"Mr. Vance, who just published a book about his conversion to Catholicism, has for weeks been road-testing unfounded, innuendo-based salvos against Mr. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian."

"At the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas last month, the vice president suggested that Mr. Talarico’s past statements supporting transgender children were evidence of inappropriate behavior. 'A guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children, I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history,' Mr. Vance said. People in the crowd gasped and murmured. Some clapped. Mr. Vance has defended those comments. 'I think typically people who say stuff like that tend to have some pretty unusual search histories,' he said a day later. Mr. Talarico, who has said he has a longtime girlfriend, has largely ignored the vice president’s insinuations...."

From "Vance’s Talarico Attacks Show His Penchant for Personal Broadsides/At a rally in Texas, the vice president suggested the Democratic Senate nominee is gay, a comment criticized as homophobic" (NYT).

"Federal agents search Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home as part of a criminal investigation, AP sources say."

AP reports.

The search was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations agents, said the people... More details about the investigation and its focus were not immediately clear, though Vice President JD Vance last May signaled that the Trump administration would investigate Omar for immigration fraud allegations, which she has denied...  The Justice Department said in a statement Monday that HSI agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant....

Now, this is how you run for President 2 years out.

You look like you're not doing it at all. You can just quietly lay out your theory of the meaning of "Emily in Paris":

"Mr. Vance’s scripted, more traditional political delivery cut a sharp contrast with the freewheeling and improvisational style of Mr. Trump."

"In fact, it was Mr. Vance’s unscripted response to the protester, who unfurled Mexican and Palestinian flags, that appeared to most energize the crowd. 'My friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there,' the vice president said, sending the crowd roaring. 'I’ll buy you the plane ticket.'"

From "Vance, Eying 2028, Relishes the Spotlight at Trump’s Convention/The vice president, widely seen as a potential White House candidate, sought to use his speech in Dallas to show a more personal side to the MAGA faithful" (NYT gift link).

This is like the way if you mock someone for making a typo, you'll make a typo.

But it's far worse:

The guys at @PodSaveAmerica laugh at JD Vance for not knowing what the academic definition of a blood libel is—and then immediately demonstrate that they know even less about it than he does...

Instant Karma. pic.twitter.com/LFN6HY6rAx

— H.A. Hazony (@HAHazony) September 3, 2026

There's so much blood in the old stories, so much blood to choose from. They ALL get confused. The term "blood libel" is specific, but there is seemingly very little awareness of what it refers too. Over time, where there is misuse, does the meaning broaden? Actually, it can. It's called "extended use."

And the OED entry for "blood libel" recognizes the original and the extended use: "The (unfounded) accusation that Jewish people use the blood of Christians in religious rituals, esp. in the preparation of Passover bread; an instance of this (cf. blood accusation n.); (also in extended use) an unfounded defamation."

That's enough to warrant circumspection with respect to what Vance said. Those Pod Save America guys veered right into ridicule. A big mistake... especially since the topic could not be more serious.

ADDED: Here's "The Ridiculous Hyper-Parsing of JD Vance" by Rich Lowry at National Review.

"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today released a report Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of “Gender Medicine'..."

"... a commissioned report examining insurance coding practices, perverse financial incentives, and the provision of sex-rejecting procedures for minors. Drawing on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Guidance, Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations, peer-reviewed scientific literature, hospital records, whistleblower testimony, nationwide insurance claims analyses, and interviews with patients and parents, the report presents HHS’ findings and recommendations about the industry pushing and profiting off so-called “gender medicine.” A shortform documentary illustrating the report’s findings and highlighting the stories of victims of predatory gender medical practices was also released in conjunction with the report...."

From the HHS press release.

Vance is taking the lead in the announcement:

For years now, some hospitals and healthcare providers have been subjecting children to horrific, experimental treatments in service of radical gender ideologies. Today, thanks to the Wolves in White Coats report released by @HHSGov, we know why: profit. It turns out that… pic.twitter.com/B7K7iumpYC

— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 13, 2026

Here's the video (the "shortform documentary"):

"Is that Peter Thiel’s boy with that Ohio charisma he’s got? That guy. I think we’ve had enough of him."

"The last thing that he said that made any sense was 'Hillbilly Elegy,' after he said that Donald Trump had no business being president of anything. That was the last time he made sense, and then he decided to suck up to power."

Said Abdul El-Sayed, quoted in "Vance rips Michigan’s ‘crazy’ El-Sayed: would be a ‘terrible senator'" (NY Post).

Civility bullshit?

