Fuckers... Watch out vlad, you might get VD...

 

Republicans criticize Ramaswamy

Key Ohio Republicans criticize Ramaswamy’s ad with Acton’s estranged mother, even as Vance and Trump defend it

By Patrick Svitek, Lauren Fox

Some leading Ohio Republicans began distancing themselves from a controversial new ad from their gubernatorial nominee, Vivek Ramaswamy, even as the president and vice president defended it.

Vice President JD Vance warned Republicans on Wednesday not to break ranks over the commercial, telling them to “stop whining” about it. And President Donald Trump, who endorsed Ramaswamy early in the Ohio primary, told reporters at the White House he “didn’t know anything about it” but heard “the mother went very rogue on the daughter.”

“It’s a very unusual situation,” Trump said.

The viral ad has drawn bipartisan criticism for featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.

In it, Acton’s mother called her daughter a liar and urged voters not to support her. Acton has said she has not seen her mother since she was about 12 years old, when she says the man her mother married sexually abused her. He faced criminal charges and was “declared a fugitive,” Acton said.

“I would not have run that ad,” Sen. Jon Husted, a key Ohio Republican who is in one of the country’s most competitive Senate races, said in a statement to the Associated Press published shortly after appearing at a Cincinnati rally with Vance and Ramaswamy.

Another top Ohio Republican, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, told the ABC affiliate in Columbus that he “probably wouldn’t run an ad like that.” LaRose is running for state auditor.

At least one other GOP candidate in Ohio personally asked Ramaswamy not to air the controversial ad, a GOP operative told CNN.

For months, Ramaswamy has largely run behind other candidates in the state in polling, and now there is a sense he could further jeopardize the GOP’s brand with a last-minute stunt to drum up base support, the source said.

“Republicans in the state probably couldn’t be more pissed at him,” the operative told CNN.

But another GOP operative downplayed the impact Ramaswamy could have, arguing that because he was running behind other candidates already, some of the concerns about him may already be baked in among GOP voters.

What Vance said

On Wednesday morning, Vance, a former Ohio senator, instructed his fellow Republicans to set aside any reservations about the ad.

“Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” Vance said at a news conference in Cincinnati.

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VP Vance addresses controversial attack ad in Ohio gubernatorial race

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The initial video – which was shared widely on social media, including by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. – has been roiling the gubernatorial race since it first showed up on social media, bringing the abuse Acton said she suffered at the hands of her stepfather to the forefront.

Until Wednesday afternoon, the GOP criticism of the ad was mainly coming from national figures like Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy for president in 2024. But the comments by Husted and LaRose began to show cracks in the relative quiet among Ohio Republicans.

Asked about the ad at the news conference, Vance declined to weigh in on its appropriateness but said he was “a little bit disgusted” that some Republicans appeared more outraged about it than they are about Democrats and their policies.

Speaking later at a rally in Cincinnati that Ramaswamy attended, Vance brought up the ad on his own. He argued it was a justified response because Democrats have used “every dirty trick in the political book” against Ramaswamy.

“Now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance said.

Ryan Smith, the former GOP speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, pushed back against Vance’s criticism of fellow Republicans responding to the ad.

CNN 5 Things - Square

CNN 5 Things

Vivek Ramaswamy's Ohio October Surprise

A new political ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy featuring his Democratic opponent’s estranged mom telling voters to reject her has even some Republicans decrying dragging a painful family dynamic into the political arena. But in a close race, could the move sway undecided voters? We examine why Ramswamy is doubling down and how it could impact the race in a key battleground state. --- Guest: Patrick Svitek, CNN Politics Reporter Host: David Rind Producer: Paola Ortiz Showrunner: Felicia Patinkin

Oct 21, 2026 • 16 min

...

“Stop normalizing bad behavior and embarrassing the party,” Smith wrote on X. “Ohio deserves better than this!”

Ramaswamy’s campaign leaned into the controversy over the ad Tuesday night, announcing it would spend $4 million to run the spot.

“She’s lied her entire life,” Donna Arthur says in the minute-long spot. “My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth, and my daughter still isn’t doing that.”

The video was first published widely on Monday night by an Ohio political blogger, D.J. Byrnes, who is known as “The Rooster.” Byrnes told CNN he obtained the video from a voter who saw it as part of a poll and recorded it. On Tuesday morning, Acton’s campaign released a statement from her brother, Philip Stearns, denouncing the video and linking it to Ramaswamy.

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said. “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died.”

Later Tuesday, Acton’s campaign released a new ad featuring Stearns making similar points. “Shame on Vivek,” he says in the spot.

Amy Acton responds to Vivek Ramaswamy's ad ...

1:31

Ad did not initially have political disclaimer

Ramaswamy’s campaign initially did not confirm their involvement in the ad Tuesday, saying only that Ohioans “deserve to know” what Acton’s mother says about her daughter. But later in the day, Ramaswamy confirmed, “It is an ad from our campaign.”

The incendiary spot will run on TV and streaming platforms, according to a spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign, Connie Luck. Axios first reported that news.

Screenshot-2026-10-20-at-3.28.56 PM.jpg

from social media

When it first circulated, the video did not have the standard disclaimer that political ads carry saying who paid for or authorized them, nor did it show up Tuesday morning as a paid ad in the race on AdImpact, the political ad-tracking service.

And the first Ramaswamy campaign statement from Luck did not address whether it was responsible for the video. It suggested voters should consider the message from Acton’s mother and repeated her attack, asserting that “we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor.”

The statement went on to argue that people who know Acton well — including “her own mother” — “are clearly warning Ohioans not to vote for her.”

