Uncategorized

Columbus, Ohio — Bombshell new reporting from The Bulwark revealed that Vivek Ramaswamy’s latest campaign ad features a man who was convicted of gross sexual imposition of a girl under the age of 13.

This disturbing discovery is the latest in a pattern of child abusers and sexual predators with close ties to the Ramaswamy campaign. Ramaswamy proudly touted endorsements from two state lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct and then scrambled to scrub his campaign website after the fact. He touted his endorsement from Rep. Rodney Creech for months after he was accused of climbing in bed in just his underwear with a minor female relative, and Rep. Gary Click, who reminisced about talking to young girls about sex. Click’s endorsement was added back to Ramaswamy’s website within hours of removal.

Additionally, Ramaswamy has drawn backlash for refusing to call for the release of the Epstein files after promising to do so during his failed presidential campaign. He also has yet to explain why his super PAC accepted $100,000 from Epstein co-conspirator Glenn Dubin, then failed to return the money despite pledging to do so.

Read More: Ramaswamy Campaign Ad Accidentally Featured a Sex Offender

• PROPERTY TAXES ARE A HOT-BUTTON issue in Ohio, where Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to run as a change candidate for governor in a state long run by Republicans. And in his latest campaign ad, he tried to press the button hard. The spot featured a woman from Amherst (a Cleveland suburb) named Patricia “Patty” Edwards, who is fretting about losing the family farm.

• But while the topic may resonate with voters, the featured couple has created complications for Ramaswamy’s camp. That’s because Vernon Edwards—Patty’s husband, who appears a few times in b-roll alongside her in the ad—is a registered sex offender.

• According to court records, Edwards entered into a plea deal in October 2006, in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of “gross sexual imposition”—that is, according to Ohio statute, non-consensual sexual contact—with a minor. Though there were allegations that he committed similar acts against several nieces, he was ultimately charged in a case involving one of them, a girl under the age of 13, because the statute of limitations had expired in the other instances. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

• Vernon Edwards isn’t the main focus of the Ramaswamy campaign ad. But he does appear several times in it, with footage drawn from a prior interaction he and his wife had with Ramaswamy at the Lorain County Fair in September this year. That interaction, posted in September by Ramaswamy to his X account, took place while he was glad-handing voters. Vernon Edwards greeted Ramaswamy with a handshake, and the candidate complimented his patriotic shirt. 

• After offering the comment, the campaign also quietly took down the social video featuring Vernon Edwards, as did at least one Republican Ohio state representative who had shared the video as well—suggesting a coordinated effort to wipe the record.

• The inclusion of Vernon Edwards in the original social video and the television ad raises questions about the aspiring governor’s campaign—specifically, whether it is conducting due diligence. Ramaswamy is running for chief executive of the Buckeye State—and asking Ohioans to trust his judgment enough to make him governor—on the strength of his personal narrative, which pictures him as a competent business leader.

• Campaigns typically vet the individuals they put forward in ads to ensure both that their stories are true and that there are no red flags in their biographies. Among the records that could have been discovered were court documents showing a Vernon Edwards from the same Amherst address as Patty listed in the Lorain County sex offender registry. In addition, a Google search would have shown Edwards appearing to wear the exact same patriotic shirt in the sex offender registry as the one Ramaswamy complimented him for wearing when they met at the fair.

###

COLUMBUS, OHIO — New reporting reveals that Jon Husted has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from nursing home companies and executives that faced multi-million dollar lawsuits for Medicaid and Medicare fraud.

This is the latest example of Jon Husted attacking Ohio seniors: 

• NBC 4 Columbus reported that Husted has taken “more than a million dollars from the nursing home industry, executives, and lobbyists” after he pushed for the passage of legislation that “shielded Ohio nursing homes from liability, even in wrongful death and abuse cases.”

• Among the nursing homes Husted protected were many that dumped seniors at homeless shelters across Ohio. 

• Husted championed legislation that would force massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and cast the tie-breaking vote for the largest cut to Medicaid in history.

Read more:

Ohio Independent: Husted donors include executives whose companies settled Medicare fraud cases

• Since his appointment to the U.S. Senate in January 2025, Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted has often spoken out against waste and fraud in federal spending programs. But some of the top donors who have funded his past and present political campaigns and the companies they run or ran have entered into multimillion-dollar agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice to settle allegations of Medicare fraud. 

• An Ohio Independent review of federal and state campaign finance records revealed that some of Husted’s most generous longtime donors have been top executives of companies accused of filing false Medicare claims.

