Remember, it has to be consistent with the Hillbilly Yale Educated Venture Capitalist Funding Family Farm Subjugation to Tech Overlord Plantation Owners Aligned With Anti-Immigrant Christian Nationalists Opposing Immigration While Married to a Hindu Daughter of Immigrants.
So many Hillbillies are really suburban golfers. We need to get some of the earthworms used to turn bullshit into fertilizer and set ‘em loose ON JD. Thanks to the Iranpocalypse, the farmers who sold their land to JD’s AcreTraitor investment and leased it back will face high diesel and fertilizer costs in planting season and may not be able to pay the rent, forfeiting family farms to wealthy Silicon Valley “Valleybillies.”
St. Patricks in NYC qualifies. But that's where the elites go to worship. U of San Diego has a really nice one, but that's where the beautiful people go, so Mr. Fatty Turdcake has to pick a ugly generic one.
Thanks for this post. I figured this out about Track AIPAC when I saw someone claim that AIPAC had spent as much money as Elon Musk getting Trump elected. It sounded just completely wrong. It turned out they were counting the Adelsons as "AIPAC."
AIPAC ranks relatively low among national lobbying groups in terms of spending. I am not a defender of or apologizer for the Israeli government, but it starts to reek of "all powerful Jewish puppetmaster" trope
I hate AIPAC and Anti-AIPAC zealots about the same. I hate AIPAC because it is a PAC. I hate the Anti-AIPAC zealots because they are fundamentally hypocrites. Were they warring against PAC money in principle, that all PAC money is corrupting, I would applaud but they just don't like the political perspective of THIS PAC and the citizens it represents.
The childish presumption that any candidate is under the thumb of an organization because they get a couple of thousand dollars from that organization is ridiculous. None of these donations are secret and since they are transparent they really do touch on free speech.
Of more concern to me is the hidden money flowing from the dark side. The kind of money that invented and marketed JD Vance who has no organic and natural constituency in Ohio or anywhere else outside of Silicon Valley.
The cover selection is to underscore its Christian orientation without signaling his own choice to become Catholic as many of his supporters, to some degree or other, consider the Roman Catholic Church "The Whore of Babylon." Catholic imagery would have been risky.
The title "Communion" is head scratcher because that is how Protestants talk about "The Mass" or "Eucharist" in normative Catholic vernacular. I am interested in his theological perspective and how he has moved from whatever he was into one who believes that in Transubstantiation, Papal Infallibility and the moral obligation to defer to the Magisterium on issues of morality like the preferential option for the poor, upholding the human dignity of all people after they leave the womb, and telling the truth even if secular authorities threaten dire consequences.
Bottom line until he demonstrates his Christian and Catholic commitments are manifested in the corporal and spiritual "acts of mercy" I will simply assume he is just establishing his brand and is mostly a "Cafeteria Catholic" like most Catholic politicians left or right.
Griff - I lapsed many decades ago, a term I learned as a kid along with 'fallen away' - which always sounded worse to me - lapsed at least implies possible renewal, like re-upping a driver license to heaven. All to say, I claim no cred to evaluate the VP's Catholicity. I will say it's always been odd to me that he doesn't market aspects of his involvement with his faith as part of his political persona. Politicians do that routinely. I get your point that some christians don't think catholics really qualify, but middle of the road image-wise, wouldn't there be mileage in a photo of him & his smiling fam on the steps of St. Whomever in his Cinci area neighborhood (like many politicians do, regardless of regularity of attendance), or maybe at a Friday fish fry or spaghetti dinner, church car wash, something? Anything? Any sightings of him meeting his obligation to attend Mass weekly (+holy days)? In most ways he doesn't appear to be terribly shy about expressing opinions, but seems pretty close to the vest re: routine trappings of church. Not to mention showing the fruits as you mentioned (as did Matthew 7:16)
Vance has only one principle, his own self-advancement. His stated religion is on the down shift in popularity within the camp of his non-Catholic supporters and those he wishes to gain, so he will push it away and likely, ultimately, jettison it for what will curry him favour and accrete power. His beliefs, such as they are, are water that hasn't yet found its grounded level. And he will change his name and anything else, that in others is defining, as often as it takes, to keep ahead of whatever it is about himself he's trying to outrun, to get where his greed and ambition are trying to go.
Joe is so right to be concerned about this group's amateurish lack of accuracy. Its upsetting. So you can imagine how pissed of I am that my local Congressman got his seat purchased for him with 22 million dollars of AIPAC and related PAC money.