“Ohioans deserve to know that,” Luck said.

An official with V-PAC, the main super PAC backing Ramaswamy, said it did not make the video. CNN has attempted to contact Arthur for more information about how the video came together.

Ramaswamy was heckled at a campaign event Tuesday evening by a person appearing to cite the viral video. Within seconds of Ramaswamy taking the stage at a Columbus-area town hall, an audience member rose up and began yelling at him, making a reference to “Amy Acton’s mother” and the abuse that the candidate says she suffered from her mother’s husband at a young age.

“Sir, if you want to be patient and you want to ask a question at the end, you’re free to do that,” Ramaswamy said as the man was escorted out. “Thank you for your contribution today.”

Speaking with reporters after the event, Ramaswamy took responsibility for the ad and reiterated that voters should take into account what people who know Acton “well” are saying about her. He said he has never met the mother and that she was “not compensated” for the ad.

“It’s awful to see her this way, and it’s even more incredible to see that my opponent (Ramaswamy) has taken advantage of someone who’s clearly not well, who is older, and this is totally in line with who he is,” Acton said.

Her criticism joined the growing chorus. Haley, Ramaswamy’s 2024 primary rival, said the ad was the latest evidence that Ramaswamy is “a bad guy.”

“It’s a shame he continues to get away with it,” she wrote on X.

Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, said on X that the ad was “dastardly” and “never should have been created.”

Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Ohio, said on X that the video was “disgusting” and that Husted should condemn it. The Democratic Governors Association said in a statement that the video was part of a “relentless smear campaign” that Ramaswamy has waged against Acton.

Acton and Ramaswamy are locked in one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country, vying to replace term-limited Republican Mike DeWine. The ads in the race have been especially nasty, fueling a controversial decision by Acton to decline to debate Ramaswamy. Republican candidates in the state are preparing for a statewide bus tour starting Friday.

DeWine’s office also has not commented on the ad. He defended Acton earlier in the campaign against criticism about Acton’s work as state public health director during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A member of DeWine’s Cabinet, Lydia Mihalik, said Tuesday on X that the ad crossed a line.

“We can disagree on plenty of things without losing our sense of decency,” said Mihalik, director of the state’s Department of Development. “I don’t have to agree with Amy Acton’s politics to believe that exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong.”

Nick Owens, a Republican activist in Ohio, told CNN the ad is “frankly despicable” and would help Acton raise “a lot of money.” Owens, who calls himself a lifelong Republican, is a former county GOP chair in the state who’s been organizing opposition to data centers.

Acton, the former Ohio public health director, has spoken before about her estrangement from her mother and hardscrabble childhood. In a 2019 interview with the Youngstown Vindicator, she said her mother married a man when she was between ages 9 and 12 who abused her and who faced criminal charges. The family was living in a tent at a campground outside Youngstown at the time.

According to legal documents provided by the Acton campaign, Acton’s allegations against her stepfather emerged in July of 1978 when her father testified to police his daughter was sexually abused by her stepfather. A day later, her stepfather was arrested for rape. He pleaded not guilty but was indicted by a grand jury in September of that year. By October, prosecutors asked for a warrant for his arrest. In the early 1980s, one record shows authorities were still looking for him, but there is no record of any further action in the case.

“I was lucky that it got bad enough, because it got me out of there,” Acton told the Vindicator.

She said the last time she saw her mother was at the courthouse when she tried to give her a kiss and Acton rejected her.

Speaking of lunatic....

Whitewashing Tucker Carlson

The New York Times and NPR recently failed to convey just how extreme the former Fox host’s views have become.

David Corn

Last month, when The New York Times published a news article reporting on Tucker Carlson’s recent statements defending Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, and assailing former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP contender in that race, the paper described the former Fox host as an “influential far-right podcaster…known for his nativist rhetoric [who] once said immigrants were making the United States ‘poorer and dirtier.’” (Carlson had slammed Rogers as a “toady to Israel” and the “embodiment of the cruelty and stupidity of the national security state.”)

A few days later, NPR named Carlson a “Newsmaker”—that is, one of the “most influential people of our time”—and posted an hourlong interview with him conducted by host Steve Inskeep. At the start, Inskeep introduced Carlson as a commentator who “has commanded an audience for decades as a cable TV pundit, as a Fox News star, and then, after his firing, as the head of an independent network frequently broadcasting from this barn in Maine.” During the interview, Carlson argued that President Donald Trump should be removed from office for launching the war in Iran (“the most profoundly destructive thing any—any single decision a president has made in our history”) and for threatening to annihilate that country with nuclear weapons. He railed against Israel and its influence on US policy, denied he was antisemitic, and slammed Trump for being corrupt. (He also called the Trump–Russia scandal a “totally absurd plot to discredit Trump.”) At the end of their conversation, Inskeep said to Carlson, “You’re a thoughtful guy.”

In both The New York Times piece and the NPR interview—especially the latter—Carlson’s bigotry and conspiracy kookery were downplayed, and he was cast as a respectable political opinion influencer. The Times did note that Carlson has embraced conspiracy theories, been accused of antisemitism, and once “conducted a friendly interview” with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier. But even that does not capture the fullness of his extremism.

In recent years, Carlson has become a leading champion of right-wing racism and nuttery—a matter Inskeep avoided in the one-on-one. He has been a proponent of the “great replacement theory,” which claims nefarious elites are trying to replace white Americans with dark-skinned migrants. (Some ultra-right adherents of this notion assert Jews are responsible for this anti-white plot.) When he was a Fox host, Carlson supported the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, though he privately denigrated election denialists pushing that crap. He peddled the bonkers idea that the January 6 riot was a false flag operation orchestrated by the Deep State so it could round up Trump supporters, and he said the rioters were “right” to believe the election had been rigged.