• In July 2017, the DOJ announced that Ohio-based Foundations Health Solutions Inc, Olympia Therapy Inc., and Tridia Hospice Care Inc., and company executives Brian Colleran and Daniel Parker had agreed to pay $19.5 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations. The companies were accused of submitting claims for unnecessary hospice and rehabilitation services.

• In April 2020, it announced a $10 million settlement with the Ohio-based Saber Healthcare Group LLC after the company was accused of billing Medicare for “rehabilitation therapy services that were not reasonable, necessary or skilled.”

• Colleran and his wife Gretchen have donated $7,000 each, the legal maximum, to Husted’s 2026 Senate campaign and another $75,000 each to Team Husted, a joint fundraising committee working to ensure Husted’s victory this November. They previously donated more than $75,000 to Husted’s state committee and to the DeWine-Husted campaign and other Husted statewide campaigns.

• Parker gave $7,000 to the Husted Senate campaign and at least $20,000 to Team Husted. He contributed more than $35,000 to Husted’s prior statewide races. 

• Saber co-founder and president William Weisberg gave $7,000 to Husted’s Senate campaign and $100,000 to Team Husted. He and his wife Georgia donated more than $35,000 to his previous statewide campaigns. 

• Saber co-founder and former executive George Repchick Jr. gave $7,000 to Husted’s 2026 campaign and more than $60,000 to Husted’s statewide races.

• In each case, the large donations continued after the settlements were made public.

• The Husted campaign declined to comment.

###

Columbus, Ohio- New reporting from MeidasTouch News caught Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign appearing to coordinate with an independent expenditure Super PAC in a potential violation of Ohio campaign finance law.

Ramaswamy’s independent expenditure committee, VPAC: Victors, Not Victims, was jointly paying for WinRed fundraising pages with Ramaswamy’s official campaign committee, Vivek Ramaswamy and Rob McColley for Ohio. 

16 WinRed pages state they are paid for by both the campaign committee and VPAC, in a potential violation of campaign finance law since an independent expenditure cannot fundraise directly for a candidate.

“There are only three weeks to go until Election Day, and Vivek Ramaswamy’s pattern of lies and deceit has only accelerated,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman Katie Seewer. “There’s no low Ramaswamy won’t stoop to, whether that’s pushing more scammy policies and outright lies or even a potential violation of campaign finance law, because he’s only out for himself.”

READ MORE: Ramaswamy Campaign is Coordinating With a Super PAC in a Potential Violation of Ohio Campaign Finance Law

• Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appears to be coordinating with an independent expenditure Super PAC aligned with his campaign in what would constitute a violation of Ohio campaign finance law.

• The independent expenditure committee VPAC: Victors, Not Victims has been jointly paying for multiple WinRed fundraising pages with Ramaswamy’s campaign committee, Vivek Ramaswamy and Rob McColley for Ohio. 26 active WinRed pages exist to solicit funds for Ramaswamy’s campaign. Of those, 16 state they exclusively fund the campaign, with eight featuring disclaimer language that “100%” of donations benefit Ramaswamy’s campaign, and eight saying “contributions benefit” Ramaswamy’s campaign.

• All 16 contain the required “paid for by” disclaimer language, and all state they are paid for by both the campaign committee and VPAC. This appears to violate Ohio campaign finance law as an independent expenditure cannot fundraise directly for a campaign.

• Unlike campaign committees, independent expenditures have no limits on how much money they can raise and spend, as long as they support the candidate independently with no coordination from the campaign itself. Donating money to VPAC and having 100% of the donation go to the campaign committee means that VPAC is not an independent expenditure, but rather an arm of the campaign committee itself.

• Moreover, VPAC and the Ramaswamy campaign committee share a communications consultant, Ascent Strategic. Ramaswamy’s campaign paid Ascent Strategic as a vendor for direct mail services and video ads from February 28, 2025 until May 2026.

• VPAC made a payment to Ascent Strategic on May 7, 2025, one week after the first payment from the Ramaswamy campaign. If VPAC was using Ascent Strategic to make advertisements for the Ramaswamy campaign at the same time as the campaign itself, the two organizations would be coordinating by sharing a communications vendor.

• The law states independent expenditures and electioneering communications cannot be “made pursuant to any arrangement, coordination, or direction by the candidate, the candidate’s campaign committee, or the candidate’s agent prior to the publication, distribution, display, or broadcast of the communication.”

