Trump Pretty Sure J.D. Vance F*ckable Enough To Endorse
He might now surge to a strong second place!
Donald Trump has finally decided which asshole to endorse in the Ohio Senate race, and it’s not Josh Mandel, who almost beat up an old man at last month’s GOP debate. That was certainly an asshole move, but ultimately, Mandel just couldn’t compare to Hillbilly Elegy author and Twitter troll J.D. Vance.
“This is not an easy endorsement for me to make because I like and respect some of the other candidates in the race — they’ve said great things about ‘Trump’ and, like me, they love Ohio and love our country,” Trump said in a statement.
“I’ve studied this race closely and I think J.D. is the most likely to take out the weak, but dangerous, Democrat opponent — dangerous because they will have so much money to spend,” Trump added, referring to the expected Democratic nominee, Rep. Tim Ryan.
Vance worked hard for this endorsement. He traveled to the mothership Mar-A-Lago with some other contenders in March for an “Apprentice” style boardroom spectacle where the craven candidates “auditioned” for Trump’s favor. Vance has also spent the bulk of his candidacy groveling and apologizing for having once spoke heresies about the mad MAGA king: He’d called Trump an “idiot” and “offensive,” but in fairness, that was when Trump was Candidate Idiot and not President Idiot.
PREVIOUSLY: So JD Vance Is Pretty Pathetic, Yeah?
Some prominent Vance supporters also lobbied Trump on his behalf, including Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, GOP Senator Josh Hawley, and Donald Trump Jr., whose calls Trump apparently takes on occasion. He’d considered endorsing former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken, who has the support of retiring Senator Rob Portman. While she can rant with the best of them about inflation, illegal immigration, and the “indoctrination of our children,” she might have a shred of human dignity left, though. Trump didn’t like that she defended Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to impeach him in 2021.
Vance, however, has adequately convinced Trump that he lacks even a single scruple.
“Like some others, J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past,” Trump said in his statement, “but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades.”
In other words, Trump took Vance’s pride for a ride and he let him.
This should prove a true test of Trump’s king-making prowess. Vance has yet to lead a single poll in this race, and he experienced no measurable bump after MAGA herald Marjorie Taylor Greene endorsed him in January. Vance’s own internal polls revealed that no one likes him and this condition only exacerbates once people get to know him.
PREVIOUSLY: Everybody Hates JD Vance
Maybe Trump’s endorsement could change all this. After all, pollster Tony Fabrizio found that what’s “driving [Vance’s] negatives is the perception that he is anti-Trump.” His study revealed that Vance’s campaign was “underwater with strong Trump” supporters “and very conservative voters, groups needed to win a GOP primary.”
The Club for Growth, which backs Mandel, has aired TV ads reminding voters of Vance’s previous anti-Trump rhetoric. But Trump can counter that, we guess, with speeches at sparsely attended rallies where he whines the whole time about the 2020 election and briefly mentions the candidate he’s endorsed.
Trump is reportedly impressed with how “good" Vance looks on TV, even though the guy is a giant pimple with a beard. He does present as slightly more human than Mandel, but that’s not saying much. Trump famously called Mandel a “charisma-free weirdo and dork.”
PREVIOUSLY: Trump Pretty Sure Josh Mandel Too Unf*ckable For Endorsement
Last week, when it looked like Trump was close to a decision, Mandel’s campaign desperately circulated a memo to top Republicans arguing that Trump’s endorsement wouldn’t save Vance’s candidacy. Considering Trump’s massive ego, that was probably a dumb move, but Mandel’s the same asshole who whitesplained Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to his own daughter.
I continue to be a proud supporter of President Trump and the America First agenda.\n\nI look forward to earning his endorsement in the general election and working with him to defeat Tim Ryan in November.— Josh Mandel (@Josh Mandel) 1650057578
Once the endorsement was official, Mandel tweeted pathetically, "I continue to be a proud supporter of President Trump and the America First agenda. I look forward to earning his endorsement in the general election and working with him to defeat Tim Ryan in November.”
Both Vance and Mandel would stand out as a terrible senator in a freshman class that could include Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz. Let’s hope neither wins the primary. How much is America supposed to suffer?
[Politico]
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Look Over Here, Elon! Devin Nunes Has Different Better Business Opportunity For You!
Wait, Elon, you have an iPhone, right? This business opportunity does not work on Android.
The other night Devin Nunes sat down with Fox's Maria Bartiromo to shit talk Twitter. Again.
“What is Twitter? Most Americans don't use Twitter," the congressman-turned-Truth Social CEO scoffed barely a day before news broke of Elon Musk's supposed offer to buy the company and take it private. "Twitter is a press release wire, it’s a place where celebrities go and put out a press release. It's nothing more than that."
Let us pause here and note that Nunes's boss Donald Trump has filed a federal lawsuit to get back on the "press release wire" in which he argues that Twitter is the public square and demands millions in punitive damages for the loss of his precious account. And not for nothing, but Donald Trump won't wipe his ass with his own janky platform, much less post on it. But go on.
