Tag: ohio
J.D. Vance

Vance Will Keep Spreading Racist Lies That Harm His Home State

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance doesn’t care that his racist lies about Haitian immigrants are endangering his own constituents—he’s going to keep telling them anyway.

That was his message to supporters at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday when he complained about the media describing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield as legal—which they are.

“And what they mean is that Kamala Harris used two separate programs: mass parole and temporary protected status,” Vance said. “She used two programs to wave a wand and to say, ‘We're not going to deport those people here.’ Well, if Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says, ‘These people are now here legally,’ I'm still going to call them an illegal alien."

First of all, Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t wave any wands, magic or otherwise, because she’s not president and has no such authority. Which Vance, who is seeking that very same office, should know.

But worse, Vance knows full well that those immigrants are here legally and he knows full well that his continued smears of them have dangerous consequences, with bomb threats, school and building closures, and a general atmosphere of fear throughout immigrant communities across the country.

But he doesn’t care about any of that. He’s running with Donald Trump, and spreading fear and hate about immigrants is a major plank of his platform. So Vance is going to keep on doing it, no matter who gets hurt—including his very own fellow Ohioans.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Right-Wing Media Praise Vance For Spreading Toxic Myths About Migrants

Right-Wing Media Praise Vance For Spreading Toxic Myths About Migrants

Right-wing websites are celebrating Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance for spreading a longstanding xenophobic trope in a CNN interview that “communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed” in Springfield, Ohio, because of Haitian immigrants in the city. This falsehood follows his debunked smear that Haitian residents of the city were eating people’s pets, a lie reportedly linked to recent bomb threats.

Vance had already spread this smear in a September 10 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. But it was Vance repeating the falsehood in a CNN interview shortly after the ABC News presidential debate which right-wing websites are celebrating.

SEN. JD VANCE: And again, whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be, Kaitlan, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in. Health care costs are up, housing costs are up, communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris' border policies have done.

Vance repeated this smear in a September 13 post on X as well.

Right-wing blogs have responded to Vance's misinformation with widespread praise.

A Townhall post which quoted his smear that Haitian immigrants are widely spreading disease in Springfield declared his CNN appearance “masterful,” adding, “Bravo, sir.” The Media Research Center’s NewsBusters embedded a clip of Vance’s CNN interview, declaring: “JD Vance SCHOOLS CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Immigration and Cat Memes.” And RedState included a transcript of Vance’s disease smear in its post congratulating him for making “a very real and damning point about the media,” adding: “When you come at JD Vance, you better get ready for a fight. CNN's Kaitlan Collins certainly wasn't.”

For all of their congratulations to Vance over continuing to push this smear, these right-wing blogs missed the reality that Vance is simply lying. Making it up.

Data from the Ohio Department of Health and Clark County Combined Health District — which Vance presumably could easily obtain, given that he’s one of the state’s senators — shows that there are barely any new cases of either TB or HIV in Clark County, of which Springfield is the county seat.

The most recent data available, for 2018-22, shows that in 2018, Clark County reported 10 new HIV infections. Six new HIV infections were reported there in 2019, six again in 2020, 12 in 2021, and 13 in 2022. These five years of data reveal that between 2018-22, the county had a cumulative total of 322 HIV diagnoses — while the state’s cumulative total during this time period was 39,729 HIV diagnoses. To put it simply, Clark County, which includes Springfield, represented less than 1% of all HIV diagnoses in Ohio during this time period.

A December 2022 report of TB cases in Clark County prepared for the Clark County Combined Health District goes back a full decade, showing several incidences of 1, 2, 3, and sometimes zero cases of active TB in the entire county each year.

Clark County Combined Health District Commissioner Chris Cook told NBC News that Vance’s claim of a surge in diseases there is false: “Overall, we have not seen a substantial increase in all reportable communicable diseases. In fact, if you look at all reportable communicable diseases together (minus COVID) for the year ending 2023 you will see that we are at our lowest rate in Clark County since 2016.” And according to Bruce Vanderhoff, the director of Ohio’s Health Department, the state isn’t seeing a “measurable or discernible increase” in vaccine-preventable illnesses, further debunking Vance’s smear.

