webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

JDV 2

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MERRI OK

see webodec 4 JDV 3 TheBrain

fail foreign policy, optics

owns rumble MISINFO

SEE MILLER 3 PAL OF KIRK RACISM MASS DEPORT ICE

SEE RENEE GOOD MINNE COP ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY, DOMESTIC TERROR

SEE THIEL SATAN austrian hayek

POSO UNHUMANS ANTI-COMMIE

see CAMPAIGN FINANCE SCOTUS CU 10 25

fascism = ignore courts DOGE COUP ICE SECRET POLICE MASK IMMUNITY

1789 CAPITAL CORRUPT?

see cryptocoin don jr david sachs apartheid

SEE WASTE FRAUD BS CZAR ~ WISC EVERS SNAP SOMALIA ILHAN THUS ISLAMOPHOBE?

broliarchy yarvin sil vly libtard

NATALISM // EUGENICS RACISM

convert catholic SEE THEOBROS

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JDV ~ TALARICO VILE WEIRD TRANS KIDS BROWSER HISTORY PROJECTION

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SEE XIAN NATL 250TH

see teneo leo

see FREE SPEECH BS cancel gag silence in debate

SEE ACAD SUPPRESS PINKO PROF

see eats pets haiti HYPE OK TO LIE ABOUT IF GETS AT TRUTH?!

see xian nat’l theobros

constant attack / deflect BS mainstream press

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3X DOWN ON RENEE GOOD SHOOTING

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DEFEND MUSK BC NEEDS IN 2028?

an 10 26

On Thursday, the Trump administration’s attempt to dodge blame for the disruption of Ukraine’s Starlink capabilities appeared to blow up. What’s more, the call came from inside the house, as it was Vice President JD Vance who accidentally exposed the whole thing. While President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials have attempted to direct responsibility for the throttling of Ukraine’s Starshield speeds at the company rather than the government, Starlink CEO Elon Musk has pushed back, asserting that the military branch of the system is operated by the Pentagon. When asked about this by Fox News, Vance appeared to back up Musk’s account.

“Fundamentally, Elon Musk runs a private corporation, and I think it's completely understandable that he doesn't want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do,” said Vance. “So I don't think this is about Elon. I think it's fundamentally, what is America's policy in Ukraine to Russia going to be?" And as Reuters National Security Correspondent Erin Banco emphasizes, “As Vance notes here, Starshield is a contract held between DOD and SpaceX. Contractually, SpaceX can't do anything without decision from USG.”

In other words, if Vance is right, then the Trump administration has actively degraded a U.S. ally’s military capacity while aiding one of the United States’ greatest adversaries. As many commentators have suggested, Trump has increasingly aligned with Russia through both word and action. Critics have argued that Trump's order dropping sanctions to buy Russian diesel not only breaks U.S. law, but hands President Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline while doing little to ease skyrocketing diesel prices.

Trump has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the ongoing war — which was launched by Russia — while his special envoy has drawn bipartisan outrage for calling Putin a “humanitarian.” Meanwhile, Putin has floated the idea that Russia, the U.S., and China hold a summit to discuss the war — without Ukraine’s participation — a move Fox News says would be a “serious mistake.” According to Fox national security analyst Rebeccah Heinrichs, “The Russians view the United States as its number one adversary, and they're trying to get the United States to back down and not support Zelensky.”

A growing number of lawmakers are calling for investigations into the Starlink matter, while seven Republican senators have signed a letter telling Musk to remove Ukraine’s restrictions. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has declared the sabotage of Ukraine an act of “treason,” suggesting it warrants the seizure of Starlink.

ref hill

A bipartisan group of nearly two dozen House members is urging President Trump to ask tech mogul Elon Musk to give Ukraine access to Starlink satellite systems to hunt for missile launchers inside Russia, according to a letter sent Wednesday and obtained exclusively by The Hill.

The signatories included seven House Republicans alongside 16 Democrats, widening the GOP coalition looking to bring Trump back to the side of Ukraine as he has swung hard in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We are writing to urge you to ask Elon Musk to let Ukraine use the Starlink satellite internet system to hunt for missile launchers inside Russia. With one phone call, you could both save lives and give Vladimir Putin greater incentives to negotiate,” the lawmakers wrote.

“If Ukraine cannot reliably intercept Russian ‘arrows,’ it must be able to shoot the ‘archer.’ The Starlink system run by Mr. Musk’s company SpaceX could help with that.”

The Republican signatories include stalwart Ukraine supporters Reps. Joe Wilson (S.C.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Don Bacon (Neb.), along with Reps. Carlos Gimenez (Fla.), Jeff Hurd (Colo.), Andy Harris (Md.) and Max Miller (Ohio), who represents a heavily Ukrainian district.

“Mr. President, we all share the goal of bringing an end to the war in Ukraine and the devastating loss of life it has caused,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter sent Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, Putin presently has no intention of stopping the bloodshed.”

The letter bolsters the lobbying campaign on the Senate side led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who chairs the Armed Services Committee and led a congressional delegation to Ukraine last week.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was also on that trip and penned an op-ed in The Washington Post urging the U.S. to give Ukraine expanded access to Musk’s satellites.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has also pushed for more U.S. help in targeting Russia’s missile launchers.

“Mr. President, as you know, Kyiv has petitioned Mr. Musk for a carve-out to this restriction. But only you can push this matter over the goal line,” the lawmakers wrote.

Trump has called for Ukraine to stop hitting Russian oil refineries, blaming those attacks for the high diesel prices in the U.S. that are largely attributed to the war against Iran.

The bipartisan letter comes as a growing number of Republicans have expressed outrage over disruptions in Ukraine to Starlink — and its military-

grade version, Starshield — that hampered air defense and offensive missions.

The Wall Street Journal reported Musk ordered a slowdown in Starlink’s services. It’s not clear how involved Trump was in the discussions surrounding the slowdown.

Some Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for an investigation into the throttling of Starlink and Starshield. Many of these same Republicans have expressed further outrage over Trump waiving sanctions on Russia to export diesel fuel, as he tries to lower prices before the midterms.

Fitzpatrick and Bacon, in particular, have threatened to disrupt Trump’s agenda after the midterms if the president does not change course on Russia and Ukraine.

This includes providing Ukraine “any and all defensive equipment,” blocking imports of Russian oil and raising sanctions against Russia, Fitzpatrick wrote on social media Monday.

“Each and every one of these items will be brought to the House Floor—and each and every one of these items will pass on the House Floor by an overwhelming margin,” he wrote.

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pix in sit rm iran war while djt in maralago?

loomer has ear?

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JD Vance made a gay joke about Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D). Talarico is straight and has a girlfriend, but Republicans have spent this election cycle attacking his masculinity.

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ADAM HAMILTON

AN 10 26

GOP pundit tries to clean up VP's attacks on Kansas pastor's faith

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FART LEFT; TRY TO GET YNG MEN BACK?

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MMA 10 26

MAGA “prophet” Julie Green says JD Vance is "the great white wolf" who is "there to stop our president from doing the will of Almighty God"

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MMA

MAHA Summit entrenches a divide between administration-aligned advocates and popular influencers

Some grassroots activists and popular influencers were notably absent from the event headlined by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and JD Vance

Written by Alyssa Tirrell

Published 10/02/26

What does this week’s MAHA Summit tell us about the state of the movement?

Earlier this week, the MAHA Center hosted the second annual MAHA Summit, described by the organizers as a convention of “senior health leaders across technology, business, and government working to make Americans healthier.” The summit's apparent cooperation with industry figures and the Trump administration seemed to drive further an existing wedge within the MAHA coalition, putting administration-aligned advocates at odds with some grassroots activists and popular influencers. As one activist put it, “I don’t recognize this version of MAHA.”

The MAHA Center — the nonprofit arm of a triad of organizations, including MAHA Action and the MAHA PAC, all tied to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — describes MAHA as “a nationwide movement focused on reversing the chronic disease epidemic in America through advocacy, grassroots activism, and policy reform.”

Nonetheless, several prominent grassroots advocates and MAHA influencers were absent from the lineup — including Turning Point USA’s Alex Clark, Moms Across America’s Zen Honeycutt, and Kelly Ryerson, known online as Glyphosate Girl. Instead, the panels primarily featured Trump administration officials and industry representatives — from health tech, insurance, and agriculture — many of whom delivered sales or policy pitches.

In recent months, elected Republicans have faced backlash from MAHA advocates for apparently siding with industry interests on priorities like glyphosate and agricultural legislation. An invitation to participate in the summit could have been an olive branch to MAHA influencers — but if they received invites, it appears those influencers declined.

A panel on reform at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services did feature podcaster Russell Brand as a moderator — a bizarre choice, not least because Brand has faced charges for numerous counts of rape and sexual assault. In his introductory remarks, Chief Executive Officer of MAHA Holdings Alex Hardy told the audience, “You'll hear from Russell Brand and Dr. [Mehmat] Oz. One's a heart surgeon, and one's a heart throb. We'll let you decide which is which.”

Some issues of recent MAHA activism featured lightly if at all during the panels. There were no dedicated panels for vaccine reform, glyphosate, and data centers — all of which have propelled MAHA advocacy in recent months and some of which would require a brush with industries that were represented among the summit’s speakers.

AI innovation was particularly emphasized throughout the summit, but the MAHA backlash against data centers was only mentioned in passing, when CMS Deputy Administrator Dan Brillman said, “The 58% that don’t use it, hate it. They hate data centers. We need more people using AI to better their health.” At the end of the event, RFK Jr. further promoted AI, telling the audience that it could “free us from medical tyranny” of experts.

Kelly Ryerson and Alex Clark also suggested that the MAHA Summit was not geared toward the women who made the movement a major political force. Ahead of the event, Ryerson told the Washington Examiner, “The MAHA Summit lineup does not reflect the issues that birthed the original MAHA movement and drove voters, especially women, to show up and vote for this coalition,” adding, “I don’t recognize this version of MAHA.” Similarly, NBC reported that Clark did not attend the summit. “Where are the original women who started the movement?” Clark asked.

Of the nearly 60 speakers who featured on the agenda, only 7 were women — one of whom was RFK Jr.’s wife Cheryl Hines, who appeared for just 5 minutes to announce future MAHA events.

Women have played a critical role in the movement — the introductory remarks of the event even paid lip service to “MAHA moms.” So it’s notable that the women of MAHA were largely excluded or chose not to participate in the summit. Their absence suggests that the MAHA coalition is now facing a familiar political question: Is compromise with prevailing power players a sign that the movement is succeeding or failing?

Is the summit just the tip of the iceberg?

The MAHA Summit highlighted an existing fracture in the foundation of the MAHA coalition. In recent months, MAHA Action and popular influencers have taken opposing lines on at least two issues related to the Trump administration.

One such example followed from the EPA announcement this past May that it would drop limits on some PFAS in drinking water. Ryerson, Clark, and MAHA activist Alexandra Muñoz expressed frustration with the move, while MAHA Action praised EPA efforts.

Before the rule was announced, Clark and Muñoz urged the EPA to change course. Clark wrote, “Don't weaken PFAS regulation!!!” and Muñoz posted, “Don't allow more PFAS in our drinking water!!!!”

In response to the change, Clark again expressed her frustration with the move, writing, “We are running one of the largest uncontrolled chemical experiments in human history from an alleged ‘MAHA EPA.’”

Ryerson seemed to agree with Clark and Muñoz, writing, “Yesterday, as predicted, the EPA announced they will be removing limits on certain PFAS in tap water.” Her post also included a quote she had given to The New York Times, strongly advising the EPA “not to move forward on deregulating PFAS if they want to win the November midterms.”

According to the New York Times, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin “sought to counter that anger by appearing Monday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary who spearheaded the MAHA movement, and announcing nearly $1 billion to help states address the contaminants in drinking water.”

MAHA Action backed Zeldin's spin, praising the administration's move. The account wrote, “The EPA is putting $1 billion toward cleaning PFAS from America’s drinking water. After decades of contamination, communities are finally getting help to confront the ‘forever chemicals’ poisoning their water.”

In a separate joint post with MAHA Action President Tony Lyons, MAHA Action wrote that Zeldin and the EPA were “declaring war on forever chemicals.”

A similar dynamic ensued following the announcement of Heidi Overton's nomination for FDA commissioner late last month. Again MAHA Action fell in line with the administration, while Clark, Ryerson, and Muñoz criticized the move.

MAHA Action and Lyons, along with the account MAHA Mommas, praised Overton's nomination, writing, “Secretary Kennedy has given his full endorsement of President Trump’s pick for the next FDA Commissioner, Dr. Heidi Overton.” The post added, “Kennedy is making clear that under Overton, the FDA will answer to science and the American people, not the status quo.”

Clark pushed back, writing, “This is who wrote the glyphosate executive order by the way,” seemingly referring to a February executive order aimed at boosting glyphosate production. Clark’s post was shared by Muñoz. (White House officials disputed the claim that Overton wrote the order, saying it was authored by Trump’s national security advisory team.)

Ryerson again seemed to agree with Clark and Muñoz, writing of the nomination, “Very sad day for MAHA."

The divide hasn’t escaped Lyons, it seems. Earlier this fall, he discussed the MAHA coalition’s role in driving GOP midterm results with Rumble’s Flyover Conservative, saying, “I think the strategy has to be to look at the coalition that worked in the fall of 2024, where we got a few million people to switch parties and to recognize that, like I said before, the party that they thought represented them really didn't.”

Lyons added, “On the more activist side of the MAHA movement — activists are never happy, they're not meant to be happy, the idea for activism is that you can always do better.”

//

MAHA advocates are rallying against GOP “traitors” who passed the farm bill

09/17/26

MAHA influencer: Trump's executive order on glyphosate was a “slap in the face to MAHA” that “might cost the midterms for the Republican Party”

04/28/26

Backlash from MAHA influencers and right-leaning podcasters over glyphosate is loud, but they still stop short of breaking with Trump

03/30/26

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omfg VS ~ OPPOSE WAR?

an 10 26

One of the forces behind President Donald Trump’s Iran paranoia was the fear that a single nuclear blast miles above America could knock out the power grid and plunge the country into darkness.

*The New York Times* reported on Wednesday that the political prominence of beliefs that Iran could knock out the U.S. with nothing more than an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Ironically, the report began by mentioning that during Trump's first term, he "signed an executive order directing federal agencies to defend the United States against an unusual type of nuclear strike that his advisers warned could shatter the power grid, wipe out critical infrastructure and lead to a national collapse."

The problem is that it's incredibly unlikely.

The report explains that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that Iran managing an EMP attack would be extraordinarily difficult to carry out. An EMP is a powerful burst of energy that is created when a nuclear weapon is detonated high in the atmosphere. In a normal nuclear strike an EMP likely wouldn't kill people the way an actual blast would. The real problem is that it would disable electricity, communications, transportation, banking, water systems and other U.S. infrastructure. In an era run by technology, it would collapse the U.S.

In 2019, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen U.S. resilience to EMPs after a New York "dairy entrepreneur" sounded the alarm that even a small nuke from Iran could trigger an EMP and collapse the U.S. Henry Schwartz has been on a mission to incite panic among top Republican officials and advisers in the U.S.

That's when conservatives like Frank Gaffney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, John Bolton, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe and JD Vance began panicking and promoting the warnings and advocating for military action against Iran’s nuclear program.

According to the experts who spoke with the Times, the freakout is being dramatically overstated.

To have a successful high-altitude EMP attack, Iran would likely need a hydrogen bomb, not a basic atomic weapon. They would also need the exact altitude, orientation, "precise alignment of its gamma rays" and unpredictable space-weather conditions.

According to Stephen M. Younger, a former Los Alamos physicist, even advanced nuclear states would struggle with this and the odds that it could take down the U.S. are worse than even a coin flip.

"In the vacuum of space, however, the gamma rays create no shock waves or mushroom cloud. Instead, they strike the planet’s upper atmosphere, producing a chain reaction that creates something akin to a super-strong radio transmitter," said the report. "The gamma rays hit air molecules and knock out electrons that spin around the Earth’s geomagnetic field lines, creating waves of electromagnetic energy so powerful they can fry circuits thousands of miles away."

Experts have certainly kept an eye on it, but it isn't as likely as Mr. Schwartz seems to believe. Still, his close relationship with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggests a Schwartz believer is at the top.

The report closes by making it clear that while nuclear proliferation should always be a concern and grid security is important, an Iranian EMP attack is not a credible near-term existential threat. Schwartz's EMP movement may be politically influential, but among the scientific community, reality reigns. It turns Schwartz's exaggerated campaign into a confrontation with Iran.

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DCK 9 26 BTB-->

Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com › media › homan-confirms-criminal-investigation-involving-ilhan-omar-says-knows-things-going

Tom Homan confirms criminal investigation into Ilhan Omar's alleged ...

Sep 13, 2026Tom Homan confirmed officials are investigating allegations involving Rep. Ilhan Omar but declined to share specifics about possible immigration fraud.

U.S. Department of Justice

https://www.justice.gov › usao-mn › pr › minnesota-man-charged-forcibly-assaulting-representative-ilhan-omar-while-she-engaged

Minnesota Man Charged with Forcibly Assaulting Representative Ilhan ...

Jan 29, 2026MINNEAPOLIS - Anthony James Kazmierczak, age 56, made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court today, charged in a criminal complaint with forcibly assaulting and interfering with United States Representative Ilhan Omar while she conducted an official town hall meeting in Minneapolis on ...

FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

https://www.fox9.com › news › ilhan-omar-under-investigation-doj-over-immigration-fraud-family-finances-may-2026

Ilhan Omar investigated by DOJ over 'immigration fraud, family ...

May 20, 2026The Brief Vice President JD Vance said this week that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. During a White House press conference, Vance claimed the ...

CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com › minnesota › news › ilhan-omar-doj-investigation-jd-vance

VP Vance claims DOJ is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar: "It certainly ...

May 20, 2026Vice President JD Vance confirmed Tuesday that the Justice Department is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar over questions, including immigration fraud allegations and her finances.

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RWW

JD Vance Says James Talarico Has 'A Weird Obsession With Children In Drag'

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mma 9 26

Vice President JD Vance used his keynote address to the GOP’s midterm convention to echo one of Tucker Carlson’s most infamous statements, just one week after publicly refusing to distance himself from the right-wing podcaster.

“Two years ago, we have to remember — our nation, ladies and gentlemen, was tired,” Vance told the attendees in Dallas on Thursday night. After citing factory closures and drug overdoses, he continued: “We were tired of seeing the cartels and the criminals given free rein over our great country. And we were tired of being called racist for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous.“

Who was “called racist” for suggesting “our country was becoming dirtier and poorer”? That would be Carlson, who declared that immigrants were the cause.

“Our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this,” Carlson told his Fox News audience during a December 2018 monologue. “We have a moral obligation to admit the world's poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided. Immigration is a form of atonement.” He then aired footage of what he described as “an endless chain of migrant caravans” in Mexico.

Carlson’s statement that immigrants make the United States “poorer” is incorrect, and his claim that they make it “dirtier” was widely recognized as bigoted. More than two dozen companies dropped their ads on his show in response.

But Carlson refused to back down, repeatedly offering similar remarks and using his Fox show to mainstream other white nationalist tropes and talking points. And a few years later, an enterprising would-be GOP politician adopted the host’s language in a successful effort to win his favor.

On July 1, 2021 — the same day he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate — Vance went on Carlson’s Fox program and told the host that he was running to ensure that his kids “live in the same great country that I lived in. And if we don't do something, if we don't fight back against what's going on in our country, they're going to lose it, they're going to grow up in a country that's much poorer, that's much dirtier, that's much uglier, and where they can't even speak their mind as citizens.”

Carlson fawned over Vance throughout the interview. “I probably shouldn't say this, I'm really glad you're doing it,” he said at its conclusion. “I admire you and I wish you luck, very much. Thank you for doing this. Congratulations.”

Vance would continue to mimic Carlson’s rhetoric on the host’s show, and Carlson in turn backed his Senate campaign on-air — and used his personal relationship with Donald Trump to convince Trump to endorse Vance. Two years later, he helped convince Trump to select Vance as his 2024 running mate.

Since then, Carlson has dived even further into the right-wing fever swamps. He became the nation’s most prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorist; declared that “the defining fact of our lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated”; warned frequently of the influence of “demons”; and hosted a notorious white nationalist and a Nazi apologist for friendly interviews. That last point has triggered calls on the right for Vance to disavow or distance himself from the man who helped cement his political career.

But instead, Vance used a September 3 White House press briefing to portray Carlson as merely a “friend” with whom he sometimes has “political disagreements,” and to attack his critics as un-American.

And last night, Vance gave a wink and a nod to Carlson and his audience on the biggest stage available to him.

// mma

Tucker Carlson helped make JD Vance. The VP refuses to condemn his antisemitism.

09/01/26 3:11 PM EDT

JD Vance’s wildly disingenuous response to his Tucker Carlson problem

09/04/26 11:47 AM EDT

Podcast Wars: Benny Johnson on the “traitors,” Nick Fuentes on the “freaks,” and Ben Shapiro tells us who “dips his head in lard every morning”

09/11/26

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rww 926

Joshua Haymes, a former pastoral intern at Pete Hegseth’s church, is a Christian nationalist who has also said Adolph Hitler was “misunderstood.”

Vice President JD Vance claimed that he is “doing as much of God’s work as possible,” and added that he is at peace if doing so means bringing about the end times.

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Tucker Carlson helped make JD Vance. The VP refuses to condemn his antisemitism Written by Matt Gertz

Published 09/01/26

Vice President JD Vance put his relationship with Tucker Carlson back in the spotlight this week when he was asked about the right-wing podcaster’s history of promoting antisemites at a meeting of Jewish Republicans and refused to condemn his longtime political ally.

“Vance was asked during the fireside chat about right-wing podcasters who have platformed antisemites, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson,” The Washington Post reported of his appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s summit on Monday night. “He declined to criticize Carlson specifically, instead training his fire on podcaster Nick Fuentes, who Vance said ‘really does hate Jews.’”

Carlson spent the last decade diving deeper and deeper into the far-right fever swamp, drawing plaudits from white nationalists for bringing their bigoted talking points and conspiracy theories like the “great replacement” to his then-platform at Fox News. (As Andrew Anglin, a neo-Nazi, put it in 2016: “Tucker Carlson is literally our greatest ally. I don’t believe that he doesn’t hate the Jews.”) He also became a GOP kingmaker, helping shape the party’s platform and pick its candidates, and received a plum speaking slot to endorse Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Committee.

But Carlson’s star has dimmed somewhat since Trump’s reelection. His rhetoric has become ever more bizarre and bigoted (he said earlier this year that “the defining fact of our lives is that whites around the world are being eliminated” and previously suggested Jewish university donors were behind the “white genocide”). His softball interview with Fuentes last year drew condemnations from fellow right-wingers and drove a media and political firestorm. And he had a falling out with Trump over the Iran war and his sense that the administration has been less fascistic than he expected. Carlson recently called for Trump’s removal from office, while the president posted that the podcaster “is a loser, and always has been!”

Fuentes is, as Vance alluded, a notorious white nationalist whose long trail of noxious commentary includes claiming that “Jews are running society” and “are money changers, bullshit artists, psychopaths, charlatans, grifters, manipulators”; explicitly describing “the Jews” as among “our actual enemies”; saying the Holocaust is “fake”; and proposing the identification and arrest of all members of “American Jewry.” And Vance has been happy to condemn Fuentes in the past, saying during the 2024 presidential campaign, “I think the guy's a total loser. Certainly I disavow him.”

But Fuentes’ star continued to rise after Trump’s reelection in no small part due to the willingness of Carlson to promote him. The former Fox host offered up his platform to Fuentes for an interview that Fuentes himself described as “so friendly” (even as he excoriated the host for being merely “antisemite-light”).

So why did Vance pass — yet again — when the opportunity to condemn Carlson was handed to him on a silver platter? Perhaps because the vice president owes the former Fox host for his political success.

Vance underwent a dramatic transformation as he entered the political arena, using dozens of appearances on Carlson’s show beginning in 2017 to rebrand himself from an elite favorite to a populist culture warrior in the vein of the host himself. Carlson, in turn, lavished Vance with praise, and privately lobbied Trump to endorse Vance’s campaign for the U.S. Senate and, two years later, pick him as his running mate.

It’s unclear, at this point, how close Vance and Carlson remain.

In a May interview with The New York Times, Carlson repeatedly refused to divulge when he last spoke to the vice president, saying, “I don’t want to cause him more problems.”

“I couldn't be a bigger fan of him as a man,” he later added.

//

Of course Tucker Carlson is promoting Nick Fuentes

  1. 10/28/25 2:36 PM EDT

What are J.D. Vance and Sean Hannity so afraid of?

  1. 11/14/25 11:40 AM EST

J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s VP pick, owes everything to Tucker Carlson

  1. 07/15/2

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an 8 26

While President Donald Trump claims he’s been waging a war against fraud, one of his former officials asserts that the White House-led anti-fraud task force is really a “ruse to prosecute political foes.” This is according to Miles Taylor, who served as Homeland Security Deputy Chief of Staff during Trump’s first term and at the time penned an anonymous article exposing the dysfunctional inner workings of the administration.

As Taylor wrote on Thursday, according to reports from the New York Times and other outlets, the Trump administration has been leveling claims of fraud against targets ranging from immigrant-owned ice cream trucks to Democratic governors. “The goal was not to take down serious criminals,” argues Taylor. “It was storytelling. Trump says his enemies are grifters. Accordingly, he’s reorienting the federal government to prove — whether they’re governors or immigrants — that his political and societal opponents are rotten right down to the food trucks from which they sell.”

YES I AM CROOKED BUT SO ARE THEY THEM ENEMY

Taylor says there is a clear giveaway to the president’s intentions, writing, “As DOJ is building these types of cases, it’s simultaneously abandoning major white-collar prosecutions. Corporate investigations (which can uncover billions in theft and billions in restitution for victims) have fallen to their lowest level in decades. In fact, the Times found that the volume of such cases is literally thousands below the Biden administration and far below Trump’s own first term. Meanwhile, the president has been pardoning wealthy executives and dropping cases left and right against friendly corporations. So no, the Trump administration is not hunting fraud. It’s hunting down its enemies with anything it can find. ‘Fraud’ just happens to be the easiest label to apply.”

Trump’s actions in Minnesota, says Taylor, offer a clear example. As he writes, “Late last year, welfare fraud was used as the thinly veiled pretext for the Trump administration to launch a massive immigration crackdown (and political shakedown) in a state led by Democrat Tim Walz, who challenged Trump for the White House in 2024. Thousands of ICE and CBP agents flooded into Minnesota to address a problem that — if the reasons were genuine — should have required not more than a few dozen accountants. It certainly didn’t need gun-toting agents. While Trump was forced into retreat, his team first tried to coerce state leaders to forfeit their voter rolls, which critics pointed out had precisely nothing to do with the original fraud claims. Of course it didn’t; from the start, the whole exercise was about political leverage.”

“To understand what Trump’s task force is actually meant for,” says Taylor, “just look at how it’s being managed. The DOJ’s new fraud division doesn’t report to some expert in criminal investigations. It reports directly to Vice President JD Vance, an arrangement without precedent, especially since it effectively circumvents the Attorney General himself…In June, he personally made the criminal referral against Walz. Asked where the ‘war on fraud’ goes next, Vance answered: California. (Surely it’s just a coincidence that they’re going after the blue state led by the man Trump most fears will try to succeed him.)”

Taylor notes other examples, such as charges of mortgage fraud leveled against New York Attorney General Letitia James — who had previously won a nine-figure civil fraud case against Trump — Senator Adam Schiff (D-NY), and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. According to Taylor, “‘Fraud’ has become the administration’s codeword for ‘revenge.’ The term is a respectable-sounding wrapper for criminalizing the political opposition. And now that Trump’s team has systematized the plan with a task force — making the issue a top priority for all U.S. attorneys in the country — we will see more and more cases brought, like the recent cases against left-leaning nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The reality, asserts Taylor, is that Trump’s White House is rampant with fraud, the scale of which will be exposed by a future Democratic administration. While Trump and his allies will attempt to conceal their crimes, “They can’t shred it all on the way out the door, because they’ve trapped themselves. If they want their prosecutions to survive, there must be evidence, discovery, and a chain of custody. The records must exist somewhere, or the cases go away. I suspect that when investigators finally follow that paper trail, it will lead exactly where the Letitia James and Adam Schiff cases already point — back to the White House — and to proof of the deliberate weaponization of the American government against its own citizens. That’s when the real fraud trials will begin.”

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RWW

08/17/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

Rep. Brandon Gill is a first-term MAGA member of Congress from Texas and the son-in-law of discredited election conspiracist Dinesh D’Souza. And he’s the beneficiary of a remarkable faux-intimate fundraising email from Vice President J.D. Vance.

“It feels like I typed & re-typed this note 100 times,” reads the subject line.

The email goes on to say that the message “is more personal and from the heart than most messages, because it's going to patriots that I feel I can trust as our movement’s closest confidants.”

There’s a lot more:

Every time I stand behind the resolute desk, or walk into a critical cabinet meeting to make a decision surrounded by the most dedicated and fearless men and women in our country, I feel the very weight of our country’s survival in my hands and the responsibility of what it represents — a thin, fragile line between the America we love and the America the radical left is determined to build in its place.

And when I sit alone with my thoughts and my prayers the question I ask myself constantly is “what more can I do?”

That’s when I decided I needed to write this message.

At the end of my life, I want to stand before God Almighty and be able to say with a clear conscience that I gave everything I had to protect the soul of this country.

And all that is just part of a plea to follow a link to read Vance’s “urgent briefing,” which opens with this:

My fellow Americans – this is JD Vance.

Today, I’m coming to you with all my cards on the table, not as “The Vice President.”

I’m coming to you simply as JD, the small-town Ohio hillbilly who loves God, cherishes his family, and somewhere along the way ended up being tasked with a critical mission at one of the most critical moments in American history.

The “briefing” repeats some of the email language about Vance sitting alone with his thoughts and prayers asking what more he can do, before going into now-standard Republican smears about Democrats and progressives:

This isn't about Republicans versus Democrats anymore. I need you to understand that what we are facing is something deeper and more dangerous than a partisan election fight.

We are watching the deliberate, systematic infiltration of American institutions by people who genuinely despise this country's history, who mock our values, who want to dismantle Western civilization itself and replace it with something unrecognizable.

A legion of radical socialist candidates is being recruited, funded, and deployed to take over Congress. And their movement is gaining horrifying momentum as we speak.

Gill is no stranger to that kind of inflammatory rhetoric. Last year, when he was urging the defunding of public broadcasting, he claimed that everyone who works at National Public Radio hates Christians, conservatives, and this country. You'd never know from reading this email that Vance and Gill were both on Fox a couple months ago urging Democrats to tone down their political rhetoric.

Vance goes on. He warns that people who hate Trump and Republicans are filling “Democrat war chests.” It is unintentionally hilarious to have Vance—whose career in public life was sponsored and funded by Peter Thiel—warning that “Big Tech billionaires” are backing Democrats. Still, the stakes he portrays are dire:

If we lose the House this November, there is nothing left to protect us from what these deranged leftists and their socialist agenda will do. The America you and I grew up in — the one we are fighting to hand to our children — will not survive what comes next.

I'll be completely and uncomfortably honest with you: I cannot fight this fight alone.

After more paragraphs praising donors’ commitment and patriotism, Vance finally gets to the point:

I'm teaming up with Congressman Brandon Gill — the youngest House Republican in America, a fighter who takes on the radical left every single day in the hearing rooms and on the House floor with a ferocity I deeply admire — and together we are assembling 10,000 of the most dedicated MAGA patriots in the GOP's top donor files to build the firewall this majority needs to survive November.

Vance signs off with, “For God and for the America we refuse to give up on.”

The fine print reveals that unless a donor directs otherwise, 90 percent of their contribution will go to Brandon Gill for Texas, and 10 percent to Trump National Committee. And the finer print reports that funds going to TNC are allocated 77.5 percent to Never Surrender (Donald Trump’s PAC), 17.5% to the Republican National Committee, and 5 percent to Working for Ohio, Vance’s leadership PAC.

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AN 8 26

Republicans appear to be realizing that President Donald Trump's claims that "affordability" is a "con job" aren't winning messages for the GOP as the November 3 election nears.

Writing for The New Republic on Tuesday, Alex Thomas explained that for years, critics have claimed that Republican economic policies aren't working for the vast majority of Americans. Some have gone so far as to claim that it's outright hollowing out the middle class.

Vice President JD Vance appeared on Joe Rogan's show, where he complained that Republicans allowed Wall Street to turn “every asset of modern life” into a profit machine. So, homes, jobs, health care and basic stability are being treated as investments for the wealthy rather than necessities for working families. Vance explained that this was the reason so many younger Americans are open to socialism. The GOP has spent generations championing deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, union-busting and free trade. When big banks and mortgage companies were caught making risky financial decisions and companies collapsed, the government swooped in to bail them out. The victims of the banks were not similarly rescued.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) has criticized his party over corporate giveaways and drastic cuts to social programs. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) supports restrictions on investors buying up homes all over the U.S. Even Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that "free and unfettered trade at the expense of our national economy has shrunk the middle class and left the working class in crisis."

Thomas argued that these statements aren't merely minor changes in rhetoric. He believes that they amount to a growing recognition that the old Republican economic model failed millions of Americans.

In a way, Thomas wrote, Republicans are the dog that caught the car. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's economic policies trend toward being a "dedicated transactionalist." He has "stacked up a Jenga tower of economic policies that are largely short-sighted. Not the sort of ideas you would use to rebuild a party platform that has failed, let alone revive a crumbling economy," Thomas wrote.

Calling Trump's economic policies "zaney," at least "as much as they can be coherently understood," Thomas called it a sharp reversal of the Republican doctrine.

Then there is the party’s biggest obstacle: its donors. Vance may talk about restoring worker power and rebuilding private-sector unions, but he will need the billionaire backers when it's time to begin collecting his own campaign war chest.

Vance may compare AI to the Industrial Revolution, but that was also a period that created huge fortunes while workers fought for basic rights. The difference this time is that the industrialists are already in control, the labor movement is weaker and the Republican Party is still dependent on the billionaires who stand to benefit most, Thomas closed.

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an 7 26

I’m no political consultant, but I don’t think I would make “fraud” the theme of the Trump administration’s midterm election campaign push.

At least not while the reflecting pool disaster remains in the news, the White House is doubling down on sticking with its no-bid contract for the company that oversaw the algae-infested, peeling pool mess, and President Donald Trump is making headlines for raking in $2.2 billion since he came back into office, including $1.4 billion from the Trump family’s cryptocurrency scheme.

“We have got to have a governor who takes fraud as seriously as the President of the United States,” Vice President JD Vance declared Wednesday in Milwaukee during a speech apparently intended to boost Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany.

Vance’s remarks, delivered ahead of a $10,000-per-couple fundraiser ($35,000 if you wanted a photo with the VP), could be read in different ways.

One way is in the context of the poster-sized photo Vance displayed of a Black woman “with the smug look and a Louis Vuitton bag,” as Vance put it — one of the people who owned prenatal care coordination businesses that a 2022 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found had defrauded Medicaid, costing the state more than $15.5 million among them between 2019 and 2022.

Vance, although he was elaborately praised by other Republicans at the Wednesday event in Milwaukee for leading the Trump administration’s crackdown on healthcare fraud, had nothing to do with uncovering the prenatal care scandal in Milwaukee. That was the dogged work of the Journal Sentinel reporters whose efforts led the state Department of Justice to investigate, cut off Medicaid to the fraudulent businesses and pursue criminal charges — all of that years before Vance took office. But Vance saw an opportunity in Milwaukee to connect various Trump administration claims about fraud to a picture of someone Ronald Reagan would have called a “welfare queen.” In his speech, Vance moved directly from that photo to the Trump administration’s efforts to “kick illegal aliens out of our country.”

Black people, immigrants and people who receive food assistance and Medicaid are the “fraudsters,” according to Vance and Republican Reps. Tiffany, Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil, who joined Vance on stage in Milwaukee. They denounced Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers for not sharing sensitive personal data on SNAP recipients with the Trump administration. Vance called Evers’ refusal “borderline criminal.”

“Why won’t Tony Evers turn over the SNAP rolls? ‘Cause he’s cooked the books!” Van Orden hollered.

Steil connected claims about fraud in SNAP and Medicaid to discredited allegations of voter fraud, calling the federal takeover of elections Trump has been trying to force on Congress as “total common sense.”

When a reporter asked Vance about Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s request to talk to him about the harassment of election workers by FBI agents deployed to Milwaukee to “investigate” nonexistent voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Vance implied that Johnson is trying to cover up the fraud.

All of this hype about fraud and repeated assertions by the GOP chorus in Milwaukee that the Trump administration had saved the taxpayers of Wisconsin billions of dollars by rooting it out, is meant to cover up a much, much bigger problem.

Medicaid cuts pushed by the Trump administration and supported by Tiffany, Van Orden and Steil, coupled with the same Republicans’ refusal to renew Affordable Care Act tax credits, have already pushed about 22,000 Wisconsinites off their health insurance. A new KFF report shows that insurers on the ACA marketplace are planning another double-digit increase in rates this year, driven by inflation and the loss of the tax credits, which will cause even more people to lose coverage. Altogether, more than 258,000 Wisconsinites will lose health coverage by 2034 because of Trump administration policy changes, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office.

While Van Orden was yelling from the stage in Milwaukee about people who are ineligible for SNAP allegedly signing up for the program and “literally taking the food out of the mouths of hungry babies,” Wisconsinites know that he voted for SNAP cuts and changes to eligibility rules that led to 15,500 Wisconsinites losing food assistance.

Instead of adequately funding healthcare, food and a decent society, Republicans pushed through trillions of dollars in tax giveaways to corporations and the very rich, tens of billions of dollars for a domestic paramilitary organization that is conducting violent arrests of people who pose no public safety risk, and hundreds of millions of dollarsfor an obscene White House ballroom and no-bid contracts for Trump’s vanity projects on the national mall. That is the real fraud.

Republicans are screaming about “waste, fraud and abuse” to try to distract voters from all of this destruction and graft. But their “fraud” talk just reminds people of the stunning theft of public resources they’ve enabled and are now trying to cover up with flimsy, slanderous lies.

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MMA

“President mass surveillance”: Right-leaning media are calling out JD Vance’s ties to Palantir

Amid an emerging divide over mass surveillance, some right-leaning figures are openly uncomfortable with the Trump administration's close links to Palantir

Written by Noah VanDowe & Ben Van Bloem

Published 07/02/26

As the Trump administration expands its use of the tech company Palantir across multiple agencies and departments within the federal government, some right-leaning media figures are expressing anger and fear about a “surveillance state,” placing a particular focus on Vice President JD Vance’s close ties to the Silicon Valley data management company.

Warning of a future “President Palantir,” these right-leaning commentators have slammed Vance as a “pawn” of “the ultimate deep staters” like Palantir co-founders Peter Thiel and Alex Karp. They have also suggested that the goal of such tech companies is to make it so Americans cannot “live or do anything that feels human.” Other conservative figures have dismissed these concerns, arguing they will cause America to “lose” the artificial intelligence race to China.

Vance has deep ties to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, whose company the Trump administration tapped for administrative data collection

//

  1. ### “We’re headed to a surveillance state”: Right-wing figures and podcasters are protesting the Trump administration’s relationship with Palantir

11/10/25 3:18 PM EST

  1. ### “Weak” and “disgusting”: Right-wing media revolt against JD Vance over Iran negotiations

06/24/26 4:02 PM EDT

  1. ### The plot to subvert the midterms is getting stranger and more dangerous

07/02/26 10:05 AM EDT

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:{:{NOTE JDV SCOTUS ON STUDENT DEBT AND CAMP FINANCE}:

SCOTUS 6 26 PREZ CAN FIRE INDEP AGY EG SLAUGHTER, THIS CAN CORRUPT OR PARALYZE AGENCY BY NO QUORUM}:

OFFICIAL Leadership and structure - FEC.gov

4 VANCANCIES, NO NOMS OR TIMELINE 7 26

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Supreme Court strikes down limits on party spending in federal elections, backing Republican appeal | The Associated Press

(AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday erased limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president, striking down a federal election law that is more than 50 years old.

Prodded by a Republican-led lawsuit that includes Vice President JD Vance, the court’s six conservative justices were again in the majority of the latest decision that upended congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

The limits on party spending stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.

The Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits, in 2001.

But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the court, said that decision was wrong and should be overruled. “In short, constitutional text, history and precedent establish that the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent for the three liberal justices said the court “ushers in untold harm” by enabling parties to funnel large contributions to individual candidates, far in excess of what donors can give those candidates directly.

National parties now will be able to make direct contributions to candidates’ campaigns,

The decision is likely to give Republicans at least a short-term boost because they maintain a sizable cash advantage over Democrats.

The Republican National Committee and its Senate and House campaign fundraising arms have dwarfed Democrats’ in the months before congressional elections where the GOP is defending narrow majorities in both houses.

At the end of May, the RNC reported having more than $125 million to spend, its highest-ever cash on hand total, according to its most recent Federal Election Commission filing in May. Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had more than $48 million on hand in its most recent report and the National Republican Congressional Committee had more than $81 million.

In the same period, the Democratic National Committee had $14.4 million on hand, while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had roughly $37 million and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, roughly $73 million.

The Republican committees for House and Senate candidates filed the lawsuit in Ohio in 2022, joined by Vance, then a senator from Ohio, and then-Rep. Steve Chabot.

After President Donald Trump took office for his second term, the Federal Election Commission dropped its defense of the law and joined with Republicans in urging that it be overturned.

Democrats had called on the court to uphold the law, even though there is wide agreement that the spending limits have hurt political parties in an era of unlimited spending by other organizations.

Last year, the coordinated party spending for Senate races ranged from $127,200 in several states with small populations to nearly $4 million in California, the most populous state. For House races, the limits were $127,200 in states with only one representative and $63,600 everywhere else.

Entrenched divisions between liberal and conservative justices over campaign finance restrictions were on display when the court heard arguments in December.

“Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dissenter in Citizens United and the court’s other campaign money cases.

By contrast, Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the Citizens United majority, described the decision as “much maligned, I think unfairly maligned.” The effect of the decision was to ”level the playing field,” Alito said, by expanding the right to spend freely that had previously belonged only to media companies.

Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont contributed to this report.

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//

supreme-court-strikes-down-limits-political-party-spending-candidates

Press Release

Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Political Party Spending for Candidates

The Court finds that spending limits violate First Amendment, overriding Congress.

Contact: Sophia Lee, Media Contact, leesophia@nyu.edu, 646-925-8734

June 30, 2026

Money in Politics

Today the Supreme Court ruled in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission that limits on the amount of money political parties can spend on candidates violate the First Amendment.

Michael Waldman, president and CEO at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, had the following reaction.

“Today’s campaign finance ruling is part of the Roberts Court’s 16-year drive to destroy anti-corruption laws. From Citizens United forward,these justices have ushered in an era of massive money in politics. If you don’t like the way the political system is working, blame the Supreme Court.

“Here, the Court again overrode the law passed by Congress, going against the wishes of the vast majority of the American public who want reasonable campaign finance limits. The questions at the heart of this case were for Congress to answer, not nine unelected justices.

“The Court’s campaign finance vendetta has given wealthy donors outsized influence, resulting in a fusion of private wealth and political power unseen since the Gilded Age. Public trust in our institutions is plummeting. Congress must act to curb corruption arising from the flood of money in elections and restore Americans’ faith in government. Ambitious reform is long overdue.”

Brennan Center resources

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7 25

The Federal Election Commission officially has a new chair.

Democrat Shana Broussard, who was nominated to the commission in 2020 by President Donald Trump, formally became FEC chair on Tuesday, two months after her fellow commissioners elected her to the position. It’s Broussard’s second time in the role; she previously chaired the commission in 2021.

Broussard is the first permanent chair at the FEC since February, when Trump abruptly removed longtime commissioner and then-Chair Ellen Weintraub from the agency. Since then, Republican Commissioner Trey Trainor has served as the commission’s acting chair.

Broussard is beginning her tenure as chair at a particularly difficult moment for the FEC. The six-person commission has seen its membership cut in half since the beginning of the year.

Republican former Commissioner Sean Cooksey resigned in January to take a job in Vice President JD Vance’s office and Trump ousted Weintraub a month later. Republican now-former Commissioner Allen Dickerson then resigned from the agency in April – on the same day Broussard was elected chair – when his term in office expired.

The resignations and Weintraub’s firing has left the FEC one commissioner shy of the four-member quorum it needs to hold meetings, issue advisory opinions and take enforcement actions. Trump has yet to nominate replacements for any of the vacancies, and it’s unclear when he might do so. Even then, any nominee would have to be confirmed by the Senate before taking office.

Despite its lack of a quorum, the agency has continued to collect, process and post campaign finance disclosure and transaction information.

A ‘Challenging Time’ for the FEC

In a statement on Tuesday, Broussard acknowledged that it is a “challenging time” for the FEC, but insisted that she is prepared to tackle the growing backlog of campaign finance enforcement matters once the commission’s quorum is restored.

According to Broussard, there were 161 pending enforcement matters before the FEC as of April – far fewer than the 452 on the docket in 2021, when Broussard first became chair.

“As money in federal elections increases, so does our agency’s responsiveness,” Broussard said. “The 2024 election cycle set numerous records, both in terms of the money raised and spent on federal elections and the amount of financial activity reported to the Commission. Our disclosure work has not stopped: during the first quarter of 2025, over 3,000 committees reported transactions totaling over $700 million of financial activity.”

“I am ready to tackle any backlogged matters if a quorum is restored before the end of this year,” she added.

No Timeline for Filling Vacancies

Trump has yet to name nominees for any of the three vacancies at the FEC, and the White House hasn’t offered a timeline for when he might do so. A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to C&E’s request for comment on Wednesday.

Still, the Trump administration has shown little interest in enforcing campaign finance laws and has, in fact, signaled that certain regulations should be tossed out.

The Justice Department notified the Supreme Court last month that it would not defend current restrictions on coordinated party spending in a case that the high court is expected to hear later this year.

Likewise, the FEC – at the direction of the Trump administration – has said that it agrees with the plaintiffs in that case, which argues that the existing limits on how much party committees can spend in coordination with federal candidates violates First Amendment free speech rights.

The Democratic National Committee and its associated groups have said that they will defend the current law before the court.

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“As of Today, the FEC Can’t Enforce Campaign Finance Laws — and That’s Only One of Its Problems”

:{:{[May 1, 2025,}:

federal election commissionRick Hasen}:

Dan Weinerfor the Brennan Center:

Starting today, the bipartisan Federal Election Commission won’t be able to do its job. That’s because the independent agency, which oversees money in campaigns for federal office, will no longer have the minimum four required members to do most business.

The loss of quorum is due to the resignation of a Republican appointee, coupled with President Trump’s unprecedented move in February to fire a Democratic appointee. Such a shortfall has only happened three other times in the FEC’s 50-year history, including twice during Trump’s first term.

Ordinarily, the big question would be how fast the president and Congress will move to restore a full complement of commissioners so the agency can function. That is still important. But in light of the firing and the president’s other steps to exert control over the FEC and other independent agencies, there is now a much bigger issue: Will the FEC be able to continue as an independent watchdog at all? Because even worse than a dormant FEC is one that could be weaponized against the president’s opponents….

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GGL 6 26

AI Overview

Allegations of corruption and conflicts of interest are centering around 1789 Capital, a venture firm backed by Donald Trump Jr., and its connections to tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Vice President JD Vance.

YouTube·Volksgeist +5

These specific business and government intersections have sparked scrutiny:

Facebook·McGill Media +1

readsludge.com +1

Clermont County Democratic Party +1

Ethics watchdogs and lawmakers are scrutinizing these ties, alleging that political proximity allows these specific venture-backed firms to secure major government funding and lucrative defense contracts. For further information on the background of these conflicts of interest, you can read the Donald Trump Jr.'s 1789 Venture Fund analysis or explore reports on J.D. Vance's Financial Disclosure.

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RWW

06/26/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

The vice president said he admired Nixon and drew parallels between the past president, who resigned amid pressure in 1974, and Trump today.

A top FEMA official who had drawn scrutiny for bizarre past remarks — including claiming he teleported to a Waffle House — has been pushed out of the agency, four sources tell CNN.

Thousands of men and boys gathered in central Washington for masculinity, Christianity and right-wing politics.

“Celebrate your culture, I don’t care. Italian, Polish—you know, Somali, OK. But they don’t assimilate.”

Podcaster Megyn Kelly celebrated the conservative Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling Thursday that paved the way for the Trump White House to end temporary legal protections and work authorization for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants.

As the latest polls show plunging support for President Donald Trump among evangelical Christians — the group that has remained most loyal to him through three elections — experts say it’s because a growing number of them are beginning to question his “cult of personality” and asking themselves whether they “have to keep supporting everything he does.”

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AN 6 26

When Donald Trump declared, during his 2016 campaign, "I love the poorly educated," that line underscored his claim to represent working-class voters. And a decade later, Trump — despite being a billionaire — and his allies continue to depict MAGA as a movement designed to make the working class more prosperous. But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in a biting late June article, argues that MAGA's appeal to "working-class identity and authenticity" is a sham.

DeVega is vehemently critical of Vice President JD Vance in his article, attacking the "Hillbilly Elegy" author and former U.S. senator as an "opportunist" who has long since turned his back on the working class he claims to represent.

"The years since the publication of 'Hillbilly Elegy' demonstrated that Vance is, at his heart, an opportunist and a chameleon," DeVega writes in Salon. "Before entering politics, he publicly and privately condemned Trump, describing him as 'America's Hitler' and an 'idiot.' Venture capitalist and conservative activist Peter Thiel served as his mentor, funding his career in finance and underwriting Vance's own business. When Vance ran for the Senate in 2022, Thiel was his largest donor, contributing approximately $15 million to his campaign."

DeVega adds, "Thiel's intervention on behalf of Vance serves as a reminder that the vice president did not pull himself up alone by his bootstraps; he had a lot of help and luck along the way."

The Salon journalist notes that when Vance "returns to his working-class roots" in interviews, his appeal to "working-class authenticity" is "largely performative" — which, according to Vega, is typical of the MAGA movement.

