"R" VOTERS ACROSS THE NATION ARE CONSPICUOUSLY UNINFORMED, TOO LAZY
TO RESEARCHED OR LOOK UP INFORMATION....JUST BLINDLY EMBRACE MANURE!
Below are just a few articles...there's far more for those who INFORM themselves!
BERNIE MORENO, according to articles, is just another REPUBLICAN LIAR!
This GOP Senate Hopeful’s Self-Made Story Has a Darker Side
Bernie Moreno is running for Senate largely based on his business success story. But a lawsuit from an old employee is bringing into question Moreno’s version of that story.
Sam Brodey
As a leading Republican candidate for the highly competitive U.S. Senate race in Ohio, Bernie Moreno has leaned on his personal story as an immigrant from Colombia who built a national auto dealership empire.
But there’s been something missing from that story: Moreno’s falling-out with his longtime friend and business associate, Gabriel Despres, a man he once credited as central to his success.
According to previously unreported legal filings, Despres sued Moreno in 2015, alleging “unlawful and unscrupulous conduct in reneging on written and oral promises” Moreno made about the money Despres would make and the role he would have in their dealership group.
The core allegation from Despres was that Moreno scuttled an agreement entitling him to 10 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of any of his dealerships in exchange for Despres giving up a large share of his annual salary for Moreno to use as capital to expand the business.
Despite the group’s success—and Moreno publicly saying Despres was the “yin to my yang”—Despres claimed he was pushed out by Moreno before the sale of any dealerships, not because of his performance but because his old friend did not want to pay him.
While Despres could not put an exact number on the amount of money he believes he lost as a result, his attorneys estimated it was in the millions.
“This case is about what turned out to be Moreno’s greed and duplicity towards the person who was most there for him from the beginning and who was instrumental to his own success,” Despres’ attorneys wrote in their initial complaint.
Over two years of legal proceedings, Judge Patricia A. Gaughan of the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Ohio indicated her skepticism of the expansive relief to which Despres argued he was entitled. She also sided with Moreno’s lawyers in dismissing claims that he had engaged in fraudulent activity or unjustly enriched himself, in addition to finding Moreno’s promise to Despres “too vague” to be enforced.
But by May 2017, the two parties settled the dispute out of court, averting a jury trial on the matter and any verdict on Moreno’s guilt or innocence.
“After the Judge dismissed the bulk of Gabe’s claims, Bernie decided to settle to avoid the further expense of trial,” said Moreno campaign spokesman Conor McGuinness, in response to questions from The Daily Beast. “The terms of the settlement are confidential, but Bernie was very pleased with the settlement.”
“I realize that lawyers like to sensationalize the claims they make because they think it will help their client, but the Despres case was really nothing more than a business dispute, which, like most business disputes, was eventually settled,” McGuiness continued.
In a statement of his own, Moreno said he hired Despres to work for him in Ohio—they moved together there from Massachusetts to start the business—“because he was a talented salesman.”
“Unfortunately, he went through some personal difficulties,” Moreno said. “Although I have not spoken to him since the lawsuit has been settled, my understanding is that he has resolved those difficulties. Everybody goes through hard times, I’m very sympathetic to that fact, and I wish him all the best.”
Despres did not respond to several emailed requests for comment. According to the legal filings, Despres endured a divorce during his work with Moreno and racked up considerable financial debt, for which Moreno loaned him money.
But Despres is not the only associate or employee to have taken legal action against Moreno.
Between 2015 and 2017, three lawsuits were filed against Moreno by employees at his Cleveland-area dealerships which alleged race, gender, and age discrimination, the Associated Press reported last month. A female employee with children, for instance, alleged that Moreno told her to “put your kids in fucking daycare” after she asked about flexibility in her work schedule. According to the AP, all three lawsuits were settled out of court.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Reuters
Trump-Endorsed Senate Candidate Once Called Him ‘Fake Republican,’ Report Says
FLIP-FLOP
The Pro-Trump Senate Candidate Who Didn’t Scrub All of His Anti-Trump Tweets
Bernie Moreno is trying to present himself as the pro-Trump option in Ohio's Senate race. He didn’t quite delete all of his tweets.
Sam Brodey
Ursula Perano
At first glance, Bernie Moreno looks like just another Republican candidate who is downplaying the shocking attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and pushing for lenient treatment for those who carried it out.
The wealthy Cleveland car dealer, who ran for U.S. Senate in Ohio in 2022 and is running again in 2024, has called Jan. 6 defendants “political prisoners,” once said “don’t ever use the word insurrection,” and shared a post from a right-wing Twitter account that condemned the Department of Justice for prosecuting people who were inside the Capitol for “two minutes.”
In an August 2021 interview, Moreno said Jan. 6 was “terrible” and condemned those who committed violence that day. But the aspect of the day that he said “should send chills down your spine” was the treatment of those who stormed the Capitol but were not glaringly violent.
Moreno raised the case of a “70 year old grandma who walked into the Capitol following what was going on, kind of almost let in, didn’t break one thing” who might be charged with trespassing.