There’s practically no limit to Carlson’s ideological thuggery. Two years ago, he hosted on his podcast Darryl Cooper, a Nazi apologist, who claimed that Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the “chief villain of the Second World War” and that the Holocaust was merely the result of poor planning on the part of Hitler’s regime. The Nazis, Cooper said, “launched a war where they were completely unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners…They went in with no plan for that and just threw these people into camps.” Accidental concentration camps, right? That was why “millions of people ended up dead there.” Carlson disgustingly called Cooper “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.”

And Carlson has been an adoring fan of Vladimir Putin. Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he noted he would root for Russia over Ukraine in any war between the two nations, and, once Putin attacked Ukraine, he amplified Kremlin disinformation that claimed the United States had been operating biological weapons facilities within Ukraine.

Carlson was also sued by a booker and producer who alleged that she had been bullied and subjected to antisemitic remarks while working on his Fox show. Carlson maintained he had never met her. Fox settled the lawsuit for $12 million, according to the accuser’s lawyer. In 2022, on his Fox show, Carlson promoted the quackery of “testicle tanning.”

Yes, Carlson’s been a real thoughtful guy, bolstering Trump’s attempt to destroy our constitutional republic, providing a platform to Nazi apologists, and amplifying Russian disinformation.

Several weeks prior to the Times article and NPR interview, Carlson appeared on RT, the Russian state-controlled propaganda mill that also runs covert influence and disinformation operations. On that show, he proclaimed that diabolical forces within the US government were deploying “mass migration” to destroy “the English-speaking West” and trying to whip up a war with Russia because it was “the last big white Christian country on the planet.” That is, an evil Deep State wants to annihilate Russia because it’s white and Christian—and it was willing to risk global nuclear warfare to do so. He didn’t identify who in the United States was perpetrating this evil scheme. Could it be…the Jews?

While on this RT show, Carlson never once mentioned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Russia’s attacks on civilian targets, its alleged war crimes, or its kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children. Ukraine is “not a sovereign country fighting for its freedom,” he argued, just a “client state of NATO and the United States” that’s being used to wipe out Russia. That’s Putin’s BS line. And he praised Putin for practicing restraint in response to attacks on Russian soil. Carlson called Russia “a beautiful country, an amazing country, my favorite country I’ve ever visited.” There was no talk of Putin’s repressive ways or suppression of democracy. He’s all in on Putin.

Earlier this month, Carlson again got into Hitler trouble during an interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, a far-right British politician. He questioned why Britain had entered World War II, and Rees-Mogg countered, “Otherwise, we’d be speaking German.” Carlson shot back: “Who cares? There are a lot of people in Britain who can’t speak English. So it would be nice to have at least a European language spoken in your country.” Racism and Nazi apologia go nicely together.

Arguing with Rees-Mogg, Carlson declared that Hitler “repeatedly said, ‘I do not want to go to war with the UK’”—as though the Nazi dictator could have been taken at his word and there was no reason for the Brits to honor their alliance with Poland and declare war on Germany following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. (In 1934, Hitler had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland, vowing not to attack the country.) Rees-Mogg observed that Carlson was “verging on defending Hitler.” He added, “I think this is not really what you want to be doing.”

Carlson answered with snark: “Yeah, I guess I’m just a secret Nazi.”

He may not be a secret Nazi. But he’s an overt racist, conspiracy monger, Hitler defender, Putin supporter, and far-right extremist. Because he has an audience and influence on the right, the media ought to pay attention to him and his comments. But they also should remember that viewership does not equal legitimacy. He poses as a thoughtful fellow, but he slings false, bigoted, and dangerous swill. Journalists who do not characterize and contextualize Carlson accurately aid and abet his malignant agenda.

The Lunatic loves to attack people who tell the truth...

The White House Is Using Slurs to Attack Journalists

Trump and Vance hurled vulgar insults at the Independent’s Andrew Feinberg after routine reporting questions.

Alex Nguyen

After President Donald Trump snapped at a reporter multiple times during a Tuesday press conference, questioning whether he was “a sick person,” an official White House social media account posted a slur used against people with Down syndrome to describe the reporter.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you a sick person?” Trump pointedly asked Andrew Feinberg, the Independent’s White House correspondent. “I actually think there’s something wrong with you.” 

The president made the remark after Feinberg began to ask about his plans to close down a historic Washington, DC, golf course for 15 months in a remodeling project to make a facility capable of hosting international competitions. Previously, Trump grew visibly frustrated when Feinberg asked him about his Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, which will give individuals a one percent of the monetary amount of fraud their tip helps uncover with a cap of $30,000. 

“The False Claims Act, which has been on the books since 1863, whistleblowers can get between 10 and 25%,” Feinberg said. “Why would someone who has evidence of genuine fraud go to—”

“Because it’s a lot of money,” Trump interrupted. “And because when they did that, that’s a certain type of crime. But nobody ever thought that you could have stolen $2 trillion or whatever the ultimate number is going to be. And at 1 percent, people will make millions and millions of dollars for turning in what actually is a somewhat routine crime.”

That day, the Trump administration, which has made an effort to change the definition of “fraud” to benefit itself, awarded right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley $10,000 for his unsubstantiated videos that accelerated the federal government’s attacks on child care in blue states.

Vice President JD Vance, who serves as the chair of Trump’s fraud elimination task force, labeled Feinberg’s question as “fundamentally dishonest” and said the False Claims Act has narrow eligibility. He later called Feinberg an “imbecile” on social media, another insult describing people with intellectual disabilities.