"In American politics — especially in the post-Civil Rights Movement era — the term 'working class,' or 'blue collar,' is presented as being race- and gender-neutral when it is usually a stand-in for white conservative and right-leaning men. In reality, there are tens of millions of working-class Black and brown people. Approximately 46 percent of the U.S. working class are women. As a group, working-class Americans support progressive policies. Besides being pro-union, they are in favor of expanding the social safety net, investing in infrastructure, and increasing taxes on the rich and corporations to create a fairer economy and more opportunity for all Americans."

DeVega continues, "When Vance or Trump talk about 'working-class' or 'hard-working Americans,' they are making thinly coded appeals to aggrieved white men and women who feel they have 'lost their country' to Black and brown people, immigrants and others who have 'cut ahead in line.' To that point, research has repeatedly shown that it is not economic anxiety but racism, nativism and white racial resentment that drives support for Trumpism, MAGA and today's Republican Party."

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Brian Kilmeade: “How much better would you feel if Marco Rubio was in that room as opposed to or with the vice president of the United States?”

06/22/26 MICHAEL SOPRANO?

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MMA

The right-wing media revolt against Trump’s proposed MOU with Iran | Media Matters for America

Right-wing hawks absolve Trump of Iran MOU responsibility, blame Vance instead | Media Matters for America

===

CREATURE OF THEIL

The Tech Billionaire Plan To Destroy Democracy | Gil Duran | TMR - YouTube

20 minutes

he is falling asleep a lot. His hands are, you know, the color of grape Kool-Aid. um then he becomes president by default and JD Vance is a man who

20:09

20 minutes, 9 seconds

will do anything to cling to power. You know he he in a recent New York Times story he was calling to use the insurrection act against protesters right he's a big believer in Carl

Schmidt the Nazi philosopher who was also important to Peter Teal who believes that a dictator rises to power by declaring an emergency and changing

20:25

20 minutes, 25 seconds

the rules which is what Hitler did and of course in JD Vance we have a guy who called Trump America's Hitler and is now his vice president. Um, can you people people change their minds?

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an 6 26

New book exposes JD Vance as a fraud

U.S. Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks during an event at Gold Coast Studios on June 17, 2026 in Bethpage, New York. Vance's visit comes after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit this week against New York state officials over alleged Medicaid fraud related to the state’s $10 billion home-care program. Spencer Platt/Pool via REUTERS

:{Michael Signorile, The Signorile Report June 23, 2026

When JD Vance hasn’t been failing in peace talks to end the Iran war, he’s been spending his time going on talk shows to promote his book, “Communion,” all about his conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism.

How he has time to write a book as vice president—and how appropriate that is, considering vice presidents have rarely done so—is another story. This is a book that, like all aspiring presidential candidates, is about setting Vance up to win the highest office in the land, a pretty scary prospect.

On the book itself, I leave it to the scholar Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, who teaches about religion and theology and notes, “Vance’s new book ranks among the worst things I’ve read.”

As has been reported, there’s a United Methodist Church on the cover of this book about converting to Catholicism, and that choice of illustration serves as a metaphor for the ignorance and inauthenticity found within…

Vance appears to be bringing some of his evangelical upbringing and theology to his Catholic faith…That’s why, despite his conversion to Catholicism, Vance still comes across like an evangelical. His willingness to argue Catholic theology, despite his limited knowledge, speaks to his Protestant upbringing..

What I’m going to address more specifically is Vance’s discussion about the book with Ross Douthat, the right-wing New York Times opinion columnist. Douthat, like Vance, converted to Catholicism from Protestantism and has similarly criticized the pope and Vatican teaching. So these are two odd peas in a precarious pod.

Douthat, to his credit, does sometimes ask Vance about contradictions in his writing and thinking when it comes to his conversion to Catholicism. But he too easily lets Vance off the hook when the vice president offers a completely unacceptable answer.

A duplicity on ‘culture wars’

Vance claims in the book, and to Douthat in the interview, for example, that the seeds of his conversion to Catholicism began as he saw conservative Christians focused on the Terri Schiavo case, the woman who, in 1990, was in a vegetative state after cardiac arrest and whose parents battled her husband against taking his wife off of a feeding tube. It was a non-stop media story and a battle between Christian nationalists (including evangelicals and conservative Catholics) and the rest of us.

Vance said this overblown “culture war” issue, like others that are often used by religious fundamentalists to gin up the base and raise money, didn’t speak to him and his life experience as a young man who enlisted in the Marines straight out of high school and was a combat correspondent, a military journalist:

I was about to leave for Iraq. My entire family was terrified that something bad was going to happen to me. My mom was struggling with the worst throes of her addiction problem. My grandmother had just died.

Our economic situation in our family had been bad for a long time. Now it seemed to somehow get worse. And I’m sending money back home to my family and thinking to myself: This Christianity has nothing to say about the struggles in my life.

Vance goes on to say that “it’s important for Christian churches to recognize that there are a lot of kids—whether they’re at college or they’re in the workforce—they’re living the normal struggles of life,” adding that they’re “dealing with heartbreak, they’re dealing with addiction in their family, maybe they’re struggling to find a job.”

Where to begin with this?

First off, why didn’t Douthat ask him why, then, do he and Trump and the religious conservatives of the MAGA base focus obsessively on transgender issues, for example, another “culture war” issue that is completely divorced from the experience of most Americans—including young men struggling with addiction or going into the military—who really couldn’t give a damn about the issue that gins up the religious right base and raised funds for it?

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JDV SENT VID; TRUMP PLAYED GOLF

RECYCLED VID OF HIM BADLY READING THEN MISINTERP BIBLE ~ THE BISH BARBER?

RWW 5 26

[Christian Nationalism ## Much-Hyped ‘Rededication’ of U.S. to God Can’t Draw Trump Off the Golf Course

President Trump called for an event "rededicating" America to God, but he couldn't be bothered to show up for it.

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/much-hyped-rededication-us-god-cant-draw-trump-golf-course

05/18/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

*Commentary

Trump administration officials and Christian nationalist leaders hyped Sunday’s event to “rededicate America as one nation under God” as a historic moment and turning point for the nation, but President Donald Trump skipped it to go golfing.

The same was true for the Saturday evening worship gathering organized by musician and MAGA activist Sean Feucht on the grounds of the Washington Monument; while his followers gathered, Trump went golfing.

The snub was particularly noteworthy because Trump owes his election victories to the overwhelming support he got from conservative Christian voters, thanks in part to religious-right figures telling their audiences over and over again that Trump was anointed by God to lead and save America.

Religious-right figures who helped promote the event made a big deal out of the spiritual importance of Trump as president calling for the nation’s rededication to God. Dominionist anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist Lou Engle has organized many prayer events over the years that drew much bigger crowds, but he said that this one was special: “This solemn assembly is different than any other solemn assembly, for the president of the United States has called this day.”

But the president couldn’t even be bothered to make a video greeting for this “historic” moment like Vice President J.D. Vance did. Instead, organizers played a video of Trump reading a scripture passage from a religious-right organized Bible-reading marathon event a few weeks ago. Engle added that when Trump read that passage, “he opened a door for the greatest awakening America has ever seen.” He called it “a hinge of history moment.”

If Trump cared enough to think that a gathering of “prophetic” leaders might call him out the way Old Testament prophets called out unjust political leaders, he needn’t have worried. None of the speakers calling for personal and national repentance suggested that Trump should repent for his cruelty or corruption. As the Religion News Service noted, neither Sen. Tim Scott nor religious-right activist Alevda King, who spoke about the Black church’s central role in the Civil Rights Movement, mentioned the current MAGA assault on the Voting Rights Act.

Even White House Faith Office Director Paula White didn’t attend in person, sending a short video.

:{:{Ben Carson, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump administration and is now National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the Department of Agriculture, did show up in person. He was one of a few speakers who talked about the need for national unity. There are “forces” that want Americans to think they are one another’s enemies, Carson said. “We are not enemies.” He did not acknowledge Trump’s central role in creating bitter divisions or his ongoing demonization of his political opponents as traitors—or for that matter his religious-right backers’ portrayal of Trump opponents as demonic.}:

And if the organizers of the event were really interested in promoting national unity, or transcending politics as House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed, they would have created an interfaith event that celebrated America’s exceptional religious liberty and religious pluralism. Instead they created an event overwhelmingly dominated by MAGA Christians.}:

MAGA pastor Franklin Graham delivered a video diatribe about the moral state of the country, quoting scriptural warnings about people being lovers of money, arrogant, abusive, heartless, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, and more. While Graham said this list could apply to America today, he ignored the obvious fact that all those traits apply to the president he unwaveringly promotes.

Samuel Rodriguez, a MAGA pastor, New Apostolic Reformation figure, and head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, gave an opening prayer. He spoke for about four minutes, calling for love and justice but failing to utter a single word about the immigrants and other people in their communities who have been terrorized by the Trump administration’s brutal mass deportation efforts. So much for prophets speaking truth to power.

MAGA pundit Eric Metaxas used his time on the platform at the Sunday rally and the Saturday worship service to promote his new book about the American revolution.

At Feucht’s worship on Saturday, Metaxas claimed that every single one of the founding fathers understood that the national narrative of the revolution was, “We are re-establishing the Sinai covenant.” That kind of claim doesn’t bode well for the credibility of his book, but then, there wasn’tmuch hope for that anyway.

On Sunday, Metaxas said God’s hand had guided American leaders beginning with George Washington. After talking about the British burning the White House during the War of 1812, he added jokingly, “It’s hard to believe it that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It’s extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years.”

The actual “prayer of rededication” was delivered by Speaker Johnson, who invoked God’s support for the MAGA war on wokeness and truth-telling history:

In recent years we’ve seen sinister ideologies sow confusion and discord among our people. We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes, and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this nation. These forces insist to the young and impressionable that our story, the American story, is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure, and that this story can only be understood through the lens of our sins. Father, we reject that. We rebuke it in your name. … We turn to you once again to save us from these afflictions, to deliver us from the forces of evil, oppression, injustice, and tyranny both within our borders and beyond our shores.

In asking for deliverance from oppression and injustice, Johnson was apparently not thinking of the authoritarian abuses of power that mark the Trump administration, because his only mention of Trump was to pray that God would “continue to bless our president with the wisdom, prudence, and strength to govern our nation in accordance with your will.”

Neither the smaller-than-expected attendance nor Trump’s apparent disinterest in the “rededication” ceremony mean that the rest of us should ignore that the increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism of the administration and the MAGA movement threatens Americans’ religious freedom and the rights of people seen as undeserving by right-wing Christian nationalists.

// RWW

05/18/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

And the public may never know who their money was spent on.

Nine connected Polymarket accounts have raked in more than $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military actions in what digital detectives from the data analytics firm Bubblemaps have identified as a potentially egregious case of insider trading.

Speakers cast America as ‘morally rotten’ and sinful while embracing the ‘Christian nationalist’ label.

President Donald Trump's free eight-hour Rededicate 250 prayer event held at the National Mall in D.C. Sunday drew a notably sparse crowd, with Reuters photos capturing numerous empty seats.

The ancestors of today’s Christian nationalists weren’t the leaders of Christian America — they were the heretics.

The Christian worship performance scheduled for the National Mall is a religious show.

---

RWW 18TH?

Mike Johnson Says ‘Rededicate 250’ Event ‘Transcends Politics’; So Why Are All the Speakers MAGA Christians?

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson addressing the 2026 National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance (Image from CBN News coverage)

News & Analysis

05/15/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

A letter from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson promoting this weekend’s Christian nationalist ceremony to “rededicate” America to God was sent out by Freedom 250 Thursday evening.

In the email from Freedom 250, which President Donald Trump set up to wrest control of the national celebrations from the bipartisan and congressionally authorized America 250to promote himself and MAGA ideology, Johnson called Sunday’s day-long event “a unique moment for believers" and “a call for unity, repentance, and hope, and one that truly transcends politics.”

That is classic Trumpian gaslighting.

First of all, an event seeking to unify the actually country might in some way recognize the religious pluralism that is an essential part of what makes America exceptional, along with our Constitution’s protections of religious freedom and prohibitions on government-established religion or religious tests for public office.

Instead, every speaker listed in the schedule sent out by Freedom 250 is a Christian; most are evangelical and Pentecostal Trump boosters, along with a couple of right-wing Catholics and other denominations represented. Earlier speaker lists included a rabbi, perhaps as “Judeo-Christian” window-dressing, but he was not included in Thursday’s Freedom 250 email.

It’s a bad joke for Johnson to claim that Sunday’s event “transcends politics,” given that every speaker listed in the Freedom 250 email is a vocal supporter of President Trump, many of them on record declaring him to be anointed by God and some, like White House Faith Office Director Paula White, claiming that Trump’s opponents are enemies of God or demonic agents of Satan.

In reality, this is another opportunity for Trump to posture as a defender of the faith and bask in the adoration of his most loyal supporters at a time when his public support has hit record lows. And it is an opportunity for Christian nationalists to continue to send the false and exclusionary message that the only “real” Americans are the right kind of Christians, at a time when Christian-right and MAGA officials are trying to claim that Muslims and other non-Christians do not deserve the protection of the First Amendment.

The “moment of rededication” will be led by Johnson, along with former Archbishop of New York City Timothy Dolan, MAGA Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, and dominionist New Apostolic Reformation figure Lou Engle. Engle is a longtime anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist who led prayers that God would knock off Supreme Court justices to create vacancies for Trump to fill. In an Engle teaching guide called “The Keys to Dominion,” he preached:

“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God…The same authority that has been given to Christ Jesus for overwhelming conquering and dominion has been given to the saints of the most high….We’re God’s rulers upon the earth…We will govern over kings and judges will have to submit…We’re called to rule! To change history! To be co-regents with God!”

Christians, secularists, and other Americans who reject the MAGA movement’s increasingly aggressiveChristian nationalism are speaking up in opposition to the “rededication.” This week, the Interfaith Alliance projected messages supporting religious freedom for all on the walls of the National Gallery of Art.

---

AN 4 26

President Donald Trump is degrading his own vice president, JD Vance, over the latter’s opposition to the former’s Iran war — and it is painfully obvious to White House observers.

“Nobody in Mr. Trump’s inner circle was more worried about the prospect of war with Iran, or did more to try to stop it, than the vice president,” reported The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman on Tuesday. “Mr. Vance had built his political career opposing precisely the kind of military adventurism that was now under serious consideration. He had described a war with Iran as ‘a huge distraction of resources’ and massively expensive.’”

The Times elaborated that, although Vance is not a dove, he privately expressed the belief that a regime-change war in Iran would end badly for the United States. Because Trump wished to engage in some military action against Iran, Vance urged limited action rather than a large-scale campaign, even advocating for Trump to use “overwhelming force, in the hope of achieving his objectives quickly.”

Yet the president has reportedly noticed Vance’s reticence to declare war against Iran and is politically penalizing his own vice president accordingly, including through public displays of how he is out of the loop.

“The White House’s plans to completely annihilate Iran are so haphazard that even the vice president can’t keep up with them,” reported The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling on Tuesday. “JD Vance was apparently caught off guard Tuesday when a journalist informed him that Donald Trump had threatened to obliterate the entire Iranian civilization by 8 p.m. Vance was onstage in Budapest at the time, feet away from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.”

Even though Vance was at an event with a powerful foreign leader and Trump ally, he was forced to acknowledge that he was not part of the president’s policymaking inner circle.

“Wouldn’t you like to know the subject of this message?” Vance said at one point. “But no, uh, I need to read it first before I talk about it. But here’s, here’s … uh, what time is it in the United States right now?”

Overall, as the Times noted, Trump has emerged as a foreign policy hawk who does not want participation from those who question his judgment.

“In the end, even the more skeptical members of Mr. Trump’s war Cabinet — with the stark exception of Mr. Vance, the figure inside the White House most opposed to a full-scale war — deferred to the president’s instincts, including his abundant confidence that the war would be quick and decisive,” the Times reported. “The White House declined to comment.”

Further emphasizing how Trump does not Vance, the Times noted that the president prioritized secrecy for the meeting.

"'The gathering had been kept deliberately small to guard against leaks," the Times reported. "Other top Cabinet secretaries had no idea it was happening. Also absent was the vice president."

By contrast, the Times reported that the biggest supporter of the Iran war in Trump’s Cabinet was Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

“Within the Cabinet, Mr. Hegseth was the biggest proponent of a military campaign against Iran,” the Times reported, contrasting his attitude with that of Trump’s Secretary of State. “Mr. Rubio indicated to colleagues that he was much more ambivalent. He did not believe the Iranians would agree to a negotiated deal, but his preference was to continue a campaign of maximum pressure rather than start a full-scale war. Mr. Rubio, however, did not try to talk Mr. Trump out of the operation, and after the war began he delivered the administration’s justification with full conviction.”

Writing for USA Today in March, conservative columnist Dace Potas observed that Trump’s war against Iran is hurting Vance’s chances to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2028.

“I don’t have any serious issue with the Trump administration’s actions in Iran,” Potas wrote last month. “Immediately following our initial strikes, I wrote that the actions should have gone through Congress, but that I generally support military action against Iran, and I stand by my view.”

Despite his personal support for the war, though, Potas anticipated bad things politically for Vance as a result of it.

“Trump invoked the rhetoric of isolationism on the reelection campaign trail, promising no new wars to MAGA voters who rallied around that aspect of the ‘America First’ brand,” Potas wrote, adding that this is politically inconvenient for the more isolationist Vance.

“Vance is a more talented candidate than [2028 Democratic frontrunner former Vice President Kamala] Harris, but I’m not sure that’s enough to overcome his involvement in an unpopular administration,” Potas wrote. “Nor is it all that clear how he reconciles his intellectual opposition to interventionist foreign policy with his involvement in an administration active in that arena.”

---}:

AN 4 26

President Donald Trump has decided that his latest scapegoat is Vice President JD Vance, columnist Dana Milbank pointed out while asking how much more humiliation he can take.

In a column for the*New York Times,* Milbank pointed to the awkward conversation between the president and Vance at a closed-door Easter lunch last week.

Business Insider politics reporter Bryan Metzger captured a video of Trump's full speech at the event, which the White House has attempted to remove. The event was supposed to be "press-free," which was supposed to mean no coverage, but it was made public, only to be quickly deleted. It didn't matter, reporters were still able to save the video and have uploaded it to ensure it is still available.

“It’s going good, sir,” Vance replied from the audience after Trump demanded his update on Iran.

“Do you see it happening?” Trump asked, wondering if the war would end.

“Uh,” the vice president scrambled. “We’re going to brief it to you.”

Milbank noted that's when Trump delivered his punchline. “So, if it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance. If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”

The crowd laughed.

On Tuesday, the humiliation deepened as Vance was in Hungary, taking questions from the press, when Trump posted a Truth Social update threatening Iran, "a whole civilization will die tonight."

"I don't have an update from Steve Witkoff," Vance told reporters, pulling out his cell phone.

"Oh," Vance paused, before revealing that Witkoff did send him a message. He said he wouldn't reveal anything without reading it in full and thinking about it for a moment.

Milbank asked if Vance had figured out that "the joke is on him."

While Vance keeps "debasing himself," he seems to get "less and less in return."

Vance has made it no secret that he's got presidential aspirations, but he'll likely have to face off against Secretary of State Marco Rubio who is far more popular in political polls. Milbank noted that it's dimming Vance's political future.

The columnist explained that over the years, Vance has consistently made "devil’s bargains" on issues he once claimed were red lines for him, and, much like his predecessor, Vance is getting nothing for it.

"What once might have been a cruise to the 2028 Republican presidential nomination now looks more like a run through the Strait of Hormuz," wrote Milbank. Meanwhile, "the ethnonationalist right to which Mr. Vance tethered himself now appears to be faltering at home and abroad."

Vance is responding to the ordeal the way he has in the past, said the columnist, "he's humiliating himself."

White House officials "let it be known" that Vance has been skeptical of the war in Iran as an "America First" loyalist. Now, however, Milbank wrote, "Trump has cut off that route of escape, saying Mr. Vance was 'maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.' Mr. Vance is reduced to maintaining that war is OK now because 'we have a smart president whereas in the past we’ve had dumb presidents.'"

Milbank closed by saying that he thinks Vance isn't a fool, but his eagerness to be "Trump's punchline" is "tragic" because he could have "used his office to be something more."

---

an 3 26

'Clash with Catholic Church' escalates as Trump VP insists he never apologized to cardinal

===

NO RIZZ? FOR GEN Z

AN 1 26

Secret recordings reveal Ted Cruz trashing Trump and Vance

'Cancun better be ready': Ted Cruz mocked after secret recordings revealed

---

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AN 1 26

The core basis of the MAGA movement's ideology has effectively been debunked, according to one journalist who has been covering President Donald Trump's crackdown in Minneapolis.

The Atlantic's Adam Serwer claimed earlier this week that "Minnesota proved MAGA wrong" in the wake of the Trump administration's "Operation Metro Surge" this month. In a Wednesday interview, Serwer told the Bulwark's Tim Miller: ""The right has a social theory that multiracial, multi-faith communities cannot be 'cohesive,' that our chaos is the result of the presence of people who are different from us," and then argued that the anti-immigration argument didn't pass muster, pointing to the diverse nature of Minneapolis and the hyper-local network that people of all backgrounds organized in order to protect their neighbors.

Miller prodded Serwer by playing a clip of Vice President JD Vance's interview with the New York Times' Ross Douthat last year, in which Vance asserted that "those who care about what may be called the common good" discount "how destructive to the common good immigration at the levels and at the pace that we've seen over the last few years."

"I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly," said Vance, who is married to the daughter of Indian immigrants. "And so that's not because I hate the migrants or I'm motivated by grievance. That's because I'm trying to preserve something in my own country. Social solidarity is destroyed by migration."

Serwer said while Vance's argument technically "makes sense on paper" and has a "logical progression to it," it was still "wrong."

"We know it's wrong because we can see in Minneapolis, we can see a group of people who, we can see these communities of people who say, 'you are my neighbor whether you were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. You are my neighbor and I'm going to protect you. I'm going to walk your kids to the bus stop because I know you can't go outside. I'm going to bring you food if you need to stay at home. I'm going to help you pay your rent. If I see ICE, I'm going to blow my whistle or I'm going to take out my camera and start filming.'"

"It's a little weird to say that when you consider that a substantial amount of the white population in the United States was segregated into ethnic enclaves where people only spoke their original language for much of the late 19th and early 20th century," he contimued. "And it turned out OK. And what we have here is immigrants are actually assimilating much faster than in that period, like much faster, like second, third generation, they only speak English. So it's just not true."

"What is so moving about the sort of neighborism there is that everybody says it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what gender you are, it doesn't matter what race you are. It doesn't matter what religion you are. You are my neighbor. I will defend you," Serwer added. "And that is a level of commitment to social cohesion that I have yet to see from anybody in the MAGA coalition who all seem to be about stating these things, not so much as a matter of principles they want to see lived in the world, but as a question of brand-building and political identity, which is, I think what JD Vance is doing."

---

---

AN 1 26

Following the recent shooting of Renee Good by an agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the United States, the Donald Trump administration’s latest narrative suggests that “deluded wine moms” are to blame for the violence in ICE-related demonstrations in Minneapolis and across the country.

This mother-blaming is nothing more than an old trick with a new spin.

Organized gangs of ‘wine moms’

A Fox News columnist recently wrote that “organized gangs of wine moms” are using “antifa tactics” to “harass and impede” ICE activity. In the opinion piece, he claimed that “confusion” over the what constitutes civil disobedience is what “got 37-year-old Renee Good killed.”

Similarly, Vice-President J.D. Vance called Good a “deranged leftist” while a new acronym, AWFUL — Affluent White Female Urban Liberal — has appeared on social media.

In framing protesters like Good, a mother of three, as confused, aggressive and “delusional,” this narrative delegitimizes and pathologizes maternal activism.

This strategy aims to divert blame from the U.S. government and its heavy-handed approach to immigration — which has resulted in yet another slaying of a protester by ICE agents in Minneapolis, this time a male nurse who was reportedly coming to the aid of a female demonstrator — while also drawing on a centuries-old strategy of blaming mothers for social problems.

What makes a ‘wine mom?’

The term “wine mom” emerged over the last two decades as a cultural symbol of the contemporary white, suburban mother who turns to a nightly glass of wine (or two) to cope with the stresses of daily life.

The archetype goes back much further, reflected in literature, film and television characters, such as the wily Lucille Bluth of Arrested Development.

Yet, this motif is less light-hearted than assumed: a recent systematic review reveals a strong link between maternal drinking and stress, especially for working mothers.

While it would be easy to view problematic drinking as another example of maternal failure, it is important not to. Here’s why.

Mother-blame in history

Throughout history, mothers have found themselves in the midst of what American sociologist Linda Blum calls a “mother-valor/mother-blame binary.”

When behaving in accordance with socially acceptable and desirable parameters — that is with warmth, femininity and selflessness — mothers are viewed as “good.” When mothers violate these norms, whether by choice, circumstance or by virtue of their race or class position, they’re “bad mothers.”

Mother-blame ultimately reflects the belief that mothers are solely responsible for their children’s behaviour and outcomes, along with the cultural tendency to blame them when things go wrong. Yet, as Blum points out, “mother-blame also serves as a metaphor for a range of political fears.”

Perhaps the most striking example of this is the suffrage movement, which represented a direct challenge to patriarchal notions that women belonged in the domestic sphere and lacked the intelligence to engage in political discourse.

Suffragettes in the United Kingdom — many of them mothers — occasionally used extreme tactics, such as window-smashing and arson, while women in the U.S. obstructed traffic and waged hunger strikes.

These activists were framed as threatening to not only the establishment, but also to families and the moral fabric of society.

Ironically, despite the fact that women’s entry into politics led to increased spending and improved outcomes related to women, children, families and health care, scholars have found that mother-blaming was as common after the women’s movement as it was before.

Contemporary mother-blame

Beyond political matters, contemporary mother-blame is rampant in other domains.

Mothers have been blamed for a wide variety of their children’s psychological problems, including anxiety, depression and inherited trauma. In media and literature, mothers are often blamed for criminality and violence, reflecting the notion that “mothers make monsters.”

When children struggle in school, educators and administrators may blame the mother. Mothers risk being called “too passive” if they don’t advocate for their children or “too aggressive” when they do.

Similarly, the “crazy woman” or “hysterical mother” is a well-known trope in custody law, and mothers may be blamed even when their children are abused by others. Mass shootings? Mom’s failure. The list goes on.

By setting up mothering as a high-stakes endeavour, the cultural norm of mother-blame also serves to “divide and conquer.”

In my sociology research, I found that mothers on Facebook worked to align themselves with like-minded “superior” mothers, while distancing themselves from perceived “inferior” mothers. This feeds into the cultural norm of “combative mothering,” which pits mothers against each other.

An old trick with a new spin

The “wine mom” narrative builds on this historical pattern of mother-blame. It is meant to trivialize, delegitimize, divide and denigrate mothers who are, in fact, well-organized and motivated activists concerned for their communities.

While there are legitimate concerns around maternal drinking as a coping mechanism, the “wine mom” label has begun to represent something different. Mothers are reclaiming the title to expand their cause.

As @sara_wiles, promoting the activist group @redwineblueusa stated on Instagram: “They meant to scare us back into the kitchen, but our actual response is, ‘Oh, I want to join!’”

We should acknowledge that rather than causing societal problems, mothers have a long history of trying to fix them, even if imperfectly. Mothers like Renee Good are no exception.

Darryn DiFrancesco, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Human and Health Sciences, *University of Northern British Columbia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

---

CONTEXT

2ND MURDER PRETTI 1ST AND 2ND AMEND

AN 26

A leading Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota has withdrawn from the race, citing the Republican Party’s “stated retribution on the citizens of our state,” and saying he cannot count himself a member of a party that would do so.

Chris Madel’s announcement Monday morning, just two days after federal agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in under three weeks, was deemed “stunning” by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Madel recorded a nearly eleven-minute video explaining his decision to withdraw.

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” he told supporters. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

“ICE has authorized its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that need only be signed by a border patrol agent. That’s unconstitutional, it’s wrong. Weaponizing criminal investigations against political opponents is unconstitutional, regardless of who is in power,” he continued.

Madel also pointed to the “countless United States citizens who have been detained in Minnesota due to the color of their skin. I personally have spoken to several law enforcement officers, some Hispanic, and some Asian who have been pulled over by ice on pretextual stops,” he said.

“Driving while Hispanic is not a crime,” Madel added. “Neither is driving while Asian.”

The Star Tribune reported that Madel “launched his campaign for governor as a staunch defender of law enforcement and had **:{recently provided legal counsel to Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.”}:

“I do this because I believe the constitutional right to counsel is sacrosanct,” he said.

He also called the federal operation in Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge, “an unmitigated disaster.”

---

AN 1 26

Donald Trump's ego appears to be driving a conflict with the various "hardcore nationalists" in his administration, according to a new analysis from The i Paper, with his desire to be "loved and thanked" conflicting with their desire to go further in cracking down on immigration and protestors.

The administration is facing mounting unrest in Minnesota, where over the weekend, federal officers killed another American citizen, intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. This death, only weeks after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer, has soured more and more Americans on Trump's immigration crackdown plans, which were already tanking the president's approval on immigration, one of his key issues overall.

Writing for The i Paper on Monday, James Ball wrote that the administration is largely uninterested in discontent and protests from Democratic voters, and in fact seems to "relish" causing them pain and distress. The killing of Pretti, however, is driving away increasing numbers of independents and even some Republicans. This has created a conflict, Ball argued, between Trump's desire to be popular with non-Democratic voters and the desires of key figures in his administration to go as far as possible with the immigration crackdowns, as part of their plot to fundamentally remake the U.S.

"The problem for Trump in responding to this self-inflicted crisis is that while most of the American public hates what they are seeing in Minneapolis, some in his White House love it. This is what they came into office to do," Ball wrote. "Trump is surrounded by hardcore nationalists who see him as their vehicle to rebuild America – and mass deportations are the first step in doing that. A faction led by Stephen Miller, and represented by the ambitious US Vice President J.D. Vance, is leading this hardline movement. They are urging the President to go further, all but openly seeking an excuse to activate the Insurrection Act, enabling them to send in American troops into American cities."

Trump, meanwhile, wants on some level to be seen as a unifying figure and as a great president, typified by his recent focus on legacy projects. This instinct, Ball argued, will cause him to pull back on issues like Minnesota when they become toxically unpopular, despite the ambitions of his top officials.

"The main obstacle standing in their way is Trump himself, who, on some level, still wants to be loved and thanked by the nation he so divisively leads. Even now, he complains about the difficulties of building the new White House ballroom, wondering plaintively why anyone would mount legal challenges against a building project he sees as his legacy," Ball wrote.

He continued: "Trump is a petty and vindictive man who wants revenge on his enemies, but he still wants to be seen as a unifying figure – he has more than once spoken of his wish to one day be represented alongside other great presidents on Mount Rushmore. Trump doesn’t look at the footage out of Minnesota and feel horror in the same way most of us do, but he understands that it’s bad for him – trapping him between the hardliners he’s surrounded himself with, and his own political instincts."

---

---

YIKES FASCISM

an 1 26

Doomsday preppers are often depicted as right-wingers. Some are libertarians, while others are Christian fundamentalists. And their reasons for predicting doom vary, ranging from fears of an economic collapse worse than the Great Depression to predictions of nuclear war.

But Dmitri Mehlhorn, according to The Atlantic's Michael Scherer, is a "doomsday philosopher" and a former Democratic strategist who fears a "political apocalypse" under President Donald Trump.

"Betting money puts the odds of constitutional collapse in the United States at about one in 25," Scherer explains in an article published on January 22. "Anyone can wager three or four cents on Polymarket, Kalshi, or PredictIt that will pay out $1 if Donald Trump wins a third term in the 2028 election — an impossibility, according to the plain text of the 22nd Amendment: 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.' Dmitri Mehlhorn, a former Democratic strategist, thinks that the chance of political apocalypse is about 20 times higher — and that Americans need to start preparing now."

Scherer adds, "He recently secured dual citizenship for his family on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and is obsessively thinking through how people should respond if Trump tries to maintain power with the threat of force. He styles himself a doomsday philosopher of this worst-case scenario."

In December 2025, according to Scherer, Mehlhorn visited Manhattan's Soho area to "play a war game of sorts" with "about 15 finance professionals, nonprofit leaders, technology executives, and former Democratic-campaign advisers."

In the game, Scherer reports, the people gathered in Soho faced a fictional scenario in which "President Buzz Windrip" and "his team must increase their own wealth and maintain power or secure legal amnesty through 2030."

Mehlhorn told Scherer that in the scenario, "You have a man who breaks the law, and that man is the strongman. Which bends, the man or the law? That's the question…. If the president has proven in his first term that he will ignore subpoenas and ignore congressional budget authorizations and pardon anybody who also does, then suddenly, there's no power. What are the remaining checks? Every check is gone."

Interviewed by Scherer, Mehlhorn voiced his fears about what could happen in the 2028 presidential election.

"Trump would announce his candidacy for president late, leading the Republican Party to easily nominate him," Scherer explains. "The Supreme Court then would either split on the question of whether this is legal or rule against Trump with no effect. (Vice President) JD Vance has repeatedly endorsed the idea of the president defying Supreme Court rulings. As the votes are being counted, Mehlhorn imagines, Trump and federal law enforcement would declare rampant fraud in urban centers and move to disqualify residents of those districts' votes. In January 2029, Vance would do what (former Vice President) Mike Pence did not do in 2021: use his power to throw the election to Trump."

Scherer continues, "If there is resistance, another pro-Trump mob — including many who have already been pardoned for the January 6, 2021, attack — could provide backup."

Mehlhorn told Scherer, "As president, who stops him? Who prevents that from happening? What person? What combination of people?"

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'Moral stain': Catholic outlet questions VP's faith after his Minneapolis shooting speech

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// jdv yale law grad absolute immunity?

an 1 26

Top aide to President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, spoke to Fox News on Tuesday, and one legal expert says he may have just made things worse for the administration.

According to Evan Bernick, associate professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law, both Miller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are creating a paper trail that will not work out well for them.

DHS posted the interview with Miller in which he tells Fox: “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. Anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony. You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. The Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.”

Bernick commented, "I encourage the administration to continue to leave a paper trail for future lawsuits — which are inevitable, because following this advice will lead to civil rights violations."

Qualified immunity, as explained by the Legal Defense Fund, personally protects government officials, including cops, when they're sued.

"The doctrine holds that officials who violate other people’s constitutional rights can only be held responsible if there exists a previous court decision, with very similar facts, that resulted in other officials being held accountable. Qualified immunity has been used in many cases to protect officials who have engaged in a variety of misconduct, including fatal shootings, police brutality, stealing, sexual misconduct, and more."

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Conservative Bulwark Editor Jonathan Last argued there are two groups of President Donald Trump's voters: Those who signed on to deport 20 million immigrants regardless of whether they had committed any crime, and those who signed on with Trump’s plan to remove only immigrants who were criminals.

“Because people are stupid, that first group of voters believed that there were 20 million undocumented immigrants who have committed felonies. This is not possible,” said Last. “The total number of people in jail in America today — this includes federal, state, local, and tribal land prisons — is just under 2 million. The number of undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes cannot be 10x the entire prison population of the United States. If it were, then daily life in America would look like Escape from New York.”

“So, some Trump voters were duped owing to their general ignorance and/or innumeracy. But others were not,” added Last. “Others signed up for Trump because of his second promise (the 20 million deportations) and viewed the first promise (about deporting only criminals) as the pap necessary to get the suckers onboard.”

The question Last wants to answer is how many “dupes” voted for Trump vs the avowed racists who simply want Brown people gone. To get his answer, Last reviewed an AP/NORC poll showing consistent 80 percent support for Trump’s immigration policies among Republicans. Then he compared that to a more recent YouGov poll showing 80 percent of Republicans still "approved" of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement even after they shot and killed 37 year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good in footage that reveals no threat to agents.

“It seems pretty clear that, at best, one in five Trump voters were duped. The majority of them are getting exactly what they wanted,” Last said. "Now if Trump were to lose the support of 20 percent of Republican voters — or even 14 percent — it would be meaningful for Republican electoral prospects. Which is nice. The problem is that having 80 percent of Republican voters actively supporting a fascist race war is meaningful for our societal prospects.”

That’s a lot of racists in one party, said Last, but what’s worse is the tally of avowed racists occupying high federal positions, including “Vice President JD Vance, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem," as indicated by a recent Homeland Security post claiming to seek the deportation of "100 million" deportations.

“There are 43 million foreign-born Americans. Most of them are legal immigrants. In order to perform 100 million deportations, DHS would have to round up every immigrant of any status —even naturalized citizens — and then also snatch 57 million American who are citizens by birth and deport them, too,” said Last.

“Want to guess who those other 57 million Americans might be?” Last asked, before sharing a recent U.S. Department of Labor X post ordering Americans “To remember who you are.” Last said this slogan is a dead ringer from Adolf Hitler’s own iconic “One People, One Country, One Leader” post from the 1940s. Couple that with a volley of blonde, blue-eyed propaganda posts from Trump’s Department of Labor, and you’ve got even more insight.

“On the one hand, it feels weird to say that the U.S. government is attempting some low-key ethnic cleansing,” said Last. “On the other hand, the reality is that we have a masked secret police force going door-to-door attempting to kidnap brown people; one government agency publicly daydreaming about deporting 100 million people; and another government agency saying that the ideal worker is a 20-year-old white guy.”

Last said this information mingles horribly with the White House’s obsession with white Americans’ falling fertility rate and it’s constant citation of “Stuff white people like” including false claims that white men who “did extremely well” in high school are not getting invited to college despite white men having a “significant advantage” during the application process.

Read the Bulwark report at this link.

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toldfumble trophy w jocks

epst strat mtg scuttled on leak 8 25

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rww

12/22/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

Vice President J.D. Vance spoke Sunday at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference, where Erika Kirk, widow of the group’s slain founder, endorsed Vance for president in 2028. Vance demonized “the left,” promoted Christian nationalism and right-wing populist conspiracy theories, and, unlike other speakers, refused to criticize far-right and antisemitic elements of the conservative movement like fascist personality Nick Fuentes.

Other conference speakers were willing to challenge the movement’s bigots and extremists. Podcaster Ben Shapiro took on Tucker Carlson for having provided Fuentes with an overly friendly platform from which to spread his poison. (Carlson, also invited to speak, mocked Shapiro’s concerns.) Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy challengedFuentes's bigotry along with racially coded ideas like “Heritage Americans” that have taken root in the MAGA movement.

But Vance, who has his eye on 2028, was apparently not willing to risk alienating anyone on the right, demonstrating the concept of NETTR—“no enemies to the right”—that has been at the center of the ongoing turmoil over Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts defense of Carlson’s promotion of Fuentes.

“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self-defeating purity tests,” Vance said from the stage.

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or deplatform,” Vance said, asserting that “the best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie’s death that he himself refused to do in life.” Kirk, Vance said, “trusted all of you to make your own judgment,” adding, “And we have far more important work to do than cancelling each other.” The truth is that Charlie Kirk had both denounced Fuentes and banned him from TPUSA events.

Vance deployed shameless demagoguery against “the left.” People of faiths, he claimed, have realized that Democrats “don’t care about anything other than maybe transing their kids.”

After criticizing some progressive politicians, he said that what they all have in common is that “they are puppets." He continued: "They don’t actually matter. They are cogs in a machine that wants to make you poorer, that wants to make you less powerful, and wants to make you less safe in the country your ancestors built.” Vance urged attendees to honor Charlie Kirk by fighting to “take the country back from the people who took his life.”

He celebrated the Trump administration for achieving “net negative migration” and relegating diversity, equity and inclusion “to the dustbin of history.” Vance declared, “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”

Vance also touted plans to target organizations and funders that oppose the Trump regime’s agenda:

To honor Charlie and to honor all of you, we’re working to end the scourge of left-wing violence in the United States of America. We’re going after the far-left crime networks, but we’re also going after the monsters that fund them. We don’t just want to go after the antifa member who threw a brick at an ICE agent, we want to know who bought the brick and we’re going to prosecute them too.

Vance slammed “activist groups,” “rogue district judges,” “Soros DAs” and others, before claiming:

What unites them? They win when our country loses, they get rich when you get poorer, they hire the illegals that they bring in to take your jobs. They drink fine wine in the countries they ship your jobs to. They censor you because they’d rather destroy the Constitution than risk losing an argument. They bring in millions of voters because they know they can’t win the argument with the people who are already here. And you know what else unites them? We’re going to kick their ass in November and every year after that.

TPUSA has followed its founder’s path from libertarianism to Christian nationalism, and Vance delivered a similar message, declaring, “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America, is that we have been, and by the grace of God always will be, a Christian nation.” (Historian Heather Cox Richardson has addressed the Christian nationalist aspects of Vance’s speech in her newsletter.)

“I’m not saying you have to be a Christian to be an American. I’m saying something simpler and truer. Christianity is America’s creed—the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond,” Vance said. “Across that history, our country’s major debates have always centered on how we could best as a people please God.”

“Even our famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept,” Vance said. “Because we’re all creatures of God, we must respect each individual’s pathway to that God.”

He then shifted into the kind of religious-persecution rhetoric that the Christian nationalist right has long used as a political organizing tool, culminating with the notion that patriots may need to be willing to sacrifice their lives if “that’s what God asks them to do”:

But over the last 50 years there has been a singular focus, a war that has been waged on Christians and Christianity in the United States of America. And let me say, of all the wars that Donald Trump has ended, that is the one we’re proudest of.

For decades, the left has labored to push Christianity out of national life. They’ve kicked it out of the schools, out of the workplace, out of the fundamental parts of the public square. Freedom of religion transformed into freedom from religion. And in a public square devoid of God, we got a vacuum. And the ideas that filled that void preyed on the very worst of human nature rather than uplifting it. They told us not that we were children of God, but children of this or that identity group. They replaced God’s beautiful design for the family—that men and women could rely on and turn to one another—with the idea that men could turn into women so long as they brought the right bunch of pills from big Pharma. They had all the religious fervor of a zealous convert, without any of the grace or forgiveness of a true Christian. Scripture tells us, by your fruits ye shall know them. And we might ask, what are the fruits of these people and their principles? And the answer is a man named Tyler Robinson who killed my friend.

Think about it. He is everything that the far left wants from our young men. He rejected the conservatism and the spirituality, the values of his small town family. He moved into a small apartment. He became addicted to porn. He became addicted to hate. And he ended up sleeping with somebody who doesn’t know whether they’re a man or a woman. That is the nightmare scenario. But that is the scenario that the left has actively advertised that they want for American families. And the young men in the audience in particular, that is exactly why we have to fight them. Because the fruits of true Christianity are men like Charlie Kirk. The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons. And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asks them to do.

Because so many of us recognize that it is better to die a patriot than live a coward.

Vance closed with a pledge of victory:

if you miss Charlie Kirk, do you promise to fight what he died for? Do you promise to take the country back from the people who took his life? Do you promise to help defeat the radicals who cheered his death? Do you promise to honor his memory by having faith in the God he loved? My friends, commit to these things and I promise you victory.

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Brookings Institution nonresident fellow and philosopher Laura Field says a 77-year-old book can explain the MAGA new right, and much of it deals with the rejection of truth.

Author Richard Weaver wrote a book in 1948 that describes the basic contours of the New Right’s closed philosophical approach. Field said you can hear the book’s title, “Ideas Have Consequences,” as a popular catchphrase among conservatives.

Field said Weaver explored a philosophical concept called nominalism, which involves the “rejection of universal concepts and absolute truths — including transcendental moral truths.” Nominalism believes that there is no universal objective moral reality, and “it does not exist as an expression of the divine,” said Field.

By challenging the idea of universal objective moral reality, Weaver said modern man had “succumbed to individualism, relativism, materialism, historicism and politics as will to power.”

“In my research on the MAGA New Right and in the countless hours I’ve spent in conservative academic circles, I’ve heard this Weaver-esque refrain again and again,” said Field. “It is hard to think of a single significant thinker of the MAGA New Right who would disagree with his assessment of the ways in which modern thought is inherently corrosive or who would dissent from his insistence that we must restore some kind of transcendental moral orthodoxy to our politics.”

But when Weaver argued that modern ideas are evil, Field said “he helped legitimate the repression of anyone who thinks about truth differently.”

“When the thinkers of MAGA New Right suggest that only conservatives — or as some put it, heritage Americans — have access to America’s founding principles or that America is a Christian nation, they are providing a justification for authoritarian actions on the part of the government.”

Israeli political theorist and conservatism advocate Yoram Hazony promotesChristian dominance in the United States,arguing that “the only thing that is strong enough to stop woke neo-Marxism, the religionof woke neo-Marxism, is the religion of biblical Christianity.”

“These ideas, to [Hazony], justify limiting immigration as a way to maintain cultural cohesion,” said Field.

Similarly, Field argues that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance seek “to dominate a nation and impose their politics on those who don’t share [their] vision.”

:{:{“It is not the model that America’s founders aspired to,” said Field. “That country is a liberal democracy, and one of its major aspirations — and sometimes its achievement — is that it allows people who have different orientations and belief systems to live together in relative peace and freedom. That is the vision for our country that we must strive to achieve.”}:

Read the New York Times report at this link.

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EXTREMISM MOJO

To Understand JD Vance, You Need to Meet the “TheoBros”
These extremely online young Christian men want to end the 19th Amendment, restore public flogging, and make America white again.

Kiera ButlerNovember+December 2024 Issue

*Our November+December issue investigates the Christian nationalist movement that aspires to take over government at all levels, from school boards and state legislatures to Congress and the Supreme Court. Read the series of stories here.

On July 15, when former President Donald Trump first appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he brought along two new accessories. One was a large bandage covering his ear, which had been nicked by a would-be assassin’s bullet. The other was Ohio’s first-term senator and Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance, who was about to debut as the GOP vice presidential hopeful.

Two days later, after paying tribute to his wife, Usha—the child of immigrants from India—and their three biracial kids, Vance portrayed a vision of America that resonated deeply with Trump voters. “America is not just an idea,” he said solemnly. “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.”

To many viewers at home, this seemed like the stuff of a boilerplate, patriotic stump speech. But the words “shared history” lit up a far-right evangelical corner of social media. “America is a particular place with a particular people,” Joel Webbon, a Texas pastor and podcaster, wrote on X. “This is one of the most important political questions facing America right now,” posted former Trump administration official William Wolfe. “Answer it wrong, we will go the way of Europe, where the native-born populations are being utterly displaced by third world migrants and Muslims. Answer it right, and we can renew America once more.”

Vance was embracing one of their most cherished beliefs: America should belong to Christians, and, more specifically, white ones. “The American nation is an actual historical people,” says Stephen Wolfe (no relation to William), the author of the 2022 book The Case for Christian Nationalism, “not just a hodgepodge of various ethnicities, but actually a place of settlement and rootedness.” For this group of evangelical leaders, Vance, a 40-year-old former Marine who waxes rapturous about masculinity and women’s revered role as mothers, was the perfect tribune to spread their gospel of patriarchal Christian nationalism.

For years, graying, khaki-clad evangelists have faithfully made the rounds at conservative events. However, as Wolfe, a 41-year-old former Princeton postdoc, writes in his book, these “men in wrinkled, short-sleeve golf shirts, sitting plump in their seats” are yesterday’s Christians. Among younger activists, they inspire the rolling of eyes—they are the embodiment of an ineffective boomer approach to taking over the United States for Jesus.

In their place, a group of young pastors hope to spearhead a Christian nationalist glow-up as they eagerly await a “Christian prince” to rule America. These often bearded thirty- and fortysomethings have suits that actually fit. They are extremely online, constantly posting on myriad platforms, broadcasting their YouTube shows from mancaves, and convening an endless stream of conferences for likeminded followers. Let’s call them, as one scholar I spoke with did, the TheoBros.

For all their youthful modishness, this group is actually more conservative than their older counterparts. Many TheoBros, for example, don’t think women belong in the pulpit or the voting booth—and even want to repeal the 19th Amendment. For some, prison reform would involve replacing incarceration with public flogging. Unlike more mainstream Christian nationalists, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, who are obsessed with the US Constitution, many TheoBros believe that the Constitution is dead and that we should be governed by the Ten Commandments.

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In American Reformer, their unofficial magazine, hagiographies of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco appear alongside full-throated defenses of countries that execute gay people. On podcasts, the TheoBros unpack “the perils of multiculturalism,” expose “Burning Man’s wicked agenda,” and peel back the nefarious feminist plot of Taylor Swift. In Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism, one of their seminal texts, he writes that in an ideal Christian nation, heretics could be executed.

The rise of the TheoBros worries more mainstream religious conservatives. Janet Mefferd, a former Christian radio host and journalist who tracks their ascendancy, says her community is alarmed to see an extremist movement gaining traction. “I’m not sure what the endgame is, other than they want to advance Christian nationalism,” she says. “But a lot of us find that terrifying.”

“I’m not sure what the endgame is, other than they want to advance Christian nationalism—but a lot of us find that terrifying.”

The TheoBros’ strategy is bottom-up: They aim to convert small American towns into Christian enclaves. But it is also top-down: Some are working to position themselves close to the locus of federal power. Vance, a Catholic convert married to a Hindu, would seem an unlikely hero for a movement of devout Protestants who believe in a homogeneous America. But over the last few years, his political orbit has increasingly overlapped with that of the TheoBros—so much so that to careful observers, his public echoes of their ideas are beginning to sound less like coincidence and more like dog whistles.

And those dog whistles signal the major themes of this election: hypermasculinity, declining birthrates, ethnonationalism—and no small measure of carefully curated misogyny. If you want to know some of the actors who red-pilled Vance, or at least those who flock to him, you need to meet the TheoBros.

Clockwise from top-left: Douglas Wilson, Joel Webbon, Josh Abbotoy, Andrew Isker, William Wolfe, and Brian SauvéYouTube

With no meetings, website, or an explicit statement of faith that unifies their beliefs, the TheoBros are not an official organization. They identify with 16th-century French theologian John Calvin, who spawned a rigid and deterministic form of Protestantism. Julie Ingersoll, a University of North Florida religion scholar, traces the current movement back to R.J. Rushdoony, an Armenian American philosopher who popularized the idea of Christian nationalism (and homeschooling) in the early 1970s.