"Compared to what we're doing at Truth, where we’re building a community, we’re not a place for celebrities to put press releases — I mean, you can," Nunes chuckled.
Devin Nunes is back: \u201cTwitter is a press release wire, it\u2019s a place where celebrities go and put out a press release. \u2026 You know, compared to what we're doing at Truth, where we\u2019re building a community, we\u2019re not a place for celebrities to put press releases \u2014 I mean, you can.\u201dpic.twitter.com/zKohfWQhrr— Eric Kleefeld (@Eric Kleefeld) 1649856225
Do watch the whole clip, where Nunes tries to sell Elon Musk on the idea of just joining Truth Social instead. You know, as long as he has an iPhone.
This is Nunes's second trip in a week to talk up his platform to the Money Honey, perhaps the only person north of OAN who can listen to him spew this bullshit with a straight face.
"It's clear that Twitter is kind of a ghost town," he said last Thursday," adding that "there's not very much activity over at Twitter right now, especially when you compare it to sites like ours where we're just in our beginning stages as we continue to test and bring people on day by day. Our interactions are already beating Twitter."
Define "beating?" Because you still can't get the Truth app on Android, the waitlist appears to be stalled out, and, as Daily Beast reporters Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng have reported, Truth is currently hosting just 513,000 daily active users, compared to about 217 million on Twitter.
But seems like Our Dev likes the humiliation, so he soldiers on. And a good thing, too, since Axios reported this morning that Truth had put up a bootleg account for Fox News, complete with a red checkmark to indicate it was verified — see, this platform isn't a cheap knockoff, they changed the color and everything!
"Great to have RSS feed for @FoxNews now LIVE here on TRUTH! This adds to @OAN and @NewsMax," Nunes, uh, "truthed." (Don't look at us like that! It's not our fault those doofuses call their fake tweets "truths" and RTs "retruths.")
Only Devin's truth wasn't true at all.
"We are not on Truth Social," a Fox News spokesperson told Axios.
Turns out that one of the ways Truth is "building a community" is by setting up accounts for media outlets and sports brands who have no relationship with the platform. For TMZ and the NFL, instead of a red check, there's a disclaimer that says the account is a bot. Only the Fox News avatar appears to have the imprimatur of legitimacy.
So did Devin "truth" this by accident? Did he really think Fox News had set up an account? Can he really be that bloody incompetent? Or was he lying out his sorry face, if you can even believe such a thing? Was he technically truthing -- that the Truth Social idiots had linked a Fox News RSS feed -- in hopes the shit platform's users would think it was the real thing?
Ah, well, fake it 'til you make it. And if you don't make it, keep faking, and make a beeline for Maria Bartiromo.
OPEN THREAD.
[Axios]
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Wheel Of Ohio GOP Senate Hopefuls Now Includes Guy Who Just Called Entire Middle Class A Freeloader
Plus, is J.D. Vance getting a big hairy rose from the failed TV president he loves the most?
It's hard to break through the news cycle in the three-ring dumpster fire of the Republican Senate primary in Ohio.
Between Josh Mandel burning his mask for freedom and calling everyone a pussy, and Peter Thiel sticking his hand up J.D. Vance's puppet ass and making increasingly unhinged performance art come out his mouth, hardly anyone is paying attention to Mike Gibbons. And we should pay attention, because that replacement level white dude holds a slim lead in recent polling and might well end up being the nominee if the other two dipshits split the loony vote.
Gibbons is your bog standard 70-year-old businessman who earned some cash and thinks that makes him qualified to run the country. He knows who contributes to this country, and it is job creators like himself, not the dirty poors or even the petty bourgeoisie who clog up Ohio's endless suburbs. In fact, you moochers need to quit demanding perks like "healthcare" and affordable tuition until you start kicking in more.
“The top 20 percent of earners in the United States pay 82 percent of federal income tax — and, if you do the math, and 45% to 50% don’t pay any income tax, you can see the middle class is not really paying any kind of a fair share, depending on how you want to define it,” Gibbons said on a podcast in September in comments recently surfaced by the AP.
Which is cool and all, if you disregard the fact that those same 20 percent of earners have seen their income skyrocket in the past two generations to the point that they're eating more than half of the earnings pie, with the top one percent holding more wealth than all the middle class put together. Moreover, Gibbons put the rabbit in the hat by restricting his data set to federal income tax paid, conveniently omitting all the capital gains and real estate appreciation that those 20 percent are availing themselves of outside the federal income tax pool.
Not for nothing, but the top marginal income tax rate under GOP patron saint Ronald Reagan was 50 percent, as opposed to the 37 percent we have now. So, yeah, we actually agree with Gibbons when he says “How much of the total tax bill can a very small percentage of the nation pay and still be a democracy?” But not in the way he thinks.
Gibbons rushed to disavow his own statements, which are an unfortunate echo of National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott's policy plan, which calls to raise taxes on half of Americans so they'll have "skin in the game."
“Mike Gibbons does not support tax increases on any American — and never has,” a spokeswoman told the AP. “Mike is a businessman, not a career politician, and he understands economics and how to implement smart ideas and strategies that will benefit all Americans.”