“The use of slurs such as ‘Mongoloid, moron, imbecile and retarded or retard’ is painful to individuals with intellectual disability and their families and sets our movement back decades,” Jim Hudson, executive director of the National Down Syndrome Congress, said in a public statement Wednesday. “We implore people to stop using this derogatory language and treat people with Down syndrome and other disabilities with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

As my colleague Julia Métraux wrote last May, the Trump administration’s use of slurs falls into a pattern of ableist and eugenicist views the president has expressed for decades—from favoring people with “good genes” to saying that people with complex disabilities should “just die.”

He is a Nazi in no disguise...

Will Elon Musk Be the October Surprise?

The world’s first trillionaire is also a disinformation super-spreader.

David Corn

The name refers to the challenge American democracy is currently facing. With an authoritarian demagogue in the White House, can the United States conduct free and fair elections that produce results that will be widely respected? Can the US political system reject the Donald Trump virus that undermines the rule of law and threatens the constitutional republic? Will it survive the stress placed upon it by a president who tried to overturn a previous election and who has already begun to subvert this one with false accusations of fraud?

My answer, as of today, is the possibility of a last-minute intervention of big money and disinformation, yielding an October surprise that influences one or more of the House and Senate races determining which party ends up controlling Congress. And standing at the intersection of obscenely huge campaign donations and potentially harmful false narratives is a jerk named Elon Musk.

Last week, there was much coverage of the news that Musk has injected $366 million into the midterm elections to aid Trump and the Republicans. (It appears likely his total tab will exceed half a billion dollars.) Much of this money has gone to bolster GOP Senate candidates, particularly the corruption-scarred Ken Paxton in Texas. As pundits and political chatterers pondered the impact of Musk’s millions, my colleague Anna Merlan wisely observed that Musk posed another threat and tagged him the “biggest election disinformation risk.”

She characterized Musk this way after he played a crucial role in spreading the false claim—cooked up by MAGA influencers—that James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, had been absent from the campaign trail because he had checked himself into a mental health hospital in Ohio. The story was 100 percent bullshit. Talarico, according to his campaign, had contracted a nasty bout of the flu, and, after nine or so days out of sight, he was back in public view at the time these MAGA doofuses were asserting he had been in the Ohio facility (which eventually denied Talarico had ever been treated there). Yet the phony tale caught fire and zipped across the internet, largely due to its amplification on the Musk-owned X.

Musk, as Merlan points out, was a key amplifier of this fraud. He tweeted to his 241.5 million followers—an audience about 100 times the size of Fox News—that the “Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about.” In another post, he maintained, “The Talarico campaign is not being honest about what’s happening.” When the story fell apart, he did not acknowledge he had been wrong. Nor did the MAGA influencers and other right-wingers who had peddled this phony story.

This idiotic assault on Talarico is not likely to lessen his chances of becoming the first Democrat to win a statewide race in Texas in 32 years. But it illustrates a standard play: Start an unfounded and scurrilous rumor about a candidate and use Musk’s platform—perhaps Musk himself—to spread it quickly. If done closer to Election Day, there might not be sufficient time for a candidate to beat back the false accusation. And super-PACs with plenty of cash—from Musk or others (including other Big Tech plutocrats in the AI and crypto fields who are pouring gobs of money into this election)—can do the same: Drop negative ads boosting false allegations in the final week of the campaign. It’s even possible these days for billionaires to use corporate cutouts to finance attack ads anonymously.

With so much at stake—Musk himself has billions of dollars in government contracts he wants to protect or land—it would be surprising if the final days of this campaign were free of disinformation skullduggery and campaign-cash chicanery. (The Russians, too, have started meddling in this election to help the GOP. See the next item.)

The South Africa–born Musk holds an unprecedented position in American politics. With his donations this year, he has made the largest known personal financial contribution to an election, and he controls a social media platform through which political news and disinformation flow, reaching millions of voters—and he himself generates some of that disinformation.

Naturally, Musk warrants continuous scrutiny—especially since he’s a dishonest fellow who’s been promoting the most ludicrous allegations and conspiracy theories for years. During the 2024 campaign, he repeatedly posted the false claim that large numbers of noncitizens were voting, even going so far as to declare that Democrats were flying asylum seekers into swing states and fast-tracking them for citizenship so they could vote. His false or misleading allegations about that election racked up 1.2 billion views on X. He received 134 million views when he reposted an AI-manipulated deepfake video of Kamala Harris supposedly making offensive remarks.

Musk’s conspiracism has extended far beyond election disinformation. He claimed that DEI was the cause of errors in the Los Angeles Fire Department’s response to wildfires and that “white genocide” was underway in South Africa. (Neither allegation was true.) He amplified the fake story that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets. He’s resorted to antisemitic tropes to attack George Soros. He falsely charged that millions of dead people were collecting Social Security. (This genius misread the data.) He boosted Russian disinformation that claimed USAID was paying Hollywood celebrities millions of dollars to visit Ukraine, and he put up posts saying USAID funded bioweapons research that included Covid-19. He seconded a meme that proclaimed Pizzagate was “real.” Earlier this year, he amplified a post that said that during the 2020 election, “Pennsylvania sent out 1,823,148 mail-in ballots but received back around 2.5 MILLION mail-in ballots.” This charge—long a mainstay of Trump’s election deniers—has been repeatedly debunked.

That’s a mere sampling. Musk is a nutter. He recently endorsed a social media post that said only men with high testosterone and people with autism should be allowed to engage in governmental “decision making”—sorry, all you gals—and he has shared assorted racist sentiments.

