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Notes -
If we're doing electoral politics culture war, how about the news out of Ohio?
For those not paying too much attention there's a fairly competitive race going on for Ohio governor between Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy. On Twitter yesterday Walter Curt, whose biography describes him as the State Director of the Conservative Caucus of Ohio, posted this video. The video features one Donna Arthur, Amy Acton's mother, who says the following:
That's a pretty powerful ad! Getting a candidate's mother to come out against them like that. Acton's campaign had their own response prepared, of course.
Those are some pretty explosive allegations! Perhaps Acton's mother's opinions are not very reliable if Acton was removed from her custody at age 12 and Donna chose her rapist husband over her daughter. As best I can tell, the allegations are true. National Review alleges to have reviewed documents showing one Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with Acton while married to Donna. Donna has her own criminal history as well, with a conviction for theft by deception and accusations of animal abuse. Interestingly the Huffington Post dug up another 2020 interview with Donna from Operation Rescue. According to that interview:
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It seems to be Donna's own testimony that her husband was arrested for sexual abuse of Action and Donna and her husband skipped town while on bond to avoid any kind of trial.
Journalists naturally reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign for comment, and they said:
On the one hand, it's hard for me to see how one goes forward with the ad above knowing the full story. If the question is to be one of credibility I am not sure I trust Acton's mother, whom she has not spoken with for almost 50 years and who chose her rapist husband over Acton, above Acton herself. Especially if she has her own criminal convictions for specifically fraud-adjacent behavior.
On the other hand, how did you not know this information? As best I can tell it took the National Review and Huffington Post less than a day to get their hands on the primary legal documents detailing the dispute. The campaign's own statement references the 2020 interview, in which Donna admits the sexual abuse allegations and discusses their leaving town ahead of a trial. I guess the hope is voters see the ad but don't dig any further into the situation or context?
In general I'm all for the "we should wait until trial finds someone guilty" argument, but they literally fled the state while out on bail and hid until his death. Even if he was actually innocent of the rape, he's a literal fugitive that the mother helped and supported! Those details are to be settled in court, not by whether or not she personally believes them (and that's assuming she doesn't believe the allegations instead of just not caring/supporting it).
In any other world that should be a disqualifying reason to prop up the mom by itself.
But as always now the GOP ratchet is to simply double down. Support a child predator on accident? The 12 year old must have had it coming.
Yes, your personal political enemies are all cartoon villains, as always.
Yes https://apnews.com/article/election-2026-ohio-governor-ramaswamy-acton-mother-93ab182c3e0a95d25ddb409ec0628231
... and where, exactly, does he say "The 12 year old must have had it coming", or words to that effect?
What else am I supposed to call choosing to side with a child rapist fugitive and his enabler over a victim?
That is evil and normal voters seem to agree considering how Ramyswamy's chances have plummeted. There is no need for Vance to defend this, but he does so anyway the same way there's supposedly no reason to cover up the Epstein files and yet..
And where exactly does he say the 12-year-old had it coming?
You can keep changing the subject to avoid backing up your claim, if you like.
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I don't agree with magical kitty about much (this actually might be the first time), but the stepdad ran from a trial long before metoo. That means a cop listened to the story amd decided there was probable cause, and a prosecutor reviewed the case and wanted to bring charges and got an indictment. Then this guy skipped bail. That's not a conviction, but it puts him far closer to Roman Polanski than one of the Cornell 7.
How does someone decide to bet their campaign on the word of someone who hid a fugitive from justice over his accuser. None of us will know more about this case than the prosecutor, who believed the stepdad was guilty. Since a trial won't happen now, I'll trust his judgement on who's lying.
Actually there are two people who knew more. Amy herself, and the father.
And the father was a man who saw a trial coming and thought oh fuck I'm gonna be found guilty due to the available evidence. And because he is literally a criminal who fled the courts, we never got to see the results but we sure do know what he was expecting!
It's about as close to a layman's admission of guilt as we can get.
I think it’s reasonable to infer that the dad is probably guilty but if one didn’t care about their reputation one might believe that even if there is a 10% chance of being found guilty better to run.
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The stepfather has no honor, that is clear, but it's still his claim against hers. Just because he's honorless scum doesn't mean he's lying.
The prosecutor has no reason to favor Amy or her stepfather (and I think it's important to keep that distinction both to respect her biological father who got custody after her abandonment and raised her and becuse non-biological parents have a massive increase in odds of abuse) so I take his independent view (as well as the Grand Jury's as stronger evidence Amy's claims are more likely to be closer to the truth than the stepfather's then their offestting claims.
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If you follow the comment chain, I'm specifically objecting to where magicalkittycat says
In the comment you're replying to, mkc is trying to obfuscate this specific point, and pretend that we're arguing over the broad features of the case, which we're not.
I largely agree with your comment, it's just not what I'm trying to get mkc to back up.
Is this really any better of a look?
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Contemptable? Detestable? There are certainly a large range of words to convey judgement, without making a false accusation.
Especially since a false accusation doesn't call 'choosing to side with a child rapist fugitive and his enabler over a victim' anything. It's a change of subject, not an adjective.
Yes, exactly this. "The 12 year old must have had it coming" isn't something you call someone; that doesn't even make grammatical sense.
It's a deliberate attempt to avoid having to stand by an indefensible claim, without any loss of face from having to retract it. "Look over there!"
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What it actually is by all appearances: a belief that the 12-year-old girl made it up and the husband was a tragic victim of a justice system too quick to take a disturbed child's inventions as gospel. You might call this a dangerous heuristic, even a culpably reckless one, but I think it's clear that a person who believes that is not cartoonishly evil in the same way as one who believes that the rape did occur but was no big deal.
I'm sorry, I'm supposed to believe that Vance and Ramyswamy's stance on the criminal justice system is that it's just too harsh (something that fails to show in pretty much any other topic) instead of that they don't care and are trying to use every method they can to take down Acton.
The father was a fugitive from the law! They're literally backing a guy who was accused of sexual abuse by two children and then skipped out of state while out on bail. He is a man who saw a trial coming and thought oh fuck I'm gonna be found guilty due to the available evidence. And because he is literally a criminal who fled the courts, we never got to see the results but we sure do know what he was expecting!
So again, it seems less "they think the criminal justice system needs to be softer on crime" and more "they're trying to use every tool they can reach for, including distorting child sex abuse". That's disgusting!
Then back up your actual comment, instead of trying to distract everyone with generic outrage about things we agree are disgusting.
If you've forgotten, here's what you said:
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I get you, but that was supposed to be a maximally charitable take.
Still doesn’t look very good, to put it lightly.
Edit. Or maybe not after reading the parent comment again.
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