Out of Rushdoony’s movement emerged two camps: the charismatic Christians, now known as the New Apostolic Reformation, and the reformed Protestants, which include the TheoBros. They share the goal of creating a Christian nation, says Ingersoll, but differ on a key point of theology: Adherents of the New Apostolic Reformation believe that God is still speaking directly to people through pastors who have declared themselves apostles and prophets. The TheoBros, meanwhile, believe that God said all he needed to say in the Bible.

Many TheoBros are also proponents of postmillennialism, the idea that believers can hasten Jesus’ return by fighting against the satanic forces of liberal excess. TheoBro Aaron Renn, an Accenture consultant turned Christian pundit, has described our current era as a “negative world,” where Christians are persecuted for their beliefs. Andrew Isker, another Bro, calls it “trashworld.”

Like all self-respecting millennials, the TheoBros have little tolerance for boomers, with the exception of their patriarch, Douglas Wilson, a 71-year-old pastor in Moscow, Idaho. When he was younger, Wilson imagined himself going into the family business—Christian bookstores—but after a stint in the military, he moved to Moscow in 1975 to study philosophy at the University of Idaho, where he became involved with the Jesus People, a kind of mashup of evangelical and hippie culture. He helped found Christ Church, the congregation over which he still presides and that regularly draws crowds of 1,300.

Wilson has since turned the college town into his own Christian kingdom. He helped found New Saint Andrews College, the Canon Press publishing house, and Logos School, one of the nation’s first classical Christian schools, where students exclusively study the Western canon. Wilson embraced Calvinism in 1988 and remade his church from the freewheeling Jesus People hub into something far more sober and buttoned-up, where women couldn’t be church leaders and the only music allowed was hymns and psalms. In the early 1990s, Wilson helped launch the Association of Classical Christian Schools, which had 502 member institutions across the United States as of March 2023.

“The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”

His influence over Moscow has not been without controversy. In a 2021 Vice exposé, former members of Christ Church alleged that ministers had encouraged them to stay in abusive relationships. That tracks with Wilson’s 1999 book, Fidelity: How to Be a One-Woman Man, in which he wrote, “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.” For that reason, Wilson wrote, the dynamic of a dominant man and a submissive woman is “an erotic necessity.” (Wilson called allegations of the church urging women to stay in abusive relationships “categorically false.”)

Wilson has also promoted another form of dominance. In the 1996 book Southern Slavery: As It Was, Wilson and his co-author argued that the master-slave dynamic was “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence,” and “there has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world” as that of the antebellum South. (In a 2020 blog post, Wilson said he now allows that while “the benevolent master is not a myth, the idea of the horrific taskmaster is no abolitionist myth either.”) When I asked Wilson about his controversial statements, he likened himself to a chef who strategically deploys jalapeno peppers: “Then some of my enemies online have combed through my writings, have gathered up all the jalapenos and put them on one Ritz cracker.”

:In July, at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC, Wilson shared the stage with Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah), as well as Vance, who auditioned his “America is a people” bit a week before his star turn at the GOP convention. Wilson agrees with Vance’s suggestion that children should be allotted votes, managed by their parents. “I would like to see elections where households vote,” he told me. Men, as the heads of households, would actually cast the votes. Though he believes that women’s suffrage was “a mistake,” he would allow a special exception for single mothers.}:

Wilson offered the crowd a few one-liners (“I’m a Presbyterian, not a Lesbyterian”), but mostly, he talked about the persecution of Christians. “It used to be that the sexually troubled had to keep their kinks hidden away in the closet,” he mused. “Now it is the conservative Christian who needs to keep his virtues hidden in the recesses of the closet.” After the National Conservatism Conference, Wilson appeared at the Believers’ Summit, which was headlined by Trump and hosted by the conservative political group Turning Point USA.

But it’s not just conferences and interviews with the likes ofTucker Carlson where Wilson promotes his ideas. He has a blog, a podcast, and a YouTube channel, thanks mostly to the urging of his children and younger colleagues. One example is that every year since 2018, Wilson has been celebrating what he calls No Quarter November: “The month where we say out loud what everyone is thinking.” In a2023 video, which was the brainchild of one of his sons, Wilson sits at a sumptuously appointed Thanksgiving table, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, and addresses the camera. “If you think of my blog as a shotgun,” he says, “this is the month when I saw off all my typical, careful qualifications and blast away with a double-barreled shorty.” His wife, clad in an apron, brings out a turkey and places it in front of him, and then the tranquil scene is interrupted by a blaring alarm and a glowing red “perimeter breach” sign. Wilson excuses himself, heads to his garage, and straps on a flamethrower. After using it to light a cigar, he aims the fire at cardboard cutouts of Disney princesses Elsa and Ariel, and the logos of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Netflix.

Wilson’s willingness to make campy content sets him apart, says Rachel Tabachnick, an extremism researcher who has been studying Christian nationalism for decades. “Instead of a crotchety old guy talking about stoning people, he’s like, super cool,” she says. “He’s witty.”

In subsequent videos, Wilson tackled women’s culpability in rape, the dark side of empathy, and the virtues of “something called the patriarchy—that which, according to our soi-disant and lisping political theorists, must be smashed. Only they say something like ‘thmasth.’”

Melek Zertal

Wilson has used his platforms to anoint the next generation of ultraconservative reformed Christian pastors, all of whom happened to be men. Mefferd, the conservative Christian journalist, told me that Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism got traction in mainstream Christian circles in part “because Doug Wilson endorsed.” Another Wilsonprotégé is Joel Webbon, a 38-year-old pastor who hosts a podcast and YouTube show, which he films from a wingback leather chair in a book-lined room.

Webbon wasn’t always reformed—he is an alumnus of a Bible school run by a New Apostolic Reformation affiliated outfit, which he now considers “straight-up heretical.” In his 20s, he broke from the group, moved to Texas, and started his own church. In a video from a few years ago, Webboncredited Wilson with emboldening him to say whatever he wanted—like telling a guest that the Founding Fathers weren’t responsible for the slave trade because Africans had done the actual kidnapping and enslaving.

“Kamala sees happy, large families and hates them. She wants them destroyed. She wants you to never be able to have this. She is a nasty, bitter harridan who hates all that is true, good, and beautiful.”

For Webbon, it was intensely liberating to watch Wilson speak in public without worrying about being canceled. “You stay in your little corner, you stay on your little leash, because you’re like, I don’t know what will happen,” Webbon said. “But when you see some other guy do it, and you’re like—that’s the worst thing that can happen? Vice writes an article about you? [Christianity Today editor-in-chief] Russell Moore won’t invite you to his birthday party anymore? Like, that’s it.” At arecent conference, he registered dismay over immigrants in his community. “It’s like full, straight-up Hindu garb at our neighborhood swimming pool, that my daughter is asking [about and] I’m trying to explain.”

In August, he remarked on his show that “a lot of people are gonna be surprised” when “you’re spending eternity worshipping Christ next to Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee and Jonathan Edwards, and, you know, George Whitefield and Martin Luther King Jr.’s in hell.”

Webbon is so impressed by his own audacity that he maintains an online list of all the controversies in which he’s become embroiled. There, he explains why he called Christian men living in California “stupid” (they could just move to a red state); why he once ordered his wife to stop reading a book on theology (he didn’t want her exposed to beliefs that were different from his own); and why he believes in a patriarchal household structure (the Bible says so). Webbon, who is planning to host a conference in Texas next spring called “Christ Is King: How to Defeat Trashworld!” maintains that a “return to the Constitution is impossible” and that the only viable alternative is the Ten Commandments.

Some of Wilson’s other acolytes are attempting to create their own versions of Moscow, Idaho. Take Brian Sauvé, a 33-year-old Christian recording artist, podcaster, and pastor of Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah. Like Webbon, Sauvé wasn’t always reformed—Refuge began as a charismatic Christian church. After the lead pastor resigned in a scandal, the then-24-year-old Sauvé ascended to take his place, immersed himself in reformed theology, and moved the church in a new direction. Today, he presides over a Moscow-esque ecosystem: a publishing house called New Christendom Press, as well as St. Brendan’s Classical Christian Academy, modeled after those in Wilson’s network. “Can you feel it in the sails?” reads St. Brendan’s website. “The stiff breeze out of Moscow, Idaho? We can.”

On his three podcasts and to his more than 53,000 followers on X, Sauvé regularly states that women’s primary function is to bear children. In July, after Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies who are miserable” began widely circulating, he posted: “It is desperately sad to think of all the intentionally barren women who will find themselves totally alone in their 50s, realizing their irreversible mistake. They will wish they could trade it all—money, vacations, independence, all of it—for children they can now never have.”

But unlike more mainstream conservatives, Sauvé does not even pretend to champion the idea of a Judeo-Christian nation. He posted in July, “[O]ur political system is heavily influenced by Jews who reject Christ and embrace all manner of evils.”

An even more well-connected Wilson emulator is Josh Abbotoy, executive director of American Reformer and managing partner of a venture capital fund and real estate firm called New Founding. A former fellow of the right-wing think tank the Claremont Institute, Abbotoy reported that he recently participated in a Project 2025 presidential transition “strategic planning session” hosted by the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. Bucks County Beacon reporter Jennifer Cohn revealed venture capitalist Chris Buskirk was listed as the editor and publisher of American Reformer. (The publication’s cofounder, Nate Fischer, later clarified to Mother Jones that Buskirk’s listing in the filing had been a clerical error, and that he was actually a board member of American Reformer.) In 2022, Buskirk co-founded the Rockbridge Network, a collection of powerful Trump donors including Catholic judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. Another co-founder of the Rockbridge Network? None other than JD Vance.

Thiel, Vance’s mentor and former employer, is also a major funder of the National Conservatism movement. Obsessed with global birthrates, Thiel spent $10 million on his protégé’s successful 2022 Senate campaign. In July, shortly after Trump had announced Vance as his running mate, Cohn surfaced a tweet by New Founding’s network director, Josh Clemans: a photo of Vance with several New Founding staffers. The caption read “Our guy.”

New Founding lists as a partner the Society for American Civic Renewal, a secretive fraternal order founded by Indiana shampoo baron Charles Haywood, who describes himself as an aspiring Christian “warlord.” According to founder Nate Fischer, New Founding wants to “form the backbone of a renewed American regime” and that its members “understand the nature of authority and its legitimate forceful exercise.” But its main public-facing project appears to be turning tracts of land in Appalachia into Christian communities. Promotional materials describe a community of “unmatched seclusion” where “simple country faith” protects local culture from rainbow flags and crime. Potential buyers, he advises, should not delay. “Who’s going to grab the land? Is it going to be good, based people who want to build something inspiring, something authentic to the region’s history, or is it going to be Bill Gates and BlackRock and hippies from California?”

One eager customer is 38-year-old TheoBro Andrew Isker—the pastor who interned at Wilson’s church, studied divinity at New Saint Andrews, and co-wrote a book on Christian nationalism with Andrew Torba, the openly antisemitic CEO of the social media platform Gab. In July, Isker announced on X that he planned to move his family of seven to lead a church in a New Founding community in Tennessee. Life in his native Minnesota, he said, had become untenable because of permissive laws around trans rights and abortion, not to mention how hospitable the state has been to refugees. “Minnesota is one of the top destinations for resettling foreign people hostile to our way of life,” he said.

That month, Isker spoke at a Texas conference about the “war on white America” alongside Paul Gottfried, the mentor of prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer. The conference was hosted by the True Texas Project, a far-right group with ties to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Like many TheoBros, Isker sees much to like in Vance. In early July, before Trump announced his running mate, Isker referred to him as “Senator JD Vance (R-Heritage America).” In late July, he posted a video of Vance and told his 29,000 followers, “You need to double down on childless cat lady discourse. Kamala sees happy, large families and hates them. She wants them destroyed. She wants you to never be able to have this. She is a nasty, bitter harridan who hates all that is true, good, and beautiful.”

One problem is that there simply are not enough TheoBros to populate Christian communities like the one Isker plans to move to. Enter William Wolfe, the founder of the Center for Baptist Leadership, which aims to persuade members of the Southern Baptist Convention that it, the largest of all Protestant denominations in the United States, has fallen prey to the corrupting forces of liberalism. Baptists are only the beginning. Wolfe wants to win over the entire evangelical mainstream, which he and other TheoBros refer to as “Big Eva.” In August, he posted on X, “Once you realize that Big Eva thinks it’s a bigger sin to desire to preserve the customs, heritage, values, and cultural homogeneity of your own nation than to kill the unborn in the womb, you can better understand their moral framework.”

Wolfe served in the Trump administration both as the deputy assistant secretary of defense and as director of House affairs at the Department of State. He is also an alumnus of Heritage Action, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, the arch-conservative think tank behind Project 2025, whose chief architect, Russell Vought, posted on X that he was “proud to work with @William_E_Wolfe on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism.” A few months later, the Bucks County Beacon uncovered a lengthy online manifesto on the goals of Christian nationalists. The document, which listed Wolfe and Joel Webbon as contributing editors and Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers as a co-author, called for “civil magistrates” to usher in “the establishment of the Ten Commandments as the foundational law of the nation.”

The manifesto doesn’t specify exactly how Christian nationalists should achieve these goals. As Tabachnick, the extremism researcher, interprets it, the TheoBros are imagining a utopia where “they are going to be free to be entrepreneurs in all different senses, including the tech world that they’re mixing with so freely.” The key, she said, is that authoritarianism “is required to have the utopian vision.”

Last year, the extremism watchdog group Right Wing Watchposted a video of Wolfe quoting a scripture passage. There are times when “even the God of peace proclaims by his providence, ‘to arms!’” he says. “If we have ever lived in a point of time in American history since then that we could argue that now is a time ‘to arms’ again, I think we are getting close.”

William Wolfe’s Christian nationalism manifesto made the rounds on social media, but in mainstream conservative outlets, it was Stephen Wolfe who brought TheoBro ideas to the wider world. In his book, which was praised by editors at the Federalist and theAmerican Conservative, Wolfe paints America as a “gynocracy” whose government and culture have been feminized by unhappy women leaders. (Sound familiar?) He has stated on X that women should not have the right to vote, and that “interethnic” marriage can be “sinful.”

Wolfe grew up in Napa, California, and his father was an admirer of the right-wing pundit and erstwhile GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. After attending West Point and serving in the Army, Wolfe earned advanced degrees before leaving academia to “do the Wendell Berry thing” in North Carolina with his wife and four kids.

Over the summer, Wolfe, 41, agreed to speak with me on the condition that I refer to him as “Dr. Wolfe” and call him an “expert on Christian nationalism.” The Dr. Wolfe I spoke with was a more muted version of the firebrand I’d watched online. He said his ideal version of America would be led by a Caesar figure. Gay marriage would be strictly prohibited. Women would not be allowed to vote—instead, men would vote for their households.

When I brought up the bit from his book about heretics being killed, he grew annoyed. “I do think it’s permissible, in principle, for a state to suppress theological heresy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s prudent or proper, suitable in every circumstance or every tradition or way of life.” The Founding Fathers, he added, had encouraged religious liberty, so killing heretics would not be appropriate in the United States that we inhabit.

We turned to remarks he had made at a recent conference convened by Brian Sauvé: “I think we need to reflect on this idea of Judeo-Christianity, or Judeo-Christian worldview, or Judeo-Christian whatever, and really eradicate that from our thinking. Because if we say that America is a Judeo-Christian country, then it can’t be a Christian country, okay?” What role, I asked him, would Jews play? After a deep sigh, he told me that they would be allowed to “exercise their religion freely.”

“We need to reflect on this idea of Judeo-Christianity, or Judeo-Christian worldview, or Judeo-Christian whatever, and really eradicate that from our thinking. Because if we say that America is a Judeo-Christian country, then it can’t be a Christian country, okay?”

We spoke a week before Vance’s RNC speech, and Wolfe’s remarks helped me understand what the TheoBros heard in Vance’s phrase about America as a people. The founders, Wolfe noted, intended for their country to be “Anglo-Protestant with an American inflection.” America, he continued, is “a place of settlement and rootedness, but it’s an open ethnicity in which people can become one of us.” Which is to say that, like some others, Wolfe is not necessarily opposed to the idea of nonwhite people in America—as long as they agree to assimilate to the Anglo-Protestant dominant culture.

In this telling, America is not a pluralistic society at all, but rather one in which there exists an uneasy truce between Christians and those they reluctantly tolerate. Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Wolfe what motivated him. “I want Christians to be more assertive and to recognize the Christian heritage of the American way of life, and to seek to restore that,” he said. “This is a Christian country, and we’ve got to work to restore it to what it once was.”

In his keynoteaddress at Sauvé’s conference, titled “Why Multicultural Pluralism Fails and What to Build Instead,” Wolfe called the concept of America as a melting pot “an early 20th-century idea cooked up by a Jew in New York who despised the confident Anglo-Protestant establishment.” WASPs were the “distinct ethnicity” of America, he insisted, and America should only welcome those who aspired to assimilate. As he put it, “This is our homeland, and we welcome you on the condition of conformity.” Or, in the words of JD Vance, America “is a group of people.”

*Correction, September 19: An earlier version of this article inaccurately described Chris Buskirk’s role at American Reformer.

Update, January 14: After this story was published, Nate Fischer, CEO of New Founding and co-founder of American Reformer, clarified toMother Jonesthat Buskirk’s listing in tax filings as the editor and publisher ofAmerican Reformerhad been a “clerical error (presumably copying his bio fromAmerican Greatness, where he was editor and publisher)” and that Buskirk was actually a board member ofAmerican Reformer. The sentence has been revised.*

{Read our full investigation into the rise of Christian nationalism.*}:

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Right-wing media embrace Trump policies that experts say increase housing costs

Conservative media join Vice President JD Vance in scapegoating immigrants for high housing costs

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 11/20/25

Right-wing media have continued to assist the Trump administration pivot to affordability after a slate of Democrats successfully ran on the issue, now focusing on high housing costs, which have risen in many markets during President Donald Trump’s second term. But many of the policies embraced by Trump’s media allies — including tariffs, 50-year mortgages, and mass deportations — will likely contribute to even higher housing costs.

Conservative media have also joined Vice President JD Vance in scapegoating immigrants for housing affordability issues, even as reporting and research suggest that immigration is not the primary source of high housing costs.

Much like the hoax Vance propagated ahead of the 2024 election that immigrants were eating pets, the idea that immigrants are responsible for housing woes has fascist and Nazi roots.

Many economists say immigration is not driving high housing prices

MMA //

  1. ### This Fox segment demonstrates the network’s struggle to craft a coherent affordability message for Trump

11/18/25 3:59 PM EST

  1. ### Fox & Friends praises Trump for “quick fix” on affordability by lowering his tariffs — which Fox used to celebrate

11/14/25 12:02 PM EST

  1. ### It took big Democratic wins for right-wing media to admit that the affordability crisis is getting worse

11/06/25

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AN 11 25

A controversial theory that states an “aristocracy” is needed to move the country forward is being pushed as the playbook for a post-President Donald Trump MAGA with tech-elites at the center of power, according to the Washington Post.

At the center of this theory is a lesser known "tech elite," Arizona insurance entrepreneur and conservative media Chris Buskirk, who according to the Post, "helms the Rockbridge Network, a secretive organization ... that has established itself as one of the most influential forces in GOP politics."

"With significant funding from tech leaders, Rockbridge aims to equip MAGA to outlive Trump," the Post explains.

The group is gearing up for the midterms and the 2028 presidential election, in which members "hope" Vice President JD Vance — a close ally of tech billionaire Peter Thiel — will be the Republican nominee.

Although Buskirk is much more low-key than Thiel and his more known billionaire buddies, his ties to the Trump world run deep, the Postexplains.

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1789 Capital, the venture capital firm Buskirk co-founded with investor Omeed Malik, focuses on what the partners call “patriotic capitalism” and now counts Donald Trump Jr. as a partner, the Post says, adding "the pair — along with administration officials and friends — recently launched Executive Branch, a $500,000-a-head membership club for Trump-supporting business leaders to hobnob in D.C."

While some see a direct contradiction to the notion of MAGA elite at the helm a populist movement, Buskirk, the Post says, argues they're "not in defiance of MAGA’s populism."

"Buskirk says the MAGA movement has energized a new generation of stewards for the country," the Post writes.

"His various projects echo what some on the right call 'aristopopulism' and aim to build a bridge between wealthy capitalists and the working-class people they intend to represent, according to interviews with Buskirk and nine other people in his inner circle, profitably reindustrializing the country and tying their interests to that of their base," the Post explains.

Buskirk explains it, saying, "You either have an extractive elite — an oligarchy — or you have a productive elite — an aristocracy — in every society."

And while Buskirk says he was initially skeptical of Trump as he emerged from reality television host to the presidency, "He’s actually been saying the same thing for 40 years! And that’s when I realized, okay, he’s for real. And the people that are saying he is not serious are lying.”

In his book "America and the Art of the Possible," Buskirk argues for "a proper elite that takes care of the country and governs it well so that everyone prospers.”

Oren Cass, chief economist of the conservative think tank American Compass, says that while some still view Trump’s support as “a cult of personality,” Buskirk helms a "powerful ecosystem" that now backs the MAGA movement.

“Chris is the convener of that ecosystem,” he tells the Post.

Malik agrees, telling the Post that Buskirk was “the first mover” to recognize that there were going to be thousands of well-off people who “no longer felt at home in the Democratic Party."

Vance, who became fast friends with Buskirk after being introduced by Thiel, also gave a rousing endorsement in a statement to the Post saying, he's an "original thinker” who saw “before almost anyone” how the “right combination of ideas, organizing and funding can ensure lasting political success for the Republican Party.”

Malik hosted a small fundraiser for Vance at a Palm Beach restaurant during his "long-shot bid" for public office in 2022. Following that, they went to Mar-a-Lago, where Buskirk was having a Rockbridge conference.

"The men spent the week bonding over their rage about what they viewed as online censorship and a feeling that innovation was being stymied in favor of liberal priorities such as sustainability and diversity initiatives," the Postwrites.

Critics, however, see Buskirk's movement as "the rise of a group of unelected American oligarchs who are undermining Trump’s promises to benefit working people," the Post writes.

Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, says "the government’s job is to advance the prosperity of the nation and not the prosperity of wealthy individuals, founders, and executives.”

However, thePost says that interest in Buskirk's group has surged and "the vibe is euphoric."

"Several of the group’s members are billionaires; prominent investors Marc Andreessenand David Sacks are already members," they explain.

Richard Painter, a corporate law professor at the University of Minnesota who served as chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House, "said this influx of interest in Rockbridge, 1789 and Executive Branch, creates the appearance of a 'pay-to-play' network, of people who are paying to get access to administration officials or the Trump family."

Buskirk insists he knows what will make America actually great, telling the Postthat American greatness will only be accomplished “by the intentional cultivation of talented, high-agency people working together in high-trust environments.”

SOUNDS LIKE THE Mafia?

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NEW RT

pt 2 Trump’s Inner-Circle EXPOSED as TERM SPIRALS - YouTube

0:00

Welcome to the Court of History. I'm Sydney Blumenthal. I'm here with my

0:05

uh co-host Sean w alenz of Princeton. We are here on Legal AF, subscribe to Legal

0:12

AF. We are um joined by Laura Field, the author of Furious Minds, the making of

0:18

the Maga New Right, discussing not simply the philosophical in um ideas

0:25

behind Trump and Trumpism and the infrastructure, but their real influences

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OMFG SEE LEVER

[### JD Vance's Supreme Court Plot

The Lever

https://www.levernews.com › jd-vances-supreme-court-p...](https://www.levernews.com/jd-vances-supreme-court-plot/)

Oct 16, 2025 — Two new Supreme Court cases are designed to end campaign finance laws, legalize bribery, and create Citizens United 2.0.

MOst Americans want to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that unleashed unlimited corporate spending on U.S. elections. But two new cases before the high court — including one spearheaded by now-Vice President JD Vance — are instead set to expand that ruling and turn America into a kleptocracy.

For the next several episodes of Lever Time, we’re taking a deep dive into Citizens United and how it’s transformed our lives. In this first episode, David Sirota uncovers conservatives’ plan to deregulate the campaign finance system, their efforts to legalize bribery, and what options we have to stop them.

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LISTENon your podcast player of choice:

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A full transcript of today’s episode is available below.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] David Sirota: From The Lever's reader supported newsroom, this is Lever Time. I'm David Sirota. We may be in an age of partisan polarization, but most Americans still agree on one thing. Money corrupts the political process. 15 years ago, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United, the landmark case that allows corporations and billionaires to overrun our political system with cold hard cash.

American democracy has been tilted in favor of the rich ever since that decision. Most Americans would like to overturn Citizens United according to polls, and there have been many attempts, but two new Supreme Court cases, including one originally spearheaded by Vice President JD Vance, could go. In exactly the opposite direction.

They could eliminate the

last restrictions on campaign donations, and they could obstruct law enforcement's efforts to halt outright bribery. Today on lever time, we're gonna take a deep dive into the current state of the Citizens United era. In this first episode of a special multi-part investigative podcast series, we're gonna take a look at how conservatives are trying to accelerate their plan to deregulate the campaign finance system.

And what options still exist to stop them. That's all coming up on today's episode of Lever Time.

[00:01:30] George Stephanopoulos: The White House borders are. Tom Holman was recorded on an FBI surveillance tape in September, 2024, accepting $50,000 in cash.

[00:01:37] David Sirota: That's a BC news anchor George Stephanopoulos a few days ago interviewing Vice President JD Vance.

[00:01:43] George Stephanopoulos: Did he keep that money or give it back?

[00:01:46] Archive Clips: George, you've covered the story ad nauseum.

Tom Holman did not take a bribe

[00:01:52] David Sirota: last September. Tom Holman. Donald Trump's current borders are was reportedly caught on tape accepting a paper bag filled with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents. During a sting operation, the undercover agents were posing as business executives seeking government favors.

If Trump was reelect. Although Holman was not a government official at the time, he allegedly accepted the money in exchange for promises of immigration related government contracts. If and when he joined Trump's administration, I mean, call me crazy, but that sounds like a bribe, right? Well, apparently not.

If you're JD Vance,

[00:02:33] George Stephanopoulos: you said he didn't take a bribe, but I'm not sure you answered the question. Are you saying that he did not accept the $50,000?

[00:02:39] Archive Clips: He did not take a bribe. Did he accept $50,000? I'm sure that in the course of Tom Holman's life, he has been paid more than $50,000 for services. The question is, did he do something illegal?

[00:02:52] David Sirota: That really is the question. Despite the bribery scandal, Trump appointed Holman to his administration. And soon after the Justice Department closed its investigation. And as ABC's George Stephanopoulos implied with his questions, some sources believe Holman may have kept the money. So what on earth is going on here?

Is bribery now legal? This week, the Lever published its first book. It's called Master Plan, the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America, adapted from the lever's Award-Winning podcast series of the same name, master Plan. The book tells the story of how we reached this strange point in history where the Vice President of the United States is now defending someone who reportedly accepted cash in exchange for the promise of government favors.

The book reveals for the first time ever, the secret plot to legalize corruption in America. It's a story that maybe you think you know, but trust me, you do not know it because the details were all kept secret until now. The book takes you on a 50 year journey following secretive groups of business executives and conservative politicians as they execute a master plan to deregulate the campaign finance system.

Weaken anti-bribery laws and defend what they call the free enterprise system in America. We show how these master planners have spent decades infiltrating our media, our schools, our elections, and our judicial system. The book also tells the story of a few key Supreme Court rulings that were key to the entire master plan.

Starting in the 1970s, the high court enshrined a radical fringe theory that money is a form of constitutionally protected free speech. Later, the court granted free speech rights to corporations, and then in 2010. Came the most consequential case of them all.

[00:04:53] Barack Obama: Citizens United Citizens United Citizens United Citizens United

[00:04:57] Archive Clips: Citizens United.

Citizens United was the worst court decision in modern American history.

[00:05:13] David Sirota: The Citizens United Opinion overturned decades of campaign finance laws. The Supreme Court's decision built upon the precedents of those previous cases that were engineered by the master plan. The ruling non ironically insisted that quote, independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

That's a direct quote. And from that assertion, the ruling then declared that such corporate spending to buy elections can never be limited. That landmark decision opened the floodgates, allowing a tidal wave of corporate and billionaire money into American politics, often hidden from the public eye.

Here's former President Barack Obama at a press conference talking about the Citizens United ruling during his second term.

[00:06:05] Barack Obama: There aren't a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way. Where you can basically, uh, have. Millionaires and billionaires, bankrolling, uh, whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed.

And what it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process.

[00:06:22] David Sirota: In the years since the 2010 Citizens United decision, there's been a 28 fold increase in election spending.

[00:06:29] Archive Clips: This 2024 election cycle is predicted to be the most

expensive IT history. The Kamala Harris campaign said it raised almost $1 billion in the build up to the election.

The sums are staggering. $118 million in counting that Musk has contributed to a Trump Allied group. Where did it all come from and where did it go, and

[00:06:48] David Sirota: was it worth it? According to data from the Roosevelt Institute, nearly 20% of all spending during the 2024 federal election came from mega donors and their families.

A total of $2.6 billion. Still Citizens United left a few guardrails in place like campaign contribution limits, but now. Those last remaining regulations could be destroyed in the coming months. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a lawsuit originally filed by Future Vice President, JD Vance, and his fellow Republicans in Congress.

Their goal. To reverse the Supreme Court's 2001 ruling that protected limits on coordinated campaign spending. They want to eliminate all restrictions on political parties, coordinated spending with candidates if those restrictions are killed off. Party committees could become pass through conduits, allowing big donors to avoid current campaign finance limits and deliver much bigger cash contributions to lawmakers who can then reward them with government favors.

This new lawsuit is part of a larger strategy to try to chip away at the remaining regulations limiting big money in politics. To support this JD Vance case, the master planners have conjured illegal fiction in an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court House. Republicans insisted that allowing unlimited coordinated spending between political parties and candidates would be totally fine because the money would be lumped together with donations from other contributors.

House Republicans argue that pooled political money, quote significantly dilutes the potential for any particular donor to exercise a corrupting influence over any particular candidate. In other words, they're asking the Supreme Court to believe that if a bank's CEO donated millions of dollars to a political party and the party spent that money in coordination with the candidate's campaign.

That money couldn't possibly influence how that lawmaker drafts span legislation. Right? It's a ridiculous argument, but they're making it with a straight face to the US Supreme Court. But you might be wondering, wait, doesn't the public want limits on campaign donations? If getting money out of politics is a popular idea, shouldn't the government be supporting the existing laws?

Well, earlier this year, Donald Trump's solicitor general ended the Justice Department's support of the current law. The Solicitor General also submitted a brief to the Supreme Court asking them to strike down current law if the old campaign finance law is overturned. Even more money could flood into the Republican and Democratic national Committees, allowing for even more direct collaborations between mega donors, political parties, and candidates.

In other words, this JD Vance case is a very, very big deal. Think of it as Citizens United 2.0. So after the Trump administration bailed on defending current law, who did the US Supreme Court assign to defend the last remaining threads of campaign finance regulations, a conservative attorney named Roman Martinez.

He served as a clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts in 2010, exactly when Roberts engineered the original Citizens United ruling. This same conservative attorney now charged with defending the last remaining campaign finance statutes. He also recently helped the Chamber of Commerce pressed justices to limit the scope of federal anti-bribery laws.

Could somebody play that old Chevy Chase clip here? Isn't that a conflict of interest? Like Citizens United in 2010, this new Supreme Court case only questions a narrow aspect of campaign finance law, the part that governs how much money political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates.

But just like Citizens United, the court could go way beyond the narrow issues in this case. And use the case as an opportunity to create a whole new precedent outlawing all campaign contribution limits. The court is set to hear the case during its current term, depending on how justice's rule. By the 2026 midterm election, we could be living under a whole new Citizens United 2.0 paradigm.

Where campaign donations to candidates and the potential for billionaires to buy elections are truly unlimited. And even if this JD Vance case fails, there's one more case also on the horizon. It aims to make it almost impossible for prosecutors to enforce federal anti-bribery laws. We'll hear more about that case after the break.

Welcome back to Lever Time. While the Republican Party pushes the Supreme Court to overturn campaign finance laws and kill campaign contribution limits, the court is also being petitioned to hear a separate case taking aim at federal anti-bribery laws.

[00:12:04] Archive Clips: Former Cincinnati City Council member pg sit and field has just been sentenced to 16 months in prison.

[00:12:11] David Sirota: PG Sittenfeld was arrested after an FBI Sting Caught him accepting $20,000 of campaign contributions as he supported a local development project that donors wanted.

[00:12:21] Archive Clips: Sittenfeld, of course, was found guilty on federal charges of bribery and attempted extortion.

[00:12:27] David Sirota: Sittenfeld was a rising democratic political star before all this unfolded.

He went from being the favorite in Cincinnati's mayoral race to being a convicted felon. He was convicted for taking what prosecutors called a bribe, and he paid the price. The system worked right. Well, not exactly. Sittenfeld was then pardoned by President Donald Trump, and Sittenfeld is now appealing his conviction by his own admission.

He's the first person ever to appeal a case after he's been pardoned and he's teaming up with a Trump connected law firm. He's being represented by Trump's former solicitor General, and he has the support of an army of former elected officials. Clearly, this case is less about one shady municipal deal in Cincinnati and more about eliciting a whole new Supreme Court precedent, making it even harder to prosecute public corruption cases if Seinfeld's appeal is approved by the Supreme Court.

It would join a decade long string of decisions, overturning bribery convictions that includes cases involving former Virginia Governor Bob McDonald aids to then New Jersey, governor Chris Christie, associates of New York, governor Andrew Cuomo, and a former mayor of Portage, Indiana. In that former mayor's case, the court went so far as to declare that a public official reaping a payment from the recipient of government contracts is not necessarily engaging in illegal bribery.

But is really just accepting a legal quote gratuity. It kind of makes you wonder why is the Supreme Court so chill about bribery?

[00:14:05] Archive Clips: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is responding to growing criticism about his lavish trips funded by a major GOP donor.

[00:14:12] Ted Lieu: Justice Samuel Alito also accepted lavage gifts.

From another conservative billionaire and didn't disclose it.

[00:14:20] David Sirota: Oh, right. While Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were secretly accepting gifts from billionaires, they were overseeing cases that helped tear down bribery laws in their view, the real problem in American politics is not egregious corruption.

But instead overly strict anti-corruption laws, Seinfeld's case aims to weaken whatever's still left of the federal bribery statute, and it offers a novel new theory. His lawyers suggest that pay-to-play culture is now so pervasive. That it should no longer even be considered a prosecutable crime.

Perhaps you remember this

[00:15:00] Chris Hayes: last month, Donald Trump summoned a who's who of top lobbyists and executives from the oil and gas industry to the upscale La Quinta slash bribery palace. He calls Mar-a-Lago. And proceeded to solicit a billion dollars from the fossil fuel companies to get 'em elected as multiple outlets have now reported

[00:15:17] David Sirota: that specific incident was cited in Sittenfeld Supreme Court petition as proof that pay-to-play corruption is not a problem.

It's just a regular part of doing political business. The petition complains that in the Trump oil donor situation, quote, a prosecutor could doubtless present this meeting alone as at least ambiguous evidence of a quid pro quo. Therefore, if Seinfeld's conviction is allowed to stand. The petition argues that politicians would be quote, open to prosecution if they say anything during these often informal, unscripted conversations that can be read to even hint at a possible quid pro quo.

I. In the past, the Supreme Court may have evaluated the merits of these two cases and issued narrow rulings honoring past precedents, but in the era of the Roberts Court. Judicial respect for past precedent has often been completely ignored on campaign finance matters. By now you're probably thinking, okay, soda.

So the Roberts Court is about to give Citizens United an upgrade and blow the doors off of whatever's left of bribery laws. Is there anything we can do to stop this political disaster, to find a path out of our current nightmare? Let's zoom out a bit and take a look at the backers of the original Citizens United case.

The case takes its name from a small media corporation called Citizens United. In 2008, citizens United produced a little notice documentary film called Hillary the movie. Over the course of 90 minutes, the film painted Hillary Clinton. As a monster, she is steeped in controversy. Steeped

[00:17:00] George Stephanopoulos: in sleazes.

Ruthless, vindictive,

[00:17:03] Archive Clips: venal. Sneaky,

[00:17:06] George Stephanopoulos: ideological. Intolerant.

[00:17:09] Archive Clips: Liar is a good

[00:17:10] George Stephanopoulos: one. Scares the hell outta

[00:17:12] David Sirota: me. Under the old campaign laws, the Federal Election Commission issued an opinion saying the film's distribution would've been electioneering. That could be limited in an alternate universe. The story could have ended there.

But instead, citizens United went to court challenging the Federal Election Commission's opinion, not because they necessarily cared about the movie, but because they saw a chance to elicit a corruption legalizing scheme hiding behind the First Amendment. As one of the cases legal architects told us in an interview for our new book, the case was carefully engineered.

To give the new conservative court an opportunity to ignore legal precedent and quote, go big. It's hard to ignore the parallels with today with these two new cases, conservative groups hope that their arguments over campaign finance and bribery laws will give the Supreme Court, which is now far more conservative than it was in 2010.

Another chance to go big. Further eroding the laws that govern our elections and limit corruption. It's hard to tell how much more the American public can take. Corruption isn't an academic issue or a low level concern. It's the crisis creating every other problem.

[00:18:33] Archive Clips: Corruption is why they just defunded nursing homes to cut taxes for the rich.

[00:18:38] David Sirota: That's Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossoff.

[00:18:40] Archive Clips: Corruption is why you pay a fortune for prescription. Corruption is why your insurance claim keeps getting denied. Corruption is why hedge funds get to buy up all the houses in your neighborhood, driving you out of the market, and then your corporate landlord ignores your calls during a gas leak.

Corruption is why that ambulance costs $3,000 after you just had to get your choking toddler to the hospital.

[00:19:04] David Sirota: But even if these two new Supreme Court cases further legalize corruption and weaken our democracy, not all is yet lost in the weeks ahead. Right here on Lever Time, we're gonna take a deeper look at some of the potential changes that could defeat Citizens United 2.0 and pull this country out of its nosedive.

We're gonna take you to the state that's taking matters into its own hands. Montana is undoing Citizens United

[00:19:29] Chris Hayes: and

[00:19:30] David Sirota: your state can too. And we're gonna look at a new vision for campaign finance that could put a cap on the influence of oligarchs once and for all.

[00:19:38] Archive Clips: More than 100 candidates from across the state and political spectrum have already signed up for New York State's new public campaign finance program.

[00:19:45] Adam Schiff: Thanks to you, we've raised the maximum amount of money we can spend to this race.

[00:19:48] David Sirota: But first, we're gonna tell you about a proposed amendment to the Constitution.

[00:19:52] Adam Schiff: Today I'm joining my colleagues to reintroduce my constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. To affirm what should be obvious that our democracy is not for sale.

[00:20:02] David Sirota: That's all coming up on the next episode of Lever Time. Thanks for listening to another episode of Lever Time. Check out our brand new book, master Plan, the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. You think you know the story of corruption, but trust me. You don't know the half of it. It's been secret until now.

Get the book by using the link in our show notes or going to lever news.com/book. Lever Time is a production of the Lever. This episode was produced by me, David Sirota and Natalie Bettendorf. It was edited and mixed by Ron Doyle. Our theme music is by Nick Campbell. You can subscribe to Lever Time on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, the PRX mobile app, or wherever you get your podcast.

Show notes. I'm David Cerda.

We'll be back next week with a new episode of Leverone.

[### Get Ready for Citizens United 2.0

Jacobin

https://jacobin.com › dark-money-pacs-vance-scotus](https://jacobin.com/2025/07/dark-money-pacs-vance-scotus)

Jul 14, 2025 — Thanks to champion of the working class J. D. Vance and his right-wing friends, including “dark money kingpin” Leonard Leo, we may soon find out ...

[### The Right's Secret Plan to Help Billionaires Buy Elections

Rolling Stone

https://www.rollingstone.com › political-commentary](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/jd-vance-right-plan-billionaires-elections-1235445122/)

Oct 13, 2025 — J.D. Vance and other MAGA interests are working to get the Supreme Court to end restrictions on campaign-spending limits.

NO LNX

Rolling stone

The Right’s Secret Plan to Help Billionaires Buy Elections

How two lawsuits could expand Citizens United and turn America into a kleptocracy — and how this nightmare can be stopped

By David Sirota, Jared Jacang Maher

October 13, 2025

HOWELL, MICHIGAN - SEPTEMBER 17: Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at Hatch Stamping on September 17, 2025 in Howell, Michigan. Vance spoke about tax cuts that were passed by Congress this year and how they would benefit businesses and families. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Vice President J.D. Vance delivers remarks at Hatch Stamping in Howell, Michigan, on Sept. 17.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The following is adapted from Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America, the new book from David Sirota’s investigative newsroom, The Lever. Click here for a discount and a free e-book version.

On the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Roberts Supreme Court, one point of consensus persists: Most Americans believe money corrupts the political process — and they want to overturn the Citizens United precedent that empowers oligarchs to buy elections.

And yet, in two little-noticed cases — including one spearheaded by Vice President J.D. Vance — the high court could soon do the opposite, eliminating the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery.

As we recount in our new book Master Plan, the Citizens United case was the culmination of conservatives’ 50-year master plan to deregulate the campaign finance system and legalize corruption. What started as an incendiary memo from soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell became one ruling equating money with constitutionally protected speech and another extending personhood rights to corporations.

Soon after John Roberts and Sam Alito were installed on the court two decades ago, they helped deliver the apotheosis: 2010’s Citizens United opinion manufacturing the legal fiction that spending by — and donations to — allegedly independent political groups cannot be limited because those expenditures “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

Though Citizens United unleashed a 28-fold increase in election spending, the ruling preserved the legality of campaign contribution limits. But they could now be destroyed by Vance’s case aiming to reverse a 2001 Supreme Court ruling and eliminate restrictions on political parties’ coordinated spending with candidates. If those rules are killed off, party committees could become pass-through conduits for big donors to circumvent donation limits and deliver much larger payments in support of lawmakers who can reward them with government favors.

Once again, the master planners are conjuring a legal fiction — House Republicans’ amicus brief insists that because parties pool money from many contributors, that “significantly dilutes the potential for any particular donor to exercise a corrupting influence over any particular candidate” who ultimately benefits from their cash. In essence, they’re asking justices to believe a bank CEO’s donation to a political party coordinating with a lawmaker’s campaign can in no way influence how that lawmaker drafts banking legislation.

A robust argument for preserving the existing restrictions is certainly possible — but the defense side of the case has already been thrown into chaos. After Donald Trump was sworn in, his solicitor general ended the Justice Department’s support of the current law and joined with the plaintiffs attacking it. The Supreme Court then assigned the defense to a conservative lawyer who served as Chief Justice Roberts’ clerk when he engineered the original Citizens United ruling. This same conservative attorney charged with defending the last remaining campaign finance statutes recently pressed justices to limit the scope of federal anti-bribery laws, which are now also in the legal crosshairs.

‘Our Concern Is Not With Tawdry Tales of Ferraris’

In a concurrent case unfolding amid Washington’s bacchanal of self-enrichment scandals, Cincinnati’s former Democratic city councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is asking the Supreme Court to overturn his bribery conviction after an FBI sting caught him accepting a $20,000 campaign contribution in exchange for supporting a local development project.

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Notably, Sittenfeld has already been pardoned by Trump, making him by his own admission the first person in history to appeal a case he’s already been absolved from. He is receiving pro bono legal counsel from the most Trump-connected law firm in America, he is being personally represented by Trump’s former solicitor general, and his appeal is being supported by an army of former elected officials.

Those circumstances and all that legal firepower make clear that this is less about one shady municipal deal and more about broadening a string of rulings making it increasingly impossible to prosecute public corruption cases.

That decade-long line of jurisprudence has seen the Supreme Court overturn bribery convictions of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, aides to then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and associates of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, narrowing the definition of what an “official act” in a quid pro quo situation is. Building off that, the court then declared that a public official reaping a payment from the recipient of government contracts is not engaging in illegal bribery, but is merely accepting a legal “gratuity.”

Taken together, the story is as sordid as it seems: As some justices were secretly accepting gifts from billionaires, they were using these cases to rule that the real problem in American politics is not egregious corruption, but instead overly stringent anti-corruption laws.

“Our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes, and ball gowns,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts when he tossed McDonnell’s conviction. “It is instead with the broader legal implications of the government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.”

“You can buy influence all you want,” former Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Devillers told us when asked to summarize the effect of these rulings. “You can buy someone a yacht but if there’s no quid pro quo tied to it, there’s no official act tied to it, then it’s not a federal crime.”

This might explain why law enforcement officials declined to charge Trump’s prospective border czar Tom Homan when the FBI reportedly caught him accepting a bag full of $50,000 in cash from those seeking government contracts from a future Trump administration. With America’s anti-corruption laws weakened, a Justice Department official didn’t deny the veracity of the reporting, he instead insisted the events represented “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing” — a talking point now being echoed by Vance.

As Trump now dismantles the Justice Department unit that prosecutes public corruption, Sittenfeld’s appeal aims to take the Supreme Court’s legal assault on anti-bribery laws even farther. In legal briefs, his lawyers are offering a novel theory: They insinuate that pay-to-play culture is now so pervasive that it should no longer be considered prosecutable.

Citing Trump reportedly asking oil executives for $1 billion of campaign cash in exchange for government favors, Sittenfeld’s Supreme Court petition laments that a “prosecutor could doubtless present this meeting alone as at least ambiguous evidence of a quid pro quo.” The petition then asserts that if Sittenfeld’s conviction is allowed to stand, “politicians are open to prosecution if they say anything during these often informal, unscripted conversations that can be read to even hint at a possible quid pro quo.”

In past eras, the Supreme Court might be expected to evaluate the merits of the Vance and Sittenfeld cases, and issue narrow rulings honoring past precedents. But in the Roberts Court era, judicial respect for so-called stare decisis has often been jettisoned on campaign finance matters.

Consider the tactics of the backers of Citizens United: They manufactured a fight with federal officials over the classification of a little-noticed documentary film not so much because they cared about the movie, but because they saw a chance to elicit a corruption-legalizing scheme they knew Congress would never legislate. Indeed, the case was meticulously engineered to give the newly conservative court the opportunity not merely to arbitrate the minor dispute, but to instead ignore stare decisis and “go big,” as one of the case’s architects told us.

It’s the same dynamic today: Conservative groups behind today’s two new cases undoubtedly hope that their spats over the esoterica of campaign finance and bribery law prompt the even-more-conservative court to not merely mediate these specific conflicts, but to instead issue broad rulings incinerating any remaining deterrents to pay-to-play corruption.

States Can Stop Pretending Corporations Are People

And yet if plaintiffs get their way in these cases, all is not lost.

Yes, in buying elections, packing the courts, and eliciting precedents legalizing corruption, the master planners have created the democracy crisis, pushing America one step closer to the kleptocratic death spiral of history’s collapsing empires.

But no, that freefall is not yet inevitable — before we hurtle over the precipice, there are still a few off ramps.

One of them is a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United that would stop equating money with First Amendment-protected speech and allow our communities to restrict the flow of cash into politics. This may seem unrealistic because of the high threshold for ratification, but a growing number of states have already expressed support for such a measure, which was just reintroduced in Congress.

Shorter term, another off-ramp runs through Montana. Thirteen years after the Supreme Court gutted the state’s century-old anti-corruption law, Montana luminaries of both parties are now spearheading a ballot initiative circumventing Citizens United jurisprudence and instead focusing on changing state incorporation laws that the high court rarely meddles with.

The measure’s proponents note that Citizens United is predicated on state laws giving corporations the same powers as actual human beings, including the power to spend on politics. But they point out that in past eras, state laws granted corporations more limited powers — and states never relinquished their authority to redefine what corporations can and cannot do. The Montana initiative proposes to simply use that authority to change the law — in this case, to no longer grant corporations the power to spend on elections.

If passed in Montana — and if other states follow — the initiative could profoundly change American politics. Corporations could still conduct all their normal business, but they would no longer have the power to buy elections or legislation. What’s more, state laws’ existing anti-circumvention provisions — which were recently upheld by the Supreme Court — would deny those powers to out-of-state businesses, too. Though wealthy people would still retain their right to individually spend on politics, the new corporate codes would eliminate dark money groups, forcing oligarchs to emerge from anonymity and do their election spending through political committees requiring full disclosure.

To be sure, that still leaves the problem of billionaires using their outsized wealth to finance ad campaigns, demonize their opponents, amplify their puppets, and effectively control the election discourse. But here too the post-Citizens United world still permits a local solution: publicly financed campaigns that provide candidates with at least enough resources to make their voices heard.

In 14 states and 26 cities of varying partisan complexion, governments offer qualifying candidates either grants or small-dollar matching funds. Unlike cash from private donors, this public money does not come with the quid-pro-quo expectation of legislative favors. Though the Supreme Court once attempted to limit the reach of these systems, the high court has never outlawed them — in fact, justices explicitly declared “we do not today call into question the wisdom of public financing as a means of funding political candidacy.”

These systems are no panacea — they still let self-financed billionaire candidates and super PACs outspend publicly funded candidates. But for a relatively small investment of public money, more states and cities can create their own public financing systems that provide grassroots candidates enough resources to run competitive campaigns without having to succumb to legalized corruption and sell their future actions to prospective campaign contributors.

‘The Country Will Still Be in Deep Trouble’

In a healthy republic, these straightforward initiatives would be on a glidepath. But at this dark hour for democracy, they face the daunting task of overcoming powerful interests profiting off the current system. They also face the formidable challenge of breaking through all the noise and convincing the country that corruption isn’t an academic issue or a low-level concern — it is the crisis creating every other problem.

“Corruption is why they just defunded nursing homes to cut taxes for the rich,” Georgia’s Democratic Sen. John Ossoff recently said. “Corruption is why you pay a fortune for prescriptions. Corruption is why your insurance claims keep getting denied. Corruption is why hedge funds get to buy up all the houses in your neighborhood driving you out of the market and then your corporate landlord ignores your calls during a gas leak. Corruption is why that ambulance cost $3,000 after you just had to get your choking toddler to the hospital.”

