<mooooaan> » « The problem with kaiju

JD Vance probably does love a comfy couch, though

I think it’s important to check the flow of misinformation. According to the Associated Press, JD Vance did not, I repeat, did not fuck a sofa.

This scurrilous accusation does warrant a thorough investigation.

The wild assertions sprang from people on X (formerly Twitter) writing that Vance, now the running mate for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, wrote in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” that he simulated the act with a rubber glove anchored between the cushions as a young man.

“You have only been a Senator for 18 months, you are NOT qualified to be @VP plus you depravely humped a couch and wrote about it in your book!” a Kamala Harris supporter wrote.
Even comedian Kathy Griffin chimed in, declaring the country should not have a “couchf*cker” as vice president.

At one point AP appeared to have another headline, “Posts spread baseless rumors about GOP vice presidential pick JD Vance having sex with a couch,” but the article has seemed to disappear. We’re checking with AP on that.

Why waste all that journalistic effort? According to Mediate, AP did a PDF search of the book that produced 10 references of “couch” or “couches” but in none of them did Vance take liberties. “Sofa” and “glove” did not appear anywhere in the memoir, AP wrote.

I am mostly satisfied at this point, but I wouldn’t rule out the appointment of a Senate committee to investigate further. And I think that Vance needs to make a public disavowal.

<mooooaan> » « The problem with kaiju

Comments

  2. robro says

    On the other hand, Last night I saw pull clips from a couple of his speeches since his nomination and, while I’m confident those were cherry picked, he came across as inept. But hey, being inept hasn’t hurt Chump’s chances.

  4. Alverant says

    I’m tired of going high when they go low. If the cons are going to lie about Harris and claim she’s not a real US citizen (yes, birtherism has returned), I’m going to call Vance a couch rapist.

    Protect your wives, shield your sisters, hide your daughters, and put plastic covers on your sofas!

  5. awomanofnoimportance says

    Of course, there were already lots and lots of reasons not to vote for Trump/Vance even before this story came along.

  6. Reginald Selkirk says

    According to Mediate, AP did a PDF search of the book…

    So – they can’t find anyone who has actually read this literary gem?

  7. awomanofnoimportance says

    By the way, I will never understand why the voters of Ohio chose Vance over the sane, thoughtful, intelligent and well spoken Tim Ryan.

  10. drsteve says

    I won’t be satisfied until a reporter asks him the question, ‘When did you stop fornicating with your couch?’

  11. gijoel says

    Ah rat-fucking at its finest. At least he didn’t kill his dog. Couch humping clown does have a good ring to it.

    Vance seems to have gotten where he is in life by being friends* with Peter Thiel.

    *Thiel doesn’t have friends,he has serfs. Or at least he’d like to think so.

  12. says

    As long as you aren’t hurting people how you wank is your business. But the Republican obsession with “proper” sex and who gets to have it opens up people live Vance to to such inquiries. Especially when you have an idiot like Laura Loomer say the Republicans should attack VP Harris about what she thinks Harris’s sex life has been like.

  13. raven says

    There are so many real reasons to dislike JD Vance that no one has to make up anything.
    He is a trad Catholic, a Dark Ages Catholic that even most Catholics don’t care for.

    And Vance has even argued that federal action is needed to stop women seeking terminations traveling from states where abortion is illegal to states where it’s allowed.

    This is forced birthing and female slavery of pregnant women.

    If you aren’t free to move about like everyone else because you are pregnant, you are a slave.

    FWIW, restricting the right of travel to one class of people, pregnant women, would be unconstitutional. It violates the 14th amendment, which provides that all citizens are equal under the law and entitled to due process under the law.

    14th Amendment civil rights:

    …nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    Then again, with the current US Supreme Court, they could just ignore this and make up whatever laws they want.

  14. says

    Yeah, I don’t have a problem if he did it with a couch beyond a little bit of cringe. As with every Republican these days, I suspect there’s far worse that’s going to emerge that involves harming real people.

  15. says

    None of this is at all relevant (we’re all agreed that masturbation isn’t a big deal, remember?); but it is a briefly amusing distraction, and might (repeat MIGHT) serve to highlight right-wing hypocrisy WRT sexual morality.

    “JD Vance: less rapey than Trump or Gaetz!”

  16. muttpupdad says

    No.4 Alverant, One should not put plastic covers on their sofas as that would block what gawd desires.

  17. Dan Phelps says

    It was probably more romantic than anything Trump did with Melanoma. I think any investigation should concentrate on if the couch gave consent.

  20. StevoR says

    As Colbert points out here at the 7 mins 11 secs mark – Harris: We Are Not Going Back | Why Did Trump Pick Vance? | Fox News Is Grasping At Plastic Straws Vance already had a whole lotta probs and was already looking like a terrible & (almost) literally least popular ever Veep choice even before this..