As Advocate explained, Vance is reinforcing “historical stigmas, stoking xenophobia and racial fear.” Right-wing media may be celebrating Vance pushing these cruel lies, but legitimate media organizations should be prepared to call him out.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

 J.D. Vance

Vance Tried To Erase His 'Scathing Rebuke' Of GOP From 2012 -- And Failed

An article 2024 GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance asked his undergraduate professor to delete in 2016, four years after having it published, remains available on the internet today despite its removal, according to CNN.

Per the report, the Ohio congressman — a Yale law student at the time — issued "a scathing rebuke of the Republican Party's stance on migrant and minorities.

Vance wrote, "Republicans lose minority voters for simple and obvious reasons: their policy proposals are tired, unoriginal, or openly hostile to non-whites."

The Donald Trump running mate also slammed the party for isolating "Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth."

According to CNN, Nelson told the news outlet "that during the 2016 Republican primary he agreed to delete the article at Vance’s request, so that Vance might have an easier time getting a job in Republican politics. However, the article, titled 'A Blueprint for the GOP,' remains viewable on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine."

CNN reports:

'A significant part of Republican immigration policy centers on the possibility of deporting 12 million people (or ‘self-deporting’ them),' Vance wrote. 'Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens. The notion fails to pass the laugh test. The same can be said for too much of the party’s platform.'

Twelve years later, as former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance espouses many of the same anti-immigrant postures that he criticized back in 2012 as a 28-year-old law school student. In recent days, Vance has amplified baseless claims against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

The news outlet also notes that aside from the article he asked Nelson to cut, "Two other blog posts Vance wrote for the website are still active, but CNN noticed the 'Blueprint' article had been removed from the website. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, where the post was saved, shows it was deleted sometime between March 2014and February 2016."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Stew Peters

Vance Holds Six-Figure Stake In Online Platform Featuring Neo-Nazis

Following last month's Republican National Convention, CNN's Harry Enten submitted that Senator JD Vance (R-OH) "is the worst vice presidential pick of my lifetime," according to The New Republic.

Enten posted on social media that the Ohio senator "is making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party's convention," as the "first to have a net negative favorable rating."

One could argue Vance's low ratings stem from his "extreme comments about 'childless cat ladies,' abortion, and more," as Talking Points Memo (TPM) noted Thursday — or it could even be that the Republican lawmaker invests in one of the most extreme video platforms on the internet.

Per TPM, "Vance has had a six-figure stake in Rumble," which "has played host to Russian propaganda and to far-right personalities like Stew Peters and Tim Pool," and "also featured even more extreme content, including explicitly neo-Nazi images and themes like this song touting the 'Reich' and calling for Jews to be placed in ovens from a 'dissident rapper' with a dedicated page on the site."

Last week, journalist Carlos Berrios Polanco brought attention to a tweet Vance posted on September 11, 2021 — without comment — of a photo of himself "holding his infant child while looking at a table displaying several revolvers of various calibers."

AlterNet previously noted: "One vendor at a nearby table is seen sitting next to framed Nazi memorabilia, including a flag bearing a swastika, and two different Nazi war ensigns known as 'Reichskriegsflagge' and a variety of Nazi war medals. One of the guns on the table Vance is standing over is a Luger pistol commonly used by Nazi soldiers during World War II."

"They really did not do any social media vetting or clean up on this guy at all. Kind of hilarious if it wasn't so bleak," Polanco wrote via X, retweeting the photo.

TPM notes that Vance's hand in Rumble "is notable because it represents a direct financial link between Vance and a key outlet for some of the most extreme elements of the far right."

Per the report, the VP hopeful's "stake in Rumble was the subject of a New York Times piece during his Senate race in 2022. That story focused on Rumble hosting the Kremlin-backed propaganda network RT, but gave less attention to the extensive hate speech on the site."

TPM reports Harris' spokesperson, Joseph Costello, told the news outlet in a statement: "The American people deserve a president who works to bring people together and who gives hate no safe harbor. Every day the words and actions of Donald Trump and JD Vance prove they belong nowhere near the White House."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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