Of course, it is comforting to think we can just sit back and passively wait for this corruption nightmare to pass when the Trump presidency ends or if party control of Washington changes. That promise will likely be Democrats’ message in 2026 and 2028.

But conservatives, their oligarch benefactors, and the Supreme Court clearly have a master plan to try to lock in the kleptocratic status quo.

They know that in a functioning one-person-one-vote democracy, they could never pass the unpopular self-enriching policies they want — and so they know they must focus on preserving and expanding the precedents that permit them to buy American democracy.

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an 10 25

Opioid addiction rages on in Appalachia — despite Trump admin promises to fix it

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KFF FACT CHECK AN 10 25 SHUTDN BS

...

Our Ruling

Vance said, “Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens.”

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are largely ineligible for the federally funded health care programs Medicare and Medicaid, and they cannot seek coverage in the Affordable Care Act marketplace or apply for subsidies.

The Democrats’ budget proposal would not change that.

The Democrats want to restore access to certain health care programs to legal immigrants who will lose access under the Republican tax and spending law — among other measures aimed at making Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance plans easier to keep.

Their proposal would not grant federally supported health care benefits to people in the U.S. illegally, because they did not have access to them in the first place. The small amount of funding designated for Emergency Medicaid reimburses hospitals that provide emergency care to immigrants who would be eligible for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. Finally, we did not find evidence for Vance’s assertion that Democrats want “hundreds of billions” in health benefits for migrants in the country illegally.

We rate the statement False.

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MMA MEDIA PART OF TERROR NETWORK MILLER

NOTE JDV CANCELLED A 911 APPEARNCE TO DO KIRK GUEST HOST?!

TROLL CAUCUS? XIAN NAT MARTYR?

//

Megyn Kelly claims “leftist media” discussion of culture war issues “stirs up hatred”

09/22/25

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AN 9 25

On Tuesday, September 16, prosecutors announced that Tyler Robinson — the 22-year-old suspect in the fatal shooting of MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk — is being charged with aggravated murder and said they will seek the death penalty.

The New York Times' Michael Barbaro discussed the case with reporters Jack Healy and Kenneth P. Vogel in a podcast posted on September 17. While Healy talked about the suspect's possible motives, Vogel got into what Barbaro described as a "rational for cracking down on left-wing groups across the country."

Vogel noted recent comments by Vice President JD Vance and White House adviser Stephen Miller calling for a crackdown on left-wing groups.

READ MORE: 'I'm the one asking the questions': CNN host cuts off Ted Cruz after he shouts over her

The Times reporter told Barbaro, "Miller (made) a really impassioned proclamation about how he and the federal government was going to use every resource at their disposal to go after and disrupt and dismantle and destroy these networks that he says, on the left, are making America unsafe."

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When Barbaro asked Vogel if there is "a sense" of "which groups specifically" Vance and Miller "are referring to," Vogel responded, "I think there are a number of groups that could probably fit into this category based on my conversations with people around the White House, around Trump's orbit."

"Two organizations specifically have come up," Vogel told Barbaro. "One of them is Open Society Foundations, and that's George Soros' philanthropic organization. And the other is the Ford Foundation. Now, they don't really do programming of their own. So, what seems to be at issue here is the organizations that they fund and what those organizations, in turn, are doing."

When Barbaro asked Vogel what groups Open Society and the Ford Foundation fund, the Times reporter explained, "Open Society, for instance — and, I believe, the Ford Foundation — were big funders of sort of racial justice groups around the Black Lives Matter movement. And some of those groups clearly were involved in organizing protests."

READ MORE:'Undisputed idiot king': Former NBC journalist calls Eric Trump 'the epitome of stupidity'

Vogel continued, "And it is theoretically possible that at some of the protests where some of these groups were involved in the organization, there may have been vandalism or violence…. But for people around the White House, it's really about what they think of as a broader network of liberal nonprofit groups and firms that administer them that they believe are stoking violence through really extreme rhetoric and polarization. And they attribute to these groups other seemingly disconnected acts of vandalism."

READ MORE:'Didn't work for you': CNN analyst confronts Trump's favorite pundit on political violence

*Listen to the full New York Times podcast at this link (subscription required).

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POSO BK BANNON

The core thesis of the book is that the American left intends to terrorize and subjugate the United States under a communist dictatorship.[2][better ^source ^needed] In their telling, they are "unhumans."

For the last couple centuries, we’ve known them as communists. Socialists, with extra steps. And of course, leftists. Radicals and revolutionaries as well. A hundred years ago, Marxist Leninists, then more recently, Cultural Marxists. Even as, without irony and not as a joke, “progressives.” For the purposes of this book, we will call them the unhumans.[3]

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OMFG

AN 9 25

Many Christian nationalists and far-right MAGA Republicans have claimed that "holy war" or "jihad" is a concept that is unique to Islam. But quite a few religious scholars strongly disagree, emphasizing that is nothing inherently violent about either Islam or Christianity — and that an obsession with "holy war" comes from one's interpretation of the religion, not from the religion itself.

In an article published by on September 16, The New Republic's Gil Duran outlines the role that, in 2025, "holy war" is playing in Christian nationalism and the MAGA movement.

"Last week, in the hours after Charlie Kirk's assassination, the words 'demon' and 'evil' trended on X as some on the right portrayed his murder as the work of supernaturally possessed Democrats and leftists," Duran explains. "Major right-wing influencers echoed Carl Schmitt's ideas, calling for a political crackdown on Kirk’s critics. Chris Rufo, a prominent right-wing propagandist, called on law enforcement to 'infiltrate, disrupt, arrest, and incarcerate' the 'radical left.' This is where apocalyptic rhetoric always leads."

READ MORE:'Something is wrong': MAGA pundits say Trump is 'lying to us' about Charlie Kirk shooting

Duran notes that in Christian fundamentalist and MAGA circles, one is seeing a surge in "devil talk" and fear of The Antichrist.

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"Over time, the identity of Satan's Little Helper has shifted from Native Americans to Communists, Hitler and Saddam Hussein and Barack Obama — even barcodes and microchips have been implicated," Duran observes. "From colonial days to the AI era, the hunt for the Antichrist continues. Today's QAnon conspiracy theorists believe they are battling a cabal of cannibalistic Satanists. 'Unhumans,' a 2024 book praised by (Vice President) JD Vance, equated progressives with bloodthirsty 'unhuman' creatures. This turns politics into a zero-sum holy war."

Duran points to tech mogul and billionaire donor Peter Thiel as an example of a prominent figure in MAGA World who is obsessing over The Antichrist. In the past, Thiel was more of a libertarian. But in recent years, he has taken a decidedly MAGA turn.

"Thiel is not a theologian, scholar, or prophet," Duran writes. "So why pay attention to his biblical musings? Because Thiel is one of the world's most influential men, and his Antichrist speeches reveal his deep belief that religion is a weapon for political warfare —and he's right. Thiel's Antichrist fixation fits a long tradition in American politics. Since the nation's founding, Americans have sought to name the Antichrist — usually by pointing the finger at their political enemies."

READ MORE: 'Deeply troubling': Military expert warns Trump is unilaterally 'deciding to kill people'

Duran notes what historian Robert Fuller, author of the 1995 book "Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession," had to say about that role that "holy war" plays in Christian fundamentalism.

Duran quotes Fuller as saying, "The symbol of the Antichrist has played a surprisingly significant role in shaping Americans' self-understanding. Because they tend to view their nation as uniquely blessed by God, they have been especially prone to demonize their enemies…. Once we label our adversaries in these cosmic terms — all good versus all evil — now, there's going to be no compromise."

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// BONDI ON HATE SPEECH

Trump’s AG scrambles to do 'damage control' after conservatives rage against free speech threat

AN 9 25

Senior Trump administration officials on Monday made fresh threats to crack down on a nonexistent left-wing “domestic terror movement” following last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk—a move that critics called an attempt to exploit the far-right firebrand’s murder to advance an authoritarian agenda targeting nonviolent opposition.

Even as investigators work to determine the motive of Kirk’s killer, members of Trump’s inner circle and supporters have amplified an unfounded narrative of a coordinated leftist movement targeting conservatives.

According to The New York Times:

On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.

Appearing on the latest episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast—which was guest hosted by US Vice President JD Vance—White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that “we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”

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“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller vowed.

Vance said during the podcast that he wanted to explore “all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”

“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech,‘” the vice president said. “We’re going to go after the network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”

Vance, who like Trump and numerous supporters claim to champion free speech, also took aim at “people who are celebrating” Kirk’s killing.

Another unnamed administration official told the Times Monday that government agencies would be investigating people, including those accused of vandalizing Tesla electric vehicles and dealerships and allegedly assaulting federal immigration agents, in an effort to implicate US leftists in political violence.

Vance and Miller’s threats ignored right-wing violence—which statistically outpaces left-wing attacks—including the recent assassinations of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, who were murdered in June by a right-wing masked gunman disguised as a police officer.

Investigative reporter Jason Paladino reported last week that the US Department of Justice apparently removed an academic study previously published on the National Institute for Justice’s online library showing that “since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives” versus “42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives” committed by “far-left extremists.”

Responding to Miller’s remarks, New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent noted on social media that “Stephen Miller was directly involved in one of the largest acts of organized domestic political violence the United States has seen in modern times, the January 6 [2021] insurrection.”

Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) weighed in Monday on Miller’s attempt to exploit Kirk’s murder, writing on the social media site Bluesky that “it’s never acceptable to kill someone for their political beliefs. But the Trump [administration] exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to follow their authoritarian instincts and crack down on the left is incredibly disturbing.”

“We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it,” she added.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted Monday on social media that Miller “has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization.”

“This isn’t about crime and safety,” Newsom added. “It’s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans.”

The progressive Working Families Party (WFP) said Monday on social media that “JD Vance and Stephen Miller want to use the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk to target and dismantle pro-democracy groups.”

“Their comments call to mind some of the darkest periods in US history,” WFP continued. “They’re dividing people based on what box we ticked on our voter registration.”

Vance and Miller “want to stoke fear and resentment to justify their un-American crackdowns on free speech, mass abductions of working people, and military takeovers of our cities,” WFP added. “This isn’t going to fly. We’ve survived crises like this before as a country, and we can choose to live in a place where our political freedoms are protected, where we settle disagreements with words not weapons, and where no one has to fear losing a loved one to gun violence.”

:{:{---}:

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AN 9 25

Senior Trump administration officials on Monday made fresh threats to crack down on a nonexistent left-wing “domestic terror movement” following last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk—a move that critics called an attempt to exploit the far-right firebrand’s murder to advance an authoritarian agenda targeting nonviolent opposition.

Even as investigators work to determine the motive of Kirk’s killer, members of Trump’s inner circle and supporters have amplified an unfounded narrative of a coordinated leftist movement targeting conservatives.

According to The New York Times:

On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.

Appearing on the latest episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast—which was guest hosted by US Vice President JD Vance—White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that “we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”

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“It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller vowed.

Vance said during the podcast that he wanted to explore “all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”

“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech,‘” the vice president said. “We’re going to go after the network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”

Vance, who like Trump and numerous supporters claim to champion free speech, also took aim at “people who are celebrating” Kirk’s killing.

Another unnamed administration official told the Times Monday that government agencies would be investigating people, including those accused of vandalizing Tesla electric vehicles and dealerships and allegedly assaulting federal immigration agents, in an effort to implicate US leftists in political violence.

Vance and Miller’s threats ignored right-wing violence—which statistically outpaces left-wing attacks—including the recent assassinations of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, who were murdered in June by a right-wing masked gunman disguised as a police officer.

Investigative reporter Jason Paladino reported last week that the US Department of Justice apparently removed an academic study previously published on the National Institute for Justice’s online library showing that “since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives” versus “42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives” committed by “far-left extremists.”

Responding to Miller’s remarks, New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent noted on social media that “Stephen Miller was directly involved in one of the largest acts of organized domestic political violence the United States has seen in modern times, the January 6 [2021] insurrection.”

Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) weighed in Monday on Miller’s attempt to exploit Kirk’s murder, writing on the social media site Bluesky that “it’s never acceptable to kill someone for their political beliefs. But the Trump [administration] exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to follow their authoritarian instincts and crack down on the left is incredibly disturbing.”

“We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it,” she added.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted Monday on social media that Miller “has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization.”

“This isn’t about crime and safety,” Newsom added. “It’s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans.”

The progressive Working Families Party (WFP) said Monday on social media that “JD Vance and Stephen Miller want to use the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk to target and dismantle pro-democracy groups.”

“Their comments call to mind some of the darkest periods in US history,” WFP continued. “They’re dividing people based on what box we ticked on our voter registration.”

Vance and Miller “want to stoke fear and resentment to justify their un-American crackdowns on free speech, mass abductions of working people, and military takeovers of our cities,” WFP added. “This isn’t going to fly. We’ve survived crises like this before as a country, and we can choose to live in a place where our political freedoms are protected, where we settle disagreements with words not weapons, and where no one has to fear losing a loved one to gun violence.”

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AN 9 25 CLAIM NO SUPPORT

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was Vice President JD Vance’s guest on Monday’s edition of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” just days after the right-wing political commentator was assassinated. The suspected gunman’s motives and political beliefs remain unclear, but the vice president pinned the blame for Kirk’s murder on “left-wing extremism.”

“While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies,” Vance declared, “it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-left.”

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The vice president did not define “lunatics,” but statistics from the Cato Institute show that the vast majority of political violence comes from the far-right.

Guest-hosting for the late organizer and activist, Vice President Vance viewers, “I wanted to zoom out and talk with Stephen [Miller] a little bit, and talk about all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far-left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”

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READ MORE: Homeschooling, Religion and Politics Trump Science in Parents’ Vaccine Resistance

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The vice president—who placed blame at least in part on the left for Kirk’s death—said, “we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years, and I believe is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin’s bullet.”

“We’re gonna talk about how to dismantle that,” he continued, “and how to bring real unity, real unity that can only come when we tell the truth and everybody knows that they can speak their mind about the issues of the day without being cut down by a murderer’s gun.”

Miller, who is considered by many—including some highly respected conservatives—a skilled propagandist, on Friday spoke out against what he called left-wing violent extremism.

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“I’ve not shared with anybody, but the last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his Creator in heaven was, he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence.”

“That was the last message that he sent me before that assassin stole him from all of us.”

READ MORE: Trump Teases Threat to Defund NYC After Governor’s Endorsement for Mayor

“And we are gonna do that,” Miller vowed. “Under President Trump’s leadership, I don’t care how—it could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection—but we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, and that are committing acts of wanton violence.”

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“It has to stop,” he declared, “and my message is to all of the domestic terrorists in this country spreading this evil hate? You want us to live in fear? We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile. Because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”

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9 8 25

NIXON PROF = ENEMY

JDV OMG DEFUND LEFT REBOOT

Trump vs. Higher Education: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (

LastWeekTonight - YouTube

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AN 8 25

Vice President JD Vance is facing criticism for reshaping the historical record of the past century of wars in a way seen as aiding Vladimir Putin, and for appearing to defend Russia by refusing to denounce the Russian President over the bombing of a U.S. factory in Ukraine.

Speaking to NBC News’ Kristen Welker on Sunday, the Vice President was asked if he was “enraged” when he learned that Russia had “targeted an American company based in Ukraine?”

“I don’t — I’m — I don’t like it, Kristen, but this is a war, and this is why we want to stop the killing,” was Vance’s response, “The Russians have done a lot of things that we don’t like, a lot of civilians have died. We’ve condemned that stuff from the get-go, and frankly, President Trump has done more to apply pressure and to apply economic leverage to the Russians.”

Some were stunned by Vance’s “this is a war” remark.

READ MORE: ‘Totally Corrupt’: One Word From VP Triggers Political Firestorm

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Vance then went on to attack former President Joe Biden’s handling of Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine, while praising President Trump for allegedly ending a half-dozen wars.

Russia is now refusing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, despite President Trump’s claim to the contrary, the Vice President also said, “I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict.”

“They’ve actually been willing to be flexible on some of their core demands,” Vance added. “They’ve talked about what would be necessary to end the war.”

Critics disputed Vance’s “significant concessions” claim.

Political science Professor Maria Popova, wrote: “For the umpteenth time: asking for a piece of Ukraine they cannot conquer in return for (maybe) pinky promising not to take another piece they cannot conquer is NOT a concession. Ru[ssia] has not made a single concession. Vance is lying through his teeth. He cannot be this obtuse.”

French civil servant Nicolas Tenzer, a senior expert in international and security issues, responded to Vance’s “concessions” claim: “We knew it from the outset. Full ideological alignment. Vance is cozying up to Putin. Period.”

Later, the Vice President was asked, “If Russia is allowed to keep any of the territory that it illegally seized, what message does that send to China? Does it give China a green light to invade Taiwan?”

Vance insisted (video below) that it’s up to Ukraine if it cedes territory to Russia after being illegally invaded, in an effort to end the war, but then added, “this is how wars ultimately get settled.”

“If you go back to World War II, if you go back to World War I, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation,” he claimed.

Critics, including experts on war, corrected the Vice President.

READ MORE: ‘Who’s Gonna Tell Him to Leave the White House?’: George Conway’s Dire Warning on Trump

“This…is not at all how World War II ended,” wrote The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College

professor and an expert on Russia.

“Fact check,” wrote James Robert Carroll, Washington Bureau Chief of the Capital News Service, “World War II ended with the unconditional surrenders of Germany and Japan.”

“And since Vance also mentioned WWI,” Nichols added, “the Treaty of Versailles was drafted by the victors and handed to the already-defeated Germans as an ultimatim.”

“Everybody remembers that seminal moment in WW2,” snarked The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, “with FDR in his wheelchair rolling out the red carpet for Hitler discussing which portions of France he will get in exchange for peace.”

Professor Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote: “In both Europe and the Pacific, Germany and Japan surrendered unconditionally—no negotiation whatsoever—just as the Allies insisted in 1945.”

“People need to stop thinking that Vance didn’t know he’s wrong. He knows. He’s just assuming that Trump voters are too stupid to know better, and judging from the replies around here, he’s making a good bet,” Nichols observed.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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'Fascists are not welcome': Vance draws scathing mockery after British pub bans him

// WH staff adv team doughnUt ship? fAIL? HARRSION FIELDS

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AN 8 25

Back in the early 1980s, left-wing R&B singer Gil Scott-Heron (remembered for his incendiary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised") was fond of saying that "the New Right is the same old wrong." The term "New Right," in those days, referred to President Ronald Reagan's fragile coalition — a mixture of neocon defense hawks, evangelical Christian fundamentalists, libertarian budget hawks and moderate Reagan Democrats. But in 2025, "New Right" has a radically different connotation and is synonymous with President Donald Trump's far-right MAGA movement.

Journalist Laura Field, author of the book "Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right," examines the elements of the 2025 "New Right" in an interview with Vox's Zack Beauchamp published in Q&A form on August 14.

Field describes today's New Right as a coalition, but one that is considerably different from the Reagan coalition of the 1980s.

READ MORE:'That's how this ends': George Conway reveals 'the only way' to stop Trump's 'gangsterism'

"I'm talking about the MAGA New Right, (in contrast) with the Reagan-Buckley right, or the establishment right, which is propped up by fiscal conservatism (free-market economics), social conservatism (conservative social values), and anti-communism," Field told Vox. "The New Right turns against a lot of that. Michael Anton, one of these Claremont Institute guys, says that Trumpism and the New Right is all about economic nationalism — turning against the free market orientation of the establishment — as well as closed, secure borders."

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Field added, "So that's the anti-immigration strain and America First foreign policy. I think that there's also just a hardcore social conservatism at the core of a lot of this — at least spiritually."

The Clairemont Institute, a right-wing think tank, was founded in 1979 by the late Harry V. Jaffa, once a speechwriter for Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). Claremont has changed dramatically since then, and its ultra-MAGA leanings are a major departure from the Goldwater and Reagan conservatism it once championed.

Describing the elements of the MAGA New Right, Field told Vox, "I have three main camps: the Claremonters, the post-liberals, and the national conservatives. Then, I talk also about the hard right, but the hard right travels alongside all three of them ideologically. The hard right is the hardcore, Manosphere-fascist types. Each of these groupings are different. The Claremonters are the West Coast Straussians that I was speaking about before. They are really committed, at least in theory, to the American founding. They have this very grandiose vision that's beyond even your ordinary patriotism. It's that this is the best regime of all time. They're also at the very cutting edge of the culture war…. And then, there's the national conservatives."

READ MORE:'Disgusting': MAGA erupts at Democratic governor over 'classless' remark about Trump 'bro'

Field continued, "They're a little more vanilla, with just nationalism as their core thing. But it turns into ethno-nationalism in some cases and certainly Christian nationalism. They're a big tent."

The journalist/author stressed that even though the New Right is full of "weirdos," that doesn't mean they haven't achieved power in the Republican Party.

"The knee-jerk reaction to think 'who cares' is a natural one, because a lot of these people are bizarre — weirdos," Field told Vox. "That's why it's alarming to see them wield so much power, to see (Vice President) JD Vance have that clout. I think they have dramatically reoriented the GOP."

READ MORE:'Severe pushback': House Republicans fear constituent revolt over divisive new proposal

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an 8 25 DENIAL? also d land vcation peasdants, staying away from DC epstein and fascist blowback?

'Sick': JD Vance draws bipartisan outrage after demanding water level adjustment for kayaking trip

When Vice President JD Vance turned 41 on Saturday, August 2, he celebrated with a family boating trip in his native Ohio. And according to reporting in The Guardian and later, the Daily Beast, Vance went to great lengths for the celebration: He contacted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers asked for the water level to be raised.

Guardian reporters Stephanie Kirchgaessner and David Smith explain, "JD Vance's team had the Army Corps of Engineers in Louisville, Ohio, take the unusual step of changing the outflow of a lake to accommodate a recent boating excursion on a family holiday, The Guardian has learned. The request from the U.S. Secret Service was made to 'support safe navigation' of the U.S. vice-president’s security detail for an August outing on the Little Miami River, according to a statement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Vance was spotted in the south-western Ohio area on 2 August, his 41st birthday, according to social media posts that noted he was seen canoeing on the river, a tributary that Caesar Creek Lake feeds into."

The reporters add, "One source with knowledge of the matter who communicated with the Guardian anonymously alleged that the outflow request for the Caesar Creek Lake was not just to support the vice-president’s Secret Service detail, but also, to create 'ideal kayaking conditions.'"

READ MORE: 'Very jealous': Trump ally says White House secretly 'can't stand' this MAGA congresswoman

Vance's weekend boating trip is generation a lot of comments on X, formerly Twitter — many of them downright scathing.

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Journalist and former Columbus Dispatch reporter Darrel Rowland tweeted, "JD Vance’s team had water level of Little Miami River raised last week for family's boating trip, per The Guardian. Incident raises questions of exploitation of public services, but Secret Service says it was requested for 'safe navigation.'"

Literature professor Anne Margaret Daniel commented, "JD Vance had the level of the Ohio River raised by draining part of a lake so his family rafting trip would have plenty of water ('for safety' was the excuse). We need a new word for the worst person, the absolute worst person."

In a separate tweet, Daniel wrote, "All these things, really: sick and selfish, and giving not a single solitary damn for the environment in any way (which is to me demonic)."

READ MORE: 'What if he is arrested?' GOP lawmakers worried new allegations may sink rep's reelection

X user Andrew Coyle sarcastically posted, "They're against the elites. JD Vance's team had water level of Ohio river raised for family's boating trip."

Another X user, Piyush Mittal, remarked, "JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family's boating trip. Power has really gone to his head, hasn't it?"

X user Dane Southard wrote, "You have Got To Be f------ Kidding Me. Taxpayers paid for JD Vance to have the Army Corps of engineers Raise the water level of an Ohio river, JUST so he could improve the kayaking conditions for his birthday outing."

Canadian X user Asa Rochester commented, "For better or worse you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff in Canada."

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AN 7 25

Comments that Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) made about Indigenous people have recently resurfaced, and they could cause a headache for former President Donald Trump's campaign among Native American voters.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Tuesday that when Vance argued last year against renaming the Wayne National Forest in Ohio, he referred to Native Americans as the "enemy." On another occasion, the GOP's 2024 vice presidential nominee called Indigenous People's Day — which some cities celebrate instead of Columbus Day — a "fake holiday."

Wayne National forest is named for Major General Anthony Wayne, who massacred Indigenous people during the Northwest Indian War, most notably during the Battle of Fallen Timbers in present-day Maumee, Ohio. When making his case against changing the name of the forest in spite of requests from Indigenous tribes, Vance wrote that "[Wayne] fought wars and won peace for our government, the government you now serve, and hewed Ohio out of rugged wilderness and occupied enemy territory."

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

Marin Webster Denning, who is a member of the Oneida tribe, said in an interview with the Journal-Sentinel that Native Americans are "not the enemy."

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"There is an occupation, and there are enemies, but revisions of history like this erase us," he said.

"Some people may view [Wayne] as a hero," Oneida activist and Milwaukee, Wisconsin resident Jacob Abrams told the paper. "[B]ut not for us."

Vance's disparaging comments about a holiday celebrating Indigenous culture in 2021 are also being scrutinized in the wake of the Ohio senator's selection as Trump's running mate. ICT Journalist Mary Annette Pember of the Red Cliff Ojibwe Tribal Nation in Wisconsin dug up a **tweet from Vance during President Joe Biden's first year in office in which the eventual Ohio seantor wrote: “Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a fake holiday created to sow division. Of course Joe Biden is the first president to pay it any attention."

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

"A half a millennium ago Columbus used technology developed in Europe to sail across a giant ocean and discover a new continent. Today we celebrate that daring and ingenuity," he wrote in a follow-up tweet. "Happy Columbus Day!"

Indigenous People's Day became a substitute for Columbus Day as knowledge of Columbus' brutal enslavement of Indigenous people in the Caribbean broke through into mainstream consciousness. Spanish Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas, who accompanied Columbus on several of his expeditions, described some of Columbus' atrocities in his journal.

"[Spaniards acted] like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons," he wrote in 1542. "And the Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against them. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house."

Vance's comments about Native Americans may hurt the Trump campaign's voter outreach efforts, particularly in Arizona. Biden won the Grand Canyon State by roughly 11,000 votes in 2020, largely due to turnout from Indigenous voters in Navajo country.

READ MORE:Watch: Pete Buttigieg destroys JD Vance in 2 minutes

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The New Republic

https://newrepublic.com › article › 183971 › jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas

Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas

Jul 22, 2024Gil Duran is a San Francisco journalist who previously served as editorial page editor of The Sacramento Bee and The San Francisco Examiner.

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The Verge

https://www.theverge.com › decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel › 707010 › gil-duran-the-nerd-reich-tech-billionaires-authoritarianism-dictator

Why tech billionaires want a dictatorship | The Verge

TodayWhy tech billionaires want a 'corporate dictatorship' Guest host Jon Fortt and The Nerd Reich author Gil Duran discuss dark enlightenment and the rise of tech authoritarianism.

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an 6 25

'Panic button': JD Vance blasted after calling $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts 'minutiae'

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AN 6 25

'Absolutely none': The Smithsonian just unleashed a brutal smackdown on Trump

JDV CHARGED WITH DEI DE-WOKE? 5 25? ZOO?

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// deflection? we are true victim here; PC woke silence gag soc media bias BS

2024 election debate : Vance dodge question with rant on Harris censorship:

“You have said you would not have certified the last presidential election, and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal,” moderator Norah O’Donnell asked Vance. “Would you again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results?”

Vance said that instead of the threats to democracy decried by Democrats, what’s really worrying is the threat of “big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens.” Vance says Harris would like to “censor people who engage in misinformation,” and that’s “a much bigger threat to democracy than anything we’ve seen” in the last four or 40 years.

“Kamala Harris is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale,” Vance said, adding that’s a much larger threat than former President Donald Trump telling people to protest “peacefully” on January 6th at the US Capitol insurrection. Vance compared Trump’s refusal to believe the results of the 2020 election to Democrats’ concerns about Russian foreign interference in the 2016 election, where they pointed to foreign agents’ purchasing of Facebook ads as contributing to Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump. (A Republican-led Senate committee concluded in 2020 that Russia did seek to interfere in the 2016 election to benefit Trump’s candidacy.

“January 6th was not Facebook ads,” Walz retorted, calling Vance’s version of events “revisionist history.”

Vance was apparently alluding to the events behind Murthy v. Missouri, a Supreme Court case decided earlier this year. The case covered accusations that the Biden administration coerced tech platforms to engage in censorship. Justices ruled in the Biden administration’s favor based on standing, but they also cast doubt on whether there was a meaningful connection between government outreach to platforms like Facebook and those platforms’ later moderation decisions.

Walz attempted to redirect the debate back to the original question. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” he asked Vance.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?”

“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.

“It’s a damning non-answer for you not to talk about censorship,” Vance retorted.

At another point, Vance accused Harris of wanting to “use the power of government and Big Tech to silence people from speaking their minds.” Trump himself recently suggested that some people “should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices,” referring to criticism of the Supreme Court.

Walz responded to Vance with the widely used but misleading claim that “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” is a Supreme Court test for unprotected speech. Vance didn’t dispute the premise, but he claimed “you guys wanted to kick people off of Facebook for saying that toddlers shouldn’t wear masks. That’s not fire in a crowded theatre. That is criticizing the policies of the government, which is the right of every American.”

“I don’t run Facebook,” Walz said. “This is not a debate, it’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jd-vance-avoids-january-6th-questions-by-pivoting-to-facebook-censorship/ar-AA1ryGeZ**

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The ascendancy of Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV – to become the global head of the Catholic Church is an inherent threat to the worldview of the American religious right, according to one Christian pastor.

In a recent essay for Religion News Service (RNS), the Rev. Jennifer Butler — who is the senior pastor at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis, Oregon — argued that the far right is railing against Leo XIV specifically because of the dilemma he presents to their belief system. Butler wrote that the MAGA faithful is not opposed to the new pontiff because he's a liberal like his predecessor Pope Francis, but because he's a traditional conservative Catholic who nonetheless holds radically different views than Christian nationalists.

"Leo has become a MAGA flashpoint not due to any dramatic break from Catholic doctrine, but because his worldview directly threatens the Christian nationalist engine behind the rising authoritarianism of our time," Butler wrote. "He threatens to become a transnational counterweight to a rapidly expanding authoritarian religious network."

READ MORE:'Destroyed their credibility': MAGA turns on Trump officials unable to prove conspiracies

Not long after Prevost was elected to the papacy, Vice President JD Vance traveled to the Holy See to meet the first American pope in history. But Butler pointed out that Leo XIV and Vance are in direct contradiction with one another when it comes to Christian nationalism. While Vance has argued that Americans should put their country first before the rest of the world, Leo XIV — who was a longtime priest in Peru — has said that "Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others."

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"This was no minor theological dustup over the proper 'order of love' Christians should obey," Butler observed. "It was a direct rebuttal to the ideological foundation of Christian nationalism: that faith should serve state nativist power and preserve national sovereignty at the expense of human rights."

The United Church of Christ pastor called the Christian right a "transnational" movement that has also found footing in authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin's Russia and Viktor Orbán's Hungary. And she characterized its goal as one in which its proponents impose a "rigid moral order" on the rest of the world that serves to "polarize the public and erode democratic institutions." However, she said Pope Leo XIV's tenure could be one in which the Christian right's use of religion "to justify authoritarian consolidation and frame dissent as sacrilege" is upended.

"The election of Leo XIV signals that not all global religious institutions are capitulating," she wrote. "... MAGA influencers understand that when Leo speaks, people listen — not just Catholics, but others looking for spiritual leadership grounded in clarity. His critics know how powerful that can be."

READ MORE:'Not going to buckle': Republican warns Senate he'll tank Trump's bill over this provision

Click here to read Butler's full essay in RNS.

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an 6 25

In late May — four months into Donald Trump's second presidency — The Guardian reported that record numbers of Americans are applying for residency or citizenship in the U.K. Plenty of Americans are looking at countries in Continental Europe as well, and liberal American actress Rosie O'Donnell — a major critic of Trump — is now living in the Republic of Ireland and has no plans to return to the United States anytime soon.

But many observers of international politics are warning Americans who have hopes of becoming expatriates that Europe has its far-right populists as well, from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to National Rally leader Marine Le Pen in France to Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.

In an article published on June 1, Axios' Tal Axelrod examines the alliances between far-right MAGA Republicans in the U.S. and far-right movements in Europe.

READ MORE: How Trump is 'undercutting' America’s 'status' with 'all kinds of nuttery'

"MAGA media heavyweights are intervening in elections around the world, increasingly obsessed with exporting President Trump's brand of right-wing populism beyond America's borders," Axelrod reports. "Why it matters: What began as a nationalist reaction to America's perceived decline has evolved into a global ideological crusade. Now at the apex of its domestic power, MAGA is rallying behind candidates who share its views on immigration, globalism and the fight for 'western civilization.'"

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The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has held events in Hungary and Poland, and Axelrod cites examples of Trump allies promoting far-right movements in Romania and Germany.

"MAGA leaders — including Vice President Vance — excoriated Romanian authorities for annulling the results of December's election and banning the leading far-right candidate over allegations of Russian interference," Axelrod reports. "In last week's rerun, MAGA podcasters like Jack Posobiec and Steve Bannon rallied behind pro-Trump candidate George Simion, who even described himself as running 'on the MAGA ticket. Simion ultimately fell short to centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, a result that MAGA blamed on globalist meddling…. Vance, Elon Musk and scores of pro-Trump influencers have championed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which had its best-ever showing in elections earlier this year."

Axelrod adds, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned German intelligence's since-retracted decision to classify AfD as a right-wing extremist organization, calling it 'tyranny in disguise.'"

READ MORE:Social Security payments could shrink for some recipients in June — here's why

Axelrod points out, however, that "MAGA's influence abroad has yielded mixed results."

According to the Axios reporter, "The AfD has been shut out of government in Germany, Simion lost in Romania, the liberal candidate is favored to win in South Korea.… A win in Poland would be a major symbolic victory — and a sign MAGA's global playbook might finally be working."

READ MORE:Another 'narcissist': MSNBC panel slams Trump ally's 'tremendous conflicts of interest'

*Read Tal Axelrod's full Axios article at this link.

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AN 5 25

Vance’s campaign plane carried anti-immigrant rhetoric. Now it carries shackled deportees

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aha note any dereg space good for grift like diet supplements, but crtyptocoin is next level

comm dr an 5 25

Monday reporting from the Financial Times that U.S. President Donald Trump's family media company "plans to raise $3 billion to buy cryptocurrencies" sparked a fresh wave of alarm over his administration's policies and potential corruption.

After winning a second term last year, the Republican president transferred his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG)—which is behind the Truth Social platform—to a revocable trust overseen by his son Donald Trump Jr.

Citing six unnamed sources, FT reported that TMTG "aims to raise $2 billion in fresh equity and another $1 billion via a convertible bond," and "also plans to launch an exchange-traded fund focused on cryptocurrency."

According to the newspaper:

TMTG said in a statement that "apparently the Financial Times has dumb writers listening to even dumber sources" but did not comment further. Representatives for Donald Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

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After Reuters also requested comment on the reporting, the news agency noted, TMTG called both Reuters and FT "fake news."

Responding on social media, Elizabeth Sheppard Sellam, director of the politics and international relations program at the University of Tours in France, said that "the most shocking thing is not the project itself, it is who benefits from it: those close to the president, through an opaque structure, and at the heart of the administration."

"The Trump administration has a very strong pro-crypto policy: favorable taxation, favorable regulation, promotion of investments. And meanwhile, his own family is preparing to raise $3 billion to go all-in on bitcoin," she wrote, highlighting Donald Trump Jr.'s role at TMTG.

Sheppard Sellam also noted that both he and the president's second-eldest son, Eric Trump, are set to speak at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, scheduled to start Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Other planned speakers include Vice President JD Vance, Trump's "Crypto Czar" David Sacks, and various Republicans in Congress.

"Where does politics end and business begin?" the professor asked. "He is a sitting head of state whose immediate entourage is organizing massive financial operations, with a direct effect on the markets... and on their wallets."

Florian Hollenbach, an economist at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, simply said, "So much corruption and all out in the open."

The FT reporting came just days after the president dined with the top investors in his meme coin at his Virginia golf club—an event that drew protesters whose chants included: "America's not for sale," "Lock him up," and "Trump is a traitor."

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has also generated alarm with his crypto executive order. His administration faced further criticism last month for disbanding a U.S. Department of Justice unit tasked with investigating criminal actors in the digital asset space—a decision laid out in a memo authored by the president's former personal defense attorney.

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Genealogical 'trawl' pours cold water on JD Vance’s claim of being 'Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart' - Alternet.org

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May 21, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Chris Plante: The Right Squad

:{CHRIS PLANTE (HOST): Vice President of the United States JD Vance says it's time for the American people to get what we voted for, an administration that protects American sovereignty. I believe we voted for that. In an interview with, of all people, The New York Times—why would you do that? They've got a columnist there, Ross Douthat is his alleged name:{. And JD Vance, vice president, says you cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they're not allowed to have what they voted for. }:

That's where we are right now, JD Vance said. He continues talking to Ross Douthat, The New York Times. Success to me is that we have established a set of rules and principles that the courts are comfortable with, and that we have the infrastructure that that allows us to deport large numbers of illegal aliens, because illegal aliens are illegal. When large numbers of illegal aliens come into the country. But I think whether we're able to get there is a function, of course, of our efforts, but also the courts themselves, JD Vance said. And the vice president continued, I think that you are saying, and I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing and an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people.}:

And honestly, I think we're seeing that at every turn, aren't we? With some Biden appointee or Obama appointee and even Clinton appointees overturning the executive branch, which was just voted into office by 77 million Americans. And it's — you know, this is — it smells like 1861 around here.

TONY SHAFFER (GUEST): Are you against the administrative state, Chris? How dare you? How dare you, sir? It's insane that we have people who are not elected who somehow believe that they can use whatever loophole. And I'm not a lawyer, but I pretended to be one in front of the Iowa Supreme Court one time. And that's a story for another day. And I got away with it. It was legal. But I think that's the issue that the legality of these rulings — and I heard Judge Napolitano earlier on the network today talk about, you know, well, they're taught in law school that that that basically any ruling has to equally apply across the board. But the problem is, this: no judge actually was elected by all the people of the United States, and therefore his actions have been outweighed — basically inappropriate level of influence over this fact. So I think he's right. And I think Congress — it's time for Congress to do something to limit the power of the judges.

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When JD Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" came out in 2016, it got a variety of responses from liberals and progressives. Some on the left accused the book of shaming the poor; others, however, liked the fact that someone who was right-of-center politically took an in-depth look at the social and economic problems that rural whites were facing in Appalachia.

Vance, at the time, was a scathing critic of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. But like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vance flip flopped and enthusiastically supported the far-right movement he once condemned.

In a think piece published on May 19, The Atlantic's George Packer compares what Vance might have been to what he ultimately became. And he laments that Vance did what was expedient instead of what was ethical or morally right.

READ MORE: 'Debt bomb': Morning Joe explains why Moody’s downgrade is 'siren going off' for US economy

"JD Vance poses a problem, and at its core is a question about character," Packer argues. "In the years after the 2016 election, he transformed himself from a center-right memoirist and public speaker, offering a complex analysis of America's social ills and a sharp critique of Donald Trump, into a right-wing populist politician whose illiberal ideas and vitriolic rhetoric frequently out-Trump the original. According to Vance and his supporters, this change followed a realization during Trump's first term that the president was lifting up the fallen working class of the Heartland that had produced young JD."

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Packer continues, "To help his people, Vance had to make his peace with their champion. According to his critics, Vance cynically chose to betray his true values in order to take the only path open to an ambitious Republican in the Trump era. And as a convert under suspicion, he pursued it with a vengeance."

Packer notes that in 2016, the success of "Hillbilly Elegy" made Vance "a celebrity" and "the anointed spokesman for the 40 percent of the country that comprises the white working class."

"With his gifts of intellect and rhetoric, Vance might have brought the country's conflicting strands together," Packer observes. "They had combined to make him, and he knew them deeply — their flaws, their possibilities, their entwined fate. Instead, he took a path of extreme divisiveness to the peak of power, becoming a hardline convert to the Catholic Church, post-liberal populism, and the scorched-earth cause of Donald Trump."

READ MORE:Revealed: Most Americans doubt Trump's ability to fix the economy

Packer adds, "Vance became a scourge of the elites among whom he'd found refuge — a kingpin of a new elite, avenging wrongs done to his native tribe."

By the time Vance ran for the U.S. Senate via Ohio in 2022, he had gone total MAGA and fully embraced Trump's divisive us-versus-them rhetoric.

"Vance could have run for the Senate as a populist without maligning half his compatriots —­ liberals, immigrants, women without children — as hostile to America," Packer argues. "He could have become a father without devoting a speech to mocking the 'childless left.' The Catholic Church didn't command him to stop caring about human beings in other countries, or to value Israel more than Ukraine because most Americans are Christian and Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not Kyiv."

Packer continues, "He could have turned away from his Ivy League credentials after they stopped being useful without declaring war on higher education and calling professors 'the enemy.' He could have put aside his law degree and still held on to what it taught him about judicial independence and due process."

READ MORE:'OK, seriously. Come on!': MSNBC panel laughs off Trump accusation against ex-FBI director

*Read George Packer's full article for The Atlantic at this link (subscription required).

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Vice President JD Vance made an abrupt about-face this week as the escalating tensions between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India began “spiraling out of control,” Bloomberg’s Mario Parker explained Sunday.

As CNN’s Manu Raju reported, Vance on Thursday downplayed the United States’ role in brokering peace between Pakistan and India, arguing the tensions are “fundamentally none of our business.”

“India has its gripes with Pakistan. Pakistan has responded to India,” Vance told Fox News. “What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we're not going to get involved in the middle of a war that's fundamentally none of our business.”

READ MORE: 'Very bad idea': Even Republicans are revolting over Trump scheme to get $400 million plane from Qatar

“Yet JD Vance and [U.S. Secretary of State] Marco Rubio did intervene,” Raju reported Sunday, asking Parker what he’s “learning about the way this played out behind the scenes.”

“What we're seeing is the fact that reality has met doctrine, right?” Parker replied. “The [Make America Great Again] doctrine of ‘America First.’ None of our business. Hands off of foreign affairs — but the reality of two nuclear-armed nations quickly escalating.”

Parker said “the messages that the U.S., that Washington, was sending to both countries just was going unheeded.”

“Things were spiraling out of control,” Parker added.

READ MORE: 'Good luck!' Transportation sec told to 'do his job' after warning 'other places' face air traffic issues

After the reporter detailed the escalation between the two nations, he noted the White House realized “this was, again, spiraling out of control.”

According to Parker, Vance briefed President Donald Trump on a plan to call Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Rubio “worked his his diplomatic ties."

“And then we got to a ceasefire,” Parker explained.

Raju interjected, adding it’s “important [to note] that [ceasefire] is tenuous right now.”

READ MORE: 'Buyer’s remorse' as MAGA faithful face 'gradual — then sudden — realization' Trump only hurts them

“There still are embers burning,” Parker explained before the rest of the panel weighed in.

Watch the video below via CNN or at this link.

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A new low even for MAGA – but they're about to go lower

REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Sabrina Haake, Raw Story May 05, 2025

Last week, Trump held a campaign-style rally on the campus of Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan. To the delight of his MAGA fans, he trotted out the same personal grievances he’s been serving up since 2015.

Despite achieving fewer legislative accomplishments during his first 100 days than any president since the 1950s, Trump told his adoring crowd that he had “accomplished more in three months than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years.”

If aiding the enemy, defying court orders, and taking a chainsaw to federal services are “accomplishments,” then Trump is accomplished indeed.

MAGA delights in Trump’s cruelty

After his usual braggadocio, Trump pivoted to video recordings of abject cruelty. Behind the podium, Trump displayed large screen videos of the inhumane treatment of helpless migrants he deported to El Salvador's notorious gulag, CECOT. He brayed, still without evidence, “The worst of the worst are being sent to a no-nonsense prison in El Salvador… watch this!”

“This” was a series of video clips showing hundreds of men he has imprisoned without due process, without a hearing, and without credible evidence that they committed any crime. “This” was a video showing men brutally bent over, having their heads shaved bare, and forcibly shoved into concentration camp-style cages that sleep 75 to 80. “This” was Trump priming his already violence-prone base into a bloodthirsty frenzy, as they exploded in raucous approval of his inhumanity, thundering, "USA! USA! USA!"

According to an affidavit from the Human Rights Watch, prisoners held in CECOT are denied communication with the outside, and only appear before courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred detainees at the same time. The Salvadoran government calls them “terrorists” who “will never leave” the prison.

El Salvador, governed by a man who controls the media and calls himself a “cool” dictator, denies human rights groups access to its prisons, and allows journalists to visit only under highly staged circumstances. In videos produced during these visits, prison authorities brag about men held in completely dark solitary confinement cells.

Trump’s stochastic violence against judges

Trump also used the rally to showcase his continued attack on judges, whom he called “communist radical left judges,” claiming they are trying to ‘seize his power.’ Nodding to the courts’ inability to enforce their own orders, Trump warned the world: “Nothing will stop me.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio concurs. At least week’s cabinet meeting, to which Trump invited the media, each cabinet member tried to out-flatter the next person by praising Trump. Seated to Trump’s right, Rubio announced that questions regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man sent in error to El Salvador — specifically, what steps the White House was taking to facilitate his return — were off limits to the media. “I’ll never tell you that, and you know who else I’ll never tell?” Rubio jeered.

“A judge,” he answered himself, “because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States.”

Due process is not a matter of foreign policy

Vice President J.D. Vance also describes the rule of law with sarcastic bombast. He has slammed critics, including federal judges, for “weeping over the lack of due process.”

The Fifth Amendment protects all persons, not just US citizens. It guarantees that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law;” it does not say, ‘no citizens.’ Trump, Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Vance act as if they’ve never heard of it, despite its storied American history. Trying to assume the role of the courts in deciding what the law is, they keep declaring, falsely, that their abuse of immigrants is about “foreign policy.” It isn’t. It’s about the US Constitution, the lynchpin of democracy, without which we don’t have one.

After the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Trump must facilitate Garcia’s return from El Salvador, Trump took to social media to turn a legal block into a PR strategy. He wrote that he is “being stymied at every turn by even the U.S. Supreme Court…which seemingly doesn’t want me to send violent criminals and terrorists back to Venezuela… If we don’t get these criminals out of our Country, we are not going to have a Country any longer.”

Revealing his complete ignorance of how legal immigration works, he added, “We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years. We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of Illegals we are sending out of the Country. Such a thing is not possible to do…MAGA!”

It’s as if, despite tanking last year’s border bill just so he could campaign on it, he’s never actually considered that processing immigrants requires paperwork.

VP Vance, who knows better, says it’s up to Trump—and himself— to decide what due process is, and what it requires. “To say the administration must observe “due process” is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors.” No. It isn’t. It’s not up to Vance and Trump’s discretion because the Fifth and 14th Amendments, and well established precedent, mapped out what due process requires — notice, a hearing, and an opportunity to be heard — decades ago.

Trump is a symptom, not a cause

It’s a sick disease of the mind, this urge to oppress others for power, but Trump didn’t invent it. Neither did Hitler, Mao Zedong, or Stalin. It’s been there since we stopped living in tune with the earth, and started living in our heads. It’s our collective fall from grace, a phenomenon worsened exponentially by social media.

Watching our experiment stumble brings deep personal anguish, like watching someone you love destroy themselves. You’d give your own life to help, but they have to save themselves.

A minority of Americans- 23%- approve of what Trump is doing and would loudly cheer “USA!!” at videos of human suffering. These are the same people who used to applaud public lynchings; before that, they salivated at public stonings, witch burnings and Caligula’s public displays of torture. It seems they will always be with us; the only positive is that there are far more of us than there are of them.

ALSO READ: Trump is a troll – but this 'ugly' selfie demands a damning response

Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are or have been published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

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'The stuff of nightmares': AOC apparently 'lives rent-free' in JD Vance's head

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Political commentators and journalists challenged Vice President JD Vance over his claim on the social platform X that there were 20 million undocumented immigrants in the Biden administration.

Lawyer and Democratic researcher Will Stancil called the Vice President's statement "an insane fabrication that overstates the real number by a factor of 20 or more."

Vance, while responding to another post on X, said, "[Former President] Biden overwhelmed the system with illegal migration. Is your proposed solution to give a jury trial to all 20 million illegal aliens (more if you count those already here)?"

ALSO READ:'Absurd and unlawful': JD Vance slams Denmark to promote Trump’s Greenland takeover bid

"You are hiding behind 'due process' while ignoring that your actual solution means the ratification of a Biden border crisis that was rejected at the ballot box," he added.

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"Vance is a treasonous fool who is openly demeaning the Constitution, but don’t overlook that his claim of 20 million undocumented immigrants in the Biden administration is an insane fabrication that overstates the real number by a factor of 20 or more," Stancil wrote in response to Vance's post.

"Part of why due process is important is that without it, fascist fools like Vance can make claims like 'we need to suspend the rule of law and deport 20 million people under emergency conditions' and there’s no way to challenge the fact it’s an extraordinary and malicious lie," he continued.

"If you’re thrown in a foreign gulag, you become a terrorist, child predator, drug smuggler by default, because if you weren’t Trump and Vance wouldn’t have put you there. It’s completely authoritarian," he added.

ALSO READ:'Vance is lying': VP blasted for 'arguing with people on social media' to defend 'administrative error'

Sportswriter Pablo Torre also weighed in, calling Vance's argument "tragically desperate."

"The tragically desperate argument that the VP of this country is making in the replies here is that America does not have the resources to listen to the Supreme Court anymore," Torre wrote on X.

Vance often gets into arguments on X, defending the administration's policies.

On Tuesday, he had a similar exchange with renowned musician Mikel Jollett, over the Supreme Court ruling that ordered the administration to bring back a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador.

ALSO READ:'Pretending not to know': Musician corners 'Yale-educated' Vance for 'playing dumb' on SCOTUS ruling

"The entire American media and left wing industrial complex has decided the most important issue today is that the Trump admin deported an MS-13 gang member (and illegal alien)," Vance wrote on X on Tuesday, sharing a video from the Oval Office that showed the Trump team aggressively responding to CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins' question about the deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

In response to the vice president's post, Jollett wrote, "No, the most important issue is that the Supreme Court ruled by a 9-0 decision that you must return him."

