Husted, We Have a Problem
Ohio Republican Senator still running for re-election touting his endorsement by alleged child abuser
Aug. 4: Husted silent on whether Rep. Max Miller should stay or go now … Blanche getting confirmation vote on his attorney general job which will include ending abortion rights nationwide so think carefully Susan Collins … Murder, he wrote: Democratic senator calls Boat-iac Killings murder … Haley Stevens heads into Michigan Senate primary as new report IDs anti-LGBTQ+ pastor in her campaign video …
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Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) has just 92 days to land his re-election campaign, or get blown out of orbit and his cushy job by his challenger, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), potentially giving Democrats control of the Senate.
And yet, on Monday, when Husted was asked about Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), Husted suffered a political malfunction and had no response. This was one lunar orbit after Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) publicly declared that Miller wasn’t fit to serve in Congress, after two whole Earth orbits of Miller abusing Moreno’s daughter, to whom Miller used to be married, and Miller’s two-year-old daughter, Moreno’s granddaughter.
But Husted’s campaign mission control still didn’t have enough duct tape and wire to jerry-rig or gerrymander a viable position on Miller’s position.
Politico reported Monday that “Husted, Ohio’s other senator … while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign.”
This wasn’t Ohio’s other senator’s first chance to right his orbit. On Thursday, HuffPost reported asking Ohio’s other senator twice about Miller, but “Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) on Thursday stared off into space.” Of course he stared into space, he’s the Apollo 13 of abuser endorsees!
In February Husted proudly announced that Miller had endorsed him. Husted’s release called Miller “one of Ohio’s strongest advocates of the America First agenda.” This was years after Politico and the Washington Post (see Monday’s TFN) revealed Miller’s America Fist agenda of abusing females he was not married to or the father of.
And Husted’s still touting his Miller endorsement today even after Trump on Monday called Miller and, um, didn’t tell him to drop out. Trump hinted it, saying “things aren't looking good,” but publicly Monday was still calling Miller “a very good person.”
Sure, by Trump standards.
Husted and Brown are roughly even in the polls. But those polls were before Husted detonated his Senate re-entry attempt.
Brown’s campaign site is here.
Miller’s opponent is Brian Poindexter — not to be confused with a NASA poindexter — and his site is here.
Just a reminder, that Trump was surely thinking about: Miller only has until Wednesday to drop out and allow a special election to replace him. Hang in there, buddy!
HUSTED’S OWN ABUSE One year after Husted and other Republicans passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBuBBA), its provisions abusing Ohio women and children wholesale are now kicking in and kicking Ohio’s needy in the emptier belly. (h/t)
Already, Ohio has seen a 7% drop in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients. That’s 100,000 needy people potentially going hungry thanks to Husted detonating the food aid they need on the launchpad.
OH, HI, OH, VIVEK RAMASWAMY Remember billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who lasted about a month running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with fellow man-child and former trillionaire Elon Musk?
In case you’ve forgotten like Republicans have forgotten Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ramaswamy’s running for Ohio governor, urging Christian nationalist white supremacist MAGA voters to elect a non-white Hindu. Well, maybe he’s just pandering to them, but Ramaswamy also still had his Miller endorsement up as of this morning.
But Miller’s not alone! Or he wasn’t, anyway.
Back in April, Ramaswamy deleted his endorsement from another accused abuser. According to TiffinOhio.net, state Rep. Rodney Creech (R-OH), “was accused by a minor female relative of climbing into bed with her while erect and wearing only his underwear.”
And, no, “minor female relative” doesn’t mean eighth grand-cousin thrice removed. It means a child. And not a man-child like Ramaswamy or Musk.
Creech denied it, but on the other hand his name is “Rodney Creech.” His parents might as well have named him Pervy von Creepmeister.
Asked in April about the constellation of Republican abusers, Ramaswamy deflected, referring to his rival, former state Department of Health Director Amy Acton, disclosing that she was abused as a child.
Ramaswamy said that Acton had no vision for Ohio “other than to complain about what someone else did to her.” Stay classy, Ramaswamy. That’s how you get those sweet, sweet abuser endorsements.
TAKING ACTON Acton’s campaign site is here.
Republicans Back Blanche for Agreeing to Pretend to Kill Trump Deal
As your bullshit-flagging TFN flagged on Monday, the “deal” (those are very bitter air quotes) to drop Pres. Donald Trump’s bullshit IRS settlement in return for the Senate confirming Trump personal attorney Todd Blanche as his personal attorney general is some prime Wagyu bullshit.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected today to send Blanche’s nomination to the full Senate for confirmation as soon as this week, after Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) dropped their baffling objections without having those objections actually addressed.