From Peter Baker, in the NYT: "Insults, Expletives and Fat-Shaming: Vance Trolls Critics on the Right and Left/The vice president has dispensed with the decorum and restraint of his predecessors to directly take on opponents and journalists on social media with sometimes profane and often personal jabs" (gift link).

It's only "civility bullshit" — for the purposes of my blog tag — if the person calling out incivility would take a different position if the purported incivility were coming from someone on his own side. 

I like the inclusion of Vance's self-defense: "I tend to err on the side of openness. That’s probably a generational thing, right? I come from a very tech-forward generation." That is, if you don't get me, maybe that means you're old. And: "I think one of the good things about social media is that it actually exposes you to unfiltered raw opinions, and that’s one of the things that I need to hear as a political leader."

And I had to laugh at this quote from a law professor: "Vice President Vance’s willingness publicly to disparage others in personal terms stands apart from the behavior of modern vice presidents during the last half-century.... [I]t departs from the norms associated with the office and undermines the goal of promoting rational public discourse."

Notice the lawprof specified "modern vice presidents." Is that designed to keep us from looking for nasty quips in the complete quotations of John Adams and Aaron Burr?

"Trump privately tells donors to back Vance while publicly keeping 2028 open."

So says The Washington Post.

“At the end of the day, we need to elect JD,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with donors roughly two weeks ago, according to two people with knowledge of the comments who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter....

Even as Trump buoyed his vice president to donors in the Oval Office, though, he was still peppering people around him with questions about Vance versus Rubio.... An adviser to the president with direct knowledge of Trump’s comment to the donors said that Trump has privately resolved that Vance will be the heir to the GOP, but that it is “too early” to determine when Vance will announce his candidacy or when Trump will publicly endorse him.

Six other Trumpworld advisers and allies, however, cautioned that they aren’t convinced the president has settled on Vance, noting that Trump tells different things to different people and could still change his mind about an endorsement for 2028. Trump aides widely agree that the president will delay endorsing to avoid appearing to be a lame duck.... 

Trump at the funeral.

President Trump whips out Tic Tacs and hands them out at Lindsey Graham’s funeral: pic.twitter.com/yYhDG1mAoh

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 28, 2026

Trump takes issue with the Lindsey Graham eulogy he's reading: "Virtually everyone liked Lindsey. Well, not everybody. But it sounds good. I have to be honest. I have to veer from this for a second." pic.twitter.com/L5JwAXxWi0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 28, 2026

JD Vance on Joe Rogan.

I'm only an hour and a half into this, but it seems the 2 men are handling themselves well enough:

JD Vance went on Bill Maher's show, and here's a segment of what was, I think, an excellent interview.

I've watched the whole thing (on HBO), and this isn't the segment I'd choose, but what am I going to do? The show selects the clips to share. Watch this though. JD gets a big laugh. 

"Therapy didn’t work for you. But church does," said Usha to JD Vance.

Quoted in JD's new memoir, "Communion" (commission earned).

Did he need therapy and what's the story of its not working on him?

My traumatic childhood had made me resentful and left me with awful conflict management skills. I would overreact or withdraw—fight or flight!—over minor transgressions.... Because of Usha, I attended a few therapy sessions at the Yale student health clinic. The therapist I spoke with was a good guy, but I found therapy too uncomfortable. I didn’t like to talk to my own girlfriend about how crazy my homelife was, so why would I talk to a stranger? But there was a deeper problem with therapy as I encountered it. It was divorced from any sense of responsibility or guilt. In one session, we explored an incident that I’ve since discussed publicly: Driving with my mother on a relatively rural road, she loses her temper. She accelerates the car, threatening to crash and kill both of us.... Experts tend to describe unresolved trauma as when a person experiences “disruptive physical and emotional reactions in the present as their body and mind continue to defend against” threats they faced in the past. The gist is that my fight-or-flight response, my temper, and my general resentment about my feelings of insecurity were consequences of trauma I had experienced and hadn’t properly “processed.” And of course, part of that processing was understanding how trauma across the generations was linked. The trauma I experienced at the hand of my mother was connected to the time my grandfather got drunk and beat her. And of course, my grandfather didn’t have it easy growing up in the deep poverty of Kentucky coal country. I resisted this for a couple of reasons. The first is that the framing turned me into a victim rather than an actor.... The therapist’s framing... removed the moral dimension from human conduct.... I was searching for a more satisfying accounting of wrongdoing and responsibility. Of temptation and willpower. Of virtue and guilt.... [M]ost of all I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to be worthy of this woman I was madly in love with. And I began to fear that the past was a prologue: that whatever happened to my mother, whatever destroyed marriages and friendships in my family, would eventually destroy what I had with Usha....