    Also, well, he didn’t even do the American Pie thing as (not) traditional? (Byeee, bye Miss America Pie, you’re so creamy and so dreamy so I’ve heard & that’s why..)

    FWI. How Vance gets off, no business of mine & don’t care – but just can he stay outta how anyone else does it & their sex lives please? Coz if he cant’ & seems he can’t; well, dude, you are askin’ for it, hypocrite!. Geese, ganders goodness, suck on it douchebag & Trump’s regret..

  21. IX-103, the ■■■■ing idiot says

    So the AP just pulled that story. I’m not saying JD Vance did have sex with a couch, but the AP retracted a story saying he didn’t.

    Not that it matters (other than for entertainment value). I’m not voting for him anyway.

  22. Reginald Selkirk says

    JD Vance breaks polling records in the worst way

    Vice-presidential nominees typically receive a ratings bump after their party’s convention, but Sen. JD Vance is bucking the tradition.

    On the heels of last week’s Republican National Convention, the Ohio senator is the least-liked vice-presidential candidate since 1980, CNN found in a polling analysis. It noted the data applied to nonincumbents.

    Since 2000, vice-presidential nominees typically have had a net-positive rating immediately following the convention, at plus 19 points. Vance, however, is polling at minus 6 points just one week after accepting the vice-presidential nomination and officially embarking on the campaign trail, the network found…

  24. birgerjohansson says

    At Ed Brayton’s blog we used to joke about turning the Fox News style of Obama comments against Republicans.
    .
    “Congressman X should come out and make a public disawowal about the rumors that he only got away because of a legal technicality after raping and murdering a girl in college”.
    .
    If you want I can come up with some even more (fake) outlandish rumor about Vance. Like when he was young he used to hang out with the Brit upper-class fraternity that made a future prime minister (CENSORED) to be accepted by the fraternity. So he is not only a couch fucker he is a dead pig fucker.
    And what about the rumors about him and ‘Rentboy.com” ? I am just asking questions.

  26. birgerjohansson says

    Raging Bee@ 15
    -we should start a gofundme to pay for a TV ad!
    “When voting in November, remember Vance is less rapey than Trump or Gaetz! He only wants fo force you to give birth to potential rape babies”.

  29. drew says

    What was the concern? Consent?

    I almost never ask my couch’s permission to do anything.

  31. Reginald Selkirk says

    Why People Are Saying JD Vance Has Sex With Couches

    So where did this meme get started? It can all be traced back to a since deleted tweet by X user @rickrudescalves.

    “can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181),” the X user wrote…

    Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, does not contain any passages about having sex with couches, not on pages 179-181 or anywhere else. But there are plenty of other odd stories from the book that have since gone viral, including one about his indignation at being served sparkling water. There have been jokes and fake screenshots about the sparkling water, but the basic story is true if you can believe it…

    I don’t see why it would make a big difference whether the glove was inside out or not.

  34. says

    O.K. I know name calling can be childish. But, some just seem to beg for it.

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/07/24/vance-awakens-a-sleeping-female-giant/
    J.D. Vance referred to them as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He said that included Harris, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat.

    I now must refer to hinm as ‘J.D. Vancehole’

    AND

    I now must refer to her as ‘Margarine Failure Greene’
    https://digbysblog.net/2024/07/24/everythings-a-conspiracy/
    Ron Filipkowski
    @RonFilipkowski
    Marge accuses the Secret Service Director of being part of an intentional conspiracy to assassinate Trump.
    @Acyn
    Yikes the hearing is off the rails
    10:52 AM · Jul 22, 2024
    AND
    the jacket: ‘I don’t really care, do you’ and the evil blood red Xmas trees, etc
    now I must refer to her as ‘Malaria’
    (am I being too subtle)

  35. Hemidactylus says

    If the couch humping incident was actually in the book, I am trying to envision Ron Howard deciding how to depict it in the Hillbilly Elegy movie. The actor Gabriel Basso would have had to do multiple takes to do justice to the scene.

  39. seachange says

    I did see the book front and center at Vroman’s yesterday. They also had in another part of the bookstore their usual “if you read this you might like these” only instead it said “if you read (or really don’t want to read) this you might like these” with some real books about Appalachia life.

    Yes, it does matter if the glove is inside out. Some kinds of gloves are pre-powdered.

  40. raven says

    J.D. Vance referred to them as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

    LOL.

    It is just flat out wrong.

    .1. I checked with Google to see if VP Harris even has a cat or two. Apparently not. She should though.

    .2. Both VP Harris and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg do have children!!!
    They were adopted children but so what?
    Being a parent is more than a biological description.
    Claiming adopted children aren’t real children is just so GOP.

    .3. It’s both wrong and incredibly insulting to childless people to claim they made a choice and that choice made them miserable.
    A huge number of childless people are childless due to factors out of their control, sterility, age, genetic factors, etc..

    Childless people run around 20% of the population and Vance just insulted a large demographic block for no reason.

    PS: Who said childless cat ladies (or men) are miserable anyway? Vance doesn’t know this. Wrong again. I’m sure many of them are reasonably happy with their lives.

  41. raven says

    I’m going to amplify the point that many childless people are childless out of necessity, not choice.
    We’ve all seen them. Some of us are them.

    .1. Sterility due to various acquired and genetic causes.
    Common.
    NIH: “About 9% of men and about 11% of women of reproductive age in the United States have experienced fertility problems.”

    .2. Some people are known carriers for various genetic diseases and risk factors that make birthing a child with them not a great idea.
    That can be fixed with genetic screening of embryos followed by selection or abortion.
    This option isn’t open to people who don’t accept abortion or genetic screening though. That would be fundies, Catholics, and anyone stuck living in Alabama.

    .3. Some people just never met anyone they wanted to marry and have children with and vice versa.
    Or at least while they were young enough to even still ovulate.
    This happens a lot.
    Its happened to friends of mine.

    .4. Some people think that the earth with 8.1 billion people has enough people. Or too many and we are destroying the biosphere.
    It is for sure that there is no shortage of people.
    The GOP’s main program is to…get rid of a lot of people living in the US, i.e. the immigrants.

    .5. Some people did have children who died one way or another. Ask the Ukrainians and Gazaians, how that works.

    .6. I’m sure there are other reasons.

    Vance is not just wrong, he has insulted about 20% of the US population.

  43. says

    The Nadeau tweet is introduced with “Others argued that the story couldn’t be fact-checked, suggesting just because the admission wasn’t in the book doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  44. says

    .6. I’m sure there are other reasons.

    Vance is not just wrong, he has insulted about 20% of the US population.

    In my case, aromantic and asexual. Just never been a priority in my life. I do plan on contributing to future generations, but not by siring them.

  45. says

    Reginald Selkirk@25 I wonder how much of the new demand for Vance’s book is from right wing churches and other organisations who intend to give away those books to their members. And how much is simply trying to make Vance look popular.

  51. Doc Bill says

    Sex with a couch! Oh, man, I never thought of using a rubber glove. Wasted youth, I tell you!

  52. Doc Bill says

    Sex With a Couch has gotta be a drink.

    I propose:

    2 shots Peppermint Schnapps
    2 shots Everclear

    Yeah, I’d do a couch with that in me!

  54. Pierce R. Butler says

    Sofa vs. Couch: What’s the Difference? – Better Homes & Gardens

    Jun 11, 2024… Sofa is more refined and formal, while couch is more casual and relaxed.

    Which surely explains why ” “Sofa” … did not appear anywhere in the memoir, AP wrote.”

  55. Bekenstein Bound says

    Reginald Selkirk@31:

    I don’t see why it would make a big difference whether the glove was inside out or not.

    Neither do I, but the religious right are ever so picky about these kinds of things. Who you have sex with, how and under what circumstances.

    Ordinarily I wouldn’t advocate shaming anyone for their (non-harmful) masturbation habits or preferences, but Vance is basically the co-sponsor of Project 2025, wherein the Heritage Foundation, among other things, intends to “end recreational sex”. I’m fairly sure masturbation qualifies, save when it’s into a cup for a medical diagnostic or IVF or some such. That makes Vance a flaming hypocrite … whether or not this specific masturbation anecdote is accurate.

    Hemidactylus@35:

    The actor Gabriel Basso would have had to do multiple takes to do justice to the scene.

    Especially if they intend to offer multiple camera angles on the home video releases.

    @Vance himself:

    a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too

    Projection, coming from one of the evangelical proponents of Project 25, aka “a bunch of joyless prudes who are miserable in their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too”.

    (Puritanism (n). The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.)

    raven@40:

    I checked with Google to see if VP Harris even has a cat or two. Apparently not. She should though.

    She should get one of those fluffy white ones, like Blofeld, and have it in her lap and absently be stroking it when addressing a crowd at a rally, or later as President. See how that triggers the far-right snowflakes.

    Vance just insulted a large demographic block for no reason.

    So, just like his running mate. Those two are made for each other.

  56. Reginald Selkirk says

    @55: She should get one of those fluffy white ones, like Blofeld, and have it in her lap and absently be stroking it when addressing a crowd at a rally, or later as President. See how that triggers the far-right snowflakes.

    That might be an interesting experiment. Trump supporters seem to like Bond villains.

  57. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 56
    No, no, Bond villains are usually pretty clever. You don’t climb to the top of SPECTRE just by being the heir of a billionaire, or by being a redneck.
    Trump voters are more like the expendable minions that get shot in droves fighting for a boss that doesn’t care about them.

  58. Matthew Currie says

    Seen elsewhere, so I can’t take credit, it’s inaccurate to say Vance had sex with a couch. It was a love seat.