As I guessed, and Law Dork’s Chris Geidner confirmed, Blanche’s agreement to retract the $1.776 billion slush fund for Trump’s Jan. 6 temp workers doesn’t prevent the Department of Justice (DOJ) from disbursing back pay through other means.
As I also feared, and the New York Times confirmed, Blanche’s written statement does not undo the immunity that Trump — and his offspring, including his favorite: His company — were given from IRS prosecution, even though Trump routinely does to the tax code what he once did to E. Jean Carroll.
But also, Blanche remains unqualified for every reason in the universe that isn’t related to the IRS deal. As Susan Rinkunas of Autonomy News writes, Republicans asked Blanche to use the Justice Department to dilate and scrape away any last vestige of abortion rights, even/especially in states that have developed sufficiently to protect abortion rights.
And on Monday, Politico revealed that Blanche said last week that he’s going to hunt down abortion rights no matter how microscopic and undifferentiated they are.
In a July 30 livestream with some Republican Christians, Blanche said that the DOJ is working “so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”
The Dobbs ruling, of course, overturned Roe v. Wade, ostensibly letting states decide whether women can decide. But only until Blanche decides.
“We don’t have complete victory yet, but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and and and it will be permanent,” Blanche said.
But Blanche can only afford to lose three votes in the full Senate confirmation vote. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is already on record as voting “bluughuuffchch,” with at least two other “yeas” also in doubt: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and — concerned drumroll please — Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
Collins is up for re-election this year, and already under fire for giving us the Supreme Court that gave us Dobbs. We’ll see what Maine voters think about her giving us an attorney general implementing Dobbs in every state, including the main one she’s concerned with.
The website for Collins’s opponent, former Maine state Senate President Troy Jackson, is here.
Of course, the overarching reason not to confirm Blanche is that the Justice Department is supposed to be independent of the White House, so that the White House doesn’t do crimes.
And the DOJ wouldn’t be independent if it turned out that Blanche got Trump’s approval for the DOJ deal…
Trump Approves DOJ Deal to Prove DOJ’s Independence
Kaine IDs Boat-iac Killer™
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) on Monday alerted officials that The Boat-iac Killer™ is killing people at sea in boats. Unfortunately, the official that Kaine alerted was Pres. Donald Trump, who probably already knows. (h/t)
At Trump’s order, the U.S. military has now killed 221 people in 66 illegal attacks on boats without a warning, chance to surrender, warrant, or courtesy air-horn toot.
Kaine is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee’s boat-killing subcommittee. And on Monday, in an extraordinary letter that was also sternly worded, Kaine said his review of classified material on the attacks suggests that at least some of the victims were innocent:
“…the United States is engaged in violent and fatal attacks against people far beyond those whom the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion claimed could be lawfully targeted. In other words, a careful review of the available evidence suggests that the United States has killed individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking.
“They are murder victims.”
Despite using an extra paragraph for dramatic effect, all Kaine did was ask Trump to “closely examine the circumstances of these strikes,” knowing Trump has never closely examined anything that wasn’t in a dress, and “urge [Trump] to halt this illegal, costly and ineffective operation,” knowing Trump’s never acted on an urge that wasn’t his.
It’s important to note that all 221 killed individuals are murder victims — including those who’ve smuggled blow since they were eight, love smuggling blow, would smuggle blow for free, and are now smuggling blow in Heaven.
Murder is murder even if someone’s allegedly criming and even if a Justice Department OLC memo magically declares they’re viable targets. Expecto patronum!
What Kaine could and should have done was fortify military officials to resist Trump’s unlawful orders to make new murder victims, which Kaine could have done by vowing prosecution for compliance.
Trump Goes Commier Than the Imaginary Commies He’s Going Against
On Monday, Pres. Donald Trump was asked about record profits Big Oil is enjoying thanks to Trump fucking up all the waterways from the Strait of Hormuz to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and probably the Suez Canal and the river Styx.
Here’s the exchange. (Note when he stops himself right before promising to do something about it. Take that, dementia!)