But apparently this failed to do the trick, because OH, HEY, LOOKIE HERE! While we were typing NBC reported that Donald Trump is going to endorse that weirdo J.D. Vance, despite the fact that he's trailed in all the recent polling and Ohioans don't actually like him much.
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, who backs Mandel, tried to talk Trump out of it, but to no avail:
A source close to Mandel’s campaign acknowledged Thursday that Trump's press shop had already written up an endorsement of Vance, but it threw up a last-minute obstacle for the former president to consider: an internal Republican poll conducted by his campaign showing Mandel in front with 33 percent of the vote, followed by Matt Dolan and Mike Gibbons tied at 15 percent. Vance and Jane Timken were tied at 9 percent in the Mandel poll.
And has there ever been a more Trump-y passage written than this?
[Ohio state senator Matt] Dolan is the only candidate who is running on a platform that does not seem to be courting the support of the former president. That has bothered Trump immensely and has pushed him to want to pick a winner to ensure that a non-Trump acolyte doesn't win a state that he won handily in 2020 and 2016.
Trump doesn't give a shit who wins, as long as it's someone who kisses his ass. Plus he thinks Mandel is a weirdo, so the Yalebilly gets the nod. Sorry, Mike Gibbons, you don't factor! But don't worry, if that fake populist actually does get to the Senate, he'll make damn sure to cut taxes to the bone.
Mazal tov, Ohio! You sure know how to pick 'em!
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North Carolina: Here’s Your New Democratic Senator Cheri Beasley
No, no, no, you can’t have the coup guy.
GOP Sen. Richard Burr is retiring this year, and we’d love it if a Democrat replaced him instead of a MAGA stooge who makes Thom Tillis look normal. Our best bet is Cheri Beasley, who’s the current favorite to win the Democratic Senate primary. Beasley's campaign announced last Thursday that it raised more than $3.6 million in the first three months of this year. She’s leading in fundraising among all Democratic and Republican candidates running to replace Burr.
Of course, Democrat Cal Cunningham set fundraising records in the 2020 Senate campaign but still managed to trip over his own dick in a the dullest sex scandal ever. Beasley is a grown-ass Black woman who’s unlikely to have any October surprises, no matter how boring. I only wish she was the 2020 nominee when the political terrain was friendlier for Democrats.
PREVIOUSLY: North Carolina Can Vote Now To Elect Cal Cunningham And Flip The Senate. Just Vote Once, Please.
Beasley’s background is quite impressive: She graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law, where Senator Marsha Blackburn has probably driven by at least once. She was appointed to the bench as a state district court judge in 1999 and elected to the position in 2002. She was elected to the Court of Appeals in 2012, defeating Republican incumbent Douglas McCullough by 15 points. This made her the first Black woman to win a statewide election without first being appointed to the office.
She also earned her Master of Law from Duke University in 2018. The following year, Governor Roy Cooper appointed Beasley to serve as Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, and she narrowly lost election to a full term in 2020 by just 401 votes. I blame Cal Cunningham.
Dipping into her war chest, Beasley launched her first TV ad this week. It highlights the years she spent as a public defender. My only quibble is that she speaks to the viewers while driving her car. It’s damn distracting. You’re afraid she’s going to crash into something.
The message, though, is compelling. Take a look:
We just launched our first TV ad!\n\nAs a public defender, judge, and Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court, I led with a commitment to justice and integrity \u2013 it's the same approach I'll take to the Senate.\n\nWatch the ad:pic.twitter.com/Ej96b9rtA5— Cheri Beasley (@Cheri Beasley) 1649854420
Beasley says:
As a public defender, I represented North Carolinians who couldn’t afford a lawyer because everyone has a right to representation, no matter who you are or where you’re from.
This is a key point that fascist clowns like Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz deliberately overlook: The Sixth Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights that James Madison proudly wrote, guarantees Americans the right to counsel, even if they can’t afford it. Public defenders don’t choose their clients, and the worst offenders still deserve a zealous defense.
She states that as a judge she “led with a commitment to justice and integrity.”
It’s the same approach I’ll take to the Senate because Washington isn’t listening, and I’ll be a vote for all North Carolinians.
I wish she’d single out Republicans as the problem, because it’s not “Washington” in general that isn’t listening. It’s the GOP that’s gone fascist. I’m sure she’ll consider the needs of all her constituents as a senator, but it’s Republicans who only care about the interests of a shrinking white electorate. We need to say their names if we want to stay in the game.
Republicans are calling Democrats pedophiles, perverts, and groomers. We can assume this race will be no less ugly.
Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd is way ahead in the polls for the GOP nomination. Budd was one of 126 Republican House members who signed onto Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s democracy-shredding lawsuit that would’ve tossed out the election results in four states Joe Biden won — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- disenfranchising millions of voters. Budd also objected to the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, even after Trump’s mob stormed the Capitol.
Beasley’s ad was a solid introduction to a great candidate, but later ads need to call out the seditionist who’s her likely opponent. If Budd’s cynical promotion of the Big Lie elevates him to the Senate in 2022, it’s a chilling preview of 2024.
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