People get upset about different things. I hope they used the right colors on this joker.
u get it. it’s not the methods but the sentiment that i appreciate. it was unthinkable years ago that we could arrive at a place culturally where advocacy for palestinian lives would matter to the average american at all.
Uh oh, watch out. You'll incur the wrath of some Hasan Parker or Walter Matheson fan foaming at the mouth saying you're a Corporate Democrat or Israel shill just for writing about Track AIPAC
Great reporting as always, Joe. Just out of curiosity, b/c I wasn't paying attention at the time and now don't want to try and research it, what building are you referring to when you say, "I was the first reporter in the building to check in at the press table"?
If only we could rewind to that day and choose an alternative future. I saw a sign for No Kings that said, "America had a choice of two paths; it chose the psychopath."
I think part of the problem with focusing so myopically on how much money candidates and elected officials take from AIPAC is that it ignores some of the more potentially consequential tactics they use. It’s not just about funding the people they like, but their relentless attacks and oppo research against candidates they don’t like.
But by far the biggest source of discomfort for me personally is the fact that I simply cannot support any American politician or political candidate accepting any level of support from an organization acting on behalf of a foreign country’s interests. I don’t want to see an organization representing Chinese, French, Polish, or Guatemalan interests lobbying my representatives either. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to see AIPAC overtly attempting to affect election outcomes in a way most countries have to do discreetly via bot farms and disinformation campaigns.
I would never describe myself as “America first” in the Trumpy sense by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect that our elected representatives are basing their decisions and policies on what is best for the country and for their constituents, not what is best for Israel. The optics of taking money from any advocacy group are always fraught, but when the advocacy group is specifically acting in the interest of another country, it creates an egregious conflict of interest. This has been going on for so long that we’ve all just normalized it and accepted it, but it really should NOT be accepted. This is one of those things I believe future generations will look back on and wonder how we ever accepted this. Track AIPAC, to me, is not about persuasion. Americans have already been persuaded that this “special relationship” needs to be challenged. It’s a symptom of the fact that more Americans than ever do not support Israel. It is not the cause for Americans turning against Israel.
the knesset passed a law yesterday legalizing the execution (by hanging) of palestinians who they deem “terrorists” — the same title that was bestowed ridiculously onto thousands of children in gaza to justify their murder-by-bombing/sniper. i’m not saying track aipacs methods aren’t stupid or arbitrary, but it’s hardly the biggest issue re: the israel lobby and the american lawmakers who “revere” the nation today.
Even worse the death penalty only applies to Palestinians/Arabs and not to Jewish Israelis who commit similar crimes such as the terrorism Israeli settlers engage in the West Bank.
it’s a humanitarian crisis. terribly, few care at all. i genuinely believe many people in the US have been raised and socialized so as not to see arabs as human.
When Barnes & Noble sent me a promotional email to pre-order J.D. Vance's book, I wondered, "What could I have bought from B&N that would make them think I'm interested in Vance's book?" I can't think of anything, so they must have sent that e-mail to every B&N customer in the country.
So JD goes off and loses his way making a fortune w/the nihilist live-forever we-are-gods tech bros, then finds his Catholic faith. Did he give up his secular fortune? No? That's kinda Jesus' message. Explicitly.
Well, I didn't say that. I wish there was a groundswell of humanitarian concern about the rights of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians etc. I rather doubt it. There is plenty of that, but the real center of this, between the sincerely concerned and the blatantly bigoted, are the ones who are sick of spending their money for this stuff, only to have it come back in the form of bribes to our public officials. The second part of this is galling. The cliche is that we don't have health care [and might be having it cut to pay for the war!] but we are paying to defend a country which already has universal health care and cheap college tuition. People aren't that generous. If we weren't losing this war, it would be far more popular. After all, that's what made Vietnam unpopular - not the naked little girl screaming in pain after a napalm attack.
If using a stock image of a Methodist church for the cover of his Catholic biography isn't peak JD Vance...I don't know what is.
In Vance’s defense, it’s not like there many super photogenic Catholic Churches he could use, right?
Remember, it has to be consistent with the Hillbilly Yale Educated Venture Capitalist Funding Family Farm Subjugation to Tech Overlord Plantation Owners Aligned With Anti-Immigrant Christian Nationalists Opposing Immigration While Married to a Hindu Daughter of Immigrants.
