Wow - Whatly is a lightweight on the jet circuit compared to Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy. (When I saw today's headline, I thought that's who you were going to write about.)
To whit: "Ohio Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy has spent nearly $700,000 leasing a private jet since the start of his campaign, according to campaign finance records."
Yes, "everyman" Michael Whatley, lawyer, oil and gas lobbyist, and former North Carolina GOP and RNC chair. Dude is wearing a suit and tie in his pic on Wikipedia. What a crock. This is before we get to the absurdity of Donald Trump, a convicted felon with a private jet, pardoning Drew Boggs, a convicted felon with a private jet. Ugh.
Thank goodness you dig this info out of the dirt and bring it into the light. The lengths Republicans will go to retain power is on par with the actions of the mafia, and I wouldn't put it past them to even commit murder on Rump's behalf. This country, and WE, its citizens, are in DEEP trouble if Dems don't take over the House AND Senate.
We already are in deep trouble if Elon Musk's admission of engineering the 2024 election is true: he told a close friend, mother of one of his children, that Kamala won, and the Democrats won the House (and down only two in the Senate). [cf. NewYork Times, and SubStack "This Will Hold"] WE THE PEOPLE must prevail against treasonous money and POWER. May truth and courage win!
How on earth are people ready and willing to vote for crooks and liars? Have we slipped so far down the hill that ethics is a dirty word and morality is for suckers and losers? When the president does it it's not a crime? Human beings seem less advanced, more stupid, more willing to throw away their rights. I am immersed in study and research in a time (16th/17th century) where the concept of freedom is unknown, where monarchs and wealthy people have freedoms and rights but no one else does, where riots and protests are punishable by death, where women are second class and third class citizens, where all the wealth flows up. When I come back from that world and look around, I see Americans willingly giving their moral standing away, just letting the world we were building crumble away.
The people you refer to are overwhelmingly white. They would rather vote for "crooks and liars" than anyone who supports civil rights, women's rights, etc. This has been the case since the mid/late 1960s. They voted for Trump three times. Why don't more people get it?
If you include Hispanic voters as white. Many "brown" citizens were taken in by him. The Venezuelan-Americans voted for him because they had lived under socialism. The Cuban-Americans voted for him because they had known what communism looked like. The "others" voted for him because - and this is my favorite of all the shitty excuses to vote for Twump - they came into the country the "right way." So yeah stupid white people and others desperately wanting to check "white" in the demography boxes. And women! What fn excuse do white women have? They think "boys locker room talk" is okay? They have been so dumbed down by their community and their social networks that they cannot see the forest for the trees? They have been so desensitized by rape porn that it is what is expected? My god, the humanity!
I believe generations of junk food have created a brain problem, anyone who wsn't staggered when trump spoke about Kamala Harris, has a brain problem.
Put rubbish into your brain ? Your not going to think clearly. you will be depressed, and wanting to blame some one. Thats how trump got in, He and his supporters eat alike, JUNK FOOD. Look at the intellectual gap between Trump, and any Iranian spokesman.
I’m more than willing to believe that junk food has played a role, but so has junk news, junk television, racism, and garden-variety ignorance. Come to think of it, junk food and junk television can’t explain the Confederacy, or Jim Crow, or the white people screaming at Black children trying to go to school (in Boston as well as the Deep South, btw).
The intellectual gap between Trump and most other world leaders isn’t hard to explain — and it doesn’t speak well to the state of our so-called democracy.
Yeah but you know what? Speaking to an alkie (sober for decades), I know what's under the bottom. Another bottom! Until the bottom is the black hole where non-desirables disappear, we can and seemingly will, continue to fall deeper, hit more bottoms and - oh wait! The midterms, the midterms! Let's hope that the magnificent piece that is our shattered democracy can be put together again.
Can't believe only 943 people have subscribed to your work in 2026 😪 This is the only way we'll get the work of the real journalists out there instead of the crap the Oligarchy wants us to read.
“Michael Whatley launched his general election campaign with an ad that emphasized he was traveling the state in a GMC truck. “Whatley’s driven thousands of miles across North Carolina trying to fix our country and help working families,”
NC voters have no truck with flying in a private jet on behalf of working families? Convict Drew Boggs of course was pardoned by Trump… just the way they “Drew” it up in the playbook.
Trump loves white collar crooks. Especially if they have millions to donate to him. This entire gang of GOP crooks are a cesspool of immoral greed and criminals
Flying on jets, consorting with terrorists, using pardoned criminals to hide your actual campaign transportation, and lying about it on fox propaganda and media - pretty much the Republican playbook for all candidates. If it weren’t for bribes from rich oligarchs funding Republicans to destroy our democracy, these criminal Republican “candidates” would not be able to buy a cup of coffee. Do not BUY the bs, people. Trust Popular Information and actual facts.
I'm glad to see this reporting, although I am not surprised that another flannel-shirted, truck-driving Republican is actually flying around on private jets. However, the twist is the felon who supplies the jets.
Thanks, Judd. Right in my own back yard. NC is full of these folksy phonies.
The rot is everywhere!!
Wow - Whatly is a lightweight on the jet circuit compared to Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy. (When I saw today's headline, I thought that's who you were going to write about.)
To whit: "Ohio Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy has spent nearly $700,000 leasing a private jet since the start of his campaign, according to campaign finance records."
Here's the news report version of the story: https://bit.ly/4xhrzIu
And here's the more entertaining version: https://www.rooster.info/p/vivek-ramaswamy-40-percent-outside-ohio-private-jet-2026
To his credit, Ramaswamy has never claimed to be "...like the rest of us."
