rittenhouse would probably make a good congressional intern," Gaetz said Wednesday during an appearance on Newsmax. "We may reach out to him and see if he'd be interested in helping the country in additional ways."

The Florida lawmaker continued: "He is not guilty. He deserves a not guilty verdict and I sure hope he gets it."

Thursday marks the third day of jury deliberations for Rittenhouse's trial, which began on November 1. In August of 2020, Rittenhouse drove from his home of Antioch, Illinois to Kenosha, where he apparently sought to defend a car dealership from the threat of looting in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. During an armed confrontation – the details of which were litigated at trial – Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and injured another with an AR-15-stylerifle.[barrrell short thus got off one slam dunk charge, ok to carry if hunting? POC?]

Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty, claiming that he acted in self-defense, while prosecutors argue that the then-17-year-old acted like a vigilante. "I defended myself,"[[proudly, manly?] Rittenhouse said during the trial last week. The teen faces life imprisonment if convicted.

Over the last several weeks, the televised trial has been closely followed by politicians, pundits, and activists, who have weighed in the proceedings as they relate to racial justice, white privilege, Black Lives Matter, and gun violence.

In a Fox News interview this week, conservative author J.D. Vance, currently vying to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy for Ohio, called Rittenhouse's trial a "farce," adding that "it's child abusemasquerading as justice in this country."

"The kind of people who thought O.J Simpson was innocent are the same people who believe that Kyle Rittenhouse is guilty," echoed right-wing commentator Candace Owenslast week. "Facts don't matter to emotionally-indoctrinated zombies. Only feelings do."

But those on the left have sung a markedly different tune.

Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that Rittenhouse's trial reflects "white privilege on steroids."

"It is literally impossible to imagine a 17-year-old Black kid traveling to a different state … who shoots three people, kills two – who, right now, isn't in prison," Butler told POLITICO.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., spoke about the case with marked candidness for a federal lawmaker, tweeting on Wednesday: "Lock up Kyle Rittenhouse and throw away the key."

Rittenhouse's defense team has already filed a motion for a mistrial with prejudice, according to CNN, meaning that Rittenhouse would be protected from any state bid to retry the case going forward.

For his part,Gaetz also railed against the recent sentencing of 34-year-old Jacob Chansley, the "QAnon Shaman" notorious for breaching the U.S. Senate floor on January 6 while donning a horned fur headdress. On Wednesday, Chansley was sentenced to three years in prison on a single count of felony obstruction of an official proceeding.

"This QAnon Shaman is a relatively harmless,nonviolent veganand the notion that he has to be in prison for three and a half years to settle some sort of political score defies justice,"[eternal victims, shocked shocked playing politics, we never do that] Gaetz continued.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/peter-thiel/

igor salon

Billionaire Republican donor Peter Thiel is bankrolling election conspiracists and primary challengers against Republicans who backed Donald Trump's impeachment after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including an Arizona Senate candidate who is literally on his payroll.

Thiel, the Facebook board member who co-founded PayPal and later the controversial data-mining company Palantir, has long been a top Republican benefactor, donating millions to GOP candidates and political action committees. But in the wake of Trump's 2020 defeat, Thiel has grown more aggressive in his political investments, dropping more than $20 million to support two far-right Senate candidates and helping to fund primary challengers against Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and other Republicans who called for Trump's removal after the deadly riot.

"He wants to be the patron of the Trump wing of the Republican Party," said Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg reporter and author of "The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power." Thiel is focused on building out "Trumpism after Trump," Chafkin said in an interview with Salon, describing the tech billionaire as "in many ways further to the right than Trump."

Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to back Trump in 2016, has made an even bigger splash this election cycle with a $10 million donation to back his protégé Blake Masters, who plans to run for the Republican nomination in next year's Arizona Senate election. Masters is uniquely connected to Thiel, serving as the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital, the billionaire's venture capital fund, and co-writing Thiel's book "Zero to One."

While candidates like Virginia's Glenn Youngkin have stepped away from their corporate careers to run for office, Masters appears to still be on Thiel's payroll. He earned $775,000 from Thiel Capital last year and received more than $340,000 in royalty payments from the sales of "Zero to One," according to a personal finance disclosure that was first reported by Insider. Masters did not respond to questions from Salon about whether he still collects a salary from Thiel's company, but still lists himself as the firm's COO on his LinkedIn page.

Thiel last month hosted a fundraiser for Masters' campaign at his Los Angeles home that cost up to $5,800 to attend.

Saving Arizona PAC, the Thiel-funded effort that has already spent nearly $1.7 million in Arizona, has launched ads attacking state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Masters' principal GOP opponent, for rejecting Trump's lie that voter fraud cost him the election.

"Mark Brnovich says President Trump is wrong on voter fraud. Really? Brnovich failed to convene a grand jury, certified Biden as president. Now he's nowhere to be found, making excuses … instead of standing with our president,".

Brnovich was one of multiple state officials, including Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who certified the election results. The ad does not explain why Brnovich should have convened a grand jury. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud in Arizona or any other state, and courts have repeatedly rejected challenges by Trump allies seeking to overturn Biden's win.

The PAC also blasted Brnovich on Twitter, arguing that he is "nowhere to be found in the fight against voter fraud."

Masters is the "only candidate who will demand fair and transparent elections," the PAC said.

The Saving Arizona PAC recently made yet another six-figure ad buy attacking Brnovich for not being Trumpy enough.