Some political commentators on X agreed with Jollett's view that the vice president is simply pretending not to know what the Court ruling says.

"Intentionally obtuse. JD Vance thinks you’re too stupid to understand the facts. — he’s not a gang member — they’ve been ordered to facilitate his return — [El Salvador President Nayib] Bukele has already returned a dozen migrants — all they have to do is ask for him to be released and put him on a plane," wroteDemocratic strategist Sawyer Hackett.

ALSO READ:'Quite a metaphor': JD Vance brutally mocked after dropping national championship trophy

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'Morally wrong': JD Vance’s 'tone-deaf' approach to diplomacy is not going well

:{:{U.S. Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the American Dynamism Summit in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 18, 2025.}:

David Badash April 17, 2025

In the realm of foreign policy, Vice President JD Vance has drawn sharp criticism, with critics branding him as “extremist,” the “Malicious American,” and the “Brutal American“—labels sparked by what they describe as his “naked hostility,” his “morally wrong” and “strategically disastrous” posturing, and a demand to interchange “truth for trade.” If alienating allies is the objective, critics say, he’s well on his way to achieving it.

During the first Trump administration, the President repeatedly came under fire for promoting a brand of foreign relations that was seen as entirely transactional. Turning a blind eye to decades of presidents promoting democracy and human rights as critical components of their foreign policy, Trump forged friendships with authoritarian dictators, invited terrorists to Camp David, and delivered “extensive damage” to “the United States’ international interests and global security.”

In this new, second Trump administration, the President appears to have gone all in on that transactional approach. In what is seen as an effort to upend the world order, Trump is on the offensive, attacking friend and foe alike, distancing America from the rest of the world on the premise that the rest of the world needs America more than America needs the rest of the world.

But Vice President JD Vance appears to have taken Trump’s foreign policy to a far different place: an attempt to create a political and cultural reshaping of foreign nations into the far-right realm. Where Trump wanted trade and military deals, Vance seeks to promote the far right and encourage attacks on minorities.

His efforts, to some, were first noticed during the infamous Oval Office meeting with the President of Ukraine. When Vance took the lead in publicly berating Volodymyr Zelenskyy on live television, many saw it as the moment the United States pivoted—from supporting Ukraine to effectively siding with Russia.

The Vice President is now fully engaged in the role of President Trump’s attack dog.

READ MORE: ‘Willful Disregard’: Judge Finds ‘Probable Cause’ to Hold Trump Admin in Criminal Contempt

But the costs are high.

Vance’s assault on a world leader seen as a hero to Western democracies effectively killed what was billed as a wildly lucrative rare earth minerals deal with Ukraine, and with it, a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump campaigned on—stating that he could bring peace in just one day.

The Greenland imbroglio was another embarrassing event—not only for Vance, but for the Second Lady, and for America. What was supposed to be a week-long charm offensive turned into a few offensive hours.

Now that Trump has imposed his worldwide tariffs, Vance appears to be the one attempting to negotiate country by country.

It is not going well.

Last week, Vance told Fox News that America is borrowing money from “Chinese peasants” to “buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”

— (@)

Robyn Dixon, Moscow Bureau Chief for The Washington Post, reports that the “JD Vance comment about ‘Chinese peasants’ was taken in China as deeply offensive, and it is now a hurdle to trade talks. Trump administration’s approach appears tone deaf on this.”

READ MORE: Secret Musk Pentagon Briefing Nixed by Trump Led to Ouster of Longtime Hegseth Associates

Spencer Hakimian, the founder and chief investment officer of the hedge fund Tolou Capital Management, one week after the Vance “peasants” comment, posted that “Chinese purchases of American oil are down -90% Y/Y, while Chinese purchases of Canadian oil are up +700% Y/Y.

“That’s a $20B annual loss for the United States at $60/barrel.”

— (@)

Bloomberg News reports that “China wants to see a number of steps from President Donald Trump’s administration before it will agree to trade talks, including showing more respect by reining in disparaging remarks by members of his cabinet, according to a person familiar with the Chinese government’s thinking.”

It’s not just China, Greenland, Ukraine, or Germany that have had to experience the American Vice President.

According to The Independent, Vance wants the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to repeal hate speech laws “in order to get a trade deal over the line.”

The UK-based news outlet adds that “a senior Washington figure, who has provided advice for the administration, claimed he is ‘obsessed by the fall of Western civilisation’ – including his view that free speech is being eroded in Britain – and that he will demand the Labour government rolls back laws against hateful comments, including abuse targeting LGBT+ groups or other minorities, as a condition of any deal.”

“’No free speech, no deal. It is as simple as that,’ the Washington source said.”

That may come as a surprise to some, but taking a walk back to just a few months ago, it shouldn’t.

In February, Vance traveled to Germany to declare support for its growing neo-Nazi party.

“After berating European allies, Vance met with the leader of the far-right AfD party, Alice Weidel,” The Washington Post’s European Affairs columnist Lee Hockstader wrote.

“That Vance took up the cause of the AfD, a party polling at around 20 percent which many Germans regard as beyond the pale, is heedless of history and contemptuous of the transatlantic alliance,” Hockstader said. “In doing so, he managed to transform Europe’s old stereotype of the Ugly American into something more grotesque: the Malicious American.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘This Is a Big Deal’: Top Hegseth Advisor ‘Escorted’ Out of the Pentagon Amid Leak Probe

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2025 JD Vance speech at the Munich Security Conference - Wikipedia

On 14 February 2025, United States Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference. In his speech, Vance criticized the European Union leaders for what he described as backsliding on freedom of speech and democracy.

Several media outlets regarded the speech as a turning point in European Union–United States relations along with United States President Donald Trump's telephone conversation with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Some described it as a declaration of "ideological war"[1] and "culture war" against the United States' European allies, and a "wrecking ball" to the decades-long status quo of transatlantic relations.[2][3]

Background

The speech was delivered at the 61st Munich Security Conference, an annual conference on international security policy held in Munich, Germany. JD Vance, who had previously attended the conference as a U.S. Senator, delivered the address amid growing tensions over changes in U.S.–European relations under the second Trump administration, and with regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a political crisis in Romania and an economic crisis in Germany.[4]

Just before the conference, United States President Donald Trump held a telephone conversation with President of Russia Vladimir Putin, which led to agreements on negotiations regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine that appeared to leave out Ukraine and Europe as parties. This led foreign ministers of several European countries to say that the European Union must participate in the negotiations.[5][6]

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the speech was said by media outlets to focus on Vance's assertion that internal threats were the greatest dangers to European democracy, not external challenges from Russia or China.[7] He said mass immigration was Europe's most significant problem, noting record levels of foreign-born residents in Germany and increased EU immigration from non-EU countries caused by "conscious decisions" from European leaders. Vance connected the vehicle-ramming attack by an Afghan immigrant on trade union demonstrators in Munich on the eve of the conference to the issue and argued for greater responsiveness to public concerns about migration.[8]

Legitimacy of democratic institutions

In his speech, Vance said that European democratic institutions and rights to freedom of speech were being undermined. He specifically accused European politicians of cancelling elections, referring to the annulment of the first round of the 2024 Romanian presidential election, following reports of Russian internet and Tiktok campaigns to promote the nationalist independent candidate Călin Georgescu, who had come first.[8][10][11] He criticized European officials' approach to electoral integrity, arguing that democratic systems should be robust enough to withstand external influence attempts. Vance compared the annulment to Soviet-era practices, saying that "if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with".[12] He said that the Romanian courts had decided to annul the elections under pressure from "flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors" in reference to the European Union.[8][13] He specifically condemned "cavalier statements" made by former European Commissioner Thierry Breton, saying that he "sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election" while on television.[14]

Freedom of speech

Vance accused European leaders of using "ugly, Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation" in order to hide "old, entrenched interests" against alternative viewpoints that "might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way—or even worse, win an election".[8] The Vice President also heavily denounced the UK government for its "renegade" free speech laws, citing the example of Adam Smith Connor, who was jailed for breaching a "safe access zone" around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth.[15] He also denounced Sweden's conviction of a Christian activist for burning a Quran as prosecution of religious expression, police crackdowns on anti-feminist comments in Germany, and warning letters sent by the Scottish government to people in Scotland whose homes were in safe access zones that allegedly outlawed private prayer.[16] Throughout the address, Vance emphasized the importance of democratic legitimacy and popular sovereignty. He argued that European leaders should embrace rather than fear public opinion, even when it challenges established positions. The speech included specific criticism of the Munich Security Conference itself for excluding certain populist political leaders from participation.[8]

On domestic American politics, Vance criticized former United States President Joe Biden for working with social media corporations to censor "misinformation," including his claim that COVID-19 possibly leaked from a lab in Wuhan. Vance assured that the Trump administration "will do precisely the opposite" of the Biden administration's alleged silencing of dissenting voices.[8] He further said that "if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk" in reference to accusations of election interference against Musk for his promotion of Alternative for Germany (AfD).[17]

European Union–United States relations

The speech addressed several aspects of US–EU relations, including defense spending and security cooperation. While affirming the Trump administration's commitment to European security, Vance emphasized the need for increased European defense contributions. He specifically mentioned the possibility of a "reasonable settlement" between Ukraine and Russia. He also criticized European rhetoric of framing Western attitudes towards Russia and Ukraine as a "defense of democracy" in contrast to his earlier examples of alleged infringements of democratic principles in Europe.[8]

Reactions

... praised Vance's speech, arguing regarding Europe, "They're losing their wonderful right of freedom of speech"[18]

CNN noted that most conference attendees who listened to Vance's speech "sat stony-faced," interrupting the vice president's speech with sparse and modest applause.[16] Vance only briefly mentioned the Russia-Ukraine conflict, disappointing attendees who had hoped to learn more about the second Trump administration's plans for peace negotiations.[19]

An unnamed Eastern European representative said that Vance's speech was the only topic other officials were discussing during the summit. Several United States and European diplomats and officials expressed dismay as the speech occurred, with one claiming that it led to "a room full of people with their mouth open". A former House Democratic member accused Vance of victim blaming Europe for its response to election interference by Russia, and claiming that Vance was also interfering with European elections.[3]

John Cornyn, Republican Senator for Texas, expressed hope that the speech caused Europeans to realize that "their free ride on the coattails of America" had ended. An unnamed former senior United States diplomat described the speech as a "wake-up call" to Europe that it was not dealing with the same United States it was used to for decades.[3]

Commenting on JD Vance's speech, German defense minister Boris Pistorius said that Vance's comparison of parts of Europe to authoritarian regimes was "not acceptable".[20] The head of European Union diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, said that she had the feeling that the United States was "trying to pick a fight with us".[12]

Swedish foreign minister Maria Malmer Stenergard declined to directly comment about Vance's mention of the Quran burning convictions. Former Swedish prime minister from 1991 to 1994 Carl Bildt called Vance's speech "significantly worse than expected", and accused Vance of "blatant interference in the [German] election campaign in favor of far-right AfD". Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said that while Vance could address whatever points he wished to at the summit, he disagreed that the "presumed" erosion of freedom of speech in Europe was more important than the ongoing security issues regarding Ukraine, Russia, and China.[14]

Le Monde referred to Vance's speech as a declaration of "ideological war" against Europe.[1] Politico described the speech as a "wrecking ball" to the summit,[3] and having brought culture war to Europe.[2] Writers in The Guardian fact checked elements of the speech and reported on multiple inaccuracies and misrepresentations.[21]

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Swinney_-_First_Minister_%2853720492021%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)Scotland's first minister John Swinney claimed Vance "was wrong" in his comments regarding Scotland

In response to Vance's remarks about the Scottish Government's Safe Access Zones Act which was enacted in Scotland in September 2024, a spokesperson for the Scottish Government denounced Vance's claims, stating that "no letters had been sent out saying people couldn't pray in their homes", and that only "intentional or reckless behaviour" was covered by the Safe Access Zones Act. Member of the Scottish Parliament, Gillian Mackay, who was responsible for drafting the law, claimed that Vance's remarks were "nonsense", and suggested that he was either "very badly informed" or "knowingly misrepresenting it".[22] First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, said that Vance "was wrong" about his comments,[23] claiming that at "no such point was a letter put across to residents about private prayer in their own homes" as suggested by Vance.[24]

Conservative columnist Bret Stephens called the speech hypocritical and "a disgrace".[25] Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a post on X addressing Vance stated "[Y]ou lied to the world in Munich. If this administration believed in free speech as you claimed, its leaders wouldn't be threatening members of Congress with criminal investigations for educating the public of their Constitutional rights".[26] Representative Gerry Connolly in an interview stated: "Imagine lecturing Europeans about being afraid of their own electorate when it is Trump and Elon Musk who are firing FBI agents because they dared to do their duty, who are having loyalty test at the National Security Council, who are firing tens of thousands of federal employees because they consider them part of the deep state and can't be trusted".[27] Senator Andy Kim said he felt "embarrassed for America".[28] Attorney Jonathan Turley praised the speech, however.[29]

Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, praised the speech as presenting an "inspiring message" and said many people had "intentionally misunderstood" it.[30]

In a March 2025 interview with the Financial Times, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (who belongs to the right-wing Brothers of Italy party) said that she agreed with Vance's speech, claiming that Europe "has a bit lost itself".[31]

See also

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an 4 25

NBC News reports the 2028 election is already underway with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) unleashing a blistering attack on Vice President JD Vance at the prestigious Connecticut university where he obtained his law degree.

“Let me say this as clearly as I can: JD Vance, your cold indifference to the lives of vulnerable immigrants betrays every principle that this law school was built to uphold,” Khanna said in a speech at Yale Law School. “Your affiliation with this law school is now a stain on the degree of every Yale graduate.”

“Vance has not only declared war on the courts, but on the universities. And it is no accident,” he continued. “As Stephen Kotkin observed in his study of Stalin, strongmen do not fear recessions or even failed wars as much as they fear the university.”

READ MORE: Legal expert details 'nightmare' that lies ahead if Trump uses 'military against Americans'

His speech came a day after the Trump administration froze more than $2 billion in grants to Harvard University after it rejected Trump’s demands to address so-called campus “antisemitism,” which also happens to mandate the elimination of Harvard’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The demands also include banning masks at campus protests, merit-based hiring and admissions reforms and the targeting and disempowering of faculty and administrators the administration views as “more committed to activism than scholarship.”

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Almost 900 Yale faculty members published a letter to their leadership this week expressing support for standing up to the Trump administration alongside Harvard.

“We stand together at a crossroads,” the letter read. “American universities are facing extraordinary attacks that threaten the bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and academic freedom. We write as one faculty, to ask you to stand with us now.”

Khanna noted Vance’s response to the mistaken deportation and offsite incarceration of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. Vance falsely refers to Garcia as a “convicted MS-13 gang member,” despite Garcia having no record here or abroad. He also falsely calls him “an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country,” despite a 2019 protection order against his removal from the U.S.

READ MORE:'Pretending not to know': Musician corners 'Yale-educated' Vance for 'playing dumb' on SCOTUS ruling

“When Americans asked for due process, [Vance] answered not with reason, but with feigned rage — accusing us of sympathy for a gang member,” Khanna said.

Read the full NBC article at this link.

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bad faith? troll?

CI said in gang but judge ruled he cd not be sent to el salv bc of threat?

trump admin laugh when cool dic said he could not smuggle him back

no one in room asked to return him, rubio, jdv, bondi

next US citizens rendered

an 4 25

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has requested a meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele during his current visit to the United States to discuss the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to an infamous Salvador prison due to an "administrative error" by the Trump administration.

In a letter to the Salvadoran ambassador to the U.S. Milena Mayorga written Monday, Hollen said U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

"I have met with Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife, mother and brother and, as you can imagine, they are extremely worried about his health, safety, and continued illegal confinement, as am I," he wrote in the letter.

ALSO READ:'Dystopian': Miller makes 'outrageous' claim as El Salvador refuses to return US resident

"I look forward to your response," the Maryland Democrat told the envoy.

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During a press conference alongside Bukele in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump claimed that the Supreme Court had ruled 9–0 in his favor and that the ruling in the case meant that the U.S. government would have to provide a plane only if the Salvadoran president chose to return Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongfully deported to an infamous Salvadoran prison.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said when asked by reporters if he would help return the man, adding that returning him would be akin to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

In a statement sharing the letter, the Senator said, “If Kilmar is not home by midweek — I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release."

ALSO READ:'Clear choice': Experts say Trump 'openly defying' Supreme Court may

Democratic strategists and commentators are calling on other Democratic lawmakers to follow in Sen. Van Hollen's footsteps and call for Abrego Garcia's return.

"What’s happening to him is wrong, and we need Dems to draw attention to it," Democratic strategist Mike Nellis wrote on the social platform X.

Academic Keith Orejel, while sharing the letter on X, said, "Make Chris Van Hollen minority leader. Oust Schumer and all the other spineless collaborationists who have said next to nothing about this issue."

ALSO READ:'Waiting for Vance to smash through the door': Trump officials give Bukele a pass on Oval Office garb

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an 4 25

Vice President JD Vance found himself in yet another argument on the social platform X, this time with renowned musician Mikel Jollett, over the Supreme Court ruling that ordered the administration to bring back a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador.

"The entire American media and left wing industrial complex has decided the most important issue today is that the Trump admin deported an MS-13 gang member (and illegal alien)," Vance wrote on X on Tuesday, sharing a video from the Oval Office that showed the Trump team aggressively responding to CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins' question about the deported man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.

In response to the vice president's post, Jollett wrote, "No, the most important issue is that the Supreme Court ruled by a 9-0 decision that you must return him."

ALSO READ:'Dystopian': Miller makes 'outrageous' claim as El Salvador refuses to return US resident

"Trump is not a dictator or a king. He's a president and a president must follow the Supreme Court's ruling. If he does not, he must be removed from power. It's that simple," Jollett added.

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Replying to Jollett, Vance said, "Are you proposing that we invade El Salvador to retrieve a gang member with no legal right to be in our country? Where in the Supreme Court’s decision does it require us to do that?"

Jollett pressed the vice president further, saying, "The ruling clearly states that you are required to take steps to facilitate his return and update the court on your progress. You have plenty of tools at your disposal to do this without invading El Salvador."

ALSO READ:Ex-Blackwater CEO’s new pitch for Trump 'could be a precursor to deporting US citizens'

"You, of course, KNOW THIS because you are a Yale-educated lawyer. You're pretending NOT TO KNOW IT and playing dumb publicly. Our entire system rests on checks and balances and you just got checked by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 ruling," he added.

"Are you saying Trump is too weak to simply ask Bukele to return him?" the musician asked.

Some political commentators on X agreed with Jollett's view that the vice president is simply pretending not to know what the Court ruling says.

"Intentionally obtuse. JD Vance thinks you’re too stupid to understand the facts. - he’s not a gang member - they’ve been ordered to facilitate his return - Bukele has already returned a dozen migrants - all they have to do is ask for him to be released and put him on a plane," wroteDemocratic strategist Sawyer Hackett.

ALSO READ:'Clear choice': Experts say Trump 'openly defying' Supreme Court may doom future elections

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context

wh visit an 4 25

Backing up the Trump administration, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, says he has no intention or ability to return an unlawfully removed Maryland legal resident, Kilmar Abrego García, to the United States. Abrego García was wrongly deported to a notorious maximum security “mega-prison” for terrorists in El Salvador.

“How can I return him to the United States?” President Bukele said to reporters on Monday, during a meeting with President Donald Trump and his top officials in the Oval Office, as reported by The Washington Post. “I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.”

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court in an apparent unanimous opinion ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego García to the United States.

Minutes before President Bukele’s remarks, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, on-camera in the Oval Office, delivered what is being called an “outrageous misinterpretation” of the Supreme Court’s opinion, which was quickly condemned.

READ MORE: Trump Rages Against Critics, All But Silent on Alleged Terror Attack on Dem Governor

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“I promise you, if he was your neighbor, you would move right away,” Miller, who was the architect of the first Trump administration’s child separation policy, told reporters.

“What was the ruling in the Supreme Court, Steve, was it nine to nothing?” President Trump interjected.

“Yes, it was a 9-0, in our favor,” Miller wrongly claimed. “against the district court ruling, saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of the United States.”

“As Pam said,” Miller continued, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi, “the ruling solely stated that if this individual—at El Salvador’s sole discretion—was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.”

“No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here, because he is a citizen of El Salvador,” Miller claimed, before pointing reporters to Bukele.

“That is the president of El Salvador. Your questions about it per the court can only be directed to him,” said Miller.

Attorney Michael Kasdan responded to Miller’s remarks: “We have reached the point where the White House openly lies on television about what a unanimous Supreme Court ruling against them says. The stuff of dystopian novels.”

“This is a blatant lie. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 AGAINST Trump,” wrote the progressive nonprofit People For the American Way.

READ MORE: ‘Apocalyptic’: Trump Plan Would Be ‘Science Demolition Derby’ Experts Warn

“This is deeply Orwellian. The Court ruled against the Trump administration 9-0,” observed the MeidasTouch Network.

Conservative legal activist and political commentator Ed Whelan, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, weighed in.

“Outrageous misrepresentation of Supreme Court ruling,” Whelan declared, serving up a somewhat technical legal analysis. “The unanimous Court ruled that the district-court order ‘properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’ Yes, the Court also stated that the “intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’ in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority,” and it told the district court to ‘clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.’ But: (1) ‘due regard’ doesn’t mean that the district court couldn’t give any teeth to ‘effectuate’; (2) in any event, the district court dropped ‘effectuate’ from its revised order, so this is all irrelevant. Duty to ‘facilitate’ continues.”

Commenting on the video, immigration attorney Allen Orr Jr. Esq. wrote: “When you tell yourself the story you want to believe even when it is fiction.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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an 4 25

:{President Donald Trump's misrepresentation of the Supreme Court ruling on Kilmar Abrego Garcia — falsely claiming that the court ruled 9-0 in the administration's favor — has raised concerns among some analysts, who are calling it a :{"constitutional crisis."}:

During a press conference alongside El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump claimed that the Supreme Court had ruled 9–0 in his favor and that the ruling in the case meant that the U.S. government would have to provide a plane only if the Salvadoran president chose to return Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongfully deported to an infamous Salvadoran prison.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said when asked by reporters if he would help return the man, adding that returning him would be akin to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

ALSO READ:'I’m not asking for state secrets': Judge gives Trump ultimatum on wrongfully deported man

According to some political commentators, the president is openly defying the judiciary and some have warned that this development poses a risk to the credibility of the 2026 midterm elections.

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David Frum, a writer at The Atlantic said in a post on the social platform X: "Trump defying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision is the reason I say 'if we still have free and fair elections in the United States' when I talk about 2026 midterms."

Editor in chief MeidasTouch Ron Filpkowski saidthis was "another court order that Trump is now openly defying."

"Republicans in Congress assured us repeatedly that Trump would never defy a court order. It is obvious that he simply doesn’t care though after the Supreme Court gave him immunity," he added.

ALSO READ:Supreme Court unanimously rules against Trump in case of wrongfully deported man

Author Hold Meyerson wrote in an article for the American Prospect that Garcia's case is "the first that presents Trump with the clear choice of obeying a Supreme Court order or flouting it."

"So far he's opting for the latter, bolstered by the administration's most powerful adviser," Meyerson added.

Democratic strategist Mike Nellis said he doesn't use that term lightly, "but Trump outright refusing the Supreme Court’s order to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an *actual* constitutional crisis."

Political activist Don Winslow wrote, BREAKING RIGHT NOW! THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BRING ABREGO GARCIA HOME. This is Donald Trump defying the SupremeCourt."

ALSO READ:'Vance is lying': VP blasted for 'arguing with people on social media' to defend 'administrative error'

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mojo

The Real Reason El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele Cozied Up to Trump

Reveal

US and El Salvador Celebrate Their Refusal to Return Man Wrongly Deported to “Gulag”

Noah Lanard and Isabela Dias

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GUK GRETA

REF

The movement for corporate city states cannot believe its good luck. For years, it has been pushing the extreme notion that wealthy, tax-averse people should up and start their own high-tech fiefdoms, whether new countries on artificial islands in international waters (“seasteading”) or pro-business “freedom cities” such as Próspera, a glorified gated community combined with a wild west med spa on a Honduran island.

Yet despite backing from the heavy-hitter venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, their extreme libertarian dreams kept bogging down: it turns out most self-respecting rich people don’t actually want to live on floating oil rigs, even if it means lower taxes, and while Próspera might be nice for a holiday and some body “upgrades”, its extra-national status is currently beingchallenged in court.

Now, all of a sudden, this once-fringe network of corporate secessionists finds itself knocking on open doors at the dead center of global power.

The first sign that fortunes were shifting came in 2023, when a campaigning Donald Trump, seemingly out of nowhere, promised to hold a contest that would lead to the creation of 10 “freedom cities” on federal lands. The trial balloon barely registered at the time, lost in the daily deluge of outrageous claims. Since the new administration took office, however, would-be country starters have been on a lobbying blitz, determined to turn Trump’s pledge into reality.

“The energy in DC is absolutely electric,” Trey Goff, the chief of staff of Próspera, recently enthused after a trip to Capitol Hill. Legislation paving the way for a bevy of corporate city-states should be complete by the end of the year, he claims.

Inspired by the political philosopher Albert Hirschman, figures including Goff, Thiel and the investor and writer Balaji Srinivasan have been championing what they call “exit” – the principle that those with means have the right to walk away from the obligations of citizenship, especially taxes and burdensome regulation. Retooling and rebranding the old ambitions and privileges of empires, they dream of splintering governments and carving up the world into hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens under the sole control of the supremely wealthy, protected by private mercenaries, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies.

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Peter Thiel in Tokyo in 2019. Photograph: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

One might assume that it is contradictory for Trump, elected on a flag-waving “America first” platform, to lend credence to this vision of sovereign territories ruled over by billionaire god-kings. And much has been made of the colorful flame wars between the Maga mouth-piece Steve Bannon, a proud nationalist and populist, and the Trump-allied billionaires he has attacked as “technofeudalists” who “don’t give a flying fuck about the human being” – let alone the nation state. And conflicts inside Trump’s awkward, jerry-rigged coalition certainly exist, most recently reaching a boiling point over tariffs. Still, the underlying visions might not be as incompatible as they first appear.

The startup country contingent is clearly foreseeing a future marked by shocks, scarcity and collapse. Their high-tech private domains are essentially fortressed escape pods, designed for the select few to take advantage of every possible luxury and opportunity for human optimization, giving them and their children an edge in an increasingly barbarous future. To put it bluntly, the most powerful people in the world are preparing for the end of the world, an end they themselves are frenetically accelerating.

That is not so far away from the more mass-market vision of fortressed nations that has gripped the hard right globally, from Italy to Israel, Australia to the United States: in a time of ceaseless peril, openly supremacist movements in these countries are positioning their relatively wealthy states as armed bunkers. These bunkers are brutal in their determination to expel and imprison unwanted humans (even if that requires indefinite confinement in extra-national penal colonies from Manus Island to Guantánamo Bay) and equally ruthless in their willingness to violently claim the land and resources (water, energy, critical minerals) they deem necessary to weather the coming shocks.

Though it builds on enduring rightwing tendencies ... we simply have not faced such a powerful apocalyptic strain in government before

Interestingly, at a time when previously secular Silicon Valley elites are suddenly finding Jesus, it is noteworthy that both of these visions – the priority-pass corporate state and the mass-market bunker nation – share a great deal in common with the Christian fundamentalist interpretation of the biblical Rapture, when the faithful will supposedly be lifted up to a golden city in heaven, while the damned are left to endure an apocalyptic final battle down here on earth.

If we are to meet our critical moment in history, we need to reckon with the reality that we are not up against adversaries we have seen before. We are up against end times fascism.

Reflecting on his childhood under Mussolini, the novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco observed in a celebrated essay that fascism typically has an “Armageddon complex” – a fixation on vanquishing enemies in a grand final battle. But European fascism of the 1930s and 1940s also had a horizon: a vision for a future golden age after the bloodbath that, for its in-group, would be peaceful, pastoral and purified. Not today.

Alive to our era of genuine existential danger – from climate breakdown to nuclear war to sky-rocketing inequality and unregulated AI – but financially and ideologically committed to deepening those threats, contemporary far-right movements lack any credible vision for a hopeful future. The average voter is offered only remixes of a bygone past, alongside the sadistic pleasures of dominance over an ever-expanding assemblage of dehumanized others.

And so we have the Trump administration’s dedication to releasing its steady stream of real and AI-generated propaganda designed solely for these pornographic purposes. Footage of shackled immigrants being loaded on to deportation flights, set to the sounds of clanking chains and locking cuffs, which the official White House X account labeled “ASMR”, a reference to audio designed to calm the nervous system. Or the same account sharing news of the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a US permanent resident who was active in Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian encampment, with the gloating words: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” Or any number of homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s sadism-chic photo ops (atop a horse at the US-Mexican border, in front of a crowded prison cell in El Salvador, slinging a machine gun while arresting immigrants in Arizona …).

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Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of an El Salvador prison in March. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

The governing ideology of the far right in our age of escalating disasters has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism.

It is terrifying in its wickedness, yes. But it also opens up powerful possibilities for resistance. To bet against the future on this scale – to bank on your bunker – is to betray, on the most basic level, our duties to one another, to the children we love, and to every other life form with whom we share a planetary home. This is a belief system that is genocidal at its core and treasonous to the wonder and beauty of this world. We are convinced that the more people understand the extent to which the right has succumbed to the Armageddon complex, the more they will be willing to fight back, realizing that absolutely everything is now on the line.

Our opponents know full well that we are entering an age of emergency, but have responded by embracing lethal yet self-serving delusions. Having bought into various apartheid fantasies of bunkered safety, they are choosing to let the Earth burn. Our task is to build a wide and deep movement, as spiritual as it is political, strong enough to stop these unhinged traitors. A movement rooted in a steadfast commitment to one another, across our many differences and divides, and to this miraculous, singular planet.

Not so long ago, it was primarily religious fundamentalists who greeted signs of apocalypse with gleeful excitement about the long-awaited Rapture. Trump has handed critical posts to people who subscribe to that fiery orthodoxy, including several Christian Zionists who see Israel’s use of annihilatory violence to expand its territorial footprint not as illegal atrocities but as felicitous evidence that the Holy Land is getting closer to the conditions under which the Messiah will return, and the faithful will get their celestial kingdom.

Mike Huckabee, Trump’s newly confirmed ambassador to Israel, has strong ties to Christian Zionism, as does Pete Hegseth, his secretary of defense. Noem and Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect who now leads the office of budget and management, are both staunch advocates for Christian nationalism. Even Thiel, who is gay and notorious for his party lifestyle, has been heard musing about the arrival of the antichrist of late (spoiler: he thinks it’s Greta Thunberg, more on that soon).

But you don’t need to be a biblical literalist, or even religious, to be an end times fascist. Today, plenty of powerful secular people have embraced a vision of the future that follows a nearly identical script, one in which the world as we know it collapses under its weight and a chosen few survive and thrive in various kinds of arks, bunkers and gated “freedom cities”. In a 2019 paper titled Left Behind: Future Fetishists, Prepping and the Abandonment of Earth, the communication scholars Sarah T Roberts and Mél Hogan described the longing for a secular Rapture: “In the accelerationist imaginary, the future is not about harm reduction, limits or restoration; rather it is a politics driving toward an endgame.”

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Mike Huckabee touring Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem in 2008. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images

Elon Musk, who dramatically grew his fortune alongside Thiel at PayPal, embodies this implosive ethos. This is a person who looks up at the wonders of the night sky and apparently sees only opportunities to fill that inky unknown with his own space junk. Though he burnished his reputation warning about the dangers of the climate crisis and AI, he and his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) henchmen now spend their days escalating those same risks (and many others) by slashing not only environmental regulations but entire regulatory agencies, with the apparent end goal of replacing federal workers with chatbots.

Who needs a functioning nation state when outer space – now reportedly Musk’s singular obsession – beckons? For Musk, Mars has become a secular ark, which he claims is key to the survival of human civilization, perhaps via uploaded consciousnesses to an artificial general intelligence. Kim Stanley Robinson, the author of the sci-fi Mars Trilogy that appears to have partially inspired Musk, is blunt about the dangers of the billionaire’s fantasies about colonizing Mars. It is, he says, “just a moral hazard that creates the illusion we can wreck Earth and still be okay. It’s totally not true.”

Much like religious end-timers who long to escape the corporeal realm, Musk’s drive for humanity to become “multiplanetary” is made possible by his inability to appreciate the multispecies splendor of our only home. Evidently uninterested in the vast bounty that surrounds him, or in ensuring Earth can continue buzzing with diversity, he instead deploys his vast fortune to bring about a future that would see a handful of people and robots eke out survival on two barren orbs (a radically depleted Earth and a terraformed Mars). Indeed, in a strange twist on the Old Testament tale, Musk and his fellow tech billionaires, having arrogated god-like powers to themselves, aren’t content to just build the arks. They appear to be doing their best to cause the flood. Today’s rightwing leaders and their rich allies are not just taking advantage of catastrophes, shock-doctrine and disaster-capitalism style, but simultaneously provoking and planning for them.

What of the Maga base, though? Not all are sufficiently faithful to earnestly believe in the Rapture, and most certainly don’t have the cash to buy a spot in a “freedom city” let alone on a rocket ship. Fear not. End times fascism offers the promise of many more affordable arks and bunkers, these ones well within reach for lower-level foot soldiers.

Listen to Steve Bannon’s daily podcast – which bills itself as Maga’s premier media outlet – and you will be barraged with a singular message: the world is going to hell, the infidels are breaching the barricades, and a final battle is coming. Be prepared. The prepper message becomes particularly pronounced when Bannon switches to hawking his advertisers’ products. Buy Birch Gold, Bannon tells his audience, because the over-leveraged US economy is going to crash and you can’t trust the banks. Stock up on ready-to-eat meals from My Patriot Supply. Sharpen your target practice using a laser-guided at-home system. The last thing you would want to do is depend on the government during a disaster, he reminds listeners (left unsaid: especially now that the Doge boys are selling off the government for parts).

End times fascism is a darkly festive fatalism – a final refuge for those who find it easier to celebrate destruction than imagine living without supremacy

Bannon doesn’t only urge his audience to make their own bunkers, of course. He also advances a vision of the United States as a bunker in its own right, one in which Ice agents stalk the streets, workplaces and campuses, disappearing those deemed enemies of US policy and interests. The bunkered nation lies at the heart of the Maga agenda, and of end times fascism. Inside its logic, the first job is to harden national borders and expunge all enemies, foreign and domestic. This ugly work is now well under way, with the Trump administration, enabled by the supreme court, having invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to Cecot, the now infamous mega-prison in El Salvador. The facility, which shaves prisoners heads and packs up to 100 people into a single cell, stacked with bare bunks, operates under the civil liberties-destroying “state of exception” first declared over three years ago by the country’s crypto-loving, Christian Zionist prime minister, Nayib Bukele.

Bukele has offered to provide the same fee-for-service system for US citizens the administration would like to drop into a judicial black hole. “I love that,” Trump said recently, when asked about the proposal. No wonder: Cecot is the sick if logical corollary of the “freedom city” fantasy – a zone where everything is for sale and due process does not apply. We should expect much more of this sadism. In a chillingly candid statement, the acting Ice director, Todd Lyons, told the 2025 Border Security Expo that he wanted to see a more “business”-oriented approach to these deportations, “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings”.

If policing the boundaries of the bunkered nation is end times fascism’s job one, equally important is job two: for the US government to lay claim to whatever resources its protected citizens might need to get through the tough times ahead. Maybe it’s Panama’s canal. Or Greenland’s fast-melting shipping routes. Or Ukraine’s critical minerals. Or Canada’s fresh water. We should think of this less as old-school imperialism than super-sized prepping, at the level of the national state. Gone are the old colonial fig leaves of spreading democracy or God’s word – when Trump covetously scans the globe, he is stockpiling for civilizational collapse.

This bunker mentality also helps explain JD Vance’s controversial forays into Catholic theology. The vice-president, who owes his political career in no small part to the largess of the premier prepper Thiel, explained to Fox News that, according to the medieval Christian concept of ordo amoris (translated both as “order of love” and “order of charity”), love is not owed to those outside the bunker: “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” (Or not, as the Trump administration’s foreign policy would indicate.) In other words, we owe nothing to anyone outside our bunker.

Though it builds on enduring rightwing tendencies – justifying hateful exclusions is hardly new under the ethno-nationalist sun – we simply have not faced such a powerful apocalyptic strain in government before. The “end of history” swagger of the post-cold war era is rapidly being supplanted by a conviction we are in the actual end of times. Doge may wrap itself in the banner of economic “efficiency”, and Musk’s underlings may evoke memories of the young, US-trained “Chicago Boys” who designed the economic shock therapy for Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorial regime, but this is not simply the old marriage of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. It’s a new, money-worshiping millenarian mashup that says we need to smash the bureaucracy and replace humans with chatbots in order to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” – and, also, because the bureaucracy is where the Trump-resisting demons hide. This is where the tech bros merge with the TheoBros, a real group of hyper-patriarchal Christian supremacists with ties to Hegseth and others in the Trump administration.

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Steve Bannon advances a vision of the United States as a bunker in its own right. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

As fascism always does, today’s Armageddon complex crosses class lines, bonding billionaires to the Maga base. Thanks to decades of deepening economic stresses, alongside ceaseless and skillful messaging pitting workers against one another, a great many people understandably feel unable to protect themselves from the disintegration that surrounds them (no matter how many months of ready-to-eat meals they buy). But there are emotional compensations on offer: you can cheer the end of affirmative action and DEI, glorify mass deportation, enjoy the denial of gender-affirming care to trans people, villainize educators and health workers who think they know better than you, and applaud the demise of economic and environmental regulations as a way to own the libs. End times fascism is a darkly festive fatalism – a final refuge for those who find it easier to celebrate destruction than imagine living without supremacy.

It’s also a self-reinforcing downward spiral: Trump’s furious attacks on every structure designed to protect the public from diseases, dangerous foods and disasters – even to tell the public when disasters are headed their way – strengthen the case for prepperism at both the high and low ends, all while creating myriad new opportunities for privatization and profiteering by the oligarchs powering this rapid-fire unmaking of the social and regulatory state.

At the dawn of Trump’s first term, the New Yorker investigated a phenomenon that it described as “doomsday prep for the super-rich”. Back then, it was already clear that in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, the more serious high-end survivalists were hedging against climate disruption and social collapse by buying space in custom-built underground bunkers and building escape homes on high ground in places like Hawaii (where Mark Zuckerberg has downplayed his 5,000 sq ft underground pad as a “little shelter”) and New Zealand (where Thiel purchased nearly 500 acres but found his plan to build a luxury survivalist compound rejected by local authorities in 2022 for being an eyesore).

This millenarianism is bound up with a suite of other Silicon Valley intellectual fads, all premised on an end-times-inflected belief that our planet is headed towards a cataclysm and it’s time to make some hard choices about which parts of humanity can be saved. Transhumanism is one such ideology, encompassing everything from minor human-machine “enhancements” to the quest to upload human intelligence into a still illusory artificial general intelligence. There is also effective altruism and longtermism, both of which skip over redistributive approaches to helping those in need in the here and now in favor of a cost-benefit approach to doing the most good in the long term.

Though they can appear benign at first glance, these ideas are shot through with dangerous racial, ableist and gender biases about which parts of humanity are worth enhancing and saving – and which could be sacrificed for the supposed good of the whole. They also share a marked lack of interest in urgently addressing the underlying drivers of collapse – a responsible and rational goal that a growing cohort of figures now actively shun. Instead of effective altruism the Mar-a-Lago regular Andreessen and others have embraced “effective accelerationism”, or the “deliberate propulsion of technological development” without guardrails.

Meanwhile, even darker philosophies are finding a wider audience, like the neoreactionary pro-monarchy rants of the coder Curtis Yarvin (another one of Thiel’s intellectual touchstones), or the “pro-natalism” movement’s obsession with dramatically increasing the number of “western” babies (a Musk fixation), as well as the exit guru Srinivasan’s vision of a “tech zionist” San Francisco where corporate loyalists and police join forces to politically cleanse the city of liberals to make way for their networked apartheid state.

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Marc Andreessen and Balaji Srinivasan speak during a panel discussion about bitcoin in San Francisco in 2014. Photograph: Paul Chinn/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

As the AI scholars Timnit Gebru and Émile P Torres have written, though the methods may be new, this “bundle” of ideological fads “are direct descendants of first-wave eugenics”, which also saw a small subset of humanity making decisions about which parts of the whole were worth continuing and which needed to be phased out, cleared out, or terminated. Until recently, few paid attention. Much like Próspera, where members can already experiment with human-machine mergers such as having their Tesla keysimplanted into their hands, these intellectual fads seemed to be the marginal hobby horses of a few Bay Area dilettantes with money and caution to burn. No longer.

Three recent material developments have accelerated end times fascism’s apocalyptic appeal. The first is the climate crisis. While some high-profile figures might still publicly deny or minimize the threat, global elites, whose ocean-front properties and datacenters are intensely vulnerable to rising temperatures and sea levels, are well-versed in the ramifying perils of an ever-heating world. The second is Covid-19: epidemiological models had long predicted the possibility of a pandemic devastating our globally networked world; the actual arrival of one was taken by many powerful people as a sign that we have officially arrived at what US military analysts forecasted as “the Age of Consequences”. No more predictions, it’s going down. The third factor is the rapid advancement and adoption of AI, a set of technologies that have long been associated with sci-fi terrors about machines turning on their makers with ruthless efficiency – fears expressed most forcefully by the same people who are developing these technologies. All of these existential crises are layered on top of escalating tensions between nuclear-armed powers.

None of this should be written off as paranoia. Many of us feel the imminence of breakdown so acutely that we cope by entertaining ourselves with various versions of life in a post-apocalyptic bunker, streaming Apple’s Silo or Hulu’s Paradise. As the UK analyst and editor Richard Seymour reminds us in his recent book, Disaster Nationalism: “The apocalypse is no mere fantasy. We are living in it, after all, from deadly viruses to soil erosion, from economic crisis to geopolitical chaos.”

The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants

Trump 2.0’s economic project is a Frankenstein’s monster of the industries driving all of these threats – fossil fuels, weapons and resource-ravenous cryptocurrency and AI. Everyone involved in these sectors knows that there is no way to build the artificial mirror world that AI promises to construct without sacrificing this world – these technologies consume too much energy, too many critical minerals, and too much water for the two to coexist in any kind of equilibrium. This month, the former Google executive Eric Schmidt admitted as much,telling Congress that AI’s “profound” energy needs are projected to triple in the next few years, with much of it coming from fossil fuels, because nuclear can’t come online fast enough. This planet-incinerating level of consumption is necessary, he explained, to enable an intelligence “higher” than humanity, a digital god rising from the ashes of our relinquished world.

And they are worried – just not about the actual threats they are unleashing. What keeps the leaders of these entangled industries up at night is the prospect of a civilizational wake-up call – of serious, internationally coordinated government efforts to rein in their rogue sectors before it’s too late. From the perspective of their ever-expanding bottom lines, the apocalypse is not collapse; it’s regulation.

The fact that their profits are predicated on planetary devastation helps explain why do-gooder discourse among the powerful is giving way to open expressions of disdain for the idea that we owe each other anything by right of our shared humanity. Silicon Valley is done with altruism, effective or otherwise. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg pines for a culture that celebrates “aggression”. Alex Karp, Thiel’s business partner at the surveillance firm Palantir Technologies,rebukes the “losing” “self-flagellation” of those who question American superiority and the benefits of autonomous weapons systems (and, by association, the lucrative military contracts that have made Karp’s vast fortune). Musk informs Joe Rogan that empathy is “the fundamental weakness of western civilization” and he vents, after failing to purchase a supreme court election in Wisconsin: “It increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.” Meaning we humans are nothing but grist for Grok, the AI service he owns. (He did tell us he was “dark Maga” – and he’s not the only one.)

In arid and climate-stressed Spain, one of the groups calling for a moratorium on new datacenters calls itself Tu Nube Seca Mi Río – Spanish for “your cloud is drying my river”. The name is fitting, and not just for Spain.

An unspeakably dismal choice is being made before our eyes and without our consent: machines over humans, inanimate over animate, profits over all else. With stunning speed, the big tech megalomaniacs have quietly rolled back their net-zero pledges and lined up by Trump’s side, hellbent on sacrificing this world’s real and precious resources and creativity at the altar of a vampiric, virtual realm. This is the last great heist, and they are getting ready to ride out the storms they themselves are summoning – and they will try to defame and destroy anyone who gets in their way.

Consider Vance’s recent European sojourn, where the vice-president harangued world leaders for “handwringing about safety” in relation to job-destroying AI while demanding Nazi and fascist speech go uncurtailed online. At one point he made a telling aside, expecting a laugh that never came: “If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”

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JD Vance speaks at the Munich Security Conference in February. Photograph: dts News Agency Germany/REX/Shutterstock

His comment echoed those made by his equally humorless patron Thiel. In recent interviews focused on the theological underpinnings of his far-right politics, the Christian billionaire has repeatedly compared the indefatigable young climate activist to the antichrist – a figure he warns was prophesied to come bearing a misleading message of “peace and safety”. “If Greta gets everyone on the planet to ride a bicycle, maybe that’s a way to solve climate change, but it has sort of this quality of going from the frying pan into the fire,” Thiel intoned.

Why Thunberg, why now? In part, it’s clearly the apocalyptic fear of regulation eating into their super-profits: accordingto Thiel, the science-based climate action Thunberg and others demand could only be enforced by a “totalitarian state”, which he claims is more dire a threat than climate breakdown (most distressingly, the taxes under such conditions would be “quite high”). There may also be something else about Thunberg that frightens them: her steadfast commitment to this planet and the many life forms who call it home – not to simulations of this world generated by AI, or to a hierarchy of those deserving of life and those who are not, nor to any of the various extra-planetary escape fantasies the end times fascists are selling.

She is committed to staying, while the end times fascists have, at least in their imaginings, already left this realm, ensconced in their opulent shelters or transcended to the digital ether, or to Mars.

Shortly after Trump’s re-election, one of us had the opportunity to Anohni, one of the few musicians who have attempted to make art that wraps its arms around the death drive that has gripped our world. Asked about what connects the willingness of powerful people to let the planet burn and the drive to deny bodily autonomy to women and to trans people like her, she responded by drawing on her Irish Catholic upbringing: it’s “a very long-held myth that we are enacting and embodying. This is the culmination of their Rapture. This is their escape from the voluptuous cycle of creation. This is their escape from Mother.”

How do we break this apocalyptic fever? First, we help each other face the depth of the depravity that has gripped the hard right in all of our countries. To move forward with focus, we must first understand this simple fact: we are up against an ideology that has given up not only on the premise and promise of liberal democracy but on the livability of our shared world – on its beauty, on its people, on our children, on other species. The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.

Second, we counter their apocalyptic narratives with a far better story about how to survive the hard times ahead without leaving anyone behind. A story capable of draining end times fascism of its gothic power and galvanizing a movement ready to put it all on the line for our collective survival. A story not of end times, but of better times; not of separation and supremacy, but of interdependence and belonging; not of escaping, but staying put and staying faithful to the troubled earthly reality in which we are enmeshed and bound.

This basic sentiment, of course, is not new. It is central to Indigenous cosmologies, and it lies at the heart of animism. Go back far enough and every culture and faith has its own tradition of respecting the sanctity of here, and not searching for Zion in an elusive ever-distant promised land. In eastern Europe, before the fascist and Stalinist annihilations, the Jewish socialist Labor Bund organized around the yiddish concept of Doikayt, or “hereness”. Molly Crabapple, who has written a forthcoming book about this neglected history, defines Doikayt as the right to “fight for freedom and safety in the places where they lived, in defiance of everyone who wanted them dead” – and rather than be forced to flee to safety in Palestine or the United States. Perhaps what is needed is a modern-day universalization of that concept: a commitment to the right to the “hereness” of this particular ailing planet, to these frail bodies, to the right to live in dignity wherever on the planet we are, even when the inevitable shocks forces us to move. “Hereness” can be portable, free of nationalism, rooted in solidarity, respectful of indigenous rights and unbounded by borders.

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Anti-Trump protesters march against the administration in New York in January. Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

That future would require its own apocalypse, its own world-ending and revelation, though of a very different sort. Because as the scholar of policing Robyn Maynard has observed: “In order to make earthly planetary survival possible, some versions of this world need to end.”

We have reached a choice point, not about whether we are facing apocalypse but what form it will take. The activist sisters Adrienne Maree and Autumn Brown touched on this recently on their aptly named podcast, How to Survive the End of the World. In this moment, when end times fascism is waging war on every front, new alliances are essential. But instead of asking: “Do we all share the same worldview?” Adrienne urges us to ask: “Is your heart beating and do you plan to live? Then come this way and we will figure out the rest on the other side.”

To have a hope of combating the end times fascists, with their ever-constricting and asphyxiating concentric circles of “ordered love”, we will need to build an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful: faithful to this planet, its people, its creatures and to the possibility of a livable future for us all. Faithful to here. Or, to quote Anohni again, this time referring to the goddess in which she now places her faith: “Have you stopped to consider that this might have been her best idea?”

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RWW

04/07/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

Vice President J.D. Vance showed up at the Heritage Foundation last week to celebrate the premier of an Angel Studio documentary series based on his friend Rod Dreher’s 2020 book, “Live Not By Lies.”

Dreher is a conservative blogger who chronicled his own radicalization into far-right authoritarianism. Dreher is such a fan of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his repressive Christian nationalism that he moved to Budapest in 2022 after his wife filed for divorce.

Vance is closely aligned with anti-democracy intellectuals and funders who have pushed the U.S. right-wing to embrace Orbán-style crushing of dissent, attacks on civil society, and capture of the media and the judiciary. Vance, who praised Orbán for seizing control of state universities, has called for “aggressively” attacking universities in the U.S.