He sure likes to take advantage of borrowed glory opportunities, though. A funny story about one that was a scam, compliments of Ohio's rogue blogger, The Rooster. https://tiffinohio.net/posts/blogger-pranks-ramaswamy-fake-ohio-state-meeting/
Yes, "everyman" Michael Whatley, lawyer, oil and gas lobbyist, and former North Carolina GOP and RNC chair. Dude is wearing a suit and tie in his pic on Wikipedia. What a crock. This is before we get to the absurdity of Donald Trump, a convicted felon with a private jet, pardoning Drew Boggs, a convicted felon with a private jet. Ugh.
Hopefully the Democrats in NC will be using this information in their campaign..
They need all the help they can get - I'll vote for them, but sometimes I gasp at their inability to use political ammo in any strategic way.
Thank goodness you dig this info out of the dirt and bring it into the light. The lengths Republicans will go to retain power is on par with the actions of the mafia, and I wouldn't put it past them to even commit murder on Rump's behalf. This country, and WE, its citizens, are in DEEP trouble if Dems don't take over the House AND Senate.
We already are in deep trouble if Elon Musk's admission of engineering the 2024 election is true: he told a close friend, mother of one of his children, that Kamala won, and the Democrats won the House (and down only two in the Senate). [cf. NewYork Times, and SubStack "This Will Hold"] WE THE PEOPLE must prevail against treasonous money and POWER. May truth and courage win!
They are working for a gangster, They think like criminals.
lauriemillerjade.com
How on earth are people ready and willing to vote for crooks and liars? Have we slipped so far down the hill that ethics is a dirty word and morality is for suckers and losers? When the president does it it's not a crime? Human beings seem less advanced, more stupid, more willing to throw away their rights. I am immersed in study and research in a time (16th/17th century) where the concept of freedom is unknown, where monarchs and wealthy people have freedoms and rights but no one else does, where riots and protests are punishable by death, where women are second class and third class citizens, where all the wealth flows up. When I come back from that world and look around, I see Americans willingly giving their moral standing away, just letting the world we were building crumble away.
The people you refer to are overwhelmingly white. They would rather vote for "crooks and liars" than anyone who supports civil rights, women's rights, etc. This has been the case since the mid/late 1960s. They voted for Trump three times. Why don't more people get it?
If you include Hispanic voters as white. Many "brown" citizens were taken in by him. The Venezuelan-Americans voted for him because they had lived under socialism. The Cuban-Americans voted for him because they had known what communism looked like. The "others" voted for him because - and this is my favorite of all the shitty excuses to vote for Twump - they came into the country the "right way." So yeah stupid white people and others desperately wanting to check "white" in the demography boxes. And women! What fn excuse do white women have? They think "boys locker room talk" is okay? They have been so dumbed down by their community and their social networks that they cannot see the forest for the trees? They have been so desensitized by rape porn that it is what is expected? My god, the humanity!
...That we are a racist country?
I believe generations of junk food have created a brain problem, anyone who wsn't staggered when trump spoke about Kamala Harris, has a brain problem.
Put rubbish into your brain ? Your not going to think clearly. you will be depressed, and wanting to blame some one. Thats how trump got in, He and his supporters eat alike, JUNK FOOD. Look at the intellectual gap between Trump, and any Iranian spokesman.
lauriemillerjade.com
I’m more than willing to believe that junk food has played a role, but so has junk news, junk television, racism, and garden-variety ignorance. Come to think of it, junk food and junk television can’t explain the Confederacy, or Jim Crow, or the white people screaming at Black children trying to go to school (in Boston as well as the Deep South, btw).
The intellectual gap between Trump and most other world leaders isn’t hard to explain — and it doesn’t speak well to the state of our so-called democracy.
Beginning to feel like a rhetorical question… sadly we’ve hit bottom.
Yeah but you know what? Speaking to an alkie (sober for decades), I know what's under the bottom. Another bottom! Until the bottom is the black hole where non-desirables disappear, we can and seemingly will, continue to fall deeper, hit more bottoms and - oh wait! The midterms, the midterms! Let's hope that the magnificent piece that is our shattered democracy can be put together again.
Yes, hope so.
This needs to be plastered all over NC so those voters can know.
Yes! Just realized that I know a few people in NC--I'll send it to them!
you can't make this crap up .... it's almost worthy of an Onion headliine...thank you as always
Thank you Judd and team for following and reporting on this. Sadly this is exactly what we've come to expect from our politicians.
Can't believe only 943 people have subscribed to your work in 2026 😪 This is the only way we'll get the work of the real journalists out there instead of the crap the Oligarchy wants us to read.
All of us on other Substacks need to cite Judd's work and also cite the sister publication Oligarch Watch.
PI informs and accurate information ain't sexy enough for da masses? Perhaps that's why?
It’s the thought that counts in advertising…
“Michael Whatley launched his general election campaign with an ad that emphasized he was traveling the state in a GMC truck. “Whatley’s driven thousands of miles across North Carolina trying to fix our country and help working families,”
NC voters have no truck with flying in a private jet on behalf of working families? Convict Drew Boggs of course was pardoned by Trump… just the way they “Drew” it up in the playbook.
Trump loves white collar crooks. Especially if they have millions to donate to him. This entire gang of GOP crooks are a cesspool of immoral greed and criminals
Flying on jets, consorting with terrorists, using pardoned criminals to hide your actual campaign transportation, and lying about it on fox propaganda and media - pretty much the Republican playbook for all candidates. If it weren’t for bribes from rich oligarchs funding Republicans to destroy our democracy, these criminal Republican “candidates” would not be able to buy a cup of coffee. Do not BUY the bs, people. Trust Popular Information and actual facts.
Judd, great reporting on another little r maggot chameleon!
Outstanding investigative journalism. Thank you!
I'm glad to see this reporting, although I am not surprised that another flannel-shirted, truck-driving Republican is actually flying around on private jets. However, the twist is the felon who supplies the jets.