THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2026
Unless it's President Trump: Vivek Ramaswamy's gruesome ad has shown us how low things can go in this, the era of the sitting president.
We'll extend credit to those who have known what to do about the gruesome ad. Here is Ohio's two-term (Republican) governor, Mike DeWine, speaking to reporters today, with tape at Mediaite:
DEWINE (10/21/26): The ad, on its face, is deeply, deeply troubling. But when you know the rest of the story, when you know the backstory, when you know that the husband of the mom was indicted by a grand jury after hearing testimony, and then he took off along with the mother, and the children never saw, I guess, the mother after—when you know that, it just, to me, makes it more serious. It makes it just more wrong.
So it’s wrong to run this ad. And even at this late time, my friend saw the ad run this morning on TV. I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down. It’s just—it's just wrong.
So the sitting governor has said. Meanwhile, Mika Brzezinski was superb again on Morning Joe, describing the ad as "arguably the most depraved, monstrous and evil ad in American politics," and as "a chilling act of depravity."
Perhaps the strangest assessments have come from Vice President Vance, speaking yesterday in Cincinnati and then a bit later in Sharonville, Ohio. Here was his statement in Cincy, delivered right around noon:
VANCE (10/21/26): Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern. What is my concern is who's going to govern the next generation of American government. Who is going to win the Senate race in the state of Ohio. Who's going to win the governor's race in the state of Ohio.
And I got to be honest that, when I see Republicans, people in my party, reacting so strongly, especially elected officials— Look, have the opinion you want to have on that ad. If you think it was too tough, say it was too tough. If you think it wasn’t tough enough, say that.
But I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country, who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.
If you think the ad wasn't tough enough, you should simply say it?
Citoyens, please! This isn't a question of how "tough" the ad was. It's a question of the fact that the ad was grossly misleading concerning a series of sexual assaults committed against the Democratic candidate for governor when she was as young as nine years old.
Concerning Vance, is there anything he won't say? Later, and astoundingly, he even said this:
VANCE (10/21/26): 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. And my message, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple. Whatever you think of any of the TV advertisements, focus on the substance and focus on the facts.
Ramaswamy had the audacity to call it out like it is—to call Amy Acton a liar? It won't be easy to solve our nation's ongoing crisis of values.
The sitting president's slippery statement wasn't a whole lot better. To see these disordered men as they defend Ramaswamy's behavior, you can just click here.
UPDATE: According to the sitting president, the ad is true all the way down.
ReplyDeleteAmy Acton is a motherless child. This makes her deeply troubled, irreparably damaged. She needs to withdraw, go home, and see a psychiatrist.
My favorite blogger Bob Somerby taught me that.
God, you're an idiot.
DeleteTriggered, Hillary?
DeleteThat was God's comment, not Hillary's.
DeleteAmy Acton is a 61 year old woman who has proven her ability to govern in a series of responsible jobs, including physician and head of the Dept of Health.
DeleteThis echoes the statements of men who rape a woman and then call her too soiled to be any man's wife. Damaged goods is not a thing. We all have our life problems -- what matters is how we deal with them. Amy Acton's accomplishments are impressive and nothing about her suggests she wouldn't be a fine Governor.
Somerby thinks that childhood traumas explain adult misbehavior. He is wrong about that. Trump is not a "lost boy" but an adult man who has refused to conform his behavior to society's norms, over and over. He belongs in jail. Most children cope with misfortunate without becoming a miscreant like these Republicans (Vance, Trump, Ramaswamy, Epstein, Lindsey Graham, Elon Musk, Matt Gaetz, Hegseth, Bessant, Max Miller, Brandon Herrera, Noem, Mace, Mullin, and so many others.
DeleteTrump has collected people who reflect his own pathology. None of them is normal.
Cecelia agrees with Trump, Vance, and Ramaswamy.
ReplyDeleteNot one ounce of decency between the three of them.
DeleteOr four, who's counting assholes?
DeleteBetween Trump, Ramaswamy, Vance and Acton, it is easy to see who the real liars are.
ReplyDeleteThis ad plays on the idea that when women make sexual abuse allegations they are always lying, usually to get attention. Somerby said this himself about Stormy Daniels, Chanel Miller, and other women who have participated in #metoo to redress wrongs against themselves committed by famous or rich men. It is a tenet of the manosphere that women always lie about sex. That is the theme playing out in the Cornell Rape case where there is no doubt at all that a gang rape took place. Men online are claiming that Jane Doe was a whore who changed her mind after the sex had already happened and just wanted some sluttish attention
ReplyDeleteThe mother is upset because she doesn't want others to know she failed to protect her daughter, choosing her husband over her children. So she has perhaps twisted things around in her mind, or is blatantly lying herself, about documented events in Acton's childhood. The prosecution and the removal from her mother's care are both documented. It is not possible to believe Acton made that up, unless someone is so entrenched as a Republican that they don't care what they say to win, or don't want to know what is true, or both. We know that Trump and Vance will make up and repeat any lie in order to win. We saw that with the Haitians eating pets story, which Vance admits he concocted.
DeleteDon't vote for liars.
Delete"The sitting president's slippery statement wasn't a whole lot better."
ReplyDeleteThe president's statement isn't slippery. It is ugly and wrong. When Somerby calls him slippery, he implies that Trump is being foxy or cagey, doing something clever, not being a failure as a human being who shouldn't have the ability to influence anyone's life, much less our nation's well-being.
"“Frankly, anybody whose mother spoke about a daughter in that way would normally lead to the daughter being precluded from serving in Office, let alone the Office of Governor. If my mother, the legendary Mary MacLeod Trump, said anything bad about me, the Fake News would play it up,” Trump continued..."
DeleteThe fact that someone's mother is saying negative things is only important if the mother's complaints are true, not if they are a pack of lies. If Trump's mother (who is no longer alive) had said something bad about Trump, the press would play it up, but also fact-check the statements and tell readers whether the complaints were true or not.
Trump lies all the time. He doesn't consider that a bad thing in his own world. It is ridiculous that he would think Any Acton couldn't be Governor because her mom says she is a liar. That is a virtue to Trump.
The only thing Acton's mother can testify to is what happened when she was a child and removed from her mother's care. There is independent documentation and objective evidence about what happened then, so Acton's statement is supported by facts. Her mother's accusatioon is not. Her mother doesn't even say what happened -- she only repeats that she knows that Amy Acton is a liar. That is an empirical question that should be adjudicated using facts, such as the prosecution for abuse, the removal of the children, and the flight of the mother and Acton's stepfather to avoid conviction. Acton has the facts on her side. Her mother is most likely being paid, getting revenge on her daughter, trying to clear her name, or perhaps has even forgotten what happened in denial of her own culpability.
This ad might as well just say "Vote for Vivek" and nothing else, because it has no substance at all, other than Acton's mother's empty statement saying nothing more than "Acton Lies" -- something that is manifestly untrue. So now the question is, how stupid are the voters? Ramaswamy, Vance and Trump all believe the voters are very stupid indeed.