For Republicans, decency is not on the ballot

Do you know how I know Republicans up for election this midterm are going to get their collective skin peeled off and handed to them when it’s all over? Because these hardhearted, ignorant SOBs have no common sense, no human dignity and no honor.

The GOP just loyally follow their surely-going-to-Hell president down the primrose path without regard for what people think of them, what they do, and what they refuse to apologize for. It is some of the most ignorant behavior in or out of politics I’ve ever seen.

Take the governor’s race in Ohio, for example. By now you know the sad, sorry story. The Democratic candidate, Dr.  Amy Acton, former director of the Ohio Dept. of Health, had been slightly leading in that race against the Republican, former 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. So what does Ramaswamy do to even the score? He puts out a new one-minute television campaign ad that features Amy Acton’s long estranged mother, Donna Arthur, someone Acton hasn’t seen for at least 50 years, calling the Democrat a “liar” and disputing Acton’s claim that as a 12-year-old child, she was removed from her mother’s custody after being repeatedly sexually abused by her stepfather, and that she and her little brother were forced to live in a tent before that separation.

Let me repeat that in more blunt terms. The Republican in the Ohio governor’s race finds the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, and entices her to get on camera to call her daughter, an alleged child rape victim, a “liar” for all the world to hear, in hopes that voters would be so disturbed by it, they would vote against her.

Weaponizing your opponent’s own mother and personal agony in a political campaign. That was low enough, until the press dug further into the story and discovered that Democrat Amy Acton is not only an alleged child rape victim, but that her criminal stepfather was indicted by a grand jury for being her alleged rapist. He apparently skipped the state of Ohio to escape prosecution and his wife - her mother - chose to leave with him, leaving her two children - young Amy and her little brother - behind, never to be seen again until now.

Acton’s stepfather died in 2004. He was never prosecuted for the alleged crime.

 "This is probably the worst politics you could imagine, and it's bringing a lot of attention to Amy Acton's story, her narrative," Republican CNN commentator Scott Jennings surprisingly, but rightly said.

While most normal people and a handful of Republicans denounced Ramaswamy and his campaign for running the disgusting ad, most of the GOP kept their cowardly mouths shut, except for you-know-who.

Vice President J.D. Vance, and then later Pres. Trump, gave Ramaswamy’s ad their full-throated endorsement, carelessly thinking they were displaying some kind of macho courage under fire.

“It’s a mother speaking badly against Amy Acton, and to me it’s very easy,” Trump told reporters at the White House last week, mock thanking God for the ad. “If it were my mother speaking badly about me, you’d be making it the number one story in the news.”

Damn skippy!

And what about Vance? What demented pearl of “wisdom” did our vice president offer when asked for comment?

"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.” 

Goodness, what is it with these clowns?

I commend the current Republican governor of Ohio, Mike Dewine, and the precious few other Republicans who had the good sense to at least condemn the cruel and intrusive ad (though DeWine still refused to yank his endorsement of Ramaswamy). It’s bad enough that Trump and the Republicans are still being tagged with trying to coverup the Epstein files situation and what Trump’s alleged role in that whole sleazy affair may be. So to behave like this towards an alleged child rape victim who just happens to be a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, is just mind-blowing.

So where does this lower-than-low, political sewer-swamp situation stand now?

Well, that bit of foolish Republican bluster has wildly backfired on the Ramaswamy campaign just days before the November 3rd midterm election, pushing Acton solidly in front, most likely to stay. Showing no shame, he has vowed to spend $4 million more to make sure the ad is seen by more people online and on television. But the tremendous negative national press attention has countered any advantage he thought he had in the race.

This sad Republican nonsense has gotten so bad, The Cleveland Plains Deal, one of Ohio’s largest newspapers, has reversed it’s “no endorsement” policy, saying it could not “remain silent” about Ramaswamy’s disgusting ad “crossed the line” of decency.

