Who’s losing the oppo-dump veepstakes?

Oppo veepstakes: which of Kamala’s VP picks has the dirtiest laundry?

Have you canceled plans this weekend? Are you a white dude for Kamala? You just might be in contention to be the Democratic pick for vice president this year! The nation’s hacks are doggedly monitoring the movements of electable white dads from convenient states as the campaign formerly known as Biden 2024 prepares itself for weekend auditions ahead of an announcement next week. Similarly, America’s grubbiest political operatives have been working overtime to farm out opposition research on the men in question. 

The top two candidates, unsurprisingly, have borne the brunt: Arizona senator Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of former congresswoman Gabby Giffords who according to an AP poll has the highest name recognition, has been “Loomered”: frothy-mouthed Twitter psycho Laura Loomer posted a video ostensibly from Kelly’s daughter Claire showing off MDMA on her Instagram Story. 

Outlets including Newsmax, RadarOnline and the Mail Online have followed up on her revelations — which is handy, given her dubious track record with the truth.

The other front-runner, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, is the subject of a more serious takedown effort: a women’s group is urging Harris not to consider him as they say he mishandled accusations of sexual harassment against one of his top aides. 

Two other contenders are Hyatt Hotel scion and Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker and nepo baby and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. At present, they seem most likely to face scrutiny for policy positions they’ve taken in office rather than any more sordid scandal (though if Cockburn is wrong, tell him). The same can be said for the last two of the six under consideration, famously effective transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and former high school football coach Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz, like Kelly, may also have progeny problems: during the George Floyd riots of 2020, his daughter Hope was tweeting about the movements of the National Guard, as if to help the fiery but mostly peaceful protesters.

Pod Save… Gaza?

Staffers at the George Soros-backed Crooked Media, which produces Pod Save America, are rising up, venting frustrations to Bloomberg. The site published a bombshell hit piece detailing long work days (gasp!), an inappropriate office romance between an oft-promoted employee and one of the founders, and disagreements over the Arab-Israeli conflict which have seen lower-level employees passive-aggressively sending articles in the company Slack channel and adding a watermelon emoji to their handles to express solidarity with the Palestinian cause. 

Over time, the podcast’s famous Obama-bro hosts were accused of acting like the Republicans they rail against every day. The staff unionized, arguing that leadership was engaged in union-busting, and one of the founders, Jon Favreau, recently bought a Los Angeles home valued at approximately $10 million. Several staff “interpreted this as a signal of the founders talking like progressives but enjoying the wealth of the privileged class, particularly during a tough time in the podcast market,” Bloomberg noted. 

A third of Crooked Media’s employees have left the company in the past eighteen months, per the piece. While many were working week in week out to produce content, co-founder Jon Lovett recently absconded for a month to compete on Survivor. 

In 2017, Crooked Media publicly cut ties with NeverTrump Republican Tim Miller after a New York Times story detailed work a firm he worked with did for Facebook. 

The podcast hosts seem likely to post through the turmoil, fully embracing the “coconut-pill” and going all in to elect Kamala Harris this November, no matter how much work their staff are forced to do. Crooked by name…

Rittenhouse won’t vote for Don

“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.” The words of Abraham Lincoln have apparently been heeded by another noted Illinoisan: Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who infamously no-scoped an antifa pedophile at a riot over state lines in Wisconsin, will not be voting for Donald Trump in November. 

Rittenhouse, now twenty-one, currently works as outreach director for Texas Gun Rights. He drew blowback after tweeting “still writing in Ron Paul” alongside a picture of the former presidential candidate, as fans of his assumed he should be supporting Trump in 2024. Doubling down, another gun rights advocate Dudley Brown posted a selfie video of Rittenhouse, in which he read a conspicuously prepared statement. “Unfortunately Donald Trump had bad advisors, making him bad on the Second Amendment, and that is my issue,” Rittenhouse said. 

Brown followed up by tweeting an image of Trump’s weaker actions on gun rights, including the ban on bump stocks and supporting red flag gun confiscation.

Will Trump change tack to win back the vote of the best crier in America since Michael Jordan? Watch this space…

Update 5 p.m. ET: Rittenhouse has reversed his position, tweeting: “Over the past twelve hours, I’ve had a series of productive conversations with members of the Trump’s team and I am confident he will be the strong ally gun owners need to defend our Second Amendment rights. My comments made last night were ill-informed and unproductive. I’m 100 percent behind Donald Trump and encourage every gun owner to join me in helping send him back to the White House.”

Of course Swifties for Harris is a thing

Move over, “white dudes for Harris.” There’s a new collective in town: “Swifties for Kamala,” which launched minutes after President Joe Biden announced his historic decision to back down from his reelection bid. 

The group, which quickly amassed six figures of followers across social media platforms, was just subject to a glowing profile on ABC News. “We’re just like, we’re like, using our fears to empower this movement and make change,” Emerald Medrano, one of its founders, told the network. 

The group, which has yet to be sanctioned by Taylor Swift herself, rolled out a newsletter, Paint the Town Blue, and has a Discord group with a veritable gold rush of members. It plans to do mass voter registration outside of Swift’s Eras concert tours between now and the election. With fewer than 100 days until the election is over, this group is going all out to make sure that its moment doesn’t slip away like a bottle of wine. 

A few years ago, Swift made one post about registering to vote, which saw tens of thousands of her fans do so — and the singer herself endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. Progressive PACs are already in touch, floating tens of thousands of dollars in contributions — and the Harris campaign is also in contact with the group. 

Trump, for his part, has bad blood with the Swiftie vote. In fact, many of his allies accused her of being part of an astroturfed plot to swing the 2024 election, and others cast doubt on whether her relationship with tight end Travis Kelce is genuine, positing that it may be a Pfizer-funded ad campaign. 

Nevertheless, there are plenty of GOP Swifties, one of whom panned this effort to Cockburn, saying that this group is “trying to be Miss Americana but it’s coming off as Down Bad.” 

Another GOP Swiftie quipped to Cockburn, “Long Story Short, these Vipers dressed in empathy clothing may think their Wildest Dreams will be realized but in the end, they’ll find out they’re the Foolish Ones.”