###

COLUMBUS, OH — Derek Merrin is getting slammed for pushing a “Made in America” agenda while sourcing his own campaign merchandise from Bangladesh. As Merrin repeatedly runs from Ohioans’ questions on his record of raising costs for Ohio families, he once again “did not answer directly” when questioned about the discrepancy between his rhetoric and his choice to have his campaign t-shirts made by a company located outside of the United States that is accused of labor abuses. 

“Derek Merrin’s choice to get his campaign merchandise made in Bangladesh is an affront to the Ohio workers he’s running to represent,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Abby Hasselbrink. “Ohioans deserve leaders in Congress who are going to actually fight to keep good-paying jobs in Ohio, not ship jobs overseas and sell out Ohio workers. Ohioans know that Marcy Kaptur is the only person in this race with a proven track record of saving Ohio jobs from outsourcing and standing up for Ohio working families. That’s why they will send her back to the House this November.” 

Rep. Marcy Kaptur has always fought to keep good-paying jobs in Northwest Ohio. Her campaign merchandise is proudly made in the United States, with Rep. Kaptur telling Spectrum News, “For us in this district, ‘Made in America’ is everything.” 

Read more from Spectrum News about Derek Merrin’s blatant hypocrisy pushing a “Made in America” agenda while making his t-shirts overseas: 

Spectrum News – Ohio Republican promotes “Made in America” agenda—but his campaign T-shirts were made in Bangladesh 

• A Republican congressional candidate in Ohio touts a “Made in America” agenda, but at least some of his campaign merchandise is made in Bangladesh by a company accused of labor abuses.
• In campaign speeches, Former state Rep. Derek Merrin, a Republican challenging long-serving Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio’s 9^th District, often mentions the decline of manufacturing in Toledo, which was hit hard by the national trend of deindustrialization in the last half century. Merrin frequently criticizes Kaptur, who has been in office since 1983, of abandoning Ohio’s workers.
• Merrin’s campaign also sent out mailers reading, “Derek Merrin’s plan: good jobs, bigger paychecks, made in Ohio.”
• However, at least some of Merrin’s campaign T-shirts are made in Bangladesh, as evidenced by the tag of a T-shirt given out to campaign volunteers this summer.
• The shirt was made by Gildan, a Canadian company with about 75,000 employees in factories across the world. The Workers Rights Consortium, UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and other labor rights groups have accused the company of labor violations in multiple countries.
• At a press gaggle this week, Merrin did not answer directly when Spectrum News brought up the Gildan campaign T-shirts and asked what standard candidates who push a “Made in America” agenda should be held to when it comes to their own campaigns.
• Kaptur’s campaign said its campaign T-shirts were all made by Royal Apparel, an American company with manufacturing facilities in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The tag of a Kaptur campaign t-shirt obtained by Spectrum News says the t-shirt was made in the U.S. “with imported yarns.”
• “For us in this district, ‘Made in America’ is everything,” Kaptur said in an interview with Spectrum News. “I believe we have to make, not just buy.”

###

Columbus, Ohio- There’s no way to spin it. Vivek Ramaswamy had a really bad week as Ohioans began heading to the polls. During his moment in the spotlight at a rally, he nearly dropped a child he attempted to pick up. He hopped on an 11-minute flight from Findlay to Toledo, then laughably claimed his favorite song was “Life is a Highway.”

Ramaswamy’s (Almost) Fumble: Vivek Ramaswamy’s moment in the spotlight at a Saturday rally in Dayton was overshadowed when he nearly dropped a young boy he brought up on stage. Ramaswamy’s near-fumble was seen by millions and even made it to late night television. Not a good look less than one month from Election Day.

Tauring’s Terrifying Comments: New reporting from Talking Points Memo spotlighted how Ramaswamy campaigned twice with a pastor who claimed “Satan” is using Islam to launch a “multi-front war against America.” Tauring previously made news for calling the modern practice of Judaism “fake.” Ramaswamy can’t be trusted to keep Ohioans safe no matter their religious views.

I-75 Avoidance: Instead of taking a 45-mile trip up I-75 from Findlay to Toledo, Ramaswamy took an 11-minute flight. The drive typically takes less than an hour, but Ramaswamy can’t stop himself from indulging in his favorite hobby of private aviation.

ON REPEAT: Ramaswamy laughably claimed his favorite song is “Life is a Highway” after spending more than one million dollars on private jet travel. This morning, Ramaswamy took a 19-minute flight from Columbus to Lima for an event. Maybe “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is a better fit for Ramaswamy.

###