Yet when you’re a trillionaire, your racism, misogyny, antisemitism, ignorance, and conspiracism don’t matter. Republicans have tried to make a scandal of far-left influencer Hasan Piker’s campaigning with Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate, during the primary contest. Yet Musk’s direct aid to a wide range of GOP candidates has not sparked as much of a hullabaloo. Only certain associations seem to be worthy of outrage.

Musk’s influence in the midterms is unparalleled. There’s a lot that could happen in the waning days of this election. Trump, no doubt, is contemplating actions that could cause chaos or spark a crisis. MAGA activists have been urging him to declare martial law—though that would not technically permit him to seize ballots or block elections. Such extreme options aside, an October surprise is more likely to involve disinformation and money. So in the coming weeks, keep your eye on Musk. And in the long run, Americans are going to have to figure out how to keep a schmuck like this from having so much sway in US politics.

"I love america" is a bullshit line, they just want shit for free....

Experts Say Land Venture Linked to David Flippo is “Batshit” and a “Huge Red Flag”

The Nevada Republican benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars of political donations tied to a dubious Arizona company in which he claims to have a seven-figure stake.

Noah Lanard

In December 2022, a 20-year-old California woman loaned most of her savings to a venture calling itself Lost Basin Holdings. In theory, the $25,000 loan from the young conservative, who asked to remain anonymous, would be used to develop remote land in northwestern Arizona. But when the loan came due in late 2024, she got nothing back.

The company’s founder, Robert McDowell, tried to reassure her. His company, he wrote in a December 2024 text, was “actively looking” for new investors so he could repay her. She asked McDowell, who court records show has been accused of fraud on multiple occasions as part of prior business dealings, about her money roughly a dozen times last year. In March 2025, he informed her, “We have new investors coming on board to raise $20M and buy up all our Notes.”

That is the same amount Arizona Land Reserve, a real estate development venture McDowell co-founded in January 2025, is seeking to raise by telling investors it aims to provide a “constant 20% annual return for the next 20 years.” What makes Arizona Land Reserve unique is its deep ties to David Flippo, a scandal-plagued Republican in an unexpectedly close race for Congress in northern Nevada. The company is Flippo’s largest identifiable asset, according to an unofficial financial disclosure his campaign provided to the Nevada Independent. He values his stake at between $1 million and $5 million.

Flippo’s ties to the company appear to extend beyond those of a typical passive investor. A person pitched on Arizona Land Reserve, who requested anonymity, told me Flippo was present for all of the investment meetings they attended. When the person asked Flippo if he could advise them on the deal, the source said the candidate declined, citing a conflict of interest. A text message I reviewed shows Stephen Tuminello, Arizona Land Reserve’s other co-founder, stating he has a “professional and business relationship with David Flippo.”

Flippo, in turn, has benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations from Arizona Land Reserve and people in the company’s orbit. Taken together, it suggests Flippo—a retired Air Force officer and licensed financial adviser—may have used his credentials to help provide an air of legitimacy to a dubious company that spent lavishly on his behalf.

Flippo, McDowell, and Tuminello did not respond to detailed questions and repeated requests for comment for this article and a previous Mother Jones article about Arizona Land Reserve’s connection to Flippo. I initially reached out to Flippo’s campaign about his finances on September 14. The campaign has not responded to those inquiries.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Rory McShane, Flippo’s main campaign consultant, said he did not have time to discuss my request for comment about Arizona Land Reserve. He asked that I send questions via email. McShane has not responded to those questions, which I initially sent to him and Flippo’s campaign on Friday.

Arizona Land Reserve says it is seeking to build Valle Privado, a “1st class fly-in community catering to the desires of Luxury Home & Ranch Owners in Arizona that prefer to use private aviation.” The raw land is miles from paved roads, according to county maps and land records. Some of the nearest towns are a former mining camp called Chloride, with about 75 residents, and Santa Claus, a Christmas-themed ghost town that was torn down in 2022.

To meet its target of “constant” 20 percent annual returns, Arizona Land Reserve has said it plans to acquire 3,000 apartments in central and midwestern states with $14 million in capital. It claims it will then use the rent money to fund development of the Arizona land it purchased with $4.8 million of debt last year. Mark Stapp, an expert in Arizona real estate development, put the chances of acquiring thousands of apartments for that amount at between “slim and none.” Overall, Stapp said, the project’s “feasibility is zero.”

Arizona Land Reserve is seeking to raise $20 million from investors in exchange for a 20 percent equity stake in the company, which implies a total valuation of $100 million. Stapp, who spoke to me independent of his role as the director of a real estate development program at an Arizona university, called that “insanity.” He added, “You’re not generating $100 million out of that project. You’re just not.” (I have found no evidence of Arizona Land Reserve buying apartments or filing any permits related to developing the main site.)

Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant who testified on behalf of the Justice Department in a case against employees of Bernie Madoff, said via email that “20% constant returns are a huge red flag.” He added, “Madoff didn’t even promise constant returns that high.”

Flippo, who first ran for Congress in 2024, has still not filed an official financial disclosure, even though he has been legally required to do so on an annual basis since 2023. Meanwhile, he has reported putting more than $2.5 million of his own money into his campaigns, despite having no apparent source of such wealth. Flippo has also not said whether his major stake in Arizona Land Reserve reflects money he invested or equity received in exchange for services on its behalf. 

Bob Seale, who once served as the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, submitted a complaint to the Federal Election Commission this week about the questions surrounding Flippo’s finances and campaign fundraising. The complaint draws on previous reporting from Mother Jones about Arizona Land Reserve. It also mentions a person listed as a major donor to Flippo’s campaign who told me they did not make the contribution attributed to them. After drawing parallels between Flippo and disgraced former Rep. George Santos, Seale wrote, “Where there is once again smoke, there might well again be fire.”

