The Three Billionaires Trying to Buy Wisconsin’s Governor’s Race

Republican Representative Tom Tiffany has raised more than $26 million in his bid to become Wisconsin’s next governor, the vast majority of which appears to have come from three billionaires.

Between August 13 and September 19, the Republican Party of Wisconsin funneled more than $24 million into Tiffany’s coffers.

A good chunk of that money likely came from Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the billionaires behind the Uline packaging and shipping company, who each gave $11 million to the state Republican Party that month, according to campaign finance reports obtained by The New York Times.

A third billionaire also contributed a sizable sum to the Wisconsin Republican Party that month: Diane Hendricks, the co-founder of ABC Supply Co. Inc and the state’s largest conservative political donor.

The transfers accounted for 92 percent of all the money that Tiffany raised since the end of June, and have given him an enormous cash advantage in the final weeks of the race. By comparison, Tiffany’s Democratic opponent, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley, raised $10 million in the same time period.

Tiffany’s campaign details mark the first time since Wisconsin reworked its campaign finance rules that a candidate has been catapulted by such a small number of donors.

But it remains to be seen if the billionaire-provided funds will make a difference at the ballot box. A Marquette Law poll published Wednesday placed Crowley with a narrow lead among Wisconsin voters, besting Tiffany’s late-September odds by just one percentage point (46 percent versus 45 percent favorability).

Crowley’s chances were a hair better among likely voters, 49 percent of whom said they were planning to vote for the Democratic candidate, while 46 percent said they would vote for Tiffany. Five percent of likely voters told the pollster that they were still undecided.

President Donald Trump will be hosting the “most EXCLUSIVE DINNER IN THE WORLD” to the top purchasers of his cryptocurrency. 

The Washington Sun reported Thursday that the website for Trump’s meme coin, GetTrumpMemes.com, is offering invitations to “an evening with 3 Legends and President Donald J. Trump” for the 185 largest holders of the cryptocurrency, with the top 29 buyers scoring an invite to a “VIP Reception with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT” and the top four getting an 18-karat Trump-branded gold watch.

The event will be held on November 22 at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.  Invitations seem specifically made to encourage sales of the $TRUMP coin and give the president a hefty profit, and the competition to crown the biggest purchasers began Wednesday. 

Last year, Trump held a similar dinner for his meme coin at his golf club in northern Virginia, as well as another such dinner in April at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. At the Virginia dinner in May 2025, guests reportedly shelled out $148 million to gain access to the president for a substandard steak or halibut dinner, and the full guest list wasn’t made public because the president was attending the event off the clock. 

Some of the known guests included former Los Angeles Laker Lamar Odom; Chinese billionaire and accused fraudster Justin Sun (who is now suing the president); and Vincent Liu, the chief investment officer at Taiwan-based Kronos Research.

The $2.2 billion Trump made last year mostly came from his cryptocurrency ventures, and he doesn’t appear to be letting up. The latest dinner is chock-full of potential ethical violations, with the president clearly selling access to himself. But while these ventures have been lucrative for Trump, they haven’t worked out well for the people he dupes into investing. 

Trump’s crypto products have lost an estimated $4.7 billion for their investors thus far, according to watchdog group Public Citizen. It’s not clear how much guests will have to shell out to attend this upcoming dinner, but Trump’s largest meme coin account holds about $104 million’s worth. 

Unlike World Liberty Financial, which is owned by Trump’s sons, Trump doesn’t own the firm behind his meme coin, instead only selling the marketing rights to his name. That distance gives him some legal protection. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s ripping off investors to make bank with no fear of consequences.

Ben Shapiro is making a pro–Immigration and Customs Enforcement movie about the murder of Renee Nicole Good. 

The Bulwark obtained a copy of a script from Shapiro’s right-wing Daily Wire media company that details an ICE raid in Minneapolis—and which spoofs the killing of unarmed protester Renee Good, who was shot four times by ICE agent Jonathan Ross earlier this year in Minneapolis. There have still been no charges filed in her killing, and her family moved to sue the Trump administration over her death on Thursday. 

The movie, titled Pawn Shop, appears to be similar to the company’s recent Run Fight Hide: Infidels, a lazy, ultraconservative fantasy that cast liberals as hysterical, “useful idiots” stopping the morally just right wing from saving society. It starred a post-cancellation Jonathan Majors. 