In his comments at the Heritage event, Vance unwittingly gave what could be solid advice to leaders of law firms, media outlets, and universities who are tempted to submit to the Trump administration’s intimidation and blackmail. They were not, to be certain, Vance’s intended audience, but here’s what he said: “The way to deal with being attacked by the ruling elites of a given society is to speak the truth, is to live not by lies…You’re going to sacrifice your soul, you’re going to sacrifice your civilization, you’re going sacrifice your family, you’re going to sacrifice your country, if you give into the easy pathway.”

Given the lawlessness, cruelty, and censorship that are the defining traits of the Trump administration, other Vance comments sounded like particularly Orwellian propaganda: “We can rebuild the kind of society where virtue and freedom and our ancient liberties are preserved and enforced and facilitated by our government rather than torn down by our government.”

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts hosted the premier. Roberts, who oversaw the development of the Project 2025 policy agenda now being imposed on America by the Trump administration, has called Orbán the model for MAGA governance.

And it’s not just Roberts. Religious-right activists at the World Congress of Families adore Orbán for his “pro-family” and anti-LGBTQ policies, which reached a repressive new low last month with a ban on Pride celebrations. The Conservative Political Action Conference has teamed up with Orbán allies to host CPAC events in Hungary; at this year’s CPAC outside Washington, D.C., Hungarian groups were on hand to distribute pro- Orbán propaganda.

At Heritage last week, Vance called Dreher a friend and said Dreher’s promotion of Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy” was responsible for its bestseller status, which lead to Vance becoming a public figure, senator, and ultimately vice president.

The admiration is mutual. In an article for a conservative Hungarian publication last summer, Dreher compared Vance to a young Orbán and said Vance “embodies” Trumpism. At Heritage last week, Dreher gushed about Vance, “That man is the future of America, I believe.”

AN 3 25

During a mid-March interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham, Vice President JD Vance aggressively defended President Donald Trump's passion for tariffs. Trump, Vance claimed, inherited a major economic crisis from former President Joe Biden, and Trump's policies will turn the economy around.

But Vance's claims come at a time when Trump is getting the United States into an all-out trade war with Canada and other longtime allies and the stock market has investors worried. On March 11, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 427 points. And economist Paul Krugman views Trump's policies — from tariffs to mass deportations to extensive layoffs of federal government workers — as a recipe for a major recession.

Vance's claims on Fox News are getting a brutal and comprehensive fact-check.

READ MORE:'A stupid fight': Conservative blasts Trump for action 'too absurd to believe'

On X, formerly Twitter, University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers posted, "Mr. Vice President @JDVance, I'm sure you don't mean to mislead anyone, but the hard data suggest that in fact you've inherited a stronger economy than any administration in your lifetime."

Vance told Ingraham, "There is, as the president has said, a recognition that we have to accept — which is that Joe Biden left this economy in a disaster."

But Wolfers posted a chart showing that in fact, Trump inherited a very low "misery index" from Biden — one that, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, "was lower than any other president in at least half a century."

Journalist Aaron Rupar, tweeting Ingraham's interview with Vance, commented, "JD Vance turns reality upside down."

READ MORE:'Discontent': Trump in big trouble with majority of voters — here's why

The New York Independent fact-checked Vance as well, laying out a lot of data.

The Independent tweeted, "Remember this. Here's Biden's America: — Unemployment at 40-year low for two straight years. — Stock market at an all time high, 401(k)s flourishing — 2.7 million new jobs created in 2023 and 17 million overall; — Bank failures under Trump: 16 Bank Failures under Biden: 5."

The Independent also noted, "—The $2.2 trillion Inflation Reduction Act was the biggest climate bill in history — The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan gave Americans cash to cope with the pandemic downturn — The $280 billion CHIPS Act aims to position the U.S. to outcompete China in producing semiconductors and other advanced tech."

The Bulwark's Tim Miller, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP strategist, tweeted, "Explain to me how the Biden economy was the worst in history, every metric has deteriorated in the two months since he left, and yet somehow the fundamentals of the economy are strong now? @JDVance."

Writer Greg Cantwell tweeted, "The stock market hit record highs and unemployment reached record lows under Biden. Plus, no stupid f------g trade wars."

READ MORE: 'Our cushion is gone': Ohio farmers worry Trump won't pay up on promised funding

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Vance slammed for using his child as a 'human shield' after claiming protesters 'chased' his daughter

victim at home chasing 3 yo

an 3 25

'Absolute bad faith': JD Vance’s cousin slams VP as one of 'Putin’s useful idiots'

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AN 3 25

'Go ski in Russia': Watch angry protesters disrupt 'traitor' JD Vance's Vermont holiday

AN 3 25

From Vice President JD Vance to SpaceX/Tesla/X.com CEO Elon Musk, natalism is a high priority for the MAGA movement. Vance famously attacked Americans who don't have biological children as "childless cat ladies," and both Vance and Musk are obsessed with the idea that Americans aren't having enough kids.

A conference specifically focused on natalism and billed as the Natal Conference 2025 is scheduled for March 28-29 in Austin, Texas. And according to The Guardian's Jason Wilson, the speakers include "promoters of race science" and "self-described eugenicists."

Wilson, in an article published on March 3, reports, "Natalism, in its current, often right-wing iteration, encourages high birth rates, and Musk has been a vocal proponent. He also maintains a large compound home near Austin, where reportedly, he plans to house some of his children and two of their mothers."

READ MORE:'Putin is on the inside now': Trump team doesn't consider Russia a cybersecurity threat

The March 28-29 event's website, Wilson notes, embeds a tweet from Musk, who wrote, "If birth rates continue to plummet, human civilization will end." The event is being organized by far-right natalist Kevin Dolan.

According to Patrik Hermannson of the U.K.-based nonprofit Hope Not Hate, the views being promoted at Natal Conference 2025 are influenced by "the modern race science movement."

Wilson quotes Hermannson as saying, "It's about having more babies, but it's important to ask whose babies. It's about promoting the idea that certain people should have babies that have been improved with positive eugenics."

Tickets for Natal Conference 2025 are going for $1000 for one person or $1900 for two people.

READ MORE:Scarborough slams Lindsey Graham for 'twisting and contorting once again' to 'benefit' Trump

According to Wilson, "One of the speakers at the conference is billed under a social media alias, Cremieux, but The Guardian has corroborated that the account is apparently run by Jordan Lasker, a long-time proponent of eugenics. The @cremieuxrecueil X account has been boosted or engaged with dozens of times by that platform’s proprietor, Elon Musk, often on the topic of falling birthrates."

READ MORE:[Alarm sounded as Trump’s recent moves threaten to upend the Constitution*

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factchecked by macron and starm UK --> ambush? omfg feelings?!

an 2 25

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance ganged up on and attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an Oval Office meeting that aired on national television in near-real-time. Experts decried the event, with some declaring Russia would be celebrating.

Politico described the meeting as an "ambush," and an "attack" by Trump and Vance on Zelenskyy.

In one exceptionally heated exchange, Trump attacked Zelenskyy and accused him of playing with "millions of lives."

"You’re in no position to dictate what we’re gonna feel," Trump told Zelenskyy. "You’re right now, not in a very good position."

"You're gambling with World War III," Trump alleged.

READ MORE: ‘What the Hell Is This?’: GOP Group’s Andrew Tate Invitation Draws Bipartisan Outrage

"Have you ever said thank you once?" Vance asked Zelenskyy, attacking him for "campaigning for the opposition" last year.

"You’re not acting at all thankful,” Trump later added.

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"So, so depressing to watch this s----show in the Oval," remarked Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.

The New Yorker's Susan Glasser, whom has written books on Trump and Putin, called it, "the most shocking behavior by Trump and Vance I’ve ever seen in the Oval Office. An ambush."

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, responded: "VP Vance, who once said he did not care about #Ukraine, despicably provoked this fight in Oval Office. Vance is not #Russia’s agent. But he could not have done more damage and caused greater joy in Moscow were he a Russian agent."

Russian intelligence operations expert Olga Lautman of the Center for European Policy Analysis remarked, "At least Zelenskyy tried but as I said Ukraine and the rest of Europe are on their own and need to tell the Kremlin owned Trump regime to go to hell."

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The Financial Times' chief correspondent in Kyiv, Christopher Miller, described the event as "really, really bad," and wrote: "Look at Ukraine ambassador @OMarkarova grab the bridge of her nose. She knows this is a disaster."

READ MORE: ‘Did I Say That? I Can’t Believe I Said That’: Trump’s Remarks Again Fuel Memory Questions

Tom Nichols, a former Naval War College professor, and expert on Russia and nuclear weapons, wrote: "This is the video that the Kremlin needed and will celebrate."

In a series of social media posts in recent days President Zelenskyy has praised the "bipartisan" support he has received from the U.S., declaring his gratitude as recently as late Friday morning.

When it was all over, Trump angrily declared, "That’s going to be great television, I will say that.”

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Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Baptist News Global

https://baptistnews.com › article › du-mez-warns-of-alliance-of-theobros-techbros-and-oil-millionaires

Du Mez warns of alliance of TheoBros, TechBros and oil millionaires

TheoBros are a network of religious, political and economic elites who seek to impose a theocratic agenda on America, according to scholar Kristin Kobes Du Mez. She exposes their ties to Trump, tech billionaires, oil millionaires and Project 2025 in a Substack post and a film.

OCT

To understand the sinister forces working to influence the November election, pay close attention to the expanding alliance between religious, political and economic powers arrayed against American democracy, scholar Kristin Kobes Du Mez writes in a recent Substack post.

The expanding and strengthening coalition between Trump strategists, tech billionaires and Christian nationalists known as “TheoBros” is providing the ideological and financial muscle behind the right-wing’s authoritarian agenda, says Du Mez, professor of gender, religion and politics at Calvin University and author of the bestselling book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez

“What we are witnessing right now is an ever-widening network — not just the TheoBros and Trump’s inner circle, but both of these networks now interlinked with the power of tech billionaires. That means we’ve got old-school oil money flowing together with 21st-century tech money, a nearly bottomless source of funds on hand to advance this agenda,” she warns in the Oct. 9 “Du Mez Connections” post titled “TheoBros, TechBros & Trump.”

“What do TechBros and TheoBros have in common with Trump and his inner circle? All think their respective causes will be better served by ending American democracy. They want a strongman at top — their strongman. To hell with democracy, and with the rest of us,” she writes.

The TheoBros have promoted a militant form of patriarchy within evangelical congregations and are working to seize political control to impose their version of God’s law and the rest of society, Du Mez explains.

That’s a trend covered in her new film, For Our Daughters*, which uncovers the sexual and spiritual abuse of girls and women at the hands of conservative Christians and churches more concerned about personal power and political influence than justice and love.

The movement also is described in Kiera Butler’s recent Mother Jones article, “To Understand JD Vance, You Need to Meet the ‘TheoBros,’” which Du Mez presents as an essential read for understanding the religious motivations of the American theocracy movement.

Butler explains how and why these younger, more conservative and tech-savvy fundamentalist Christians have determined pluralistic democracy is diametrically opposed to faith.

“Many TheoBros, for example, don’t think women belong in the pulpit or the voting booth — and even want to repeal the 19th Amendment. For some, prison reform would involve replacing incarceration with public flogging. Unlike more mainstream Christian nationalists, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, who are obsessed with the U.S. Constitution, many TheoBros believe that the Constitution is dead and that we should be governed by the Ten Commandments.”

“Many TheoBros believe that the Constitution is dead and that we should be governed by the Ten Commandments.”

TheoBros consume the biographies of dictators, extol nations that execute gay people and warn against “the perils of multiculturalism,” Butler writes.

Their message has begun to overlap with that of Trump running mate JD Vance, who has increasingly embraced themes of hypermasculinity, misogyny, ethnonationalism and concerns about declining birthrates, she adds. “If you want to know some of the actors who red-pilled Vance, or at least those who flock to him, you need to meet the TheoBros.”

Du Mez also urges reading an article about the foreword Vance penned for Dawn’s Early Light, a new book by Project 2025 architect and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.

Project 2025 is the Christian nationalist blueprint for replacing the federal government with a Christian nationalist theocracy. Trump’s efforts to distance himself from the plan were undermined when he chose Vance as his running mate, Alex Shephard explains in his report in The New Republic.

“Vance has deep ties to the Heritage Foundation, and in particular to Kevin Roberts, who has been president of the right-wing think tank since 2021 and is the architect of Project 2025,” Shephard says. “Vance has praised Roberts for helping to turn the organization ‘into the de facto institutional home of Trumpism’ and has endorsed elements of Project 2025.”

In his foreword to Roberts’ book — originally titled Burning Down Washington to Save America and now delayed for publication until mid-November due to public backlash against Project 2025 — Vance claims it is time for conservatives to “load the muskets” to take back America.

Tim Dunn on the cover of Texas Monthly

Another article Du Mez suggests documents the effort of Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks in forging the state into a theocracy with the intent of going national with their Christian nationalist campaign.

“Cycle after cycle, their relentless maneuvering has pushed the statehouse so far to the right that consultants like to joke that Karl Rove couldn’t win a local race these days,” Ava Kofman writes for ProPublica. “With its high concentration of movement leaders, conservative pastors and far-right megadonors, Texas has become the country’s foremost laboratory for Christian nationalist policy, and many of its experiments have been bankrolled by Dunn and Wilks.”

In addition to seeking to limit government, taxes and regulations, Dunn and Farris have spent millions to help re-elect Trump in order to replace representative democracy with Christian theocracy, the article warns.

Both men are pastors described as “thoroughgoing Dominionists” who want state and national laws and institutions to adhere to biblical teachings. Yet both also have denied being Christian nationalists, Kofman explains.

“Instead, like most Christian nationalists, the two men speak about protecting Judeo-Christian values and promoting a biblical worldview. These vague expressions often serve as a shorthand for the movement’s central mythology: that America, founded as a Christian nation, has lost touch with its religious heritage, which must now be reclaimed.”

Du Mez says it’s time Americans pay more attention to these interests and their collaborative efforts to defeat democracy: “In some ways it’s a relief to see the mainstream media start to pick up on these dynamics, but it may be too late. The repercussions are chilling.”

Related articles:

Sorry, Tim Dunn, you *are* a Christian nationalist | Opinion by Rodney Kennedy

Du Mez, Bass and Tisby warn: Project 2025 is a Christian nationalist blueprint

Project 2025 isn’t as scary as Kamala Harris, Heritage Foundation president says

Meet the Theobros, who want you to know they’re right about everything | Analysis by Rick Pidcock

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NOTE KARO SPOX SORTA ACKNOWLEDGES SYSTEMIC MISOGYNY EXISTS, BUT DOES NOT MATTER BC YOU CAN JUST WILL YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS

musk bolso chainsawCPAC

no lnx an

'You have been gaslit': CPAC oozes MAGA's 'male inequality' agenda

People react as U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 22, 2025.

Matt Laslo February 23, 2025

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — This just might be the year American men finally overcome centuries of political, cultural and marital oppression that have ravaged the gender and kept guys locked out of key policies, like the Violence Against Women Act.

That’s what one conservative vendor peddled at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. And they’re not alone. The oft-repeated message being subtly driven into CPAC attendees – is that the era of male victimhood is over.

Culture wars are now king.

In years past, the conservative confab focused on fiscal responsibility and cutting federal spending. This year — even as Republicans in Congress and the White House debate trillions of dollars in budget cuts — leaders stoked gendered culture wars.

“Don't allow this broken culture to send you a message that you're a bad person because you're a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you're competitive," Vice President J.D. Vance told CPAC attendees Thursday.

Eradicating diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives may have merely been a stepping stone. Conservatives have rallied behind a new, if antiquated, gospel of manhood as they work to turn back time and eviscerate what they call "wokeness" in real time.

At CPAC, this is truly a man’s world, or will be soon if the resurgent right succeeds.

“Male Inequality”

Masculinity is everywhere here at CPAC. It’s tangible, making this year’s conference feel more like an all-male retreat than the policy-focused escape the annual event was before President Donald Trump remade American conservatism in his image.

In these conservative confines, there’s no gender pay gap (even as statistics show women earn roughly 75 cents for each dollar a man makes). Women’s suffrage, practically speaking, is a fairy tale of a bygone era. While Bibles abound, the Book of Ruth and its strong, central female cast, is an afterthought (if a thought at all).

The real problem is “Male Inequality,” according to the newly launched Men’s Equality Network, or MEN.

‘Areas of Male Inequality’ — a pamphlet MEN are handing out at this year’s CPAC.

At CPAC, MEN seeks to drum up support for the hashtag #genderequalityformen, while also giving away free caps emblazoned with “Watchdog: Stop the gender agenda.”

MEN's tagline succinctly sums up the mission that drives the group: “assuring due process, fairness and equal opportunities for men.” And while they may only be a few weeks old, MEN has already attracted 18 partners, ranging from United Families International to the Child Custody Coalition.

The group is so new, it hasn't held its first meeting. But MEN soon plans to start hosting monthly training sessions with partner organizations, then storm the marble halls of Washington, demanding equality for men.

And MEN has allies in powerful places in Trump’s Washington.

"Our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge, you should try to cast aside your family, you should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place," Vance opined from the CPAC main stage. He, like MEN, provided no evidence to support his contention.

While the group is surely easy to single out, it's far from alone in its drive to restore manhood to its properly patriarchal perch at CPAC but also throughout society.

"Go fu#% yourself Planned Parenthood”

Entering this year’s hall of vendors at CPAC, it’s seemingly impossible to miss the loud magenta “Go fu#% yourself Planned Parenthood” banner next to a cardboard cutout of President Trump.

Defund Planned Parenthood photo (Photo credit: Matt Laslo)

A few rows away, at first blush, the booth for "Date on the Right" seems dedicated to online romance for Republicans. But the material seems more focused on connecting hardline conservatives with their policy dreams.

Instead of promising long-term love, the group’s selling point feels more politically inclined than lifemate: “Dating for conservatives: only two genders – male and female allowed. No pronouns but male or female allowed.”

Other booths are dotted with free swag seeking to uproot political correctness — “I support free speech, not political correctness,” reads one sticker — through slogans like, “God, Guns and Girly Things” or “Woman: an adult human female.”

“We have an entire generation of young men who are smoking weed, watching porn, not getting married — not even pursuing women,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told CPAC attendees. “We have this thing called incels — involuntary celibates. It's terrible. And we can't become a great nation again — we can't make America great again — until our men are great again.” //TUCKER MAINSTREAM GRT?

“You’ve been gaslit to high heaven”

For attendees, conservatives are undeniably victims. The thousands gathered at CPAC are set on righting those past perceived wrongs.

“You’ve been gaslit to high heaven every time you picked up a newspaper in the United States,” conservative anchor Megyn Kelly told the crowd. “Every time you’ve turned on CNN. You’ve been lied to. You’ve been bullied — or seen others with lesser power — bullied by the media and the leftist Democrats. You have been a victim of overbearing and controlling leftists who think they are the final arbiters of what’s best for you and your life.”

While this may be MEN's year, conservative women aren’t going quietly.

CPAC may be a man’s world these days, despite all the powerful women in today’s GOP, like White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who, at 27, is the youngest person to ever hold the prestigious role.

On the CPAC stage this week, former White House communications director Mercedes Schlapp — wife of CPAC chair Matt Schlapp who a sheriff wrote up earlier this month for allegedly groping a man — asked Leavitt about being a woman in Trump world.

"Look at the White House and look at the exceptional Cabinet President Trump has put together," Leavitt said. "While we don’t care about identity politics…the president has appointed Susie Wiles, our first female chief of staff in United States history; Brooke Rollins heading up as our secretary of agriculture — look across the entire Cabinet. There are incredible women — Linda McMahon, leading the Department of Education — the list goes on and on."

As for her advice to young women, Leavitt departed from her party’s new man-centric mantra.

"Stay strong, speak the truth and don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t achieve your dream, or you can’t get to that next step. Just believe in yourself, because there will be a lot of people who don’t believe in you, who cast doubt on you, who talk bad about you," Leavitt said. "Screw ‘em. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter." DEFIANCE FIGHT FIGHTFIGHT PWR OF POS THINKING

NOW READ: Whoever tries to tell you that Trump is Christian needs to look up this passage in the Bible

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FAIL FOREIGN POLICY

2 13 25 trump talks to putin fo 90 min war crim invite to US, he to russia

vuln to flattery, putin ex kgb handler

no nato crimea

'Palpable harm': Hegseth slammed for 'screwup' of 'biggest foreign policy issue'

--==

AN 2 25

IF YOU CAN SURVIVE GRETA SCOLDING, THEN NEO-NAZI OK

Vice President JD Vance, in a rare public appearance, told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that America’s “cultural message” tells young men they should “suppress every masculine urge” and become “androgynous idiots.” His comments on Thursday were well-received at the far-right conference, but more widely, were quickly denounced, as critics urged him to revisit his own remarks and his own societal and religious beliefs.

“I think that our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge,” the Ohio Republican said, to cheers (video below). “You should try to cast aside your family, you should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place.”

“And I think that my, my message to young men is, don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you’re competitive.”

READ MORE: ‘Cowardice’: GOP Faces Backlash After Report Suggests Death Threat May Have Swayed Vote

Vance went on to claim that “our cultural message is, I think, that it wants to turn everybody into whether male or female into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same and act the same.”

“We actually think God made male and female for a purpose, and we want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women, and we’re gonna help with our public policy to make it possible to do that.”

Fred Wellman is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and is now a political consultant and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.”

“Nobody thinks that,” Wellman wrote, responding to Vance’s remarks. “We just don’t want our young men to rape women. This isn’t hard. This guy is such a f— incel.”

“This guy is too much of a chicken to stand up publicly to a guy who he privately described as a ‘moral disaster’ or to defend his own wife’s honor from a punk kid who said we should ‘normalize Indian hate.’ Obsequious, snivelling, Vancely cowardice ain’t masculinity,” decried U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL).

Appearing to mock the vice president, The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill asked, “Who told men they can’t have beer with their friends? What I miss?”

Self-described former “Republican flack” and conservative Christian, Kristy Campbell, appearing to denigrate President Trump’s attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week, noted, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to lecture on masculinity at CPAC – which was launched in 1974 with an incredible speech by future president Ronald Reagan about freedom and America’s role in the world – when you just capitulated to Russia.”

READ MORE: Musk’s Cuts Now ‘Hobbling’ Major Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Research Facility: Report

Award-winning author Jennifer Erin Valent blasted Vance, saying, “What he’s really aiming at isn’t the ability to exercise true masculine strength but rather the ability to be a jerk without accountability. And since he brought God into it, I advise him to take a walk through the gospels and see how his brand of manhood measures up to Christ’s.”

“These guys aren’t reviving masculinity, they’re reviving being a dick. There’s a difference,” wrote Justin Kanew, a writer, producer, and political activist who appeared on the 15th and 18th seasons of “The Amazing Race.” Kanew runs the progressive platform The Tennessee Holler.

“For somebody who supposedly is so smart, JD Vance really says some stupid things,” blasted CNN political commentator Maria Cardona. “No, our culture does not tell young men that they cannot be masculine. But hopefully they are getting the message that that masculinity has to come with decency, compassion, generosity, and confidence that you can be all these things and that actually define real confident manhood. Real men don’t have to go around proving that they are real men.”

Emmy-nominated writer and comedian Mike Drucker asked, “is masculinity when you never stop fucking whining about everything? that seems to be the vance demo.”

David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, remarked, “Is the message young American men need to hear: ‘keep drinking beer with your friends and telling jokes that might offend people’? That doesn’t make you a ‘bad person,’ but there’s something broken in a culture that thinks that’s the most important message to give kids.”

Watch Vance’s remarks below or at the link.

AN 2 25

President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt are claiming that federal courts have no business blocking Trump's executive orders. Doing so, they argue, is an attack on the powers that the federal government's executive branch enjoys under the U.S. Constitution.

Musk is even calling for federal judges to be impeached by Congress if they interfere with Trump's agenda. And Vance, in a February 9 post on the Musk-owned X.com (formerly Twitter), posted, "If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."

But Trump's critics — a combination of Democrats, legal scholars and Never Trump conservatives— are countering that in fact, the U.S. Constitution doesn't give the executive branch nearly as much power as he is claiming. The Constitution, according to those critics, provides a system of checks and balances that gives the government's judicial and legislative branches every right to push back against a sitting president.

READ MORE:[MAGA's 'chaotic attempt to shut down' USAID put $500 million of food supplies at risk — and more

The New York Times' Mattathias Schwartz, in an article published on February 15, examines a "radical" far-right legal theory that, critics say, greatly exaggerates the amount of power the government's executive branch enjoys under the U.S. Constitution.

"Federal judges have issued preliminary orders that block some of the (Trump) Administration's most aggressive assertions of power: a freeze on as much as $3 trillion in federal spending, the termination of the 14th Amendment's guarantee to birthright citizenship, the firing of civil servants before the end of their statutorily defined terms, the forced transfer of trans women in prison to men's facilities and the turnover of sensitive data and systems to a newly minted quasi-agency headed by Elon Musk," Schwartz explains. "More than 60 lawsuits have been filed against the second Trump Administration — more than two for each day that the president has been in office. Many of the plaintiffs allege that the Trump Administration's actions are ultra vires, literally 'beyond the powers,' meaning that Mr. Trump has wielded power in ways that go beyond his lawful authority."

If the second Trump Administration decides that it is "the constitutionally designated arbiter of the limits on its own authorities" and decides to "ignore judicial rulings," Schwartz warns, it "would represent an extreme rupture to the constitutional order."

The New York Times reporter notes, "Mr. Vance is among an increasing number of elected Republicans who are influenced by new strains of conservative legal thought that entail a radical reinterpretation of the Constitution, particularly the powers it bestows on the president…. A group of right-wing thinkers is putting forward a new set of doctrines: Call it 'post-originalism.'"

READ MORE:'Corruption in plain sight': MTG buried for buying Tesla stock as DOGE committee chair

"Post-originalism," according to Schwartz, envisions an extremely powerful executive branch and is decidedly more "radical" than traditional conservative legal ideas.

"It is hard to find much precedent for this moment," Schwartz explains. "President Nixon's behavior caused grave tensions between the three branches of government, but the buildup was protracted and gradual. Presidents Jackson and Lincoln both ignored important court rulings, according to the Federal Judicial Center. But those prior instances of presidential recalcitrance — just two, spread out over 248 years — were narrow. Mr. Vance hints at something very different: wholesale ultra vires executive-branch impunity. That idea is increasingly part of the Republican mainstream."

READ MORE:[DC insider warns: Trump’s 'big ego' and foreign policy blunders put US in 'very dangerous position'

*ReadMattathias Schwartz's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

no lnx

an

It's a crime spree — not a 'constitutional crisis'

John Stoehr February 10, 2025

The Justice Department has asked a judge to stop or amend another judge’s order, issued Saturday, that blocks Elon Musk from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment systems. The DOJ’s move came after Donald Trump’s allies openly questioned the constitutional authority of independent judges.

“Officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records, but have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers,” the Associated Press reported.

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance said.

Vance is lying, but lying is beside the point.

The point is that the Trump administration appears to be preparing to defy the courts, thus triggering what US Senator Chris Murphy called “the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate.” He went on: “The president is attempting to seize control of power, and for corrupt purposes … he’s trying to crush his opposition … this is a red alert moment … our democracy is at risk.”

With due respect to my senator, I think we’re passed that. Trump is already defying the courts, and as result, we are already beyond “a constitutional crisis” and in some other stage of decline and fall.

According to a motion filed Friday by 23 state attorneys general, all Democrats, the Trump administration has not complied with an order to stop a federal funding freeze that was implemented last month.

Two weeks ago, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo that froze as much as $3 trillion, including Medicaid.

States sued. Some federal judges handed down injunctions, pending litigation. In response, the White House said it withdrew the memo, but according to these state AGs, the federal funding freeze didn’t stop.

In their motion, AGs allege that “despite the court’s order, defendants have failed to resume disbursing federal funds in multiple respects.” They ask that the administration be ordered “to immediately restore funds and desist from the federal funding pause until the preliminary injunction motion can be heard and decided, a process which is proceeding expeditiously in separate proceedings before this court.”

NOW READ: Trump is already out gaming America's last line of defense

According to journalist Jennifer Shutt, the AGs allege that:

the Trump administration hasn’t begun distributing billions of dollars in funding that Congress approved in the Inflation Reduction Act or the bipartisan infrastructure law.

the NIH “abruptly cancelled an advisory committee review meeting with Brown University’s School of Public Health for a $71 million grant on dementia care research, saying ‘all federal advisory committee meetings had been cancelled.’”

Head Start programs were unable to access funds.

The CDC “renewed stop work orders to a University of Washington program doing global HIV prevention work.”

Connecticut AG William Tong said in a statement that “President Trump is not complying with the court order and continues to defund states. Let’s be clear about what Donald Trump wants to do — Donald Trump wants to defund Connecticut schools. He wants to defund the police. He wants to defund Connecticut highways. He is defunding energy assistance right now in defiance of a court order when so many Connecticut families are desperate for relief. He is defunding Connecticut efforts to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and fossil fuels. He is defying the rule of law and daring courts to stop him.”

US Senator Patty Murray, of Washington, released a briefing on areas in which the administration continues to illegally withhold funding. “President Trump is continuing to block hundreds of billions of dollars in funding from making its way out to families and communities across America who are counting on investments that have been signed into law. While he withdrew his blanket funding freeze — the disastrous [Office of Management and Budget] memo — in the face of nationwide backlash, Trump has so far refused to withdraw the various executive orders he has signed that are illegally freezing enacted funding.”

Murphy said: “the president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends and he can punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy. You stand that with the wholesale endorsement of political violence, with the pardons given to every single Jan. 6 rioter, including the most violence, who beat police officers over the head with baseball bats, and you can see what he’s trying to do here. He’s trying to crush his opposition by making them afraid of losing federal funding, by making them afraid of physical violence. So yes, this is a red-alert moment.”

Today, the federal judge who originally blocked Trump’s federal funding freeze sided with the Democratic state AGs, saying that there’s “evidence that some federal grants and loans are still not going out to the recipients.” He ordered that the money be released immediately.

Let’s hope he does, but don’t count it.

Donald Trump has already robbed the first branch of government of its constitutional authority – “the power of the purse.” Now he’s begun robbing the third branch, too. He isn’t leading “a constitutional crisis.”

Just four weeks in, we’re well beyond that.

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AN 2 25

In 2023, then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) doubled down on his position that presidents should disobey federal court rulings — even from the Supreme Court — if they contradict the actions of the president. Now as vice president, Vance may be advising President Donald Trump to do exactly that.

In a Tuesday article, Politico's Ian Ward reprinted excerpts of an interview he conducted with Vance shortly after he was sworn in as Ohio's junior U.S. senator. In that interview, Vance defended comments he made in a 2021 podcast in which he said Trump should "fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, [and] every civil servant in the administrative state" if reelected. He then argued that if the courts intervened to stop those firings, Trump should "stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'"

Ward recalled that when asking Vance if he still held that view, he responded: "Yup." And Vance communicated over the weekend that he still holds this viewpoint, writing in a Sunday tweet: "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."

READ MORE:'Fake news': Law professor schools JD Vance after he suggests Trump ignore federal judges

Ward pointed out that should Trump appeal a decision against him all the way to the Supreme Court, and if the High Court upheld the lower courts' ruling and Trump disregarded it, it would provoke "a full-fledged constitutional crisis of a different sort, one that would entirely upend the existing rules governing the separation of powers between the courts and the executive branch."

"Although there is some historical precedent for a president defying a Supreme Court order, no showdown between the executive branch and the judiciary has risen to the level of crisis that would follow a move of the sort that Vance is suggesting," Ward wrote. "As several legal commentators have pointed out in response to Vance’s post, the ability to determine the constitutionality and legality of executive action is core to the courts’ power, meaning that denying them of that authority would profoundly upset the constitutional system of checks and balances as currently understood."

And as Yale Law Professor Akhil Reed Amar said in a Tuesday segment on CNN, the Andrew Jackson quote Vance referenced is "apocryphal," meaning its origins are hazy and that it's unlikely Jackson ever made such a statement. In fact, while Jackson disagreed with the Supreme Court's ruling in the 1832 Worcester v. Georgia case, he ultimately stated that the Court's orders were final and that presidents were duty-bound to abide by them.

The Trump administration appears to already be testing the waters of the judiciary's enforcement mechanisms. On Tuesday, a top Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official instructed FEMA's Office of Grant Administration to withhold millions of dollars in Department of Homeland Security grant money despite a federal judge ordering that those funds be disbursed, as Congress already appropriated the money in question.

READ MORE:Trump's DHS freezes FEMA grant money hours after judge orders funding to be distributed

Click here to read Ward's full article in Politico.

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an 2 25

He is the most lawless president in American history.

He’s allowed Musk’s rats unfettered access to the Treasury’s payments system. Banned birthright citizenship. Refused to spend money appropriated by Congress. Closed independent agencies without Congress’s approval. Substituted political loyalists for civil servants. Unleashed the military on civilians. And on it goes.

Republican lawmakers won’t restrain him. In one of the most shameful apologia for dictatorship I’ve ever heard coming from a public official, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina admits that much of what Trump is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, Tillis adds, “nobody should bellyache about that.”

We shouldn’t bellyache about Trump’s torching the Constitution?

As Trump’s marauding continues, America's last defense is the federal courts. But the big story here (which hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves) is that the Trump-Vance-Musk regime is ignoring the courts.

On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power “legitimately,” not the president.

Consider Trump’s freeze on all federal spending. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to appropriate money, not the president.

So far, two federal judges have stopped Trump’s freeze, pending full hearings on the lawsuits. But Trump is ignoring these court decisions and continues to freeze funds Congress has appropriated, notwithstanding.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, says the freeze will continue even though Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has withdrawn the memo implementing it -- an Orwellian move that last week prompted U.S. District Judge AliKhan to reprimand the OMB.

“It appears that OMB sought to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct. The court can think of few things more disingenuous.”

On Saturday, federal district court Judge Paul A. Engelmayer temporarily denied Musk’s young recruits access to the Treasury’s payment and data systems, finding a risk of “irreparable harm.” The judge ordered anyone who had been granted access to the systems since January 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded” from it.

Well, good luck with that. How will Engelmayer know all copies have been destroyed in an administration that denies judges have the power to control what the president does?

Worse yet, Musk’s gang have access to the computer code. How will the judge prevent them from changing that code?

Another federal judge, John Coughenour, has blocked Trump’s executive order altering birthright citizenship, calling it “clearly unconstitutional.” The judge didn’t pull any punches:

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”

Exactly. But how can Judge Coughenour guarantee that the Trump regime will grant citizenship to all children born in the United States to undocumented parents? Trump and Musk have tunneled into the entire federal government, even including the passport office. (When transgender people try to renew, new passports list their sex at birth.)

Federal judges considering the legality of Trump’s mass deportations are bound by Supreme Court rulings that noncitizens have a right to due process before being deported — including the right to be informed of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, and the right to present evidence in their defense.

Here, too, Trump’s regime has ignored these rulings.

Meanwhile, in a lawsuit filed Friday, several “sanctuary” cities and counties are challenging both Trump’s executive order withdrawing federal funds from places that refuse to help carry out his immigration agenda and his Justice Department's threat to prosecute any jurisdiction that refuses to comply.

Plaintiffs are seeking to “check this abuse of power” by asking the courts to declare the Trump regime’s actions unlawful and prevent their enforcement.

The law is clearly on the plaintiff’s side. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the federal government cannot force cities and states to adopt laws or to enforce federal mandates.

But Trump isn’t budging.

Over the next months, these and dozens of other federal cases will be appealed to the Supreme Court — either by the plaintiffs arguing that Trump is ignoring lower-court decisions, or by Trump’s Justice Department appealing those decisions.

Then what?

You have every reason to be cynical about the current majority on the Supreme Court. But the cases I’ve just cited, along with many others, are based on the Supreme Court’s own precedents that say that Trump cannot legally do what he’s doing.

Yes, the Roberts court has shown itself willing to reverse its prior opinions (see: Roe v. Wade), but my betting is that at least on some of these issues the high court will rule against Trump.

All of which raises a final, perilous question: What if the Trump regime ignores the Supreme Court just as it has ignored lower courts?

In his 2024 year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts anticipated this possibility, noting that judicial independence “is undermined unless the other branches [of government] are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.”

Roberts mentioned defiance by southern governors of the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Their defiance required that federal troops enforce the Supreme Court’s decision.

Roberts then commented on more recent defiance:

“Within the past few years … elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.

There’s no secret whom Roberts was referring to. His first initials are JD and he ought to know better. Vance graduated Yale Law School Class of 2013, and his wife, Usha, clerked for Roberts from 2017 to 2018.

Yet Vance said on a 2021 podcast, “When the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

Here’s Vance in a February 2024 interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos:

Vance: “The president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should. That’s the way the Constitution works. It has been thwarted too much by the way our bureaucracy has worked over the past 15 years.”

Stephanopoulos: “The Constitution also says the president must abide by legitimate Supreme Court rulings, doesn’t it?”

Vance: “The Constitution says that the Supreme Court can make rulings, but if the Supreme Court — and, look, I hope that they would not do this — but if the Supreme Court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling, and the president has to have Article II prerogative under the Constitution to actually run the military as he sees fit.”

In other words, if the Supreme Court rules against Trump on an important issue, there’s a fair chance the Trump-Vance-Musk regime will thumb their nose at it.

What then? Impeachment isn’t a possibility because Republicans run both chambers of Congress and haven’t exactly distinguished themselves with integrity or independence.

If Trump simply ignores the high court, is that the end of law?

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an 2 25

He is the most lawless president in American history.

He’s allowed Musk’s rats unfettered access to the Treasury’s payments system. Banned birthright citizenship. Refused to spend money appropriated by Congress. Closed independent agencies without Congress’s approval. Substituted political loyalists for civil servants. Unleashed the military on civilians. And on it goes.

Republican lawmakers won’t restrain him. In one of the most shameful apologia for dictatorship I’ve ever heard coming from a public official, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina admits that much of what Trump is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, Tillis adds, “nobody should bellyache about that.”

We shouldn’t bellyache about Trump’s torching the Constitution?

As Trump’s marauding continues, America's last defense is the federal courts. But the big story here (which hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves) is that the Trump-Vance-Musk regime is ignoring the courts.

On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power “legitimately,” not the president.

Consider Trump’s freeze on all federal spending. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to appropriate money, not the president.

So far, two federal judges have stopped Trump’s freeze, pending full hearings on the lawsuits. But Trump is ignoring these court decisions and continues to freeze funds Congress has appropriated, notwithstanding.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, says the freeze will continue even though Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has withdrawn the memo implementing it -- an Orwellian move that last week prompted U.S. District Judge AliKhan to reprimand the OMB.

“It appears that OMB sought to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct. The court can think of few things more disingenuous.”

On Saturday, federal district court Judge Paul A. Engelmayer temporarily denied Musk’s young recruits access to the Treasury’s payment and data systems, finding a risk of “irreparable harm.” The judge ordered anyone who had been granted access to the systems since January 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded” from it.

Well, good luck with that. How will Engelmayer know all copies have been destroyed in an administration that denies judges have the power to control what the president does?

Worse yet, Musk’s gang have access to the computer code. How will the judge prevent them from changing that code?

Another federal judge, John Coughenour, has blocked Trump’s executive order altering birthright citizenship, calling it “clearly unconstitutional.” The judge didn’t pull any punches:

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain.”

Exactly. But how can Judge Coughenour guarantee that the Trump regime will grant citizenship to all children born in the United States to undocumented parents? Trump and Musk have tunneled into the entire federal government, even including the passport office. (When transgender people try to renew, new passports list their sex at birth.)

Federal judges considering the legality of Trump’s mass deportations are bound by Supreme Court rulings that noncitizens have a right to due process before being deported — including the right to be informed of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, and the right to present evidence in their defense.

Here, too, Trump’s regime has ignored these rulings.

Meanwhile, in a lawsuit filed Friday, several “sanctuary” cities and counties are challenging both Trump’s executive order withdrawing federal funds from places that refuse to help carry out his immigration agenda and his Justice Department's threat to prosecute any jurisdiction that refuses to comply.

Plaintiffs are seeking to “check this abuse of power” by asking the courts to declare the Trump regime’s actions unlawful and prevent their enforcement.

The law is clearly on the plaintiff’s side. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the federal government cannot force cities and states to adopt laws or to enforce federal mandates.

But Trump isn’t budging.

Over the next months, these and dozens of other federal cases will be appealed to the Supreme Court — either by the plaintiffs arguing that Trump is ignoring lower-court decisions, or by Trump’s Justice Department appealing those decisions.

Then what?

You have every reason to be cynical about the current majority on the Supreme Court. But the cases I’ve just cited, along with many others, are based on the Supreme Court’s own precedents that say that Trump cannot legally do what he’s doing.

Yes, the Roberts court has shown itself willing to reverse its prior opinions (see: Roe v. Wade), but my betting is that at least on some of these issues the high court will rule against Trump.

All of which raises a final, perilous question: What if the Trump regime ignores the Supreme Court just as it has ignored lower courts?

In his 2024 year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts anticipated this possibility, noting that judicial independence “is undermined unless the other branches [of government] are firm in their responsibility to enforce the court’s decrees.”

Roberts mentioned defiance by southern governors of the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Their defiance required that federal troops enforce the Supreme Court’s decision.

Roberts then commented on more recent defiance:

“Within the past few years … elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.

There’s no secret whom Roberts was referring to. His first initials are JD and he ought to know better. Vance graduated Yale Law School Class of 2013, and his wife, Usha, clerked for Roberts from 2017 to 2018.

Yet Vance said on a 2021 podcast, “When the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

Here’s Vance in a February 2024 interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos:

Vance: “The president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should. That’s the way the Constitution works. It has been thwarted too much by the way our bureaucracy has worked over the past 15 years.”

Stephanopoulos: “The Constitution also says the president must abide by legitimate Supreme Court rulings, doesn’t it?”

Vance: “The Constitution says that the Supreme Court can make rulings, but if the Supreme Court — and, look, I hope that they would not do this — but if the Supreme Court said the president of the United States can’t fire a general, that would be an illegitimate ruling, and the president has to have Article II prerogative under the Constitution to actually run the military as he sees fit.”

In other words, if the Supreme Court rules against Trump on an important issue, there’s a fair chance the Trump-Vance-Musk regime will thumb their nose at it.

What then? Impeachment isn’t a possibility because Republicans run both chambers of Congress and haven’t exactly distinguished themselves with integrity or independence.

If Trump simply ignores the high court, is that the end of law?

---==

an 2 25

JD Vance is under fire after encouraging Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk to re-hire the 25-year old whose racist posts led to his reported resignation.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story that a “key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.”

“Marko Elez, a 25-year-old who is part of a cadre of Elon Musk lieutenants deployed by the Department of Government Efficiency to scrutinize federal spending, resigned after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about his connection to the account,” the Journal reported.

According to The Journal, that account posted, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” and, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”

READ MORE: Trump Inherits Biden’s ‘Astonishing’ Jobs Legacy, But Prices Are Now Climbing on His Watch

“Normalize Indian hate,” was another post, according to the Journal, which noted that it was “in reference to a post noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley.”

“The user appeared to have a special dislike for Indian software engineers,” the WSJ added.

That account also posted, according to the Journal, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”

U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) added, “Elon Musk thinks racism is OK, as long as Twitter says so. This man should not be anywhere near our government.”

Journalist Jay Bookman, a columnist for the Georgia Recorder, also weighed in. He wrote, “I wonder what made the kid think racism had suddenly become cool. Who was he hanging out with that would make him think such a curious thing? Elon, do you know?”

READ MORE: Pam Bondi Quietly Disbands DOJ Task Force Targeting Russian Oligarchs

Friday morning, Musk asked his 216 million followers on his social media site X, “Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?”

As of this writing, 78% said “Yes.”

The Vice President, a Republican from Ohio, responded to Musk.

“Here’s my view,” Vance, unprompted, wrote. “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life. We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”

Critics were quick to chastise the Vice President.

“Then bring him back! You’re the big tough guy with all the power now, right? (or at least you work with those two guys),” scolded former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau. “You don’t get to play the victim anymore and hide behind the mean journalists and the cancel culture libs. You’re in charge now. If you want to hire back the guy who says he’s ‘racist’ and couldn’t be paid to marry outside of his ethnicity – who said he wants to ‘normalize Indian hate’ – do it! Not sure I could look my family in the eye if I did something like that, but maybe you can. So live your truth, pal. Bring back the racist.”

Some were quick to remind Vance that his wife, who has faced attacks from white supremacists, is of Indian heritage.

Technology executive Anil Dash commented, “This is about the CRIME of giving this man access to the treasury — everyone already knows you don’t care about having your wife and children humiliated by your fellow MAGA racists. He’s not a child, and no one appointed him or the other known security threats at DOGE.”

Political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen added, “The husband of an Indian-American wife and the father of 3 Indian-American kids wants to bring back the staffer who posted “normalize Indian hate.”

Others rejected the idea that a 25-year old is just a “kid,” especially since those posts reportedly were made last year.

“He’s either a kid who is too young and stupid to be held accountable for his actions. Or he’s an adult with a taxpayer-funded job that includes having access to American’s most sensitive information, which demands a high standards and accountability. Can’t have it both ways,” noted The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell.

“So he’s a racist kid with no impulse control, but he should have access to the system that doles out trillions of dollars of the federal budget and see all of our personal information,” observed Daily KOS’s Emily C. Singer.

Others pushed back against Vance’s attack on the media, making clear that America has a right to know.

“Setting aside everything else (i.e. ‘kid’), it would seem to be in the public interest to understand whether someone with such a consequential job is a secret racist,” wrote The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake. “That’s what reporting is. People can react how they will. He’s not only in the arena; he’s a central player.”

“I get that there’s no shame and decency left,” economics writer Joey Politano said, “you can self ID as a racist eugenicist and still have insanely important roles in this admin, but the most insulting thing here is treating a 25 year old like a uwu smol bean child who can’t be held responsible for his actions.”

“A 25-year-old is not a kid. He made blatant and disgusting racist posts in the last few months,” commented veteran Jared Ryan Sears, who writes The Pragmatic Humanist. Quoting what someone said is not ‘ruining their life’ it is reporting. It is shameful to defend such a terrible person while demonizing a journalist for reporting about him.”

Former White House correspondent Sam Youngman offered a big picture view: “Too weak to stand up for his own family. Think he’ll stand up for yours?”

===

an 2 25

19 year-old Edward Coristine works for centabillionaire tech CEO Elon Musk as part of his "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE. But before he was hired by the world's wealthiest man, Coristine worked for a cybersecurity firm that fired him for disclosing company secrets.

That's according to a Friday article in Bloomberg, which reported that the Arizona-based firm, Path Network, fired him in June 2022, not long after Coristine graduated from high school. A company executive wrote in an email that "Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors."

"This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this," the Path Network executive wrote.

READ MORE:'Bring him back': JD Vance wants Musk to rehire 25 year old DOGE 'kid' after racist posts

"I can confirm that Edward Coristine's brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure," a company spokesperson told Bloomberg.

Even though DOGE is not yet an actual federal agency authorized by Congress, DOGE workers like Coristine have managed to gain full access to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which houses federal government's human resources functions, and Treasury Department systems handling $6 trillion in annual payments. The Boston Globe recently reported that Coristine — who is a freshman at Northeastern University — was listed in OPM records as an "expert," suggesting he may have access to millions of federal workers' sensitive personal data.

In posts to gamer-centric messaging platform Discord, Coristine wrote after his firing that he "had access to every single machine" at Path Network and could have wiped all of the company's servers if he wished. However, he said he "never exploited it because it's just not me." Posting under the moniker "Rivage," which several of Bloomberg's sources confirmed was Coristine's username, the 19 year-old insisted he had done "nothing contractually wrong" at the company.

Two federal law enforcement officers told Bloomberg that they are aware of Coristine's posting history, both under the "Rivage" moniker and under the name "JoeyCrafter." The officers said they came across Coristine's posting history while investigating another hacker, though they didn't elaborate as the investigation is still ongoing. Both usernames consistently advocated that hosting platforms like Cloudflare should keep providing online support to controversial websites, including neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer.

READ MORE:'Could do anything': 25 year-old Musk employee has admin access to $6 trillion payment system

Newsweek reported earlier on Friday that Coristine, who is also known online as "Big Balls," manages more than a dozen web domains, including some registered in Russia. One of those websites reportedly offers an AI Discord bot known as "Helfie" that operates in Russia.

"If I was doing the background investigation on him, I would probably have recommended against hiring him for the work he's doing," former FBI agent E.J. Hilbert told WIRED this week. "I'm not opposed to the idea of cleaning up the government. But I am questioning the people that are doing it."

Coristine isn't the only DOGE employee in the spotlight this week: On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that 25 year-old Marko Elez, who was part of the DOGE team that gained administrator-level access to the U.S. Treasury's payment systems that oversee Social Security and Medicare benefits, resigned after he was revealed to have a pseudonymous social media account where he routinely posted racist statements.

On that account, Elez called to "normalize Indian hate," bragged about being "racist before it was cool" and said "you couldn't pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." On Friday, Vice President JD Vance — whose wife, Usha, is Indian American — called for Elez to be reinstated, arguing: "We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever."

READ MORE:[DOGE employee steps down after racist posts uncovered: report

===

===

an 1 25

// budde?

During a late January appearance on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance tried to make a Christian argument in favor of President Donald Trump's MAGA/America First ideology. But his comments are getting some pushback from theologian Joash Thomas.

Vance is popular among Christian nationalists and far-right white evangelicals because of his extreme social conservatism, including his attacks on women who don't have biological children. The vice president, however, is not an evangelical Protestant, but a convert to Catholicism. And on Fox News, he claimed that MAGA Republicans have a better understanding of Christianity than the left.

Vance told Fox News' Sean Hannity, "I think it's a very Christian concept that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor — and then, you love your community. And then you love your fellow citizens and your own country. And then, after that, focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that."

READ MORE:[Inside Trump's scheme to concentrate power

The vice president continued, "They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to ruin a society. And I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is a simple concept: America first."

But Thomas argued that Vance's thinking is flawed.

In a Thursday, January 30 thread on X, formerly Twitter, Thomas wrote, "I am a theologian trained at one of America's top conservative evangelical theological seminaries. This is *not* a Christian concept; it's a western individualistic one."