Flippo has also faced blowback related to false claims that he earned a Bronze Star with valor, when he actually received a standard Bronze Star. Mark Amodei, the retiring Republican congressman Flippo is running to replace, has now said he didn’t vote for his party’s nominee during early voting. When we spoke on Monday, Amodei reiterated his belief that Flippo is a “fraud” in light of the misrepresentations about Flippo’s military record and the questions surrounding the candidate’s personal and campaign finances.

“Where is that [money] from?” Amodei asked about the self-funding Flippo has reported. “Do you have any confidence on the non-answers? Or just plain ignoring the question: Well, who’s paying for this guy’s ‘personal loans’ to his campaign? That’s why I use the word fraud.”

To raise funds, Arizona Land Reserve’s co-founders have courted fellow conservatives, according to David Shapiro, the Las Vegas lender who sold the company its land and holds the debt on the heavily leveraged property. A second person pitched on an investment in Arizona Land Reserve also said Tuminello was targeting people at events in Nevada popular with Republicans. An ad for Patriot View, the name for a separate set of companies McDowell used to promote Lost Basin’s lots, shows the two men pursuing a similar strategy for that venture. In an advertisement in a conservative publication, they marketed the lots as “Prepper Ready.” The tagline of their project was “saving your money from the banks.” A large number of the people they persuaded to invest in that project were women in their seventies or eighties, public records show.

Flippo has known McDowell and Tuminello since at least May 2024, when the two men attended a fundraiser for his first congressional campaign. That month, Tuminello also paid Flippo’s wife on behalf of himself and McDowell in connection with a Las Vegas gala, a public Venmo record shows. Later in 2024, FINRA records show Flippo was fired from his job as a financial adviser for an offense related to “bearer bonds,” a largely obsolete financial product known for its use in money laundering and other illicit activities. (“I wasn’t fined for anything,” Flippo has said. “I didn’t lose any licenses.”)

Less than three weeks after Flippo was fired, a deed of trust filed in Mohave County listed his older brother Stephen Flippo as the lender on a more than $200,000 note to Lost Basin—the same company that owed the young investor. In January 2025, the month Arizona Land Reserve was formed, a second deed of trust named Stephen Flippo as the lender on a $136,000 note. On paper, $340,000 was secured by lots valued by the county at about $30,000 combined. The full picture was even more concerning. Shapiro, whose company also sold Lost Basin its land and loaned it $280,000 to execute the deal, told me earlier this month that he holds the senior lien on Lost Basin’s land, meaning Stephen Flippo’s loans could have been wiped out in the event of financial distress. (Stephen Flippo did not respond to requests for comment.)

That was true for other Lost Basin investors—including the young conservative, who did not know Shapiro was first in line to be paid back until we spoke. As with other investors, the land that theoretically secured her loan is assessed by Mohave County at a fraction of the capital she provided.

Shapiro said that McDowell has not yet paid off the $280,000 loan the Las Vegas lender’s company gave to Lost Basin in 2022. Shapiro added that he increased the interest rate from 6 percent to 12 percent after the original loan was not paid off in time. (He said McDowell remains current on his payments to him.)

McDowell has a record of bad debts and business failures. Two of his earlier ventures filed for bankruptcy in federal court. In one of those cases he was called a “con” by a man who did business with him, according to court records. In an earlier court case, he and his business partners in a gold mining venture called Rock Cabin Mining were accused of operating a “pyramid promotional scheme,” according to Arizona court records. The plaintiff, George Rhoads, said he never received the money awarded to his business after the gold-mining company was found liable for breach of contract. By 2019, after Rock Cabin Mining filed for bankruptcy, court records show that the the value of his claim stood at more than $99,000.

With Lost Basin, Mohave County records show McDowell’s companies paid off prior lenders just as Stephen Flippo’s transactions were recorded—reminiscent of how McDowell told the young conservative investor about using new money to pay off old debts. Dubinsky, who has more than four decades of experience as a forensic accountant, reacted strongly to McDowell’s efforts to find money from new investors to satisfy a prior debt. “If he needs new investor money to repay existing loans, that suggests he lacks sufficient cash to meet his obligations,” Dubinsky said via email. “That dependence on fresh investor capital is a major red flag.”

In May 2025, Flippo, McDowell, and Tuminello appeared together at a Nevada Republican luncheon. The following month, Arizona Land Reserve made a $50,000 donation to the Nevada Republican Party. The party’s chairman went on to help push for Donald Trump’s endorsement of Flippo in the primary, according to a conservative blogger who wrote about the race. And he took the unusual step of endorsing Flippo before the Republican primary. (The Nevada GOP did not respond to a previous request for comment.)

The donation to the Nevada GOP came as Arizona Land Reserve’s fortunes improved, according to a text message McDowell sent the young conservative on the day the contribution was made. “We’ve gotten commitments to fund from 3 people so we’re waiting for their transfers,” McDowell wrote, adding that it was “all retirement money.”

Later in 2025, Flippo was featured in photographs of the only two events that Arizona Land Reserve has posted images of on its Facebook page. His apparent ties to the company came with substantial rewards. In the second half of 2025, people affiliated with the company or its founders donated roughly $70,000 to his campaign—about a third of what Flippo raised from outside donors during that period. 

