Vivek Ramaswamy’s Ad Somehow Gets Even Worse

Long-lost family members are emerging out of the woodwork to defend Dr. Amy Acton from Vivek Ramaswamy’s revolting attacks.

As the days ticked down to the midterm election, Ramaswamy hatched a crackpot plan to damage Acton’s credibility by weaponizing the sexual assault she suffered during her childhood against her. Ramaswamy used Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, as part of a smear campaign to paint the Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee as a liar.

He moved forward with creating the ad spot against the advice of his team, and while ignoring publicly available information demonstrating that Arthur abandoned her children to skip town with a man who was indicted for allegedly raping Acton when she was a young girl.

But new evidence has emerged supporting Acton’s account of the abuse. The 62-year-old biological daughter of Acton’s stepfather and alleged abuser, Cledith “Bud” Arthur, told the Daily Mail Wednesday that she believes Acton’s story. Speaking through tears, the Youngstown, Ohio–based woman said that Arthur had also raped her late sister, Christine, years before he married Acton’s mother.

“Yes, he raped her, and it was more than once,” she told the digital outlet on the condition of anonymity.

“It was a terrible time for our family and it’s very hard to talk about it,” she continued. “My brother won’t say anything at all. It’s a nightmare for us to relive what happened in our family after all these years.”

Criminal records obtained by independent journalist Jacqueline Sweet corroborated the account, revealing that Arthur was indicted for raping Christine in 1973, when she was just 16 years old.

Two years later, Arthur married Acton’s mother and became a part of her household.

Acton has been very public about her broken family and childhood struggles. Over the years, she has discussed the horrific sexual abuse she endured from her stepfather (which she told The Youngstown Vindicator occurred between the ages of nine and 12), and also shared the family’s experiences with homelessness. In a March 2020 profile by the Toledo Blade, Acton said that they spent a winter living in a tent outside Youngstown.

Ramaswamy—a biotech billionaire who attended one of Ohio’s largest private high schools—has for whatever reason interpreted those stories as potential political fodder, and has attempted to utilize them for his own personal gain. But in doing so, he hasn’t just hurt himself and his opponent. He’s also injured the individuals connected to Acton’s painful past.

“Christine was a wonderful person but she was very damaged by it. It affected her. Our whole family was,” Acton’s unnamed stepsister told the Mail. “Seeing it played out in this campaign and on TV has brought a lot of terrible memories back.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Wednesday as a “real genius.”

Putin was listening to a presentation from his digital development minister, Maksut Shadayev, who said that Russia was working on its own satellite system like Starlink and had already launched 30 satellites of his own, Reuters reports.

“Just a second, ⁠I want to point out this is just our first step. Elon Musk is a genius, truly a genius,” Putin, who was with a group of African leaders attending a summit in ​Moscow, said. “We are just taking our first steps, but we are proud that we started doing this and began doing it on our own. We are in close contact with our American partners, including Mr. Musk, because it is very important not to interfere with each other in orbit and to maintain certain discipline and order. Both we and our American partners value this.”

Musk’s Starlink network has close to 10,000 satellites, and Ukraine has relied on them in its war with Russia. Earlier this month, SpaceX throttled Ukraine’s Starlink connection, hurting the country’s ability to intercept Russian drones. Musk openly admitted to slowing down Ukraine’s connection on Saturday, saying that Ukraine’s use of Starlink “for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be.”

“Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week,” Musk posted on X. “Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact.”

Musk and Putin have been communicating since at least 2021, and Russia sarcastically offered the tech oligarch asylum when he and President Trump were feuding last year. How much is Musk, who holds billions of dollars in federal contracts, sharing with Putin?

At least three documents within the Epstein files show that Attorney General Todd Blanche received classified material in the tranche and did not release it—even as Blanche continuously insisted that the Justice Department wasn’t withholding any documents for any reason.

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the DOJ was required to release all files related to the prosecution of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, except those pertaining to national security. Blanche, however, claimed that “no files are being withheld or redacted on that basis.”

“There’s not some tranche of super-secret documents about Jeffrey Epstein that we’re withholding, we’re actually not withholding anything based upon [national defense information],” Blanche said in January.

New reporting from CBS News contradicts that, finding that at least three of the documents in the public Epstein files point to Blanche receiving classified information that was never released, even as he claimed none of the material met the national security requirement. While it is still unclear what exactly is in the classified material, the missing documents include files pertaining to Epstein’s finances.