Thomas continued, "I've studied Augustine. He was right on some stuff and way off on others. According to your logic, executing our theological enemies for heresy is 'Christian' too. If it doesn't look like Christ, it shouldn't be called 'Christian.' The Jesus I worship taught us to love enemy…. And he showed us how to love our enemies by laying down his life for his enemies. Don't like my definition of Christian? Your beef isn't with me. It's with Jesus. So take it up with him."

READ MORE:['Heinous personality': Internet unleashes on 'psychopath' Trump after he jokes about crash

*Watch the JD Vance interview below or at this link.

===

AN 1 25

'Hardline MAGA supporters' rip JD Vance for Jan. 6 comments — and compare him to Mike Pence

===

POST MUSK?

AN 1 25

JD Vance schooled by German ambassador over defense of far-right 'Nazi-Lite' party

===

an 12 24

*ProPublica

Sen. J.D. Vance, whom Donald Trump named as his vice presidential running mate Monday, told a group of influential young conservatives in a closed-door speech in 2021 that they should stand up for “nonconventional people” who speak truth, such as Infowars founder Alex Jones.

“If you listen to Rachel Maddow every night, the basic worldview that you have is that MAGA grandmas who have family dinners on Sunday and bake apple pies for their family are about to start a violent insurrection against this country,” Vance said. “But if you listen to Alex Jones every day, you would believe that a transnational financial elite controls things in our country, that they hate our society, and oh, by the way, a lot of them are probably sex perverts too.”

Vance went on, “Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, that’s actually a hell of a lot more true than Rachel Maddow’s view of society.”

He said that every person in attendance for his speech believed “something that’s a little crazy.” In his case, he said, “I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society. That’s a crazy conspiracy theory to a lot of very well-educated people in this country right now.”

Vance made these remarks at a September 2021 gathering of the Teneo Network, an invitation-only group of young conservatives that counts elected officials, pro athletes, financial executives and media figures among its members. Vance joined Teneo six years ago. ProPublica and Documented obtained a video recording of his 30-minute speech and question-and-answer session, which has not been previously reported.

Vance’s remarks at the conference — which you can read a transcript of or watch in full below — give a rare unvarnished look at his thinking and illustrate how aligned he is with various factions within the conservative and MAGA movements. “I’ll throw out the standard campaign speech,” he began his Teneo talk. “[I’ll] actually just try to level with you guys about what I do see is the big — a few big problems that are in our country right now.”

According to tax records, the Teneo Network’s chairman is Leonard Leo, the legal activist who built a pipeline of lawyers who interpret the Constitution based on the “original intent” of the framers or the meaning of the words in the text when they were written. One of the most influential conservatives of the past three decades, Leo helped confirm all six conservative justices currently serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Leo-aligned judges have pushed to restrict abortion rights and rein in the government’s power to regulate corporations.

Leo has said he views the Teneo Network as a way to extend his influence beyond the judiciary to industries including finance, media, government and Silicon Valley. The network identifies and cultivates conservative leaders in “other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now,” as Leo put it in a Teneo video.

According to internal Teneo documents, Vance joined Teneo in 2018, several years before he ran for Senate in his home state of Ohio. His book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” had already become a bestseller, and Vance was a commentator for CNN while running his own nonprofit and investment fund backing startup companies outside of Silicon Valley.

Spokespeople for the Trump campaign, Leo and Teneo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

By the time Vance spoke at Teneo’s 2021 conference, he had joined the race to fill outgoing Sen. Rob Portman’s seat. Despite his past criticisms of Trump, which included calling the former president an “idiot” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, Vance won Trump’s endorsement in 2022 and cruised to a comfortable victory.

Vance’s connection to Teneo could form a bridge between different factions of the Republican Party that seem to be at odds. Previous news stories have reported that Trump and Leo, who advised the former president on judicial nominees during his administration, are no longer as close as they once were. Russ Vought, a Trump ally, publicly denigrated the Federalist Society, the legal networking group Leo and others built into a juggernaut.

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.

In his Teneo remarks, he bemoaned that decades ago major corporate CEOs reliably donated money to Republicans but now they give heavily to Democrats. He lamented that conservatives had “very few oligarchs on our side,” had “lost every institution in American society” and needed to make corporations “taking the side of the left in the culture wars feel real economic pain.”

“So we’ve not just lost the academy,” meaning universities, “which we’ve lost for a long time; we haven’t just lost the media, which has been on the side of the left for a long time; we now find ourselves in a situation where our biggest multinational corporations are active participants in the culture war on the other side,” he said. “It’s really been a few of us over the past few years who have recognized that the big corporations have really turned against conservatives in a very big and powerful way.”

He argued that conservatives needed to take action against corporations that, say, defended abortion rights or punished employees who spoke out against abortion access. “If we’re unwilling to make companies that are taking the side of the left in the culture wars feel real economic pain, then we’re not serious about winning the culture war,” he said.

He said that Americans were “terrified to tell the truth” and “point out the obvious,” including that “there are real biological, cultural, religious, spiritual distinctions between men and women.” He added, “I think that’s what the whole transgender thing is about, is like fundamentally denying basic reality.”

Shortly before he spoke at the Teneo conference, Vance drew criticism when he tweeted that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow.” Jones, founder of the online show Infowars, gained a following with his promotion of conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. More recently, judges in several states ordered him to pay $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, which Jones had called a hoax.

Vance told Teneo members that he was “just trolling” with his defense of Jones, but added “that doesn’t mean what I said is in any way untrue.”

“Look, I think there’s a not-terrible chance that one of you is going to be sharing cellblock 12A in Premier Harris’ prison detention camp in a few years,” he explained, seemingly referring to Vice President Kamala Harris. “If we’re going to all end up in that place, we might as well have a little fun while we get there. It’s OK to troll when you make and speak fundamental truths. But, look, I do think what I said was correct.”

If the conservative movement was going to survive, he continued, its members needed to “speak for truth.” He mentioned donors in Ohio who had asked him if he would condemn inflammatory remarks made by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“And I say, ‘Why? Why do you want me to denounce this person?’” Vance said. “‘Well, she believes these crazy things.’ Who cares?”

He went on, “Believing crazy things is not the mark of whether somebody should be rejected. Believing important truths should be the mark of whether we accept somebody, and if they believe some crazy things on the side, that’s fine. We need to be OK with nonconventional people.”

----

---

AN 11 24

BEWARE PALACE INTRIGUE?

Behind closed doors, President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has become a somewhat fractious and chaotic environment according to a new report.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that "new camps have formed" at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida with competing visions for how to prepare for the next four years. The outlet described "shouting matches, expulsions from meetings and name-calling" as frequent occurrences between various factions.

"As during Trump’s first term, competing factions have begun to run roughshod over each other, sometimes kicking up clouds of dust," wrote the Post's Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer.

:{:{READ MORE:Trump rips 6 House Republicans for 'stupidly' failing to pass controversial amendment}:

According to the Post, three different factions have formed — each with their own leaders and strategic goals. One of those camps is led by Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., with Vice President-elect JD Vance on his side as well as "longtime MAGA warriors" like former Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson, Vance advisor Andy Surabian and ex-Trump White House official Cliff Sims.

Another faction is led by Trump White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who also co-chaired Trump's 2024 campaign. Wiles' camp mostly includes her advisors and acolytes, like Trump campaign political director James Blair and deputy campaign officials Taylor Budowich and Robert Gabriel. And a third group consists of transition co-chair and Secretary of Education-designate Linda McMahon and alumni from the America First Policy Institute like Brooke Rollins (who was rumored as a finalist for chief of staff) and Keith Kellogg, who was former Vice President Mike Pence's national security advisor.

Dust-ups between top Trump advisors are also breaking out during Trump transition team meetings. The Post's report began by describing an altercation between Trump attorney Boris Epshteyn and transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick (whom Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Commerce). Lutnick physically blocked Ephsteyn's path as he tried to enter a Mar-a-Lago meeting about potential Cabinet appointees, telling him: "We're not talking legal nominees today." But Ephsteyn reportedly stiff-armed Lutnick, saying: "I'm coming in."

In another contentious meeting, billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — who is sometimes referred to as "co-president" over Vance — and Epshteyn got into a loud back-and-forth, with the former suggesting the latter was leaking sensitive details of meetings to the press. One unnamed witness described the encounter on the Mar-a-Lago patio as a "huge fight" and a "big blowup," with Epshteyn reportedly saying: "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong."

READ MORE:These 3 Republicans are already 'knife-fighting' over who will be Trump's WH chief of staff

“It’s Boris against the world,” one unnamed "Trump confidant" told the Post, with another anonymous source saying Epshteyn was on “an island of his own.”

Vance has also participated in some the more heated arguments among transition team leaders, with one culminating in a social media post the vice president-elect has since deleted. While several Republican senators were at a SpaceX launch earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) managed to get several of President Joe Biden's last remaining federal judges confirmed. Grace Chong, who works for former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on his "War Room" podcast, criticized Vance for missing the vote.

"You guys better show up and do your one fricken[sic] job!!" Chong posted to X, referring to both Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who Trump picked to head the State Department. Vance responded by calling Chong a "mouth-breathing imbecile" in the now-deleted tweet. Chong has since added "mouth-breathing imbecile" to her X bio.

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

READ MORE:An internal 'power struggle' threatens to damage Trump's campaign: report

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===

an 11 24

Vice President Kamala Harris has been making a concerted effort to convince both consumers and business leaders that former President Donald Trump's economic proposals would be disastrous for the United States — especially his tariff proposals, which, Harris warns, would amount to a national "sales tax on the American people."

The Washington Post, in fact, has reported that companies are planning to raise their prices in anticipation of Trump possibility winning the election and following through on his tariff proposal.

Much of Harris' criticism of Trump's economic agenda has been aimed at Trump himself. But in an article published by Politico on November 3, journalists Hailey Fuchs and Sam Sutton report that business leaders are also "worried about" Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).

READ MORE:Harassing letters threatening biblical hell fire targets Democratic voters in Wisconsin

"Vance has consistently bashed big business, expressed antipathy toward corporate merger activities, sided with labor and emphasized his support for costly tariffs," Fuchs and Sutton explain. "He's spoken favorably of the Biden Administration's Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, who is universally viewed as a thorn in the side of major businesses, and forged unlikely alliances with progressives, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren."

The reporters add, "With Vance by Trump's side, some corporate leaders worry a second Trump Administration would be even more hostile to their interests than the first was. While he would have little agenda-setting power of his own, Vance would likely reinforce Trump on key economic issues — trade policy, labor issues, market power — unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, who acted more as a check on Trump's populist leanings."

Vance's economic views, according to Fuchs and Sutton, are a big departure from "the free-market approaches of (President) Ronald Reagan and (conservative economist) Milton Friedman."

GOP donor William H. Strong told Politico, "(Vance) has taken a tack that big business, particularly some of the big tech stuff, is by definition bad. Just because you're big doesn't mean you’re bad.... I don't like those broad characterizations that he alludes to that big business is somehow bad. It's just not."

---

AHA NOTE THAT NAT/ASSUMED LAMESTREAM // DISHONEST DEMS NO PROF NEEDED; CAN’T PROVE A NEG SO “BET” IS SAFE?

AN 10 24

"You said the other day, quote, I guarantee John Kelly talked to somebody on Kamala Harris' campaign beforehand, before he did this interview," Tapper noted during a CNN interview with Vance that aired on Sunday.

Tapper said he had "spoken with people in John Kelly's circle, and I've spoken with people in the Kamala Harris campaign."

"They say there's been no communication the entire time," the CNN host explained. "So where did that come from?"

"Oh, I'm highly skeptical of that, Jake," Vance replied. "You know the way that these attacks work."

"So you made it up," Tapper noted.

"No, I said that the American media and the American Democratic Party apparatus works a certain way," Vance fired back. "And it's interesting, we've now spent, Jake, three minutes talking about John Kelly."

"If it is true that he never spoke with anyone in Kamala Harris' orbit, I'm happy to apologize to John Kelly for misstating how he delivered this news to the Atlantic Magazine," he added.

Watch the video below from CNN or at the link.

---

===

AN 10 24

During a town hall Thursday, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance suggested that Russia is not the “bad guy” in its illegal war of choice against the sovereign nation of Ukraine, leading critics including national security experts to accuse him of promoting Vladimir Putin’s talking points.

“I think that the seeds of peace and Russia and Ukraine come from recognizing that is unfortunate as it is, and Russia shouldn’t have invaded Ukraine in the first place,” Vance told an self-identified undecided voter, according to the NewsNation transcript. “Both the Russians and the Ukrainians are exhausted. They’re both struggling to find men, because primarily men in those countries that are fighting the war. But they’re struggling to find women too. They’re struggling to get the equipment necessary to send to the front lines.”

“Their economies are exhausted. Whole parts of their country have been destroyed. Both of these parties want this war to end.”

READ MORE: Fox Host Insists Trump’s Hitler Remarks Were Made in Private — Just ‘Letting Off Steam’

“And I think unfortunately, you’ve got a lot of American leaders who like to beat their chest and say, ‘Well, this is the good guy and that’s the bad guy.’ Look, yes, Russia should not have invaded Ukraine, but we are where we are, and what’s in the best interest of America, and what I believe is in the best interest of Ukraine and Russia is for the killing to stop.”

Olivia Troye, who has an extensive national security résumé, including as Vice President Mike Pence’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor, blasted Senator Vance:

“JD Vance: the perfect Russian asset, delivering Putin’s propaganda straight to the American people. At a time when democracy needs defending, Vance is more interested in spreading Moscow’s talking points than standing up for American values.”

The Atlantic’s David Frum, who served as speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush, wrote of Senator Vance, “This man was put on a national ticket at the behest of a cabal of billionaires with sinister secret obligations to the dictators of Russia and China.”

Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf warned, “This is what the (not-so-soft) pitch for Putin looks like. Make no mistake. Vance may be weird and inexperienced [but] he is also a threat. This man could very easily succeed Trump (sooner than anyone expects) as president.”

READ MORE: ‘Shameful’: Naval Academy Cancels Authoritarianism Lecture After ‘MAGA Pressure’

Amy McGrath, a retired Marine combat fighter pilot who served for two decades and has a huge defense résumé, commented: “If we had JD Vance back in 1987, the line would be, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, this wall looks really beautiful.'”

Professor of history and biographer Lee Annis added: “Unconscionable statement! Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford and especially Ronald Reagan would be horrified by this TRULY pathetic excuse for the ‘evil empire’ Reagan so nobly and loudly condemned.”

Marc Polymeropoulos, who served at CIA for more than a quarter-century, remarked: “There actually is a good guy and a bad guy re Ukraine and Russia. Good god. This is the GOP position? My GOP ntl security friends, u good with this?”

Watch below or at this link.

===

an 10 24

Vice presidential hopeful JD Vance recently took the stage at an event organized by the most influential far-right pastor you’ve never heard of. His name is Lance Wallnau and he popularized a doctrine that calls for Christians to conquer every sphere of society from the government to professional sports.

Wallnau is a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist who preaches that leftists aren’t even people, just vessels for demons. He accused Vice President Kamala Harris of witchcraft. He prayed for God to kill Trump’s enemies. Wallnau’s message is a mishmash of Bible memes and conspiracy theories. He preaches the Big Lie as gospel truth, fusing Christian nationalism and election denialism.

In 2020, Wallnau gathered the faithful for the insurrection of January 6th. Today, he’s responsible for a good chunk of the Trump campaign’s Get Out the Vote effort. He rails against George Soros, the globalists, the World Economic Forum and vaccines. He hypes quack stem-cell therapies and Donald Trump figurines as fervently as he hypes Jesus.

Most importantly, Wallnau preaches that Donald Trump is a modern-day King Cyrus, a heathen anointed by God. The upshot is that no matter how immoral, blasphemous or criminal Trump is, it doesn’t matter because he’s God’s instrument to impose Christian dominion. If you’ve ever wondered why evangelicals don’t care that Trump is a philandering felon, Wallnau’s King Cyrus meme explains a lot.

JD Vance is not an evangelical, but he seemed at home at the Courage Campaign. At least, he seemed as comfortable as he gets in the presence of actual voters. And why not? Vance is the interface between the C-suites and the fever swamps of Magaland. It’s why he spends so much time on weird podcasts. As a Yale-educated US senator, he legitimates the fringe. As a rightwing podcast bro, he shores up the Trump ticket’s bona fides with the supplement-slurping conspiracist base.

One of Vance’s key functions is to validate all the factions of the maga conspiracist coalition.

Conspiracism is the overarching ideology of the maga movement. The three pillars of the maga platform are the Deep State, the Big Lie and the Great Replacement, and Vance eagerly expounds on all three.

Moreover, Vance moves effortlessly among integralist Catholics, protestant New Apostolic Reformation types, and the more secular Silicon Valley contingent exemplified by Elon Musk.

Vance’s other role is to reassure the more staid elements of the conservative coalition that unchecked conspiracism is politically useful. In 2021, Vance exhorted the future leaders of the conservative movement tomake common cause with Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other raving conspiracy theorists. According to Vance, the conservative movement is doomed unless it makes common cause with lunatics.

“Believing crazy things is not the mark of whether somebody should be rejected. Believing important truths should be the mark of whether we accept somebody, and if they believe some crazy things on the side, that's fine," Vance said. "Doesn't mean you have to defend their craziest views. But by all means, if this movement is going to survive, we need to speak for truth.”

The truth, according to Vance, is that an international cabal of financier sex perverts is ruining our society. This is the closest thing Vance has to an ideology. Like Wallnau, Vance is willing to use flawed instruments. As long as someone’s willing to affirm the core conspiracy premise, Vance is flexible about whether it’s dressed up in religious lingo, or whether his brother- or sister-in-paranoia also believes in Jewish space lasers or a federal plot to turn the frogs gay.

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Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) on Friday repeatedly refused to concede that his running mate, Donald Trump, lost the 2020 election when asked to provide a “yes or no” answer about the former president’s defeat.

Speaking with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of New York Times podcast “The Interview,” Vance was asked about his debate with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) during which the Republican vice presidential candidate refused to say Trump lost — and instead claimed he's "focused on the future."

“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said of Vance's response.

READ MORE:'Dark and depraved': Detroit Free Press editor rips Trump’s 'tired old jokes' on Motor City

As the Times reports, "It was widely considered his weakest debate moment and may have turned off voters."

“In the debate you were asked to clarify if you believe Trump lost the 2020 election,” Garcia-Navarro said in her interview with Vance. “Do you believe Trump lost the 2020 election?”

Vance replied that he and Trump have both raised issues about the 2020 election but insisted they’re both “focused on the future.”

“I think there’s an obsession here with focusing on 2020,” Vance claimed. “I’m much more worried about what happened after 2020, which is a wide-open border, groceries that are unaffordable.”

READ MORE:'It was my economy': Obama blasts Trump's 'hazy memory' during Harris rally appearance

“Senator, yes or no. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” Garcia-Navarro pressed.

“Let me ask you a question,” Vance shot back. “Is it OK that technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story?”

“Sen. Vance, I’m going to ask you again,” Garcia-Navarro replied. “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”

“Did Big Technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost Donald Trump millions of votes?” Vance asked.

READ MORE:'Traitorous piece of human garbage': Undercover audio reveals Roger Stone’s 2024 election plans

“Sen. Vance, I’m going to ask you again,” Garcia-Navarro repeated. “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”

“And I’ve answered your question with another question,” Vance replied. “You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

Watch the interview below or at this link.

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heated 10 24 no lnx?

JD Vance’s cowardly climate denial

Amid unprecedented destruction from Helene, Vance was too afraid to tell Americans what he actually believes.

Arielle Samuelson

Oct 2

Republican vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Sometimes, being a climate reporter feels like being in a twisted version of Groundhog Day. Every time you think the world has finally moved beyond debating whether climate change is real or fake, you wake up to find that the day has reset—and a white guy with oil money seeking power pushed the button.

Last night, JD Vance pushed the button while thousands of Americans were suffering from one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. At the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, Donald Trump’s running mate cast doubt on the “idea” that heat-trapping pollution heats the atmosphere, calling it “weird science” that he would only accept “for the sake of argument.”

“One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions—this idea that carbon emissions drive all the climate change,” he said. “Let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument, so we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true.”

Vance went on to criticize the Democratic Party’s climate policies, claiming they wouldn’t solve the hypothetical problem of climate change that Vance continually refused to acknowledge, even when pressed again by the moderator. The only environmental problems Vance would acknowledge? "Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water," he said. Fantastic.

Meanwhile, in actual reality, climate scientists were sounding the alarm about the impact of fossil fuel development on extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene. They said current warm ocean temperatures, which rapidly turned Helene into a massive Category 4 hurricane, were made 300 times more likely by climate change. They also estimated that climate change caused 50 percent more rainfall in Georgia and the Carolinas—a shocking number given the unprecedented 40 trillion gallons of rain.

David Hester inspects damages of his house after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, on September 28, 2024. Photo by Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images.

Only a few days ago, Trump told supporters at a rally that climate change is “one of the greatest scams of all time.” Vance did not take this direct route of denial, likely because it would have seemed insensitive in the face of such destruction from Helene. He’s trying to seem like the adult in the room.

But Vance’s comments were the same old Trumpian climate denial, albeit a far more cowardly form. On a national stage, amid unprecedented extreme destruction, Vance was too afraid to tell Americans what he actually believes: That we should stay stuck in this Groundhog Day forever, and allow the window for action to run out of time.

What else happened in last night’s debate?

The moderators thankfully executed a climate fact-check. “The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the Earth’s climate is warming at an unprecedented rate,” said CBS’s Norah O’Donnell after Vance’s comments. But it’s easy to be prepared with a climate basic fact-check when you’ve been stuck reliving the same, settled debate for decades.

Walz acknowledged that climate change is real. Don’t you love the bare minimum? The Minnesota governor said that many people know climate change is dangerous, regardless of party affiliation. “These are not folks that are Green New Deal folks,” he said. “They are farmers that have seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back-to-back.” Walz went on to say that “Reducing our impact is absolutely critical,” and touted the job-creating aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Walz also touted the Biden administration’s expansion of fossil fuels. The Minnesota governor also doubled down on Harris’ appeal to moderate voters by promoting the Biden administration’s expansion of fossil fuels, while failing to acknowledge the role fossil fuels play in causing the climate crisis—much less the fact that experts say we need to phase them out. Under Biden, Walz noted, the U.S. is now producing more oil and gas than any country in the world; and Biden approved a record number of oil and gas leases compared to Trump. And Walz added, the U.S. is also producing more clean energy under the Biden administration, which is also true.

Vance said that the U.S. has the cleanest economy in the world. (It doesn’t.) The U.S. emits more carbon dioxide per capita than any other country in the world, including China, and is the second-largest emitter overall (but the largest historic emitter). We also don’t have the cleanest economy, which is measured by comparing carbon emissions to GDP. According to that measurement, the U.S. emitted 0.26 kilograms per dollar of GDP in 2022, putting the country squarely in the middle of the road.

Vance also said that Trump cares about the cleanest air and water. (He doesn’t). Vance said that both he and Trump want “the environment to be cleaner and safer.” During his term in office, Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections, including rules governing clean air and water.

Walz called out Trump’s proposed $1 billion deal with oil executives. Right at the end of his time, the governor pointed out that Trump met with oil executives and offered to repeal all of the Biden’s Administration’s climate policies if they donated $1 billion to his campaign. “We could be smarter than that,” said Walz. It was perhaps the understatement of the night.

Further reading:

Trump will attend two fundraisers in oil-rich Texas today. The Guardian, October 1, 2024.

First, he will hold an invite-only lunch in the Permian Basin, the world’s most productive oilfield. Later, he’ll reportedly hold a Houston cocktail party co-hosted by Jeff Hildebrand, who runs Hilcorp Oil and has been a major donor to Trump since 2017.

Last week, Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, also attended two fundraisers thrown by oil industry executives in Dallas and Fort Worth, before being forced to cancel two Georgia fundraisers due to the hurricane.

JD Vance is one of the top recipients of oil and gas money. Now he’s shilling for their interests. Ohio Capital Journal, September 5, 2023.

J.D. Vance, the wealthy venture capitalist who moved back to Ohio to become a U.S. Senator as a reborn MAGA zealot, owes his deep-pocketed benefactors big time. Chief among them are the titans peddling fossil fuel. Vance was among the top 20 of all recipients of oil and gas donations in the 2022 campaign.

Ohio reaps benefits from climate law JD Vance repeatedly attacks. New York Times, October 1, 2024.

Despite Vance’s critiques, residents in his state — including in the senator’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio — have been big beneficiaries of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Many local leaders and residents say they do not want to see the new investments, which are already starting to revitalize the local economy, disappear.

Since the bill’s passage in mid-2022, companies have announced more than $7 billion in clean energy investments in Ohio, according to an analysis from E2, an environmental nonprofit organization. Only six other states have surpassed that amount, according to the analysis.

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austin am st

During the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate in New York, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, declined to answer when asked whether he and former President Donald Trump would challenge the results of November’s election if they lost, as Trump did in 2020.

Instead, Vance pivoted to what he said was a much bigger threat to democracy: internet censorship.

"I believe that we actually do have a threat to democracy in this country. … It is the threat of censorship," Vance said.

Vance said Vice President Kamala Harris would "like to censor people who engage in misinformation." He said Harris "is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale. She did it during COVID. She’s done it over a number of other issues."

Then, during a back-and-forth exchange with Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vance said Harris "wants to use the power of government and big tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment."

Many PolitiFact readers asked what Vance was talking about when referring to Harris and censorship.

Vance sought to tie Harris to the Biden administration's efforts to push social media platforms to remove what it deemed to be false content about COVID-19 during the pandemic.

The White House declined to comment.

Republicans have long bemoaned social media platforms’ efforts to moderate content, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The "censorship" commentary intensified in August when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress that the Biden administration had pressured the company to censor some posts. But experts have told PolitiFact such pressure doesn’t amount to censorship, and the Supreme Court ruled in Biden’s favor in a lawsuit on the topic. The Trump administration similarly asked Twitter to remove some posts.

Vance’s examples

When contacted for comment, an Republican National Committee spokesperson pointed PolitiFact to several news stories:

The letter did not mention Harris or any other specific person.

The Republican-led committee shared Zuckerberg’s letter on X, calling it a "Big win for free speech." Zuckerberg in his letter said ultimately it was the company’s decision whether to remove content, but that "the government pressure was wrong" and he regretted not speaking up about it at the time. One of Meta’s decisions Zuckerberg cited — to temporarily demote a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop after an FBI warning about a potential Russian disinformation operation — happened while Trump was still in office.

Meta’s fact-checking program during the pandemic spanned the Trump and Biden presidencies.

PolitiFact partners with Meta on its fact-checking program to slow misinformation’s spread. As part of the partnership, Meta flags posts that the company believes might be inaccurate or misleading, and fact-checkers provide feedback with published articles. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, decides what, if any, action to take on its platforms.

The RNC didn’t specify what "other issues" besides COVID-19 Vance was referring to at the debate.

What has Harris said?

Harris has talked about social media platforms’ responsibilities. She said in a May 2019 speech that she would hold them "accountable" for hateful content they shared.

She called for Twitter to suspend Trump’s account in October 2019 because of his posts discussing a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president that led to Trump’s first impeachment. This year, X owner Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump supporter and former independent presidential candidate, seized on Harris’ 2019 comments to amplify a false claim that Harris plans to shut down X if she’s elected.

An 880-page report in May from the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government detailed what it called the "Censorship-Industrial Complex," referring to what it described as the Biden-Harris administration’s pressure campaign against social media companies.

The report makes no accusations specific to Harris beyond a footnote referring to a September 2019 CNN interview in which she said Twitter should suspend Trump’s account.

Is pressuring social platforms censorship? Experts weigh in

Experts told PolitiFact in April that the Biden administration’s efforts to contact platforms about social media posts weren’t censorship unless they crossed the line into coercion, but that the Supreme Court would ultimately decide.

Sheri Berman, a Barnard College at Columbia University political science professor, said it’s reasonable for citizens and candidates to debate how much social media moderation should happen. But she said attempts to limit the spread of dangerous or false information pertaining to election results or vaccines’ efficacy during a pandemic "is not a threat to democracy."

The Supreme Court in June rejected an effort by Republican-led Missouri and Louisiana to restrict federal employees from pressuring social media companies to remove posts, saying the plaintiffs had no legal standing.

In the court’s 6-3 ruling, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, wrote that although the government factored in some of the platforms’ moderation decisions, "The evidence indicates that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment."

Trump also pressured social media platforms

Vance’s comments ignore evidence that the Trump administration also talked to social media platforms about removing content.

At a February 2023 House Oversight Committee hearing with then-Twitter executives about the Hunter Biden laptop story, one witness testified that the Trump White House had sought to remove a post from model Chrissy Teigen that criticized Trump.

Teigen had responded to Trump’s Sept. 8, 2019, social media post that called her "filthy-mouthed" by calling the former president a derogatory term.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., asked Anika Collier Navaroli, formerly of Twitter’s U.S. safety policy team: "The White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate?"

Navaroli said: "I do remember hearing we'd received a request from the White House to make sure we evaluated this tweet, and they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement directed at the president."

Our sources

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mma 10 24

Fox praised JD Vance for releasing a “study” to back up his lies about immigrants – actual economists were quick to point out that it’s junk

Economist Justin Wolfers: “This was not a study, it was not by economists, it's not really about immigration, it's also not about housing prices, and it does not make the point he claimed.”

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 10/02/24 mma

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance claimed during the October 1 CBS News debate that increased immigration — and “especially illegal immigration” — is a main driver of higher housing costs, and promised to provide “a Federal Reserve study” as evidence for his claim. The cast of Fox & Friends praised Vance the next day for supposedly providing this evidence and said his claim “makes sense,” but multiple economists pointed out that there is actually no such study, and further pointed to actual studies showing that immigration may lower housing prices.

After he was asked by CBS’ debate moderators for “evidence … that migrants are part of this problem” of high housing costs, Vance responded, “Well, there’s a Federal Reserve study that we’re happy to share after the debate,” claiming it “really drills down on the connection between increased levels of migration — especially illegal immigration — and higher housing prices.” He added: “The thing that has most turned housing into a commodity is giving it away to millions upon millions of people who have no legal right to be here.”

Vance followed the debate by posting not a Federal Reserve study, but a speech from a Trump-appointed Fed governor who is not an economist that included the following sentence: “Given the current low inventory of affordable housing, the inflow of new immigrants to some geographic areas could result in upward pressure on rents.” That speech also included a disclaimer stating: “The views expressed here are my own and are not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Reserve Board or the Federal Open Market Committee.”

Vance also linked to a non-Federal Reserve study and a Congressional Budget Office report he claimed reinforced his point.

In two separate segments, Fox News’ Fox & Friends praised Vance for scapegoating immigrants over high housing costs and posting a link to the Federal Reserve “study” (actually a speech containing just one sentence to support what Vance said), with co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt claiming he “makes sense,” and co-host Lawrence Jones in particular calling to “appreciate the precision” of his false claims.

Video

CitationFrom the October 2, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Video

CitationFrom the October 2, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

Unfortunately for Fox and Vance, economists quickly refuted his claims and his so-called evidence, explaining that at least two of the links he cited do not support his claims and pointing to other studies that show immigration lowering housing costs.

Economists refuted Vance’s baseless claims and shoddy evidence

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Ex-GOP insider reveals why 'hardcore MAGA' is seething against JD Vance after debate

wanted attack 9 24 an

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*Analysis

Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has spent his short career in politics soaking in and promoting anti-democratic ideas. It is terrifying that he could become vice president to Donald Trump, the oldest presidential nominee in history, who is displaying his own increasingly aggressive dictatorial intentions. Americans’ freedom and our future as a democratic society are at stake.

VID]

* Vance has repeatedly spoken at “National Conservatism” conferences; the movement’s statement of principles declares that “in those states or subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.”

Vance described his outlook in a far-right podcast appearance in 2022, recounted by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank:

Vance suggested that former president Donald Trump, once elected in 2024, should fire all civil servants and replace them with “our people,” defy court orders blocking such an illegal action, and then “do what Viktor Orban has done,” referring to the Hungarian dictator’s banson certain topics from school curricula. Vance justified such “outside-the-box” authoritarian actions by reasoning that the United States is “far gone” and not “a real constitutional republic” anymore.

Before Vance decided to run for office, he called Trump “reprehensible” and wondered whether Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” But when Vance became a candidate in the MAGA Republican Party, he flipped so hard that former Trump aide Steve Bannon suggested that Vance could be, as a reporter paraphrased, “St Paul to Trump’s Jesus—the zealous convert who spreads the gospel of Trumpism further than Trump himself ever could.”

J.D. Vance vs. Democracy and Freedom

* Vance defends the illegal “fake electors” scheme that Trump strategists used to try to override the will of the voters. Vance says Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were addressing a “very legitimate grievance” and says “I can’t help but roll my eyes” at the idea that Trump threatens democracy. “I don’t believe this is about some deep principle,” he says. “This is about power.”

In aspeech

VID]at the National Conservatism conference in 2021, Vance said the movement has to “aggressively attack the universities in this country,” claiming that they “transmit deceit and lies” rather than “knowledge and truth.” Vance has praised Hungary’s dictatorial leader Viktor Orban for his “smart decisions” in seizing control of universities. Trump’s own Agenda 47 calls for seizing the endowments of top universities to fund an anti-wokeness online academy.

Birds of a Feather: Vance’s Ideological Connections

Vance has spoken at National Conservatism conferences and events organized by “post-liberal” thinkers—who want to abandon liberal democracy—and advocates for integralism—a sort of right-wing Catholic version of Christian dominionism. At a 2023 conference at Catholic University, Vance identified as “a member of the post-liberal right.” Vance’s 2019 conversion to Catholicism was reportedly assisted by priests connected to Opus Dei, which has invested decades in building political power among and for right-wing Catholics in Washington, D.C.

Journalists and scholars like Laura Field have published quite a few detailed looks into Vance’s ideological allies, many of which are linked to in this post. Here are brief descriptions of just a few of the many far-right and antidemocratic intellectuals and institutions that Vance is associated with:

Claremont Instituteis a think tank that ramped up its attacks on multiculturalism in advance of the 2020 election; the New York Times has called it a “nerve center of the American right.” Claremont is home to Michael Anton, who called the 2016 presidential election “the flight 93 election”—referring to the flight hijacked during the 9/11 attacks in which passengers stormed the cockpit. Anton’s book called for a stop to the “ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for or experience in liberty.” He has suggested that an American Caesar is inevitable.

Claremont was also a center of pro-Trump activity after the 2020 election. Claremont lawyer John Eastman has defended his involvement in Trump’s efforts to stay in power by saying Trump’s presidency was necessary to save America from a left bent on its destruction. Politico reports that “Vance is “closely tied to Claremont circles,

frequently speaking at their events and appearing alongside their scholars.”

Two Futures: Freedom or Fascism?

Long before Donald Trump selected J.D. Vance as his running mate, there was a mountain of evidence that Trump’s election would threaten Americans’ freedom and undermine democracy: Trump’s own threats to jail his political opponents, go after universities and media outlets he doesn’t like, and carry out vast police state operations against immigrants; Project 2025 plans hatched by former Trump officials to give him virtually unchecked power; and the MAGA Supreme Court justices preemptively telling Trump he would not be held accountable for crimes committed as president.

Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance—cheered by “post-liberal” and anti-democratic leaders—is confirmation that the authoritarian threat to freedom and democracy is an urgent issue in this year’s presidential election—and that the threat will continue regardless of the outcome.

Tags: Adrian VermeuleDonald TrumpJ.D. VanceJohn EastmanMichael AntonPatrick DeneenRod DreherAuthoritarianismChristian NationalismElection 2025MAGANational ConservatismClaremont Institute

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introduction

When Donald Trump chose Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, journalists took the news one of two ways. Either they harped on all the terrible things Vance has said about his new boss in the past—voluminous but essentially immaterial reportage, as Americans no longer care about hypocrisy unless it scores their “team” political points—or they focused on how little Vance brings to the 2024 Republican ticket.

Yes, Vance has said terrible things about Trump, and yes, he appeals only to the same voters Trump already appeals to and very few others, but is that really the worst that can be said about him? That he supports a national abortion ban, that like Trump he has no interest in keeping Europe free from Russian war crimes, and that much like his new political patron he’s a sort of rich author and entrepreneur with ties to the sketchiest billionaires in America, one who talks a good game about identifying with the American working class but doesn’t support*any*policies that would*benefit*them?

All this is true—and would be more surprising and troubling in a world where the 2024 Republican presidential nominee wasn’t a confirmed rapist, a 34-times-convicted felon, a serial sexual predator, a serial philanderer, a man who currently owes nearly half a billion in civil fines for the torts he’s committed, a traitor to the United States, a defendant in pending criminal cases in Georgia and D.C. and an unindicted criminal co-conspirator in at least three jurisdictions (New York, Arizona, and Michigan), a man who told over 30,500 provable lies when he was president, and… need we go on?

Must we add in all the middle-class contractors he screwed out the money he owed them after they’d done the work for him their contracts required? His admission that he won’t pay overtime, contrary to federal law? The six bankruptcies? All the foreign dictators he does business with? His historic two impeachments (I, II)? Violations of the Emoluments Clause? His injection of violent and racist rhetoric into U.S. politics to a degree not seen since the Civil Rights Era? The Trump University scam? How about his stealing from charities? Calling American soldiers “losers” and “suckers”?

The point is, these and other atrocities that were introduced to our national political discourse by Trump launching a political career—and this list is by no means close to exhaustive—positively dwarf anything that could be said about Trump’s running mate, so how much does the latter category of content move the political needle for anyone?

It’s all weaksauce—as clearly MAGA voters broadly writ, and a significant percentage of the white working class in American specifically, decided years ago (with the Tea Party) that Democrats supporting policies that benefit them is far less important than Republicans saying they do. Why? Because these voters have reasons for supporting Republicans that they simply don’t want to talk about. In some instances what’s in play are cultural debates or religious dogma, but often enough it’s something darker.

Is the mysterious missing piece here a swirling maelstrom of latent racism, misogyny, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, and/or Islamophobia?

Sure, for some MAGAs it probably is.

Is it that these voters categorically do not read the mainstream news outlets governed by tried-and-tested journalistic ethics, digesting instead a steady diet of disinformation each day that perverts their understanding of our world? Sure, that’s definitely one of causes of the false consciousness the Republican establishment has engendered in the working class. Do some MAGAs vote against their interests because of peer pressure (including familial pressure), lack of any political news consumption at all, a nihilistic bent, the treatment of politics as entertainment rather than consequential policy, or another eldritch causal chain political scientists habitually miss? Surely a possibility.

But whatever the reason for nearly half of Americans being willing to vote for literally the least qualified presidential candidate in American history—yes, going back to the Founding—nothing media has been saying about J.D. Vance is going to change that, whether it’s his bizarre opining on “childless cat ladies” or his general stiffness in all social settings. Sure, these elements of Vance’s political persona could act as a GOTV (“Get Out the Vote”) goosing for the Democratic Party, but they’re not shifting votes.

Candidly, running-mate picks rarely do—even if Vance is one of the least popular ever.

Vance would, if he ever became President of the United States, do more or less exactly what Trump has and (if re-elected) will again: sell naked populism to the masses while spending his time in office blocking every Democratic bill intended to make life fairer and better for the non-rich. While Vance, unlike Trump, is a military veteran, his time in the Marines was spent in comms—so he wasn’t the Hollywood-style killing machine Trump cartoonishly likes to imagine all American soldiers as. Certainly, if Trump has never been hurt politically for being a notorious draft-dodger, and if he already has significant support in the military and law enforcement (which appears to be the case, though it makes no sense given that he has contempt for our troops and is a criminal), there’s no clear way in which Vance’s service significantly advantages the GOP ticket.

So if Mr. Trump didn’t need Vance on the ticket for what many journalists now oddly insist he helps with—the working-class vote in President Biden’s fabled “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where any MAGA voters are already as sure Trump is in their corner as historians are that the man has no interest in helping them whatsoever—what, exactly, did Trump want Vance for? It certainly isn’t nothing.

The answer may surprise you. And it should certainly unnerve all of us. Because it has nothing to do with this election cycle, and everything to do with the future of America.

Behind the Vance Pick...

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mma

JD Vance to appear at town hall with Christian nationalist show whose host has said Kamala Harris represents “the Jezebel spirit” and predicted “sudden deaths” of Trump’s opponents

Lance Wallnau has also already claimed that “there will be cheating” in the 2024 election

Written by Payton Armstrong

Published 09/27/24

On September 28, right-wing “prophet” and self-described Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau’s show is set to host a town hall event with Republican vice presidential nominee and Sen. JD Vance.

Wallnau has a history of extreme rhetoric, including saying that Vice President Kamala Harris represents “the spirit of Jezebel,” lambasting reproductive rights supporters as a “demonic manifestation,” and predicting “sudden deaths” of Trump’s opponents.

The Lance Wallnau Show announced that it will host a town hall with Vance in Pennsylvania on September 28 during The Courage Tour, which religious extremism expert Matthew Taylor described as “a 2020-election-denying, Christian nationalist, conspiracy propagation machine masquerading as a Pentecostal-style Christian revival.”

Wallnau is a prophet and key figure in the New Apostolic Reformation, an extreme right-wing movement “whose followers believe that we are living in an age of new apostles and prophets, who receive direct revelations from God.” According to Taylor, Wallnau was “one of the key Christian mobilizers for January 6th” through his eponymous show and the program FlashPoint, for which he serves as a contributor.

Wallnau frequently pushes extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including framing Democrats as “demons,” asserting that Harris represents “the Jezebel spirit,” and claiming “there will be cheating” in the 2024 election.

* Wallnau has already claimed that “there will be cheating” in the 2024 election, claiming in July, “The drop boxes is where they’re going to put fake votes. They’re going to do multiple votes. They’re going to drop wads of votes.”

Since Trump left office, he and his family and allies have increasingly engaged with and embraced extreme prophetic media, especially programs that assert Trump has “the anointing” from God. Eric Trump ally Clay Clark even noted that “Trump’s inner circle is embracing the prophets.”

Donald Trump Jr. recently spoke at an Oklahoma church led by an extremist right-wing pastor and media figure who has referred to Harris as a “lying whore” and claimed that “Democrats have a demonic obsession with murdering babies.” Eric Trump is scheduled to speak at the same church in October.

Additionally, Trump allies are reportedly planning to infuse Christian nationalism into his potential second administration through Project 2025, the extreme right-wing initiative organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and personnel recommendations if he is reelected.

an 9 24

the opposition research dossier compiled by Donald Trump's campaign on J.D. Vance was published online after hackers – allegedly from Iran – apparently stole data and shared it with media outlets, but a veteran journalist is curious why it took so long.

The 271-page oppo file was published online by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who was suspended from X shortly afterward, and The Bulwark's Marc Caputo examined the contents and commented on some of the noteworthy items he found.

"Vance’s infamous 'childless cat ladies' comment was not listed among the liabilities that the Trump campaign assessed about the then-prospective running mate," Caputo wrote.

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ALSO READ:Dysfunction on display: Republicans complain Speaker Johnson is no Pelosi

"As to why the Trump campaign’s researchers didn’t include that the cat lady remarks, aides aren’t saying," he added. "The campaign has inveighed against news outlets publishing material that was allegedly obtained by a foreign adversary while declining to confirm the validity of the content. Two other people who independently obtained the Vance dossier, however, both told The Bulwark that the cat lady comments were not in it."

The exclusion suggests that Trump's team either missed the remarks that have come to define the Republican vice presidential candidate or simply didn't think they merited attention, although the document includes dozens of other references to Vance's appearances on Tucker Carlson's show.

"Vance comes across as a right-leaning classical liberal who became a Trump era conservative populist," Caputo wrote. "There was nothing obviously disqualifying in it, which explains, in part, how he got selected for the post."

Caputo said he had not independently verified the document, which could potentially include disinformation planted by the hackers, and he said the material he viewed was not the final version of the oppo file.

"It’s also unclear why the mainstream media outlets that were first given the document two months ago didn’t report on its omission of the cat lady comment — or on the dossier in general," Caputo wrote. "The disparity in treatment between this dossier and the hacked Democratic materials in 2016 is striking, as I noted last month. When a story doesn’t get covered, it needlessly looks like a coverup."

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J.D. Vance Scheduled to Join Christian Nationalist Courage Tour This Weekend

Kyle Mantyla | September 26, 2024 rww

In 2023, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist and unabashed Trump cultist Lance Wallnau announced his intention to travel the country ahead of the 2024 elections in order to break the “demonic strongholds” in swing states that have supposedly been preventing Republicans from winning elections. Wallnau’s vision manifested itself in the form of the “Courage Tour,” a series of multi-day events during which attendees hear from religious-right activists who mobilize them politically during the daily sessions, while the evening sessions are dedicated to spiritual revival and miracle healings lead by right-wing evangelist and fellow Trump cultist Mario Murillo.

This week, Wallnau and Murillo—both of whom have have been vicious critics of Vice President Kamala Harris, declaring that she is “the devil’s choice” and that her campaign is under “demonic power”—are taking their “Courage Tour” to Pennsylvania, where they will be joined by Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance.

While the immediate purpose of the “Courage Tour” is to reelect Trump, Wallnau revealed during a stop in Michigan earlier this year that the ultimate purpose behind the event is to prepare Christians to rule and reign when Jesus Christ returns by training them to “occupy territory now.”

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This agenda is deeply rooted in Seven Mountains Dominionism, a radical theology associated with the New Apostolic Reformation that advocates having right-wing Christians control all aspects of society. Followers of Seven Mountains theology believe that they are to “do whatever is necessary” to take control of the seven main “mountains” that shape our culture—education, government, media, business, arts and entertainment, family, and religion—in order to implement the will of God throughout the nation and the world.

Wallnau has long been a leading promoter of Seven Mountains theology, declaring in 2022, “we want souls and we want nations.”

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In 2023, Wallnau warned that God was going to start killing American political leaders in response to the arrest of Trump for falsifying business records. In the end, Trump was found guilty on all counts and God didn’t kill a single politician.

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Wallnau has repeatedly praised dictators, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he lauded for clamping down on “the LGBTQ doctrine … like a good dictator does.”

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Wallnau is also fond of accusing those with whom he disagrees of being under the control of demons.

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On top of that, Wallnau is a right-wing anti-LBGTQ activist who regularly uses his media appearances and social media platform to make outlandish claims and spread baseless conspiracy theories.

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On Saturday, the Republican vice presidential nominee will be sitting down for a town hall hosted by this man.

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an raw 9 24

The MAGA movement has grown to such an extent that it’s now more powerful than Donald Trump is — and it’s become one of the former president's biggest threats, an analyst wrote in the New York Times.

The groundswell coalition that he started has evolved and developed its own issues and policies, wrote Ezra Klein. And they're not fully in line with him.

Now Trump as an individual is losing his grasp on it — and it's becoming aFrankenstein monsterits creator has little control over.

“Trumpism is whatever Trump says it is,” Klein wrote. “But MAGA is whatever his movement becomes.

“This is why J.D. Vance has been a political liability to Trump’s campaign: Vance represents MAGA as it has evolved — esoterically ideological, deeply resentful, terminally online — unleavened by Trump’s instincts for showmanship and the winds of public sentiment.”

Klein wrote that MAGA had led Trump into associations with Project 2025, a policy started as a way to clear out the old school of government and replace it with loyalists.

But it morphed into a movement of extreme conservatism which Trump is now trying to disassociate himself from, but which has become emblematic of his movement.

“The MAGA coalition — particularly its elected officials and Washington staffer class — has grown beyond Trump. It has more views on more issues than he does,” Klein wrote.

“It has absorbed more specific and unusual ideologies than he has. It is more hostile to abortion than he is, or than he wants to appear to be. It is more committed to deregulating health insurance than he is, or than he wants to appear to be.

“There is a great gap between the MAGA leader who slept with a porn star and the factions in the MAGA movement that want to outlaw pornography, as Roberts proposed on Project 2025’s first page.”

And Trump is now so associated with it that it could be what brings him down.

“By all accounts, Trump and his campaign are furious that Project 2025 has been hung like a millstone around his neck,” Klein wrote.

He went on, “Trump’s problem in the 2024 election is that he can no longer run as if he is a man alone. Everyone knew Mike Pence did not represent Trumpism. But Trump chose Vance to be the heir of the MAGA movement.

“A Trump administration would be full of people like Vance pursuing the agendas they believe in.”

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Vance's ACA remarks deserve more attention than they've gotten from top newspapers

JD Vance suggested a Trump administration would gut the Affordable Care Act. Only The Washington Post covered it.

Written by Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Rob Savillo & Tyler Monroe

Published 09/20/24 7:02 PM EDT

The Washington Post was the only paper out of five of the top newspapers to cover in print Sen. JD Vance’s (R-OH) indication that a second Trump administration would gut the Affordable Care Act, reversing protections for seniors and people with preexisting conditions.

There hasn’t been a single news article about Vance’s comments in the A sections of the five papers’ print editions in the time between when the senator’s comments aired on Sunday and 3 p.m. on September 20. The only print coverage of the comments came from 2 opinion pieces in The Washington Post.

Think about it: a young American doesn't have the same health care needs as a 65-year-old American. A 65-year-old American in good health has much different health care needs than a 65-year-old American with a chronic condition. And we want to make sure everybody is covered.

But the best way to do that is to actually promote some more choice in our healthcare system and not have a one-size-fits-all approach that puts a lot of people into the same insurance pools, into the same risk pools, that actually makes it harder for people to make the right choices for their families.

Vance doubled down during a rally in North Carolina, explaining the policy in more detail:

If you only go to the doctor once a year, you're going to need a different health care plan than somebody who goes to the doctor fourteen times a year because they've got chronic pain or they've got some other chronic condition.

That's the biggest and most important thing that we have to change. Now, what that will also do is allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools.

As Jonathan Chait explained, “The Trump plan, according to Vance, is to permit insurance companies to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions.” Which in essence means “Vance is advocating a partial or complete return to the system that existed before Obamacare."