In January 2026, Flippo’s sister Laura Camp gave $60,000 to Turning Point PAC, the campaign spending arm of Turning Point USA. Five days later, Arizona Land Reserve made its first federal political contribution by giving $50,000 to the same group. The following month, Turning Point Action endorsed Flippo. (Camp did not respond to a request for comment.)

In June, Arizona Land Reserve gave another $50,000 to the Freedom Caucus Fund, which had already endorsed Flippo. By August, Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan was in Reno raising money for Flippo, with McDowell and Tuminello listed among the fundraiser’s co-hosts. The fund has now spent more than $600,000 backing Flippo’s campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The contributions from Arizona Land Reserve are notable both because they seemed designed to pave the way for Flippo’s congressional campaign and because the company had no apparent source of funds other than investor capital. According to an SEC filing about the company’s plan to sell investors $20 million in equity in the company, Arizona Land Reserve made its first securities sale on June 9, 2025, one week after the company made its $50,000 contribution to the Nevada GOP.

In the filing, Arizona Land Reserve told the SEC it so far had received $6.8 million from a dozen investors. The filing also stated that McDowell and Tuminello have been paid $100,000, the same amount of capital they reported putting into the company, according to an operating agreement I obtained. Stapp, who has experience developing more than 10,000 lots in master-planned communities, said he often works as an expert witness in cases where investors are trying to recover money. He noted that Arizona Land Reserve sounded like the kind of project where if ever asked he would “opine on the fact that this was just a batshit crazy-ass idea.”

Stapp explained that Arizona Land Reserve would have to build roads and bring water, electricity, and internet to roughly 4,000 acres of raw land. He is working on a 1,000-acre project that he said will require about $43 million in infrastructure. Arizona Land Reserve has announced plans to raise only $20 million and has said it plans to commit $14 million of that to buying apartments in other states.

Most of the money the company has disclosed raising thus far will need to cover obligations the company has already incurred. Shapiro said the company owes him more than $300,000 per year in interest until the $4.8 million principal on the loans from his company comes due in 2030—more than $6 million in total. The company also would need to pay at least $1.3 million per year if it is going to meet its target of 20 percent annual returns for 20 years. Arizona Land Reserve’s first payments to investors were supposed to go out last month, according to a 2025 company press release. Flippo, McDowell, and Tuminello did not respond to questions about whether those payments were made. 

The young conservative investor in McDowell and Tuminello’s Lost Basin said she and her fiancé, who works in conservative politics, eventually turned to a ruse to get her money back: She told McDowell her fiancé was considering investing but wanted to see her loan repaid first.

In early 2026, more than a year after the loan came due, McDowell repaid the young conservative and signed the text with his Arizona Land Reserve email address. In an email to the fiancé about his new venture, McDowell asked: “Are you someone with private funds to put to work for 5 years to 2x your amount?”

The fiancé concluded the investment opportunity was too good to be true. Others proved more willing to give Arizona Land Reserve money. After all, a financial adviser turned conservative congressional candidate was now involved.

The stupid people are mad they fell for his con again..... They deserve to get screwed...

Crypto shareholder sues Trump, family-backed crypto venture

The lawsuit focuses on two business deals linked to World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm Trump launched with his sons.

By Erica Orden

A shareholder of a crypto company on Thursday sued President Donald Trump and the crypto venture co-founded by his family in federal court, alleging Trump violated the Constitution by profiting off his office through a pair of deals linked to the United Arab Emirates.

“No president in American history has profited from his office so brazenly,” the lawsuit says. “The President himself has openly admitted that the lack of consequences emboldens him, not only to continue using his high office to enrich himself, but to expand the fortune he is extracting from the trust the American people placed in him.”

The complaint from a shareholder of Circle Internet Group accuses Trump of violating the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars the president from accepting money or benefits from a foreign government without congressional approval. The complaint focuses on two deals involving World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm Trump co-founded with his sons.

A representative from the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, said the company is “compliant with all U.S. laws and regulations.”

Of course they are...

Russia launched covert influence campaign to undermine US candidates supportive of Ukraine, lawmakers say

“It’s a carnival out there,” said House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.), referring to Russia's digital election interference efforts.

By Maggie Miller

The Russian government has launched a covert online influence campaign to sway public opinion and undermine both Democrats and Republicans sympathetic to Ukraine ahead of the midterms, two key Democratic lawmakers warned Wednesday.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) and House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told reporters Wednesday that the findings on Russia were detailed in a classified report on foreign election interference sent to their offices by the U.S. intelligence community earlier this week.

“It’s a carnival out there,” Himes said of Russia’s digital efforts, which he said aim to generate “a sense of chaos and anarchy.” According to Himes, Russian disinformation operations cover a range of topics, from sowing distrust in U.S. institutions to questioning the validity of voting machines.

Warner said the report suggested that Moscow is using artificial intelligence tools to spread these ideas faster and target Americans more effectively.

While the lawmakers did not specify which political candidates were being targeted, they stressed that any political figure supportive of Ukraine — on both sides of the aisle — was likely on Russia’s radar.

Notably, they said the U.S. intelligence community has not seen evidence that Russia has tried to hack election infrastructure or political campaign networks.

Russia has long been called out by the U.S. and its allies for its interference activities. Russian intelligence officers were linked to hacks on the Democratic National Committee and the email accounts of campaign staff for then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. That year, Moscow also backed widespread influence campaigns against Clinton.

And again in 2018 and 2024, Russia was accused of spreading disinformation aimed at influencing U.S. elections.

“In every election cycle since 2016, Russia has spread disinformation that has … gone against Democrats,” Warner said.

Beyond the U.S., Russia has also targeted elections in other countries, including during recent elections in Georgia, Moldova and France.