“Financial records were not a permissible category for removal,” Barbara McQuade, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said to CBS News.

This is yet another example of the Trump administration refusing to be fully transparent and honest about something that the president campaigned on being transparent and honest about.

“Trump is named over 38,000 times in the Epstein files, as are other members of his administration and his close associates—with accusations of rape, child rape, assault, trafficking and more,” Campaign for New York Health executive director Melanie D’Arrigo wrote. “It’s not a coincidence that classified documents are missing while he controls them.”

Two conservative influencers tried so hard to find voter fraud in Minnesota that they’re now being charged with identity theft.

Cam Higby and James O’Keefe were charged with felony counts of identity theft and unlawful voting by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office after they put on disguises and tried to vote during state primaries in August. The pair used hidden cameras to try to make the claim that voting laws in Minnesota are weak. Both are due in court in November, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.

Higby wore a black abaya covering his face, while O’Keefe wore a white thobe and kufi. Both admitted they were trying to pose as Muslims, in a video posted to social media in August, using fake foreign accents. In a press conference Wednesday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the pair’s political views and their offensive disguises weren’t even the main issue.

“It is not against the law to be performative, it is not against the law to be offensive, it is not against the law to say the things they said standing outside the polling place,” Moriarty said. “We can’t let people’s political bent or what they’re here to do affect our decisions in deciding whether to issue felony charges. We take that very seriously. None of that played a role. The fundamental issue here is you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use other people’s identity and say that to our election judges when you apply for a ballot, whether or not you intend to vote.”

The pair didn’t cast any votes, and left one polling place after being asked for identification, the newspaper reports, citing charging documents. O’Keefe and Higby allegedly violated the state’s unlawful voting act, which states that “no individual shall intentionally misrepresent the individuals’ identity in applying for a ballot.” The men are also accused of committing identity theft because O’Keefe “used multiple identities that are not his own with the intent to commit and aid in the commission of an unlawful activity.”

O’Keefe has a history of misrepresenting himself in sting videos, pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses in 2010 for posing as a telephone repairman at the office of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. His former organization, Project Veritas, was involved in election conspiracies in 2020.

Senator Roger Marshall made a conveniently timed stock purchase in 2018—but his position on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP, Committee could juice the deal even more.

Eight years ago on November 8, when he was still a representative, Marshall purchased 1,250 shares of Ionics Life Sciences, a privately held medical research company based in Ireland. Marshall invested $250,000 at $200 per share, according to Irish documentation obtained by Popular Info’s Judd Legum.

A week later, the FDA approved an application by Ionics’s wholly owned subsidiary Genzada Pharmaceuticals USA, allowing it to begin clinical trials on a radical cancer treatment.

Yet in apparent violation of the STOCK Act, Marshall did not disclose his Ionics stock purchase within 45 days. Instead, he reported the transaction on August 28, 2019—some 240 days late, Legum reported. Marshall misrepresented the day that he purchased Ionics stock, signaling on his disclosure form that he invested in the company on October 1, 2018, rather than November 8.

He also mixed up Ionics’s location, writing on the form that the company was based in Sterling, Kansas, (where Genzada is located) rather than Dublin.

But there were minimal repercussions. And by 2020, the lawmaker’s investment was worth roughly $500,000.

Neither Marshall’s office nor his Senate reelection campaign responded to Legum’s request for comment regarding his investments.

In 2021, shortly after being inaugurated as senator, Marshall joined the Senate HELP Committee, a congressional regulatory body that oversees the FDA. Since then, Marshall has sponsored legislation that could benefit Genzada and, ultimately, his own pockets. That has included bills that would exclude small pharmaceutical companies from pricing their drugs in accordance with federal regulations, and legislative amendments that he’s claimed could benefit emerging cancer drugs, according to Legum.

In the past, Marshall has heralded his role as a sort of revisionary peacemaker with the FDA, reviewing complaints from pharmaceutical companies before attempting to lobby the agency.

“The people that struggle to get their drugs approved blow up my office, but then I dig down with the FDA,” Marshall said during a Senate HELP hearing on April 16.

It isn’t the first time that Marshall has utilized the power of his office to benefit his wallet. The American Prospect reported last week that Marshall previously introduced legislation that could benefit Nueterra Capital, a venture capital firm that Marshall’s family has invested in. It remains to be seen if Marshall will continue to do the same for Ionics and Genzada.