Which is a long way of sayin’ it’s gotta be a pretty church someplace JD never lived that looks like the Appalachia, the place Vance didn’t live in as a child. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jd-vance-middle-class/
So many Hillbillies are really suburban golfers. We need to get some of the earthworms used to turn bullshit into fertilizer and set ‘em loose ON JD. Thanks to the Iranpocalypse, the farmers who sold their land to JD’s AcreTraitor investment and leased it back will face high diesel and fertilizer costs in planting season and may not be able to pay the rent, forfeiting family farms to wealthy Silicon Valley “Valleybillies.”
https://civileats.com/2024/09/18/jd-vance-invested-in-acretrader-heres-why-that-matters/
https://www.kwch.com/2026/03/06/kansas-farmers-face-rising-fertilizer-diesel-costs-war-iran-drives-up-prices/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jd-vance-s-2028-strategy-be-even-worse-than-trump/ar-AA1STw9A
St. Patricks in NYC qualifies. But that's where the elites go to worship. U of San Diego has a really nice one, but that's where the beautiful people go, so Mr. Fatty Turdcake has to pick a ugly generic one.
National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is like five minutes from the VP residence in DC. No need to travel far.
😂
Thanks for this post. I figured this out about Track AIPAC when I saw someone claim that AIPAC had spent as much money as Elon Musk getting Trump elected. It sounded just completely wrong. It turned out they were counting the Adelsons as "AIPAC."
AIPAC ranks relatively low among national lobbying groups in terms of spending. I am not a defender of or apologizer for the Israeli government, but it starts to reek of "all powerful Jewish puppetmaster" trope
I hate AIPAC and Anti-AIPAC zealots about the same. I hate AIPAC because it is a PAC. I hate the Anti-AIPAC zealots because they are fundamentally hypocrites. Were they warring against PAC money in principle, that all PAC money is corrupting, I would applaud but they just don't like the political perspective of THIS PAC and the citizens it represents.
The childish presumption that any candidate is under the thumb of an organization because they get a couple of thousand dollars from that organization is ridiculous. None of these donations are secret and since they are transparent they really do touch on free speech.
Of more concern to me is the hidden money flowing from the dark side. The kind of money that invented and marketed JD Vance who has no organic and natural constituency in Ohio or anywhere else outside of Silicon Valley.
The cover selection is to underscore its Christian orientation without signaling his own choice to become Catholic as many of his supporters, to some degree or other, consider the Roman Catholic Church "The Whore of Babylon." Catholic imagery would have been risky.
The title "Communion" is head scratcher because that is how Protestants talk about "The Mass" or "Eucharist" in normative Catholic vernacular. I am interested in his theological perspective and how he has moved from whatever he was into one who believes that in Transubstantiation, Papal Infallibility and the moral obligation to defer to the Magisterium on issues of morality like the preferential option for the poor, upholding the human dignity of all people after they leave the womb, and telling the truth even if secular authorities threaten dire consequences.
Bottom line until he demonstrates his Christian and Catholic commitments are manifested in the corporal and spiritual "acts of mercy" I will simply assume he is just establishing his brand and is mostly a "Cafeteria Catholic" like most Catholic politicians left or right.
Griff - I lapsed many decades ago, a term I learned as a kid along with 'fallen away' - which always sounded worse to me - lapsed at least implies possible renewal, like re-upping a driver license to heaven. All to say, I claim no cred to evaluate the VP's Catholicity. I will say it's always been odd to me that he doesn't market aspects of his involvement with his faith as part of his political persona. Politicians do that routinely. I get your point that some christians don't think catholics really qualify, but middle of the road image-wise, wouldn't there be mileage in a photo of him & his smiling fam on the steps of St. Whomever in his Cinci area neighborhood (like many politicians do, regardless of regularity of attendance), or maybe at a Friday fish fry or spaghetti dinner, church car wash, something? Anything? Any sightings of him meeting his obligation to attend Mass weekly (+holy days)? In most ways he doesn't appear to be terribly shy about expressing opinions, but seems pretty close to the vest re: routine trappings of church. Not to mention showing the fruits as you mentioned (as did Matthew 7:16)
In the Anglican tradition we speak of people leaving the Church as "abandoning the communion."
Vance has only one principle, his own self-advancement. His stated religion is on the down shift in popularity within the camp of his non-Catholic supporters and those he wishes to gain, so he will push it away and likely, ultimately, jettison it for what will curry him favour and accrete power. His beliefs, such as they are, are water that hasn't yet found its grounded level. And he will change his name and anything else, that in others is defining, as often as it takes, to keep ahead of whatever it is about himself he's trying to outrun, to get where his greed and ambition are trying to go.