The Dealer has now endorsed Dr. Acton.

This from the Washington Post about how Americans feel about this sort of thing:

Polls show that voters are disheartened by the tone of American politics, including Republicans who have backed Trump. A Gallup survey released late last year found 69 percent of Americans believe the Republican Party and Republicans have gone too far with the use of inflammatory language to attack their opponents, while 60 percent believe the same of Democrats and the Democratic Party.

"Our politics is a reflection of us, and I think that is where we are at as a country, and so our campaigns are reflecting that," said Jason Savage, a longtime Republican operative in Maine who used to run the Maine Republican Party. He argued that too many Republican candidates try "to replicate something they saw before."

Ya think?

Now get this - after catching hell for his one minute campaign ad featuring Dr. Acton’s mother, Ramaswamy has now edited it down to thirty seconds, making it worse. Now we see the mother, Donna Arthur, saying the following:             

"I love my daughter, and Amy is a liar. I saw her lying about her opponent. That's why I'm speaking up to you now. Don't vote for people who lie. Don't let her become your governor. If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself. It will only get worse."

Former President Barack Obama, a decent Democrat in my book, has said the following while recently endorsing Dr. Acton - "There's got to be something inside you where you just say, 'No office is worth stooping that low.”

I pray when this midterm election is over, Ramaswamy will have learned his lesson about dirty ads in political campaigns, and that he loses very hard and fast. Such an unprincipled character does not deserve to win a public office anywhere I can think of.

To say the least, there have been plenty of recent incidents proving that when it comes to Republican candidates, decency and truth are nowhere on the ballot. Michael Whatley’s Senate campaign’s false claims that former Governor Roy Cooper was responsible for releasing criminals from prison who then went on to kill people. Whatley’s campaign couldn’t find any actual cases in North Carolina to prove that nonsense true, so they went to South Carolina.

What a baldface liar!

The clearly derogatory terms used to refer to Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to stoke an unjustified fear of Muslim-Americans, with Trump calling him “a jihadist” and “terrorist.” The record shows El-Sayed has never has been either of those.

Trump’s Dept. of Justice raiding Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home weeks before her re-election and openly questioning her naturalized citizenship and patriotism. This is as unAmerican as it gets, all because Trump considers Rep. Omar a political enemy.

To insult to injury, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has reportedly given upwards of $158 million if not more just in September alone to the Ken Paxton for Senate campaign in Texas. It’s no secret that Paxton is by far one of the most crooked Republican politicians in the nation. Plus Trump is campaigning there repeatedly because no matter what happens elsewhere, Paxton is his boy, and Trump has too much ego wrapped up in that man.

So why are Republican candidates like Whatley and Paxton trying to mimic Trump and Vance?

This from CNN:

The most obvious explanation for this ominous turn in the campaign, beyond Trump’s propensity for such dark arts, is that the Republicans lack a better story to tell. 

In other words, these people are not capable of offering good government, or even a concept of good government, and don’t even try.

No, my friend. Look hard at your ballot. You won’t find honesty or decency anywhere near where a Republican candidate’s name is printed. They’re all too enamored thinking they can duplicate Trump’s negative success despite what the polls say. And to be fair, Republicans were up to this nonsense long before Trump ever got into office.

  You have just a few days left to make it clear that you’re tired of their dishonesty, tired of their corruption, tired of their lies. You’re a taxpayer, and you deserve honesty and truth in government. That’s what you’re voting for. And you should make that very clear to any Democrats you vote for too. Trump has shown all of us that we, as a citizenry, deserve better than what Republicans have been giving us.

And I mean all Republicans, especially those who have thrown in with a crooked power-hungry maniac who is twisting our beloved country into a pretzel just to serve his legacy.

You’re doing very well at the early voting booth so far, America and North Carolina. Keep voting to take back our nation from the corrupt forces of evil.

Vote for decency if you haven’t already! Do it because it is the only way Americans deserve how to truly live!