According to The Bulwark, this film opens with a character meant to be Good slamming her car into an ICE vehicle while other protestors try to stop them from arresting a man who is, of course, revealed at the end to be an MS-13 kingpin. The Good character, named Melanie, described as being “fat” with “blue hair,” is promptly shot and killed by agents. 

Melanie reacts to the drawn gun with panic …

She MASHES on the gas as she throws the car into reverse, accidentally SLAMMING Juan out of the way. He goes flying into the gutter, bleeding …

And as the car reverses, Mike FIRES TWICE through the windshield …

The first shot takes the [sic] Melanie in the neck, below her covid mask. The second in the head, above her covid mask.

Blood SPLATTERS on her PASSENGER’s (40s, female, overweight) forehead and matching covid mask.

The ICE agents are then chased by a mob, and barricade themselves into a pawn shop; the rest of the movie seems to use that as an arena for whatever tired conservative talking points Shapiro and producing partner Dallas Sonnier have to offer. This is an almost identical structure to Infidels, which I unfortunately reviewed last month. 

While it’s unclear when the movie will release, it has begun filming on location in Livingston, Minnesota—much to the chagrin of local residents.  

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has made serious bank off of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while simultaneously leading the U.S.-backed peace negotiations, CNN reported Thursday.

Shortly before Trump’s return to office last year, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners doubled its investment in Phoenix Financial, a Tel Aviv–based firm that has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, as well as at least eight other companies that have seen massive gains as a result of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

Affinity Partners doesn’t benefit from any of these companies directly but has reaped massive rewards from its investment in Phoenix Financial. In July, Affinity cashed out a quarter of its stake for more than $340 million, which is more than five times the worth of its initial stock purchase.

Kushner himself has described Phoenix as Affinity’s “best investment,” and his firm remains the financial group’s largest shareholder, with a 7.4 percent stake worth more than $1 billion, CNN reported. Last September, Kushner told Forbes that he maintained a “very active dialogue” with Phoenix leadership, and met with them every few weeks.

Kushner has served as a top Middle East adviser during Trump’s second term and has floated his own wretched idea for what Israel ought to do with Gaza’s “waterfront property.”

Kushner’s financial entanglements are a clear cause for concern when it comes to his role as a volunteer envoy leading peace negotiations in Israel, Iran, and Ukraine, Cynthia Brown, chief ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told CNN.

“There are always people who profit from war or government policies. The difference is that the people profiting should not be the people making the decisions to make that policy. And that is what is happening here,” Brown said.

Kushner’s attorney told CNN that he had “never participated in or directed Phoenix’s decisions” and had “no involvement in the decision to purchase, hold or sell any of the nine companies.” They insisted that “any suggestion that Jared’s diplomatic work influenced Phoenix’s investments in the companies you identify, or vice versa, is incorrect.”

His attorney confirmed that Kushner “regularly spoke with Phoenix management about the company, broader market trends and potential strategic opportunities” this time last year, but had wound down the frequency of their meetings as he has become “substantially more engaged in volunteer public service and diplomatic efforts.”

But that doesn’t mean that Kushner’s involvement through Affinity Partners isn’t a damning conflict of interest. The president’s son-in-law has previously used his gig as special envoy as an opportunity to try to raise funds from foreign governments and individuals in the Middle East.

President Trump has been denied yet another chance to carve his name into something he didn’t make.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with the Institute of Peace in a Wednesday court order temporarily preventing President Trump from placing his name onto the building—something former employees of the Institute alleged was coming in an emergency injunction last month, especially given that he had already placed his name on the building’s exterior sign (in removable letters) last December.

Beyond the naming, Trump attempted a complete hostile takeover of the Institute—using Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (and private security) to fire and escort workers out of the building in March of 2025. That takeover was blocked in federal court in May, but lifted in June. This most recent blockage will be retried in November.

Trump has been moving like some middle schooler carving his name into a desk with a pocket knife on the last day of school. He’s unsuccessfully tried to place his name on the John. F. Kennedy Center and was alleged to be looking into doing the same with Ford’s Theatre, where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The White House denies any plans to actually carve the President’s name into the Institute of Peace—an independent organization established more than 40 years ago. But Trump’s baseless, relentless claims to any old building justifies the sense of urgency accompanying the emergency injunction from the Institute’s employees.

President Trump has yet to publicly comment.