Ad-Vance Notice
Trump's Veep, Climbing Everest
In terms of increasing votes, Trump's pick of JD Vance doesn't make much sense. He's a senator from a currently red state (where he didn't perform as well as much of his cohort). He's extreme on issues like abortion where Trump is trying to soften the message. He's been strikingly critical of Trump in the past. He once called him a ‘moral disaster,’ and possibly ‘America’s Hitler.' As I said yesterday, with the pick of JD Vance, Trump locks up the already committed angry white males who have nothing to be angry about vote. So what gives? Dan Pfeiffer explains what goes into picking a VP candidate and why Trump (with a big push from his top funders) chose this one. It's not about running the election. It's about running the country. "Donald Trump does not give two shits about governing. He’d likely struggle to explain how a bill becomes a law or distinguish between an executive order and a presidential memorandum. His knowledge of the responsibilities of the cabinet agencies under his administration would likely be lacking as well. However, Trump picked Vance for the same reasons George W. Bush picked Cheney — someone who has the smarts and know-how to implement the MAGA agenda. Trump may not even know this is why he picked Vance, but it’s why so many people behind Project 2025 supported Vance’s appointment." Trump Picked Vance to Make Project 2025 a Reality.
+ The growing economic divide has created a fertile environment for a troubling but familiar political reality. Those at the top are able to use their breathtaking spending power to fire up feverish populism among those who feel they've been disregarded (or worse) by the elite. (Never mind that the inciting messages are coming from the elitest of the elite.) In the moments after Saturday's shooting, Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump (maybe the least surprising news of the decade). Now we've learned that he's "planning on supporting Trump’s presidential campaign by committing $45 million a month to a new super PAC backing the former president." Another one of the original Pay Pal Mafia is Vance's biggest backer and influencer. "Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor turned digital defense contractor, enabled his entire political career." Tech mega-VCs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz are also making big donations to Trump PACs. Welcome to American politics, where you have to hope your billionaires are willing to spend as much as the other guy's billionaires.
+ "Vance is, in some ways, a case study of Republican loyalty after January 6th, in which those who backed Trump after the insurrection at the Capitol have tended to go all in—their careers and reputations have become inextricably tied to the former President. But plenty of Republicans are diehard Trump loyalists. Vance’s rise has also depended on his populism." The New Yorker: Why Donald Trump Picked J. D. Vance for Vice-President. "He is an attack dog for Trump, but he is also something more emergent and interesting: he is the fuse that Trump lit."
+ "We chatted for a bit about the connections between right-wing movements across the world, and what American conservatives could learn from foreign peers. He was friendly, thoughtful, and smart — much smarter than the average politician I’ve interviewed. Yet his worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the basic principles of American democracy." What J.D. Vance really believes.
+ "I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another." Politico: 55 Things to Know About J.D. Vance.
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Cord Cutting
"Doctors rarely use cord blood anymore, thanks to advances that have made it easier to transplant adult stem cells. And the few parents who try to withdraw cord blood samples often find that they are unusable — either because their volume is too low or they have been contaminated with microbe." But those facts don't stop Cord Blood Banks from marketing to expecting parents. They convinced me nearly two decades ago and I only just recently got the company to stop hounding me for payments. NYT (Gift Article): Promised Cures, Tainted Cells: How Cord Blood Banks Mislead Parents.
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Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns
"The basic facts held attention for only so long before being supplanted by wild speculation—people were eager to post about the identity of the shooter, his possible motives, the political ramifications of the event, the specter of more violence. It may be human nature to react this way in traumatic moments—to desperately attempt to fill an information void—but the online platforms so many of us frequent have monetized and gamified this instinct, rewarding those who create the most compelling stories." Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic (Gift Article): This Is What Happens When News Breaks. (Interestingly enough, I wrote a book on this topic! Please Scream Inside Your Heart: Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the Year That Wouldn't End.)
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And the Horse You Flew In On
"While swimmers can shove a Speedo in a back pocket and runners can stash a pair of track spikes in a backpack, other Paris-bound athletes face an Olympian challenge in getting their equipment — from boats to guns to horses — overseas for these Summer Games." WaPo (Gift Article): Horses, guns and swords: How cumbersome equipment gets to the Olympics.