The details of at least one Russia-linked operation have already emerged. Information operations analysis company Graphika released findings Wednesday that Storm-1516 — a Russian-linked influence group active since 2023 — created and posted deepfake videos on X accusing Texas Senate candidate James Talarico of sexual assault.

Social media platform X separately reported last week that it had removed more than 13,000 accounts linked to election-related disinformation campaigns from Russia, Iran and China, which the platform said targeted “candidates and public figures across the political spectrum.”

Spokespeople for ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for more details on the classified report. Spokespeople for the Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on the influence allegations.

Warner and Himes noted that the report also detailed instances of Chinese and Iranian influence attempts, but only called out Russia for its significant efforts.

A spokesperson for House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) criticized Warner and Himes for disclosing the information, telling POLITICO Wednesday that the lawmakers had “cherry-picked” details to disclose to the press.

“This is at best an egregious breach of trust which would have consequences for the employees of the intelligence community, and at worst a clear attempt to deceive the American people,” the spokesperson said. “Further, it is always interesting that the Democrats are perfectly willing to highlight Russian actions, but never those of the Chinese Communist Party.”

A spokesperson for Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not respond to a request for comment on the report’s findings.

Himes said Crawford arranged a briefing for Intelligence Committee lawmakers on election threats last week, and Warner said he and Cotton have joined in a “bipartisan” effort to push ODNI for documents on various intelligence-related policies. Himes said the House Intelligence Committee will hold another classified bipartisan briefing on election threats next week.

More corruption. It is insane that the courts or anyone will not stand up and say "FUCK YOU!"

‘Unseemly and unfortunate’: Trump’s name brands millions of Amazon refund checks

Former FTC officials say crediting the president in such a fashion is unprecedented.

By Alfred Ng

Millions of Americans are expected to receive a settlement check from Amazon credited to “President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission” in an unprecedented move coming weeks before the midterm elections.

The checks, part of a $2.5 billion settlement Amazon agreed to in 2025 for allegedly deceiving customers into signing up for Prime subscriptions, mark the first time an FTC refund has attributed the payments to a specific president, two former FTC officials told POLITICO. A notice with the checks in question uses the phrase “President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission” three times.

“The enclosed check is the result of a settlement reached by President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with Amazon.com […],” reads the notice for the check, which is issued by Amazon.

The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Settlement checks have gone out since last November with the attribution, and a new batch of checks is going out after a federal judge signed an order expanding who’s eligible for a payment, which can be as much as to $200. At least 24.9 million checks have been sent while 7 million were cashed as of September, according to a court filing.

The former FTC officials told POLITICO the language on the checks politicizes a consumer protection agency that’s supposed to be apolitical.

“I am not aware of any pre-Trump instance of the communication to the consumer receiving payment mentioning the name of a president,” Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University and a former general counsel at the FTC from 1995 to 1997, told POLITICO. “Making such a claim is unseemly and unfortunate. I regret very much that this once-proud independent agency is now being used to promote the Trump brand.”

While Trump’s name on the checks is not likely to shape voters’ views going into the midterm elections, Bill Kovacic, who chaired the FTC during the George W. Bush administration, said it could potentially affect perceptions of the agency in future cases.

“In one sense, it’s trivial, and who cares? On the other hand, it diminishes the aura of professionalism that is useful to the agency when it performs traditional law enforcement functions,” he said.

Kovacic noted that tying the FTC to the executive office is a new norm set under the Trump administration.

The FTC had largely operated independent of the White House until the Supreme Court this summer expanded the president’s power over such agencies. The agency has frequently described itself as the “Trump-Vance FTC” in its public statements.

“It is settled law that President Trump is the leader of the executive branch and his FTC is responsible for this historic settlement,” an FTC spokesperson said in a statement to POLITICO.

A review of refund checks distributed by the FTC during the current Trump and previous Biden administrations shows the Amazon payouts are the only ones in which a president is credited. That includes settlements with companies including Epic Games, Grubhub, Credit Karma and Walmart.

While Amazon and the FTC reached a settlement last year, critics note the Biden administration filed the lawsuit in 2023 alleging the company deceived users into signing up for Prime subscriptions and made it difficult to cancel automated renewals.

Orders Trump to sit for deposition

Judge orders Trump to sit for deposition he canceled in BBC lawsuit

A judge warned the president’s lawyers that his lawsuit could be thrown out if he doesn’t comply with court orders.

By Josh Gerstein

A judge overseeing President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC ordered the president to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, though that deadline could slip.

During a hearing Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett also warned the president’s lawyers that if he doesn’t comply with court orders to turn over records relevant to the case, the suit could be thrown out.

Lett said she was “not satisfied” that Trump’s team had conducted a complete search for documents related to the Jan. 6, 2021 speech Trump has accused the BBC of distorting through its editing of a documentary that aired in the United Kingdom in 2024.

“It just strains credulity that there has been a thorough search,” Lett said. “I do not find that the burden has been undertaken on the plaintiffs side.”

Trump’s seven-hour deposition, which was initially set to take place Oct. 16 before his lawyers canceled it, could be delayed further until January if U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz extends a deadline that currently requires all discovery in the case to wrap up by Dec. 18.

Lett rejected a request from Trump’s attorneys to avoid video of his deposition, but ordered that the recording can only be viewed for now by lawyers working on the case.

Trump sued last December, complaining that the BBC documentary spliced together two portions of his famous Ellipse speech to make it sound as if he exhorted the crowd to engage in violence at the Capitol. After Trump threatened to sue, the BBC apologized for the possibility that the editing conveyed a misleading impression of the speech, while insisting that the presentation did not violate any legal standard.