"He came in strategically prepared to disarm us with niceness.... It worked on you, didn't work on me."

Ana Navarro: “[Vice President JD Vance] also came in… strategically prepared to disarm us with niceness. He came in being affable and laughing easily and being very nice. I mean, it worked on you, [Joy]. Didn't work on me.” pic.twitter.com/CKDFqQesGp

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) June 19, 2026

"Well, now we finally know what would happen if The Wall Street Journal and Us Weekly had a baby. In a piece titled 'Everyone in Trump’s Cabinet Is Eating Sauerkraut'..."

"... the Journal reports that various White House officials are shedding pounds thanks to a hot new diet that involves eating lots of fermented foods, like sauerkraut and kimchi.... There’s just one drawback: 'sulferous odors' have caused some 'friction at home.'... HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was, naturally, the first to jump on the trend. Now he’s converted Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation secretary Sean Duffy, and Vice-President J.D. Vance. We’re told that the men have been getting compliments on their 'glowing skin' and seeing various health benefits, including dramatic weight loss.... [S]everal Cabinet members have been looking svelter, and what other explanation could there be? It’s not like there’s some new magical weight-loss drug out there!"

Writes Margaret Hartmann, in "Sure, the Trump Cabinet’s Weight-Loss Secret Is Definitely 'Sauerkraut'" (New York Magazine).

"It was just like: I want to win the social competition. I want to be better than other people. And I wanted to go to the best school..."

"... so I got into Yale Law School. And I wanted the best jobs, and I wanted to make the most money. But the thing I realized is that this kind of striving had made me pretty hollow. It had made me less interesting than some of the Christians that I know who seemed to have things figured out much better than the 'elites' that I had surrounded myself with. And I just started searching for something that answered the more important questions, like: How do you be a good father? How do you be a good husband? So one way that I would put this is, and this goes back to the personal relationship thing, is, yes, I do think religion serves a socially useful role. I think the evidence is quite clear that people and families that are raised with some sort of institutionalized faith are happier and healthier and more well-adjusted. But I also think: Isn’t that evidence that there’s something about Christianity that’s particularly true? That if these people who believe these things and practice the faith in these ways — I come back to this phrase, I think it’s from the Book of Matthew: 'By your fruits you shall know them.'"

Says JD Vance, quoted in "JD Vance on the Morality of the Trump Administration/I asked the vice president what is Christian about this White House" (NYT).

Truth = what works.

"But, without Mamaw around to guide him, JD lost his faith in God. 'With her gone, no one really cared about my faith, and soon I stopped caring too.'"

"By 2006 'I was no longer, in any real sense, a Christian.' Instead, he took up the winner-takes-all, blessed-are-the-rich philosophy of Ayn Rand, which he summarises as 'stop whining, stop praying, and start working your ass off.' Hers was the materialistic faith he followed through Ohio State University and most of Yale Law School, where they regarded Christianity as 'a weird superstition.' He now thinks his loss of faith was not primarily intellectual, but the inevitable result of transferring his political allegiance to an ungodly liberal elite. 'It was the equivalent of divorce. I was severing myself from my roots.' But then, around 2014, after he’d fallen in love and got married, he began to see that by becoming 'so focused on winning the game of life… I had neglected the deeper truth.'"

From "God, guns and 'Mamaw' — JD Vance’s memoir is part rant, part sermon/In Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, the US vice-president explains why the liberal elite pushed him into the arms of the Church — and Donald Trump" (London Times).

"This way, if it works, I take the credit. If not, I blame JD! You better be careful, JD!"

🚨 LMFAO!! Funniest president ever 🤣🤣

DOOCY: Why not stick around in Europe for the Iran deal signing this weekend?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I might, but this is a Memorandum of Understanding...if it works, I take the credit. If not, I blame JD! You better be careful, JD! He's gonna… pic.twitter.com/O1h8TVsLbX

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 17, 2026

JD Vance gets a word in edgewise on "The View."

It's not easy, but he keeps his cool and maintains a friendly manner even as the women try very hard to put on the pressure: 

Whoopi Goldberg asks JD Vance why the Trump Administration is "stigmatizing" black people.

*JD Vance asks for specific examples*

Whoopi: "Ummmm Uhhhhh Ummmm" pic.twitter.com/mPPon5eprX

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 16, 2026

Among the celebrities at the UFC Freedom 250 festivities: The Holy Uncle.

Vice President JD Vance hanging out with Pope Leo’s brother, the Holy Uncle, at the UFC Freedom 250 Fight Night at the White House.

This is the greatest timeline in human history. pic.twitter.com/W3xZPkNhtU

— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) June 15, 2026