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Extra, Extra
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Menendez: The legal system still works (at least for people not named Trump). "A jury on Tuesday found Sen. Bob Menendez guilty on all counts in his federal corruption trial, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer swiftly called on his Democratic colleague to resign."
+ Security Breach: We continue to learn more (and more disturbing) details from the security failure at Trump's Butler rally. Police warned Secret Service of a suspicious person at Trump rally before gunman opened fire. And police were stationed in building Trump gunman shot from. (Did the Secret Service cede too much responsibility to local police?) Meanwhile, The Onion nails the broader story: Investigation Finds Secret Service Failed To Account For Nation’s 393 Million Guns.
+ Feeling Down Ballot: As the Trump news cycle accelerates, the Dem infighting about Biden continues. NYT: Schiff Warned of Wipeout for Democrats if Biden Remains in Race.
+ The Bobby Lobby: "When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a, you know, 10lb or 20lb baby, it looks like you’re giving, you should be giving a horse this thing, and do you ever see the size of it? It’s massive and then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times." Donald Trump Woos (and Whoas) RFK Jr.
+ Rock Bottom Line: Did I mention the concentration of wealth in today's lead item? "Assets managed by BlackRock hit a record $10.65 trillion in the second quarter."
+ Backpact: "More than a simple school bag, the randoseru is a unique Japanese symbol, reflecting the conformity and consistency that is deeply rooted in the culture." NYT (Gift Article): The Book Bag That Binds Japanese Society. (This is refreshing change from experiencing a society bound by brandname water bottles.)
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Bottom of the News
This drone video shows what it’s like to climb to Mount Everest’s summit. (I watched the whole thing without the help of supplementary oxygen.)
+ You Don't Need to Tap That: The Two-Finger Rule Farmers Swear by to Pick the Best Watermelon. Holy moly, does this work?
Greetings: A woman named Terra Vance (Marked Melungeon) wrote about JD Vance's misrepresentation of his heritage that of fellow Appalachians on facebook. Here is the text in case you are not able to see it:
Oh, I’ve got a lot more to say about JD Vance, born JD Bowman.
In case you missed it— yes, we share some ancestors.
But, I was born and raised an actual Vance in the actual hollers of Appalachia. My family has been in Central Appalachia for centuries or millennia.
We’re not, as JD Vance fictionalizes, “Scots-Irish.”
But first, let me introduce you to some of my ancestors and still-living relatives.
See those first two pictures? These are some of my direct ancestors from the Hatfield-Vance clan. The woman is Mary Elizabeth Hatfield. The man is Jacob Marcum.
They’re from what’s now Wayne County, WV. That’s where the family reunions were.
We never saw JD Bowman “Vance” at the family reunions.
But let me ask you…
Do they look Scots-Irish to you?
I’m from Island Creek where Bad Jim Vance and Devil Anse Hatfield are from. We have been in this area since before anyone was called “Vance.”
JD Vance is not even from Central Appalachia, and neither were his parents.
His grandparents with a Vance surname moved from Kentucky to Ohio.
JD Vance assumed the name of his maternal grandparents to siphon off the Hillbilly credentials of my actual Vance family while erasing my family and doing a thoughtless job of characterizing Appalachians.
JD Bowman “Vance” didn’t do a thoughtful job of explaining why Appalachians are Poor.
Let me break that down for you.
My dad worked 60-72 hours a week in the mines for 40 years. Three times, mountains collapsed on him. One time, a two-ton rock in a collapse fell on his head and caused his chin to go down with such force that it snapped his sternum.
Another time, he saved a man’s life by pushing him out of the way. His steel-toe boots were not rated for mountains, and that steel toe collapsed and basically cut off his toes. They managed to save the toes but now he doesn’t have toenails.
Now, he has tons of improperly-healed remodeled bones that cause him tremendous pain he never mentions, he has total black lung (but no black lung “benefits”), and no cartilage left in too many of his joints.
JD Vance claims Appalachians are Poor because they don’t want to work. We work ourselves to the grave and then get bragged on at our funerals for our work ethic.
JD Vance would know that if he had been to all those family black lung funerals.
But no amount of work ethic can make a man comfortable if the only jobs are mines, and when a seam of coal ran out, the mine shut down. Any savings was depleted.
It wasn’t for lack of effort or initiative.