In The Washington Post’s coverage, a piece from the editorial board noted the Trump/Vance plan “could explode costs for older Americans or those with preexisting conditions.” The other opinion piece clearly explained the stakes:

Vance is referring to letting insurance companies offer different plans and pricing based on whether patients have preexisting conditions or might need more medical care because of their age, health status, gender, etc., or perhaps even their genetic profile. Rather than spreading the insurance risk around to a larger group of people who to some extent cross-subsidize one another, Vance wants to segment riskier patients into their own “pools.” Sicker, higher-risk, more expensive people can “choose” to go into one pool; healthier, less risky, cheaper-to-insure people can “choose” to land in another.

The Washington Post also had a news article about Vance’s comments in its online edition.

The reality is that high-risk pool coverage was prohibitively expensive and there is little evidence to suggest that the existence of such pools made coverage less costly for others in the individual insurance market. Without substantially more federal funding than currently proposed, these facts are not likely to change. People with preexisting conditions may have “access” to coverage, but most will not be able to afford it and those who can will face limited benefits and extremely high deductibles and out-of-pocket payments.

With American voters consistently rating health care as a top election issue, these newspapers must do a better job of informing readers about the stakes of the race: If Trump and Vance repealed the ACA, it would be disastrous for those who need care the most.

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an 9 24

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's running mate, has been drawing widespread criticism for his "childless cat ladies" comments of 2021 and 2022 and for attacking prominent Democrats — including Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — for not having biological children.

Many of Vance's critics, however, have reminded him that Harris has two stepchildren via her husband Doug Emhoff and that Buttigieg and his husband are adoptive parents.

Now, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is drawing criticism for echoing Vance's rhetoric. And some of the criticism is coming from a Never Trump conservative and former GOP congressman: MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

READ MORE:Vance asked an ex-professor to delete his 'scathing rebuke' of the GOP from the internet: report

Sanders, during a speech in Flint, Michigan, told the MAGA crowd, "Not only do my kids serve as a permanent reminder of what's important — they also keep me humble…. So, my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble."

During MSNBC's Wednesday morning, September 18 broadcast, host Mika Brzezinski commented, "What is their obsession with women without (biological) children?" — adding that Sanders' comments are offensive to many women. And Scarborough responded, "It's just cruelty…. They are playing for a very small subset that relishes the cruelty…. It's so patently obvious that it's just to be hateful. They just do this to be hateful."

Scarborough pointed out that Harris often speaks lovingly about her stepchildren, arguing, "They know the truth. They have heard Doug's children's mom say time and time again that they are all part of a blended family."

The Never Trump conservative, who is supporting Harris in this year's presidential election, sarcastically added, "You know, not everybody, I guess, is perfect like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump. I guess, Donald Trump and JD Vance — maybe they're just perfect in this respect."

READ MORE:House Republican in swing district distances himself from Trump's 'unfounded theories'

*Watch the full video below or at this link.

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an 9 24

an article 2024 GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance asked his undergraduate professor to delete in 2016, four years after having it published, remains available on the internet today despite its removal, according to CNN.

Per the report, the Ohio congressman — a Yale law student at the time — issued "a scathing rebuke of the Republican Party's stance on migrant and minorities.

Vance wrote, "Republicans lose minority voters for simple and obvious reasons: their policy proposals are tired, unoriginal, or openly hostile to non-whites."

READ MORE:'You’re a racist disgrace': Mehdi Hasan host unloads on JD Vance over late-night post

The Donald Trump running mate also slammed the party for isolating "Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth."

According to CNN, Nelson told the news outlet "that during the 2016 Republican primary he agreed to delete the article at Vance’s request, so that Vance might have an easier time getting a job in Republican politics. However, the article, titled 'A Blueprint for the GOP,' remains viewable on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine."

CNN reports:

'A significant part of Republican immigration policy centers on the possibility of deporting 12 million people (or ‘self-deporting’ them),' Vance wrote. 'Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens. The notion fails to pass the laugh test. The same can be said for too much of the party’s platform.'*}:

Twelve years later, as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance espouses many of the same anti-immigrant postures that he criticized back in 2012 as a 28-year-old law school student. In recent days, Vance has amplified baseless claims against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.*

READ MORE:'He politicized it': OH pastor reveals Vance repeated immigrant lie after leaders asked for help

The news outlet also notes that aside from the article he asked Nelson to cut, "Two other blog posts Vance wrote for the website are still active, but CNN noticed the 'Blueprint' article had been removed from the website. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, where the post was saved, shows it was deleted sometime between March 2014and February 2016."

*CNN's full report is available here.

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jdv said ok to lie to wake US up

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JD Vance, Springfield, and how MAGA media spun a racist lie out of control

Vance’s office was told it was “baseless” from the beginning

Written by Matt Gertz

:{:{Published 09/18/24 mma}:

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance told reporters on Tuesday that it was their job — not his — to fact-check his claim that Haitians were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. The Wall Street Journal did just that, revealing on Wednesday morning that Springfield’s city manager told Vance’s office that the story was baseless, soon after the Republican vice presidential nominee started publicly making the racist claim.

A Vance staffer contacted Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck on the morning of September 9 and “asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” Heck told the Journal. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”

The Haitian immigrant saga is a testament to the right’s refusal to abide by anything resembling evidentiary standards, their demagogic response when anyone dares to point out that their claims are unsubstantiated — and how their lies can spiral wildly out of control.

Thousands of Haitian immigrants have settled in Springfield and its environs in recent years, fleeing violence, political unrest, and economic collapse in their home country while being drawn by local jobs and a “dire labor shortage.” The population surge has created real but surmountable challenges for local governance, resulting in an influx in state assistance and calls for federal aid.

Local businesses and church leaders, however, praise the new residents, who “are here legally,” according to the Springfield government.

Earlier this month, a Springfield resident published a since-deleted post to a private local Facebook group spreading “vague, third hand gossip” about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets in the area.

The internet rumor spread to X on September 5 and spiraled through the right-wing media apparatus for days. Then on the morning of September 9, Vance, who is extremely online, promoted the claims on X, triggering a slew of supportive coverage from right-wing media.

Springfield’s city manager told Vance’s staffer such claims were “baseless” soon after, the Journal reported. Vance kept his post up and added another the next day in which he acknowledged that he was promoting “rumors” that may “turn out to be false,” but nonetheless urged his supporters to “keep the cat memes flowing.”

That night Donald Trump cited what his running mate had acknowledged were “rumors” that his office had been informed were baseless at a presidential debate before an estimated television audience of nearly 70 million Americans.

The former president, who shares the evidentiary standards of the average denizen of right-wing fever swamps, told the public that Democrats had allowed “millions and millions of people to come into our country” and that “in Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

ABC News moderator David Muir responded by telling Trump what he could have learned from speaking to his running mate’s staff if he were marginally interested in saying true things.

“ABC News reached out to the city manager there,” Muir said. “He told us ‘there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.’”

:{:{Video}:

CitationFrom the September 10, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox News Democracy 2024 - ABC Presidential Debate

This mild rebuttal of what Trump’s running mate had publicly called a “rumor” which could be false — along with a handful of similar fact-checks of right-wing media nonsense Trump promoted that night — triggered a massive right-wing freakout targeting ABC.

Over the following days, Trump and his allies called for government retribution against the network and its parent company and even criminal charges, while promoting absurdly thin claims about an “ABC whistleblower” who was exposing the purportedly rigged debate.

Meanwhile, Trump’s right-wing propagandists scrounged for evidence even vaguely resembling the initial claims which immediately collapsed under scrutiny, including a photo purportedly showing a Haitian immigrant carrying a dead goose to eat, a video purportedly showing a cat being grilled in neighboring Dayton, Ohio, false claims that Haitians were causing an increase in “communicable diseases like HIV and TB,” and an attack on Haitian immigrants in Pennsylvania.

Springfield’s community has experienced significant disruption since Vance and Trump took a rumor from the right-wing fever swamps, gave it a national audience, and mired the city in a ridiculous national debate.

Local schools, colleges, churches, and government buildings have suffered bomb threats that resulted in evacuations. The Proud Boys, a violent Trumpist gang, marched through the streets, while “fliers from a group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan” circulated. Haitian residents say they fear for their safety and are keeping their children home from school.

Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine publicly urged Trump and Vance to end their “very hurtful” attacks on Haitian immigrants. Springfield’s mayor Rob Rue, also a Republican, added that "It would be helpful if they understood the weight of their words and how they could harm a community like ours.”

But Vance, Trump, and their right-wing media allies are undeterred. Their aim, as Vance admitted in a Sunday interview, is to “create stories” by uplifting bullshit in order to drive media attention to the purported horrors of immigrants (and presumably away from covering unpopular aspects of their agenda, like restricting abortion, raising grocery prices, and rolling back protections on health coverage for preexisting conditions).

On Tuesday, he denied any sense of responsibility for his actions and their consequences.

“A woman who was behind an early Facebook post about the Haitian migrants in Springfield has now apologized for spreading false rumors,” a reporter told Vance at a Q & A during a rally in Wisconsin. “You say that you have a responsibility to share what your constituents tell you, but don’t you also have a responsibility to fact-check them first?”

“I think the media has a responsibility to fact-check the residents of Springfeild, not lie about them,” Vance replied, to cheers from the crowd. “I actually think this is really interesting, and I’ve learned a lot about the American media over the last week, and none of it is good.”

Vance went on to claim that his office had heard the story about pets from “multiple people” and the media has descended on the town and engaged in “bullying on an industrial scale” that he called “disgraceful.”

:{:{Video}:

CitationFrom a September 17, 2024,YouTube video of a JD Vance campaign event

Vance’s office, meanwhile, had provided the Journal with one new piece of evidence, “a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors,” which instantly dissolved when the paper went about trying to “fact-check” it.

“But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat Miss Sassy, which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later—found safe in her own basement,” the Journal reported on Wednesday.

“Kilgore, wearing a Trump shirt and hat, said she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a mobile-phone translation app.”

Don’t expect similar apologies from Vance, Trump, or any of the right-wing propagandists peddling this story.

//

Right-wing media are gleefully promoting a false, racist rumor that Haitian migrants are eating pets

09/10/2

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Right-wing media are celebrating JD Vance for his racist lie that Haitian immigrants are widely spreading disease in Springfield, Ohio

Data from Ohio’s Department of Health and Clark County Combined Health District shows only a handful of new tuberculosis and HIV cases, which Vance falsely claims “have skyrocketed”

Written by Zachary Pleat

:{:{Published 09/14/24}:

Right-wing websites are celebrating Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance for spreading a longstanding xenophobic trope in a CNN interview that “communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed” in Springfield, Ohio, because of Haitian immigrants in the city. This falsehood follows his debunked smear that Haitian residents of the city were eating people’s pets, a lie reportedly linked to recent bomb threats.

Vance had already spread this smear in a September 10 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. But it was Vance repeating the falsehood in a CNN interview shortly after the ABC News presidential debate which right-wing websites are celebrating.

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SEN. JD VANCE: And again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be, Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Health care costs are up, housing costs are up, communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris' border policies have done.

Vance repeated this smear in a September 13 post on X as well.

Right-wing blogs have responded to Vance's misinformation with widespread praise.

:{:{A Townhall post which quoted his smear that Haitian immigrants are widely spreading disease in Springfield declared his CNN appearance “masterful,” adding, “Bravo, sir.”}:

The Media Research Center’s NewsBusters embedded a clip of Vance’s CNN interview, declaring: “JD Vance SCHOOLS CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Immigration and Cat Memes.” And RedState included a transcript of Vance’s disease smear in its post congratulating him for making “a very real and damning point about the media,” adding: “When you come at JD Vance, you better get ready for a fight. CNN's Kaitlan Collins certainly wasn't.”}:

For all of their congratulations to Vance over continuing to push this smear, these right-wing blogs missed the reality that Vance is simply lying. Making it up.

Data from the Ohio Department of Health and Clark County Combined Health District — which Vance presumably could easily obtain, given that he’s one of the state’s senators — shows that there are barely any new cases of either TB or HIV in Clark County, of which Springfield is the county seat.

The most recent data available, for 2018-22, shows that in 2018, Clark County reported 10 new HIV infections. Six new HIV infections were reported there in 2019, six again in 2020, 12 in 2021, and 13 in 2022. These five years of data reveal that between 2018-22, the county had a cumulative total of 322 HIV diagnoses — while the state’s cumulative total during this time period was 39,729 HIV diagnoses. To put it simply, Clark County, which includes Springfield, represented less than 1% of all HIV diagnoses in Ohio during this time period.

A December 2022 report of TB cases in Clark County prepared for the Clark County Combined Health District goes back a full decade, showing several incidences of 1, 2, 3, and sometimes zero cases of active TB in the entire county each year.

Clark County Combined Health District Commissioner Chris Cook told NBC News that Vance’s claim of a surge in diseases there is false: “Overall, we have not seen a substantial increase in all reportable communicable diseases. In fact, if you look at all reportable communicable diseases together (minus COVID) for the year ending 2023 you will see that we are at our lowest rate in Clark County since 2016.” And according to Bruce Vanderhoff, the director of Ohio’s Health Department, the state isn’t seeing a “measurable or discernible increase” in vaccine-preventable illnesses, further debunking Vance’s smear.

As Advocate explained, Vance is reinforcing “historical stigmas, stoking xenophobia and racial fear.” Right-wing media may be celebrating Vance pushing these cruel lies, but legitimate media organizations should be prepared to call him out.

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alternet-no lnx

'Two sides’: Vance's paternal grandma shares her take on Hillbilly Elegy

Melva Lene Shepherd, J.D. Vance's paternal grandmother, in Loveland, Ohio. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)

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Alexandria JacobsonandRaw StorySeptember 14, 2024

LOVELAND, Ohio — Amid nearly 100 guests adorning red elephant skirts, sequined "Trump" clutches and bedazzled patriotic hats, one attendee at the Northeast Republican Women's Club luncheon on Tuesday stood out among the crowd, not for her outfit but for her famous family member.

Melva Lene Shepherd, the paternal grandmother of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) — Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate — listened in on the meeting in Loveland, Ohio, as a "special guest" of a club member, welcomed with applause from the group.

Shepherd spoke with Raw Story in an exclusive interview about her relationship with her grandson and what she wants the world to know about her family's side of Vance's 2016 bestseller, "Hillbilly Elegy," which focuses mostly on Vance's maternal side of the family as he was primarily raised by his "Papaw" and "Mamaw" as his mother dealt with addiction.

Vance's late father, Donald Bowman, put him up for adoption at age 6 and he was told by his mother that his father "didn't want" him anymore, Vance wrote in the book. Consequently, Vance did not have a relationship with the paternal side of his family throughout much of his life due to his father's absence, according to a spokesperson for Vance.

"I liked it. It told one side. There could be another book written on the other side," Shepherd said. "No matter how flat the pancake is, there's two sides to it."

ALSO READ: 'Hugely offensive': Dems blast 'crazy' Trump's new J6 debate claims

While Shepherd didn't want to comment specifically on what perspectives might have been missing from the book, she said Vance and his late father had "an awesome relationship," and Vance was "coming to visit him, sitting with him" at the end of his life. Bowman died in November.

"Most people know about granny and that side of the story, that he was adopted, and his dad let him be adopted, after much prayer," Shepherd said. "As the years went by, they became real close."

Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for Vance, told Raw Story that “J.D. reconnected with his father later in his life. Many Americans with similar family situations never get that opportunity, and J.D. is grateful that he did."

Shepherd said Vance also has "brothers and sisters on that side of the family that he's real close with," but ultimately, Vance "wasn't really in my life that much." Shepherd said she last saw Vance at Thanksgiving, and she doesn't really see her great-grandchildren from Vance and his wife, Usha Vance.

"I understand that we didn’t bond, and he’s not in my life like my other grandkids," Shepherd said. "I understand that. I wish it were different, and I realized I probably need to reach out to him more, too."

Shepherd said she is not actively helping Vance campaign for vice president with Trump, but she "absolutely" supports her grandson's politics, particularly his opposition to abortion. Trump said on Tuesday he would not sign a federal abortion ban.

Vance told CNN in December, "We have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans. They just don’t. I say this as a person who wants to protect as many unborn babies as possible. We have to provide exceptions for the life of the mother, for rape and so forth. That is just a basic necessity."

"I’m totally against it," Shepherd said about the issue of abortion.

Even with her grandson running for vice president, Shepherd, who has lived in Hamilton, Ohio, her whole life, said her life hasn't changed "at all." She hasn't met Trump, but Vance's father did.

"His dad met him back when he was politicking for the Senate. We have a picture of him and his dad with the president," Shepherd said.

When asked by Raw Story if she was surprised by Vance's pivot from criticizing Trump to being a supporter, she said "not really."

"I think he’s coming around," Shepherd said.

NOW READ: 'Leave us alone': Grieving dad slams 'hate-spewing' J.D. Vance for exploiting son's death

an 9 24

2024 Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance (R-OH) is facing significant backlash after he admitted his claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio is a lie.

The Bulwark's Sam Stein reported via X: "JD Vance acknowledges the cat and dog stories are urban legends and then rationalizes it (via CNN): 'If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.'"

After Donald Trump parroted the debunked claim during his debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday, a Springfield, Ohio spokesperson told ABC News earlier this week that "these claims are false, and that there have been 'no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.'"

READ MORE:Multiple-location bomb threat follows Trump and Vance’s false dog-eating immigrants claims

The spokesperson added that "there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes. Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic."

A slew of political experts and journalists immediately rebuffed the VP hopeful's Sunday CNN interview admission.

The anti-Trump Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson replied: "'If I have to create stories' will be on his political tombstone."

Marie Claire former contributing editor Karen Schwartz added: "The GOP VP candidate is proud to have made up stories that have lead to closed schools and bomb threats in hospitals."

READ MORE:'I'm going to have to move': Haitian migrants 'anxious and scared' amid wave of MAGA attacks

Zack Beauchamp, Vox senior politics correspondent, said: "Vance isn’t as good at lying as Trump because he feels a deep need to be respected intellectually. So you get humiliating admissions like this"

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias wrote: "If they told you the truth about their plans for abortion rights, health care, and Social Security you wouldn't vote for them so they're making stuff up instead."

National Journal columnist Natalie Jackson added: "I usually refrain from using the f-word on social media, but truly there is no other way to describe this than completely fucked up."

Austin Chronicle culture editor Richard Whittaker commented: "Where I come from, you call people like this liars. It's now perfectly fine to call him a liar - because he acknowledged that he lied."

READ MORE:[Springfield resident who ignited false rumor 'feels' for Haitian community: 'I am not a racist'

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), often rails against "elites." Yet in July, Forbes estimated the "Hillbilly Elegy" author's net worth to be around $10 million.

In a think piece article published on September 16, Politico's Ian Ward examines the "tension" between Vance's anti-elite rhetoric and the fact that he is a multi-millionaire who graduated from Yale University's law school and became a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

Vance, according to Ward, "has become a vociferous conservative critic of that same elite on behalf of disaffected Middle Americans, a role he can claim by virtue of his upbringing in post-industrial Ohio and his family's roots in eastern Appalachia."

READ MORE: Trump has 'reached his final destination' and 'he knows he's going down': George Conway

"At various points throughout his career," Ward explains, "Vance has acknowledged this tension — without really trying to resolve it.… Now that Vance is accompanying Trump on the top of the Republican ticket, this paradox has opened Republicans up to fresh criticisms. How populist can Vance really be while cozying up to billionaires in Silicon Valley?"

Ward continues, "What does a Yale-educated attorney and ex-venture capitalist understand about the lives of Trump's blue-collar voters? Is a guy who owns not one but two million-dollar houses a credible mouthpiece for the GOP's fledgling economic populism? But the deeper I've dug into the conservative world Vance comes from — often referred to as the 'New Right' — the more I've come to see Vance's split identity as a feature rather than a bug for his ideological supporters."

Back in 1980, the term "New Right" referred to Ronald Reagan's conservative coalition. The late political R&B singer Gil Scott-Heron, a major supporter of progressive and left-wing causes, was fond of saying that "the New Right is the same old wrong."

But in 2024, the term "New Right" has a decidedly MAGA connotation and vehemently rejects the Reagan, Goldwater, Bush and McCain conservatism of the 1980s and 1990s.

READ MORE:['Smallest man who ever lived': Trump slammed over 'dangerous' Taylor Swift post

"In fact, Vance embodies an archetype that has been theorized about at length in New Right-adjacent books and podcasts, many of which Vance has read and listened to," Ward explains. "By forging an alliance between the elite 'New Right' and the MAGA masses, Vance, according to this reading, could serve as the leader of a new movement to institute an illiberal and explicitly reactionary political order."

Ward adds, "Though adopting the rhetoric of conservatism populism, this new order would be a fundamentally elitist one: It would expel America's current ruling elite in order to replace it with a new, more conservative one, drawn from the ranks of the New Right."

READ MORE:[Trump's hate is no joke

*Read the full Politico article at this link.

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an

JD Vance told far-right podcast the Civil War is still ongoing and he’s with the South

9 24

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victim of bubble tho bro?

CNBC failed to rebut JD Vance's falsehoods about immigrants during interview

09/12/24 mma

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bb 9 24

JD Vance described the cabinet position from which Elon "Leon"Musk will direct a brain trust to save social security from "migrants" and fix the DOD.

In what appeared to be a momentary break from disparaging asylum seekers in the US, JD Vance found his way back to disparaging "migrants" as somehow responsible for the social security fraud that he also imagines. The answer to this is noted Pedo Guy Leon Musk. Following his disastrous re-imaging of "X," most Americans will likely not choose to have Leon fix social security.

IFrame Content

Shawn Ryan: Let's talk about government reform.

JD Vance: Yeah.

Ryan: So, it looks like Elon's going to be on the cabinet.

Vance: That's right, yeah.

Ryan: And will be in the charge on the government efficiency department.

Vance: Yep.

Ryan: If that's what you call it.

Vance: Yep.

Ryan: How do you see? How, have you spoken to him about the plan? How he's going to do it?

Vance: Well, I've spoken. You mean with the president or with Elon?

Ryan: With Elon.

Vance: Ok, yeah, with Elon. So, I've spoken with Elon a little bit about it and um, you know, I think that the way that this is envisioned is you set up a, you know, you set up an organization with very smart people from the private sector and a few smart people from government and you go in and you say, 'How are we going to fix all of these inefficiencies?' And the thing that's complicated about this, man, is it's going to look much different in say the Department of Defense versus Social Security, right?

via MTN

Previously:

• Leon Musk complains there is not enough assassinating going on

---

an 9 24

in an interview on a far-right podcast, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) invoked the Civil War, and suggested to the hosts that he's on the side of the Confederacy.

Conservative media outlet the Bulwark recently highlighted Vance's appearance in a2021 episode vid ]of the Viva Frei podcast, in which he told hosts David Freiheit and Robert Barnes that in his view, the Civil War never really ended. Rather, the Hillbilly Elegy author posited that the North and the South are still battling for control of the cultural and political narrative. And he made it clear he was on the side battling the "Northern woke people."

"American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons, where whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins," Vance said." And that’s kind of how I think about American politics today, is like, the Northern Yankees are now the hyper-woke, coastal elites. The Southern Bourbons are sort of the same old-school Southern folks that have been around and influential in this country for 200 years. And it’s like the hillbillies have really started to migrate towards the Southern Bourbons instead of the Northern woke people. That’s just a fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics."

READ MORE:JD Vance still standing by Tucker Carlson despite his praise of Holocaust denier

"Actually, scratch that. I’m not shocked at all," he wrote.}:

Last contextualized Vance's 2021 remarks by putting them next to a key excerpt from his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. In that speech, Vance echoed former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan's nativist rhetoric about immigrants (Buchanan ran for president in 1992 and 1996 on closing the Southern border and calling immigration an "illegal invasion").

"America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation," Vance said. "Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms."

READ MORE:JD Vance has 'six-figure stake' in online video platform known to welcome Neo-Nazi content: report

As Last noted, Vance's comments on the 2021 podcast episode and at the RNC have a similar theme: Allowing new people into the country is up to the "American family," which naturally establishes a hierarchy between deserving "real Americans" and the undeserving others. And as the eventual 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee suggested to the Viva Frei hosts, the "Southern bourbons" and their "hillbilly" counterparts have more of a claim than the "Northern woke people."

Click here to read Last's analysis in the Bulwark. And watch the video of Vance's remarks below, or by clicking here.

ref owns rumble

following last month's Republican National Convention, CNN's Harry Enten submitted that Senator JD Vance (R-OH) "is the worst vice presidential pick of my lifetime," according to The New Republic.

Enten posted on social media that the Ohio senator "is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party's convention," as the "first to have a net negative favorable rating."

One could argue Vance's low ratings stem from his "extreme comments about 'childless cat ladies,' abortion, and more," as Talking Points Memo (TPM) noted Thursday — or it could even be that the Republican lawmaker invests in one of the most extreme video platforms on the internet.

READ MORE: 'Out in the open': JD Vance blasted over photo of him standing next to swastika at gun show

Per TPM, "Vance has had a six-figure stake in Rumble," which "has played host to Russian propaganda and to far-right personalities like Stew Peters and Tim Pool," and "also featured even more extreme content, including explicitly neo-Nazi images and themes like this song touting the 'Reich' and calling for Jews to be placed in ovens from a 'dissident rapper' with a dedicated page on the site."

Last week, journalist Carlos Berrios Polanco brought attention to a tweet Vance posted on September 11, 2021 — without comment — of a photo of himself "holding his infant child while looking at a table displaying several revolvers of various calibers."

AlterNet previously noted: "One vendor at a nearby table is seen sitting next to framed Nazi memorabilia, including a flag bearing a swastika, and two different Nazi war ensigns known as 'Reichskriegsflagge'and a variety of Nazi war medals. One of the guns on the table Vance is standing over is a Luger pistol commonly used by Nazi soldiers during World War II."

"They really did not do any social media vetting or clean up on this guy at all. Kind of hilarious if it wasn't so bleak," Polanco wrote via X, retweeting the photo.

READ MORE:How 'faux populist' J.D. Vance went from Trump hater to top VP pick

TPM notes that Vance's hand in Rumble "is notable because it represents a direct financial link between Vance and a key outlet for some of the most extreme elements of the far right."

Per the report, the VP hopeful's "stake in Rumble was the subject of a New York Times piece during his Senate race in 2022. That story focused on Rumble hosting the Kremlin-backed propaganda network RT, but gave less attention to the extensive hate speech on the site."

TPM reports Harris' spokesperson, Joseph Costello, told the news outlet in a statement: "The American people deserve a president who works to bring people together and who gives hate no safe harbor. Every day the words and actions of Donald Trump and JD Vance prove they belong nowhere near the White House."

READ MORE:'We sure this dude is a Republican?' MAGA influencer slams 'moron' JD Vance for tax proposal

*TPM's full report is available here.

---

---

[### Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance Invest in Rumble Video Platform ...

WSJ

https://www.wsj.com › Business › Media & Marketing](https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-j-d-vance-invest-in-rumble-video-platform-popular-on-political-right-11621447661)

May 19, 2021 — Backing from conservative venture capitalists comes amid push for alternative social-media channels with looser rules on speech.

[### How a Network of Tech Billionaires Helped J.D. Vance ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › jd-vance-tech-silicon-valley](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/technology/jd-vance-tech-silicon-valley.html)

Jul 17, 2024 — Mr. Vance spent less than five years in Silicon Valley's tech industry, but the connections he made with Peter Thiel and others became ...

[### How Thiel and Silicon Valley funded JD Vance's sudden rise

AFR

https://www.afr.com › World › North America](https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/how-peter-thiel-and-silicon-valley-funded-the-sudden-rise-of-jd-vance-20240718-p5jumu)

Jul 18, 2024 — Donald Trump's VP pick was a venture capitalist bankrolled in business and politics by billionaire investors. His ties to PayPal's ...

Missing: hedge ‎| Show results with: hedge

[### How a network of tech billionaires helped JD Vance leap ...

The Seattle Times

https://www.seattletimes.com › business › how-a-networ...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-a-network-of-tech-billionaires-helped-jd-vance-leap-into-power/)

Jul 22, 2024 — Last month, JD Vance flew to San Francisco to hold a fundraiser for Donald Trump and to host a private dinner afterward with two dozen tech ...

Missing: equity ‎| Show results with: equity

[### These are the companies JD Vance invested in as a VC ...

Fast Company

https://www.fastcompany.com › companies-jd-vance-in...](https://www.fastcompany.com/91157500/companies-jd-vance-invested-in-as-a-vc)

Jul 17, 2024 — According to disclosure documents, Trump's VP pick JD Vance owns shares in a wide variety of tech startups.

[### Narya and Peter Thiel Lead Investment in Rumble

PR Newswire

https://www.prnewswire.com › news-releases › narya-an...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/narya-and-peter-thiel-lead-investment-in-rumble-301295309.html)

May 19, 2021 — PRNewswire/ -- Rumble, a video platform focused on helping millions of creators manage, distribute, and monetize their video content, ...

---

TORONTO, May 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Rumble, a video platform focused on helping millions of creators manage, distribute, and monetize their video content, welcomed the investment of Narya Capital, Peter Thiel and Colt Ventures.

"We couldn't be more excited to welcome aboard investors that are aligned with our long-term vision. This investment is evidence that the market really desires competition and freedom of choice. These funds will help us launch our new cloud services, enhance our video platform, and help create the rails for a new economy that is desperately needed," said Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski.

In the past year, Rumble's monthly viewership has grown from 1.6 million users per month to an average of 31 million per month in the first quarter of 2021 – an increase of more than 1,800%. This growth reflects the increasingly strong market recognition by both users and creators of Rumble's differentiated value proposition. The investment will add considerable strength to Rumble's ability to build upon this success.

Rumble was built on the belief that small creators should be given equal opportunity to freely express themselves, reach their followers, and be provided the same access to tools that are available to larger creators. This investment will allow Rumble to continue to fulfill its mission while providing the platform with more opportunities to build out its infrastructure and launch new cloud services where businesses can feel safe and secure.

The investment is being led by Narya, a Cincinnati-based venture capital firm co-founded by J.D. Vance and Colin Greenspon that seeks to invest long-term capital in technology that solves significant challenges.

Narya is joined in this investment by Peter Thiel, famed entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has a long and storied track record of investing in frontier technology companies, including PayPal, Facebook, Palantir Technologies, Compass Pathways, and many other ventures.

Ethan Fallang of Narya will join Rumble's board. "At Narya, we support founders who combine technical and business model innovation to address large and underserved markets. We believe Chris and the entire Rumble team have built an excellent platform and are thrilled to be part of their ongoing success as they continue to scale," said Fallang.

Guggenheim Securities acted as the exclusive financial advisor and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP acted as legal counsel to Rumble in connection with the transaction.

SOURCE Rumble

[### Darren Blanton Family Office Invests in Video Platform ...

familyofficehub.io

https://familyofficehub.io › blog › darren-blanton-famil...](https://familyofficehub.io/blog/darren-blanton-family-office-invests-in-video-platform-rumble/)

Oct 19, 2021 — Rumble, an uprising US video platform, has secured a large funding round by various investors. Amongst them is – besides well known names ...

[### Raised Funding from 4 investors - Rumble

[### Cowboy venture capitalist ropes in millions by perfecting ...

Dallas News

https://www.dallasnews.com › business › 2015/12/12](https://www.dallasnews.com/business/2015/12/12/cowboy-venture-capitalist-ropes-in-millions-by-perfecting-the-cold-call/)

Dec 11, 2015 — Darren Blanton, founder and managing partner of Colt Ventures, has invested more than $100 million in life science, oil and gas, mining and minerals, ...

Tracxn

https://tracxn.com › Discover › Companies › Rumble](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/rumble/__Chbsa5OwEIgpfFAW0CRXKIYiqA7C3hRz9WWj2tcEIdc/funding-and-investors)

Aug 17, 2024 — Rumble has raised funding over 1 round from 4 investors. Investors include Colt Ventures, Innova Capital Partners and 2 others.

[### Facebook director Peter Thiel invests in conservative rival ...

New York Post

https://nypost.com › 2021/05/19 › facebook-director-p...](https://nypost.com/2021/05/19/facebook-director-peter-thiel-invests-in-conservative-rival-rumble/)

May 19, 2021 — Prominent conservative venture capitalists including Peter Thiel and JD Vance are investing in free speech-oriented video streaming site Rumble Video.

[### Five things to know about J.D. Vance's ties to tech billionaires

NPR

https://www.npr.org › 2024/07/17 › five-things-to-kno...](https://www.npr.org/2024/07/17/g-s1-11654/five-things-to-know-about-jd-vances-connections-to-tech-billionaires)

Jul 17, 2024 — While Ohio Senator J.D. Vance's Appalachian roots are well-known, thanks to his best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” another aspect of ...

Missing: rumble ‎| Show results with: rumble

[### J.D. Vance, critic of climate action, has a green-tinted portfolio

E&E News by POLITICO

https://www.eenews.net › Articles](https://www.eenews.net/articles/j-d-vance-critic-of-climate-action-has-a-green-tinted-portfolio/)

Jul 16, 2024 — J.D. Vance has little love for ESG investing — going so far to call the socially conscious financial strategy a “massive racket” during a 2022 ...

[### Every startup in JD Vance's VC fund, ranked from least to most ...

bloodinthemachine.com

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com › every-startup-in-...](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/every-startup-in-jd-vances-vc-fund)

Jul 17, 2024 — You can tell a man by his venture capital investment portfolio, as the ancient saying goes. So here's a rundown of all 11 companies Vance backed ...

[### Inside JD Vance's Short-Lived Career as a Venture Capitalist

WSJ

https://www.wsj.com › Politics › Elections](https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/vp-pick-jd-vance-short-career-venture-capitalist-b3d941e1)

Jul 25, 2024 — JD Vance touted his career in venture capital last week in his address to the Republican National Convention.

People also search for

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:{:{an 9 24}:

The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last remarked that he agrees with Vance, but was "just kind of shocked that he’s willing to admit that in this parallel, Democrats and liberals are the abolitionists and he’s on the side of the slaveholders."

A former MSNBC host unloaded on Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance on Friday over a late-night post Vance made defending his choice to "change my tune" on the MAGA leader.

Vance made a lengthy post on X, writing: "If you were to ask what caused me to change my tune about President Trump from 2016 to 2020, I could give you a few reasons. But what we're seeing in Springfield really drives it home."

Vance cited "skyrocketing" housing prices, as well as rising cases of communicable diseases, crashes, crimes and even insurance premiums. He also decried the government's response to those alleged societal ills.

"Confronted with many of their citizens begging for relief, our broken elites offer only scorn," he said.

Vance then alluded to a racist and baseless conspiracy theory in the city, which he and Trump perpetuated this week.

ALSO READ:'Utterly stupid': Top far-right figures throw cold water on conspiracy about cats and dogs

"'It is racist,' they tell us, to get angry at being unable to afford a home, or to complain about being unable to drive a car safely down the streets paved by your neighbors, or to call 911 because strangers are slaughtering geese in a public park. They have ignored this town's problems for years."

Vance said he and Trump condemn violence and threats of such against the city and its residents, defended Trump against accusations he's a "threat to democracy" and then lodged the same accusation against Vice President Kamala Harris, doing so by espousing shades of Great Replacement Theory, a racist conspiracy theory that immigrants are being brought into the country to pad Democratic voter rolls.

"It is Kamala Harris who would rather import new voters than persuade the ones who are already here," he said.

Mehdi Hasan, a British-American journalist who previously hosted "The Mehdi Hasan Show" on MSNBC, slammed Vance's comments on X.

"You’re a racist disgrace and I hope your mixed-race kids, the grandchildren of brown immigrants from the ‘third world’, grow up and disown you.

Fellow journalist Meghan McCarthy joined Hasan in rebuking Vance.

"If this has been happening in Springfield since 2016 why haven’t you done anything about it? And why haven’t local leaders been voted out?"

McCarthy added: "You can dress this dog whistle for violence in all the purple prose you want, but everyone knows your kids get secret service protection at school while the kids who evacuated today get to be pawns in your game."

---

{{{

an 9 24

Before ABC News hosted the first — and possibly only — 2024 presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, GOP strategists were hoping that Trump would stick to issues and policy and avoid making personal attacks against the vice president or promoting conspiracy theories.

But Harris forcefully baited Trump at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center on Tuesday night, September 10, and Trump pushed a range of conspiracy theories — from saying that migrants were eating people's cats and dogs to falsely claiming that Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, favors aborting babies "after birth."

The next morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson commented that Harris "knew what buttons to push," gave Trump a verbal "beatdown" and really got under his skin in Philly.

READ MORE:Conservative slams right-wing media for amplifying 'stupid' pet lies as 'Trump picks it up' at debate

In their analysis of the debate, NOTUS reporters Alex Roarty, Ben T.N. Mause, Reese Gorman and Jasmine Wright point out that Harris "appeared to visibly anger Trump."

A GOP source described by the journalists as someone "close to Trump" acknowledged that the debate didn't go well for the former president.

"This is what he gets for taking counsel from Laura Loomer," the source told NOTUS.

The Florida-based Loomer is a far-right MAGA activist known for pushing debunked conspiracy theories. And the NOTUS reporters note that Loomer "traveled to Philadelphia with Trump on his plane."

READ MORE:Liz Cheney predicts many Republicans will secretly vote for Kamala Harris

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) claimed that debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were unfair to Trump and that he had to "debate three people."

But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made no effort to defend Trump, telling ABC News, "Whoever did debate prep for Donald Trump should be fired. He was not good tonight at all."

READ MORE:Debate could make Trump’s 'double-digit' deficit with women even worse — here’s why

*Read NOTUS' full report at this link.

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an 9 24

Conservative talk show host Erick Erickson slammed right-wing news media after Donald Trump "amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets" during Tuesday night's debate against Kamala Harris, according to the Associated Press.

"YOU STUPID MF’ers JUST GOT TRUMP TO REPEAT YOUR LIE ABOUT THE PETS. CONGRATS ON SETTING THE NEWS STORIES TOMORROW BY LYING SO TRUMP PICKS IT UP AND SAYS STUPID S—T," Erickson wrote via X.

Conservative lawyer George Conway replied: "Actually, I don’t think you’re being fair, Erick. I’m going to defend these stupid motherf—kers. Because it’s not their fault that the stupidest motherf—ker of all is @realDonaldTrump."

READ MORE:'Bunch of lies, grievances and name-calling': Harris hits Trump out of gate at debate

Meghan McCain, also a conservative former talk show host, also commented on Trump's remarks, writing: "This pet eating thing is a gross internet hoax - come on with this."

The NAACP commented: "No animals were harmed in the making of this campaign lie."

NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake added: "I’m pretty sure Trump arguing with the moderators over people eating pets in Ohio wasn’t part of the campaign’s game plan."

READ MORE:JD Vance slammed for spreading false rumors of pet-eating Haitian immigrants

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an 9 24

prior to Tuesday night's debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) spread an unfounded rumor that Haitian immigrants were kidnapping and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. And former President Donald Trump repeated that lie to millions of viewers, which was fact-checked in real time by ABC's moderators.

CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asked the Ohio Republican about that exchange in a post-debate interview. She pointed out that despite there being no evidence to substantiate Vance's claim, he encouraged his supporters to spread it anyway, and then asked him, "why push something that's not true?"

"Well, first of all, city officials have not said it's not true, they've said they don't have all the evidence—"

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

"—They've said they have no evidence," Collins interjected.

Vance insisted he heard "from a number of constituents on the ground" who gave "both firsthand and secondhand reports saying this stuff is happening." He then insinuated that journalists were being lazy by refusing to "get on the ground and cover this stuff for themselves," and that the media was failing to do its job "until we turned it into a meme about cats."

Collins then reminded Vance that anyone could make a claim about anything, and that it was his job to discern truth from fiction before accusing a large group of people of doing something that's not actually happening.

"Senator, you talked about your office has gotten a lot of reports. If someone calls your office and says they saw Bigfoot, that doesn’t mean they saw Bigfoot," she said. "You have a sense of responsibility as a running mate, and [Trump] certainly does as the candidate, to not promote false information, right?"

READ MORE:AP article debunking JD Vance couch story didn't go through 'proper editing process': report

"I have a responsibility as a United States senator, I think the media has a responsibility as an institution that cares about truth, to actually take people seriously when they say their lives have been ruined by this migrant crisis," Vance countered.

As ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis said during the debate, city managers in Springfield, Ohio have repeatedly said there is no evidence backing up Trump and Vance's claim. Vance even said earlier on Tuesday that it was possible "all of these rumors will turn out to be false."

Vance's promoting of a baseless rumor is particularly noteworthy in that the Ohio senator was himself the subject of an internet hoax. Shortly after Trump selected him as his running mate, a Twitter account claimed without evidence that one passage of Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, described him committing a sex act with a couch. The rumor went viral on social media, prompting the Associated Press to publish a fact check entitled, "No, JD Vance didn't have sex with a couch." the outlet later said the fact-check didn't go through its "proper editing process" before being published.

Watch the exchange between Collins and Vance below, or byclicking this link.

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

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Right-wing media are gleefully promoting a false, racist rumor that Haitian migrants are eating pets

Right-wing figures have called Haitian people “locusts,” zombies,” and “weird Third World aliens”

Written by Chloe Simon & Reed McMaster

Research contributions from Gideon Taaffe

Published 09/10/24 mma

On September 9, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance claimed that Haitian migrants had “abducted and eaten” pets in Springfield, Ohio, seemingly referencing debunked social media rumors.

Though local officials explained that there was no truth to the claim, right-wing media immediately jumped on the bandwagon, amplifying Vance’s allegations and pushing racist narratives about Haitian immigrants.

Some right-wing figures accused Haitian migrants of consuming “cats and ducks” and comparing them to “zombies” and “locusts.”

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an 9 24

jd ## Vance says he wouldn’t have certified 2020 election: 'Let the country have the debate'

David Badash

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an 9 24

JD Vance causing 'surge' in new Democratic volunteers and donors, House minority whip says

===

jdv booed by firefighters, best gop on union, // youngkin boo

some pro labor head fake w/ hawley but not PRO act

// an 9 24

a Republican state representative in Kentucky is proposing a bill that, if passed, would repeal the requirement that employers provide workers with lunch breaks. It also includes language that would result in a reduction in net pay for many workers.

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

Lawrence: “To get on Tucker's show and Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast, you have to be weird ... And if you don't get on those shows, you're not going to be up for the VP nomination”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 08/29/24

Video

CitationFrom the August 27, 2024, edition of SiriusXM's The Dean Obeidallah Show

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

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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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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.”

READ MORE:How JD Vance's 'creepy tendencies' make him 'the worst kind of nerd': columnist

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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Hafiz Rashid/

September 4, 2024

Why Is J.D. Vance Still Following This Hitler Apologist?
The Republican vice presidential nominee seems to have no qualms about following white nationalists.

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Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance still follows a self-proclaimed historian who this week claimed that Winston Churchill was the “chief villain of World War 2”—not Adolf Hitler.

Vance follows Darryl Cooper from both of his accounts on X (formerly Twitter).

Cooper drew increased attention Tuesday after X CEO and fascism enthusiast Elon Musk promoted Tucker Carlson’s interview with the controversial figure on his podcast, calling it “Very interesting. Worth watching.” After the interview was criticized by figures on the right and left, Musk deleted his tweet, but not before both he and Carlson were attacked for giving pro-Nazi propaganda a platform, especially since Carlson said Cooper “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.”

As more scrutiny was focused on Cooper’s views, particularly his white nationalist sympathies, X user @styledape discovered two prominent followers of Cooper’s @martyrmade X account: @JDVance and @SenVancePress.

The fact that Vance follows such a personality suggests that he may hold similar views to Cooper but begs the question of why the Ohio senator would continue to follow him on two major social media accounts. Then again, Vance’s addition to Donald Trump’s presidential ticket has been followed by some damaging revelations from the past few years.

For example, Vance’s comments attacking people without children and derisively referring to “childless cat ladies” have given his campaign quite a bit of negative attention, even drawing the ire of some of his fellow conservatives.

He’s praised a book by conspiracy theorist and Pizzagate promoter Jack Probesic and was caught bashing immigrants with another right-wing podcast host in 2021. Maybe Vance needs to go through the skeletons in his closet before another scandal hurts his vice presidential prospects.

Share This Story

More on the GOP ticket:

Tim Walz Trolls J.D. Vance by Buying Donuts Like a Normal Human Person

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Edith Olmsted/

September 4, 2024/

Is This Russian Election Interference Scheme Paying a Pro-Trump Firm?
The Department of Justice alleges that Russian media employees funded a U.S. company to push Russian propaganda.

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Russian agents have allegedly been spreading disinformation through a right-wing U.S. media company that houses a few popular MAGA commentators.

The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment Wednesday against two Russia Today employees, Elena Afanasyeva and Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, alleging that the two had illegally acted as foreign agents and funneled roughly $10 million into a U.S. media company to produce propaganda that aligned with the Russian government’s interests.

“While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests, such as its ongoing war in Ukraine,” the indictment said.

The Tennessee-based media company has posted nearly 2,000 videos that have garnered more than 16 million views on YouTube alone, according to the indictment. The U.S. company failed to disclose to its viewers that it was being funded and directed by R.T., which has been banned in the U.K., EU, and Canada. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in November 2022, R.T. suspended its activities in the United States, as well.

The indictment doesn’t say the name of the U.S. media company that is responsible for producing Russian propaganda—but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. The indictment says the company is registered in Tennessee and describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”

As Aric Toler and Alan Feuer of The New York Times pointed out on X, there is only one company that fits this description: Tenet Media, a hub of six pro-Trump far-right commentators, including Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and Benny Johnson.

Earlier this summer, Pool attacked Kamala Harris by calling her a “Communazi Despot come to put conservatives in concentration camps.” The attack was so over the top that it even drew a reply from white nationalist Richard Spencer, who wondered, “A bit much?”

In addition to MAGA acolytes, it looks like the group members were also—likely unwittingly—Russian propagandists. Maybe they’ll add that to their résumés as they search for new jobs?

The indictment alleges that Afanasyeva and Kalashnikov worked together to “deceive” two of the company’s commentators “who respectively have over 2.4 million and 1.3 million YouTube subscribers.” The commentators mentioned are likely to be Rubin and Pool, respectively, based on their follower counts.

The indictment also lists two “founders” who were made to act as foreign agents, though their names are not listed in the indictment. To hide where the money was coming from, the founders allegedly invented a private investor named Eduard Grigoriann who was sponsoring their work.*

Tenet Media is owned by conservative host Lauren Chen, a contributor to Turning Point USA, which is helping Donald Trump out with his presidential campaign, and her husband Liam Donovan.

According to the indictment, Afanasyeva pushed for content to be covered from an angle that was beneficial to Russia. After a bombing in Moscow in March, for which ISIS admitted responsibility, Afanasyeva directed one of the Tenet founders to have a commentator to “focus on the Ukraine/U.S. angle” and claim that “mainstream media spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack yet ISIS itself never made such statements” and saying it was “suspicious” that the attackers had fled toward the Ukrainian border.

In February, Afanasyeva shared a video of “a well-known U.S. political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia” to be posted to the site. One producer remarked in the Discord chat that “it just feels like overt shilling” but, after urging from one of the founders, did it anyway.

In June, one of the founders gave Afanasyeva and Kalashnikov permission to post their own content directly onto the company’s channels, according to the indictment.

Afanasyeva and Kalashnikov have been charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

* *This story originally misstated who invented the private investor.

More about Trump and Russia:

Former Trump Staffer Reveals How Putin Played Him Like a Puppet

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https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jd%20vance%20DC%20weekly%20ukraine%20dougan+site:www.bbc.co.uk&atb=v353-1 "Search domain bbc.co.uk")https://www.bbc.co.uk › news › world-us-canada-67766964

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Dec 20, 2023Research by Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, disinformation researchers at Clemson University, shows that DC Weekly was started, external by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine and Florida ...

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How pro-Russian 'yacht' propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid

Dec 20, 2023Mr Dougan said via text message that he "emphatically denies these assertions", and that he sold DC Weekly for $3,000 several years ago. He said he does not recall the person he sold it to and has ...

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May 29, 2024More than 150 fake local news websites pushing Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences are connected to John Mark Dougan, an American former law enforcement officer living in Moscow, according to a ...

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Fact-checking J.D. Vance's statements on Ukraine - POLITICO

Jul 16, 2024KYIV — J.D. Vance has a lot to say about Ukraine, which is why Kyiv froze when Donald Trump chose the Ohio senator to be his running mate on Monday.. Just after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Vance, then a candidate for U.S. Senate, said: "I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another." Starting from those first days of fighting, Vance ...

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Over 150 Russian fake news sites linked to former Florida deputy ...

May 29, 2024May 29, 2024, 7:00 AM PDT. By Brandy Zadrozny. More than 150 fake local news websites pushing Russian propaganda to U.S. audiences are connected to John Mark Dougan, an American former law ...

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Luxury yachts and other myths: How Republican lawmakers echo Russian ...

Apr 14, 2024One Russia-based propaganda site, DC Weekly, published a story last November that included photos of two luxury yachts, called Lucky Me and My Legacy, which it alleged were bought for $75 million.

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'I don't really care what happens to Ukraine': what a JD Vance vice ...

Jul 16, 2024'I don't really care what happens to Ukraine': what a JD Vance vice presidency could mean for the world Published: July 16, 2024 12:54am EDT • Updated: July 17, 2024 3:04am EDT Ava ...

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JD Vance says Ukraine should cede land and cut a deal with Putin to end ...

Dec 12, 2023Dec. 11, 2023, 6:11 PM PST. By Sahil Kapur and Megan Lebowitz. WASHINGTON — Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, on Monday dismissed fears of Russia's military capabilities under President Vladimir Putin and ...

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Senator Jd Vance Introduces Legislation to Improve Oversight of Ukraine ...

Mar 15, 2024WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator JD Vance (R-OH) introduced the Enhanced End-use Monitoring Accountability Act which would require the Pentagon to improve compliance rates in tracking highly sensitive weapons sent to Ukraine and condition the administration's ability to send certain equipment to Ukraine on the implementation of recommendations issued by the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector ...

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Trump makes JD Vance his new VP. What this means for Ukraine

Jul 16, 2024The 2024 U.S. presidential election looms large, and Ukraine's reliance on U.S. support is paramount for its defense against Russian aggression. Vance, a staunch advocate of Trump's "America First" policy, has expressed skepticism about continued U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts,