14 Comments
User's avatar
Mark Steinberg's avatar

The rot is everywhere!!

Jim Carmichael's avatar

Thanks, Judd. Right in my own back yard. NC is full of these folksy phonies.

Barbara Didrichsen's avatar

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

Bob D's avatar

Hopefully the Democrats in NC will be using this information in their campaign..

Bon's avatar

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.

Joseph Mangano's avatar

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.

Katy Bolger's avatar

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.

Larry Carr (autocarr)'s avatar

Beginning to feel like a rhetorical question… sadly we’ve hit bottom.

HM Haskins's avatar

Thank you Judd and team for following and reporting on this. Sadly this is exactly what we've come to expect from our politicians.

Allen's avatar

Again, business as usual.

CONSTITUENT MEANS DONOR

Larry Carr (autocarr)'s avatar

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.

Joseph McPhillips's avatar

So much corruption, propaganda & gaslighting...Trump vacillates between delusional claims of total victory & genocidal or apocalyptic threats.

Meanwhile, MAGAs reject science, wreck the economy, balloon the deficit & transfer wealth to the wealthiest.

Dems: an order of magnitude better than the Trump & Co packs of corrupt sociopaths.

Please, bring on a Blue Tsunami.

Mike F's avatar

Thanks for your reporting Judd. Another example of the corruption and fraud by the repukkkelikkkans. They dont give a Fk about average americans, they only care about the billionaires and corporations