His dad, also a real Vance from Logan, WV, inhaled a mine blast that scarred his lungs.
His dad’s brother, also a real Vance actually from Logan, WV, was crushed in the mines a month later.
His grandfather, also a real Vance from Logan, WV, which is actual Appalachia— and the best friend and cousin of Cap Hatfield, had to go head-to-head with the KKK— hired thugs of mine operators— with a pair .38s in Logan, WV.
You could read about that from my great Uncle William Preston Actually-Vance’s memoir and ACTUAL-hillbilly elegy, The Way It Was.
Many of the men in my actually-Appalachian ancestry died in or because of the mines. I put a couple of my recent ancestor documents in this slideshow so you could get an idea of how actual Appalachian poverty came to be.
You could read my still-living 96-year-old grandmother, Bertie Lou VANCE’s actual-hillbilly elegy. It is also set in Logan, WV, because she has a about a century of lived experience as an actual Appalachian.
I, an Actual-Vance, wrote the forward to that book. My birth certificate has Vance on it. I didn’t even have to tokenize, appropriate, erase, or dehumanize a single ancestor in order to write it.
I didn’t have to philosophize [poorly] about anything. I just wrote about my lived experience because I have actual-lived experience.
I didn’t mention the word “hillbilly” because Actual-Vances don’t talk about ourselves that way.
Mamaw Bertie’s daddy was killed (likely poisoned) when she was 7 years old. Her mom was pregnant with her 7th child when that happened. He was a weights and measures man— the guy who made sure mine companies paid their workers accurately without cheating them.
So, she grew up starvation-Poor because her dad was [almost-certainly] murdered by the mines— and not because he was lazy and had no drive. In fact, he invented and installed exhaust fans and blast doors in the mines that have saved countless lives.
He was a prolific musician and banjo picker, but Mamaw Bertie recalls that after he died, they only had any music in their home until the battery died in their radio.
They never could afford to replace it, so the music died, too.
That local union hat from Stirrat, WV? That was my dad’s. He’s an Actual-Vance. Stirrat is where Devil Anse Hatfield was from. It is 1-2 miles from the holler where I grew up. That was my maternal grandfather’s union branch.
You can see my great grandfathers’ documents, too. Note the occupations and locations.
See that family photo with the matriarch, kids, and grandkids? Those are my Vance-Hatfield ancestors from Logan, WV. Do they look Scots-Irish?
I’ll comment under the images, but close to the end are some of my direct actual-Vance ancestors, Sarah Ellen Actual-Vance and Mary Actual-Vance. Do they look Scots-Irish?
The Vance/Hatfield clan was not Scots-Irish. They were European-born Romani (largely French/German), Cherokee, Shawnee, possibly-African, likely Middle Eastern, and maybe other things. They were mixed.
Most of the people who are old-mix actual-Appalachians in the coal camps are descendants of Melungeons. They’ve been treated like expendable cheap resources because of structural racism being the norm.
You can’t talk about Melungeons without talking about why they have such profound generational trauma. You can’t do that when you don’t talk about white supremacy.
The one authentic thing that JD Vance did that is keeping up with Melungeon tradition is changing his name and appearing to be from somewhere he’s not in order to obscure his ethnic heritage.
That would maybe have panned out for him a little better if he’d gone further than Wikipedia to learn about his ancestors.
But we are not the Irish Vances. That name was a Whiteness costume originally, and so it’s fitting JD Vance would put it on.
Incidentally, I have Bowman ancestors, too. Some are on JD Bowman “Vance’s” paternal side. I put their photos as the final two so you can tell me how much they beam with “Scots-Irish” pride.
JD is an Outsider, and he knew that before he tried to put on the hillbilly costume just to distance himself from actual-Vances and other coal camp Melungeons.
He put MY family name on in order to benefit off a legacy that he has not lived through the consequences of… he just whitewashed it, fictionalized it, and then condescended to as he set himself up as a supreme harbinger of rising above his hillbilly white-trashedness.
We actual-Vances can define ourselves, and we don’t have to whitewash ourselves to do that.
If you want to learn about real Appalachian history, you can follow my page. My ancestors and living family deserve better than Hillbilly Elegy, and I try to do my due diligence to tell their truths as closely as I can. https://www.facebook.com/markedmelungeon