Joe is so right to be concerned about this group's amateurish lack of accuracy. Its upsetting. So you can imagine how pissed of I am that my local Congressman got his seat purchased for him with 22 million dollars of AIPAC and related PAC money.
People get upset about different things. I hope they used the right colors on this joker.
u get it. it’s not the methods but the sentiment that i appreciate. it was unthinkable years ago that we could arrive at a place culturally where advocacy for palestinian lives would matter to the average american at all.
Uh oh, watch out. You'll incur the wrath of some Hasan Parker or Walter Matheson fan foaming at the mouth saying you're a Corporate Democrat or Israel shill just for writing about Track AIPAC
Wonder if JD realizes how much magavangelicals tend to loathe the "whore of Rome". What a dummy.
Great reporting as always, Joe. Just out of curiosity, b/c I wasn't paying attention at the time and now don't want to try and research it, what building are you referring to when you say, "I was the first reporter in the building to check in at the press table"?
If only we could rewind to that day and choose an alternative future. I saw a sign for No Kings that said, "America had a choice of two paths; it chose the psychopath."
One of the many joys of participating in No Kings is seeing the creativity of so many neighbors!
I think part of the problem with focusing so myopically on how much money candidates and elected officials take from AIPAC is that it ignores some of the more potentially consequential tactics they use. It’s not just about funding the people they like, but their relentless attacks and oppo research against candidates they don’t like.
But by far the biggest source of discomfort for me personally is the fact that I simply cannot support any American politician or political candidate accepting any level of support from an organization acting on behalf of a foreign country’s interests. I don’t want to see an organization representing Chinese, French, Polish, or Guatemalan interests lobbying my representatives either. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to see AIPAC overtly attempting to affect election outcomes in a way most countries have to do discreetly via bot farms and disinformation campaigns.
I would never describe myself as “America first” in the Trumpy sense by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect that our elected representatives are basing their decisions and policies on what is best for the country and for their constituents, not what is best for Israel. The optics of taking money from any advocacy group are always fraught, but when the advocacy group is specifically acting in the interest of another country, it creates an egregious conflict of interest. This has been going on for so long that we’ve all just normalized it and accepted it, but it really should NOT be accepted. This is one of those things I believe future generations will look back on and wonder how we ever accepted this. Track AIPAC, to me, is not about persuasion. Americans have already been persuaded that this “special relationship” needs to be challenged. It’s a symptom of the fact that more Americans than ever do not support Israel. It is not the cause for Americans turning against Israel.
the knesset passed a law yesterday legalizing the execution (by hanging) of palestinians who they deem “terrorists” — the same title that was bestowed ridiculously onto thousands of children in gaza to justify their murder-by-bombing/sniper. i’m not saying track aipacs methods aren’t stupid or arbitrary, but it’s hardly the biggest issue re: the israel lobby and the american lawmakers who “revere” the nation today.
Even worse the death penalty only applies to Palestinians/Arabs and not to Jewish Israelis who commit similar crimes such as the terrorism Israeli settlers engage in the West Bank.
it’s a humanitarian crisis. terribly, few care at all. i genuinely believe many people in the US have been raised and socialized so as not to see arabs as human.
When Barnes & Noble sent me a promotional email to pre-order J.D. Vance's book, I wondered, "What could I have bought from B&N that would make them think I'm interested in Vance's book?" I can't think of anything, so they must have sent that e-mail to every B&N customer in the country.
So JD goes off and loses his way making a fortune w/the nihilist live-forever we-are-gods tech bros, then finds his Catholic faith. Did he give up his secular fortune? No? That's kinda Jesus' message. Explicitly.
Regarding those 6 bills to regulate prediction markets and their potential for passage... anyone care to lay odds? 🎲
<ouch!> ...ok yeah, I asked for it
Too bad the book won't be out in time for Good Friday and the emptying of the soul. Maybe next year.
Doug - JD may have checked off that emptying quite some time ago but maybe not in the way you're thinking?
Well, I didn't say that. I wish there was a groundswell of humanitarian concern about the rights of Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians etc. I rather doubt it. There is plenty of that, but the real center of this, between the sincerely concerned and the blatantly bigoted, are the ones who are sick of spending their money for this stuff, only to have it come back in the form of bribes to our public officials. The second part of this is galling. The cliche is that we don't have health care [and might be having it cut to pay for the war!] but we are paying to defend a country which already has universal health care and cheap college tuition. People aren't that generous. If we weren't losing this war, it would be far more popular. After all, that's what made Vietnam unpopular - not the naked little girl screaming in pain after a napalm attack.
But not a word about Congressional insider trading or executive market manipulation.