Masters, who was endorsed by Trump's former national security adviser Robert O'Brien this week, has walked a fine line when discussing the presidential election. He has stopped short of claiming that the election was stolen outright, but has boosted conspiracy theories on Twitter about "dead people voting," Dominion voting machines and fears about election "integrity," echoing a trope employed by numerous other Republicans who have tried to distance themselves from the voter fraud lie while still trying to appease Trump loyalists.

After the dubious so-called audit in Arizona's Maricopa County actually showed Biden gaining a handful of votes compared to the official total, Trump and other Republicans began to claim that the audit had turned up serious questions about the election administration. In fact, Republican audit officials testified to Congress last week that the county held a "**free, fair and accurate election."Masters, however, sided with TrumpWorld throughout the process, teasing the release of the audit report, echoing Trump's claims about "fake" polls and "anti-Trump disinformation," and making the evidence-proof argument that "no matter what the audit finds, we know this election wasn't fair."

Masters later demanded action from Brnovich in response to the audit, though he did not say exactly what he wanted the state attorney general to do.

"The AZ audit findings have been referred to the Attorney General," Masters tweeted. "The ball is now in Brnovich's court. He has a track record of doing the bare minimum, so let's pay attention, and we'll see if the Republican establishment is serious about election integrity."

Masters also demanded that Ducey immediately "call a special session" to impose new voting restrictions, even though Ducey had already signed a bill to restrict mail ballots and purge the state's popular early voting list in the spring.

"Get the legislature back to work so they can tighten up our election laws," Masters tweeted. "Starting with universal voter ID for every kind of ballot — nothing less is acceptable."

Masters did not respond to questions from Salon about whether he believes Biden legitimately won Arizona, or what he would like Brnovich to do in response to the "audit" results.

The attacks on Brnovich come as Masters seeks to close a massive early polling deficit against the attorney general. A Republican poll conducted last month showed Brnovich leading Masters, by 41% to 6%. Another September poll from OH Predictive Insights also showed Masters polling at just 6% and performing the worst of any candidate against incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat.

"It's clear Blake Masters is threatened by AG Brnovich," Joanna Duka, a spokeswoman for Brnovich, said in a statement to Salon.

Thiel has also dropped another $10 million to back J.D. Vance, another longtime business associateand the author of "Hillbilly Elegy," in Ohio's Senate race. As with Masters, Thiel has a long business relationship with Vance, who got his start in venture capital working at Thiel's Mithril Capital Management, which is named after a fictional metal in "The Lord of the Rings." Vance later got an investment from Thiel to help start his own venture fund, Narya Capital, which is named after one of the Elven rings in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic. Both men recently invested in the right-wing video platform Rumble.

Masters and Vance are "kind of extensions of Peter Thiel," Chafkin said, describing them as "hardcore ideologues" who are more disciplined and coherent than Trump, but largely focused on the same issues.

Vance has tried to stay away from election conspiracies but defended rioters at the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as mostly "super peaceful." Thiel's allies have generally avoided directly claiming that the 2020 was rigged, but have continued to raise irrelevant or baseless questions about the result.

"They're trying to walk a line and come up with some kind of intellectually respectable version of The Big Lie," Chafkin said, adding that the Thiel-backed candidates have tried to "cozy up" to hardcore Trump backers and "be perceived as friendly to them."

Thiel himself has also cultivated relationships in TrumpWorld. He developed close ties to former Trump campaign chief and White House strategist Steve Bannon, whom Chafkin described as Thiel's "ideological" ally who shares his views on the "deep state." Thiel routed his big 2016 donation to back Trump through the super PAC controlled by Rebekah Mercer, also a major donor to far-right Republicans. Mercer was a longtime patron of Bannon and his projects and has joined Thiel in funding Vance's Ohio campaign. Mercer has spent **millionsto support some of the leading proponents of Trump's election lies, as well as election objectors who fueled the Capitol riot.

More recently, Thiel met with Trump at the ex-president's Bedminster, New Jersey, resort and began funding candidates in support of the former president's revenge tour against pro-impeachment Republicans, according to Politico.

Thiel donated the maximum $5,800 to Harriet Hageman, the Trump-backed primary challenger to Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. Hageman has continued to claim that there are "legitimate questions about what happened during the 2020 election" and supported the Arizona "audit."

Thiel has also donated to Joe Kent, the Trump-backed primary challenger to Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., who also voted to impeach Trump after the riot. Kent spoke at the recent "Justice for J6" rally in Washington in support of the Capitol rioters charged in the attack. He vowed to lead a "full congressional inquiry" into the 2020 election if elected. Kent was among a group of Trump supporters who filed lawsuits last month in Washington state accusing multiple counties of "flipping votes" and calling for a "full forensic audit" of the election.

Thiel's funding for candidates pushing election lies is "totally consistent" with his embrace of Trumpism, Chafkin said. Though Thiel ultimately decided not to donate to Trump in 2020 out of frustration about the former president's "perceived competence," the billionaire has sought candidates who will pursue Trump's hardline policies on immigration, relations with China, regulation of tech companies, "political correctness" and globalization.

On all those issues, Thiel "basically agrees" with Trump, Chafkin said. "He wants to be involved in this movement and what you're seeing now is he's making that play. He's trying to be the main patron to his part of the Republican Party."

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hillbilly JD vance

JD Vance And Peter Thiel: What To Know About The Relationship Between Trump’s VP Pick And The Billionaire

Topline

Key Facts

Forbes Valuation

Tangent

Crucial Quote

What Is Peter Thiel’s Connection To Donald Trump?

Key Background

Further Reading

Listen to Media Matters' Andrew Lawrence explain how the “conservative media bubble” drives the “weirdness” of Republican candidates

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Vance surges to victory in Ohio’s record-breaking Senate primary