Q: Exxon and Chevron, Integrated Oil US, just announced record profits second quarter, unbelievable. For Exxon, for instance, $14 billion, highest they had in over a decade. For Chevron for the quarter, highest in history. On the backs—
TRUMP: Twelve times. You saw that? … I don’t like it. … Yeah. They’re making too much money, OK? Based on a shortage, they’re making too much money. I don’t like it and I’m gonna do something about it. — I should be the last one to say it, because I’m a big free enterprise guy, nobody bigger. [Blah blah oil prices.] … they ought to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.
Trump said they ought to give some back. Y’know, according to their ability! Almost like he doesn’t know the U.S. gives Big Oil $30 billion in subsidies every year. (I don’t like it! Too much money!)
Thing is, even Big Oil can’t bring prices down. Wall Street sets the prices.
Wall Street does so much trading in oil futures that even if one oil company lowered prices, they’d just get cleaned out of their supply, without moving the rest of the market.
Don’t take my word for it, that’s what Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright admitted after prices spiked back in March. As I wrote at the time, functioning futures markets would prevent spikes like that, but our commodity futures markets aren’t functioning for us, they’re functioning for Wall Street.
Thanks to a loophole Trump refuses to close.
Election Watch
For any skittish “moderate” Democrat freaking out about communists winning Democratic primaries, please remember that after primaries end, candidates tack to the center. Most voters are barely paying attention yet. By the time voters meet today’s democratic socialists, they’ll be avuncular shopkeeps who have personal relationships with Jesus and don’t even know how to spell AOC.
MICHIGAN In the final days of her campaign, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) released a video ad featuring Bishop Christopher Martin of the Cathedral of Faith Ministries Church of God in Christ. Obviously, that’s too many nouns in one church name. But also, The Lever reports that Martin says he’s not homophobic, just that “I do not believe that anyone who practices homosexuality should be in the position of the pastorate.”
And that, “We cannot have perversion over the people.” (Disclosure: TFN supports at least some perversion over, under, and consensually inside the people.)
Religious homophobia is not uncommon even on the left. Neither are Christian “centrist” politicians who forge alliances with religious leaders who are Democratic but not so Democratic that they won’t reject an LGBTQ+ right here or a reproductive right there.
As I reported early this year and then drumbeat on Monday, Stevens is also the favored candidate of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Gillibrand’s weekly Senate Bible study is anti-LGBTQ+, anti-reproductive rights, antisemitic, and anti-government aid for the needy.
MINNESOTA Next Tuesday’s Minnesota gubernatorial primaries are much less suspenseful. Front-running Democratic candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is virtually uncontested. Front-running Republican candidate Mike Lindell is virtually unhinged.
Weirdly, however, as I wrote on Sunday, both of them have had ties to the weird, secretive, right-wing Fellowship Foundation, aka The Family.
TEXAS For all the soy-boy hubbub around state Rep. James Talarico (D-TX) giving career criminal and state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) a run for his money that Paxton somehow got enough of while in office to afford 15 homes, there’s another state race that’s become a real race. (h/t)
After more high-profile Democrats calculated that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) was unbeatable, corruption watchdog Gina Hinojosa is now statistically tied with Abbott in the polls. That’s despite having only $3 million in cash on hand compared to Abbott’s $67 million.
As journalist Noah Berlatsky writes, “Hinojosa is benefiting from being the one brave enough to take on Abbott.”
Her campaign site is here.
Two Quickies
Health (sic) and Human Services (sic) Secretary Robert Flushing Kennedy, Jr., can add cyclosporiasis to the list of his weapons of death. The first two deaths from the parasite-caused illness have now been reported, both in Michigan. You may not recall the role that Taylor Farms played in the spread of cyclosporiasis, because the White House helped prevent Taylor’s reputation from exploding the way eating their lettuce will explode your ass. HHS websites are still undercounting the cases, and Kennedy has complained that tracking it is hard, because explosive diarrhea is so subtle.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has dropped three more reflecting-pool vandalism cases. One of those charged had been cleaning garbage from the pool, her lawyer said. Pirro’s filings don’t say why she’s dropping the charges, but it’s probably connected to her Friday filing dropping the charges against David Hearn and blaming the Interior Department for fucking up the pool. The four dropped cases are the only ones that have been identified publicly so far, although I’ve been assured that FBI Director Kash Patel is on the kase for others.
TCB
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Thank you. E pluribus fuckem.
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Go get ‘em, kids! Not you, Max Miller. You leave people alone.
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks. He is a member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation advisory board.
He just checked in to see what position his position was in.
"Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH),"
Could have been (D'OH!).