“What’s the fine? I don’t know a hundred bucks, two hundred bucks?” said Moreno. “Six months in jail. No trial date. Solitary confinement.”
Screenshot from Bernie Moreno's Twitter
Unlike many MAGA politicians, however, Moreno’s hardline Jan. 6 rhetoric came not long after he spent the aftermath of the attack tweeting and liking content that was harshly critical of Trump, those who rioted, and 2020 election denialism more broadly.
In a series of now-deleted tweets—screenshots of which were obtained by The Daily Beast—and liked tweets that remain available on Moreno’s account, the Ohio Senate hopeful sounds like a candidate who is far more eager to land Chris Christie’s endorsement than Donald Trump’s.
In a now-deleted December 2020 tweet, Moreno said it was wrong when Democrats accused Trump of collusion with Russia, “but just as bad for [Trump] to make claims of a fraudulent election without proof. Potentially irreparable harm to US.”
In a tweet sent on the evening of Jan. 6, Moreno tried to distance Republicans from the violence by castigating and insulting the rioters. “The morons who ransacked the capital don’t represent anyone but the mentally unstable,” he said in one reply.
In another Jan. 6 Twitter reply, Moreno referred to the rioters as “criminals” and urged another user to not legitimize them. “This is not how democracy is done,” he said. In another, he dubbed the now-infamous QAnon shaman “an out of work and untalented actor.”
Moreno has since deleted those tweets, likely long before the former president faced criminal prosecution himself for his actions on and before Jan. 6, both in federal court in Washington and in Georgia state court in Atlanta.
Since Moreno launched his first 2022 Senate run, his past anti-Trump statements and social media activity have come under scrutiny. In May, when Moreno launched his 2024 campaign, the Daily Mail reported on now-deleted tweets from 2015 and 2016 in which he compared Trump to “a car accident that makes you sick.”
But Moreno’s attempt to scrub his past expressions of views over the 2020 election and Jan. 6 has not yet been reported. He also has not fully scrubbed them: his record of liked tweets remains publicly available.
On Jan. 6, he liked a tweet from the actor Mark Hamill, who wrote, “the only other person enjoying this chaos & anarchy as much as our defeated president is Vladimir Putin.”
Screenshot from Bernie Moreno's Twitter
A week after Jan. 6, Moreno liked a post by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who defended former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as a “principled leader” with “a hell of a lot more backbone than most” after she voted to impeach Trump.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Moreno spokesman Conor McGuinness said that while Moreno “believes that while January 6th unfortunately devolved into a riot, it was not an Insurrection, as the media has ridiculously attempted to claim.”
“He continues to be disgusted with the people who committed violence, but we have since learned a lot more about that day, including about the vile treatment of peaceful protestors who committed no violence, but had the book thrown at them anyway by Biden’s DOJ,” McGuinness continued. “All the while, that same DOJ has in many cases refused to prosecute the people responsible for the BLM riots in the Summer of 2020. Bernie will fight to end Joe Biden’s two tiered Justice System in the United States Senate."
Moreno would hardly be the first Republican politician to walk back or erase their heated criticism of Trump or their expressions of outrage and sadness over Jan. 6. Many seeking to remain in the good graces of the influential former president and his supporters have done just that.
But few have shifted as dramatically on all things Trump as Moreno, who launched his first Senate campaign in April 2021 and quickly rebranded himself as the Trumpiest candidate in a crowded GOP primary in which Trump’s endorsement was seen as key to victory.
He ultimately lost in that primary to now-Sen. J.D. Vance, who won Trump’s endorsement. Now, Moreno is running to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), a top target for Republicans looking to take the Senate majority.
Although Republicans everywhere have rallied around Trump in the face of his criminal indictments, it would be difficult to find a leading candidate anywhere who is more conspicuously angling for the MAGA vote—and Trump’s endorsement—than Moreno.
Screenshot from Bernie Moreno's Twitter.
In the last month, Moreno has called for President Joe Biden’s impeachment, campaigned recently alongside hardcore election denier Kari Lake, and wrote an op-ed saying that any Republican candidate for office should be “disqualified” if they would not support Trump if he were the GOP nominee for president.
“Some people wish Trump’s words were more polished, but the difference between every other politician and Trump is that he gives us full and honest access to all his thoughts—which is preferable to the deception most politicians engage in publicly,” Moreno wrote in The Columbus Dispatch. “At the end of the day, I care more about actions, and Trump’s actions made us stronger, safer, and more prosperous.”
The former president has yet to endorse in the Ohio Senate race, though he has spoken positively of Moreno. Top allies of Trump’s, like Vance, Lake, and former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), have all backed him.
Still, the candidate’s history of criticizing Trump and his supporters’ actions around the 2020 election and Jan. 6 is poised to cast a continued shadow over his effort to own the MAGA lane of the GOP primary in this key race.
Despite his deleting spree, much of Moreno’s broader anti-Trump social media activity is still available to see on Twitter.
In the early days of the 2016 GOP primary, Moreno seemed an outright fan of then-Gov. John Kasich (R-OH), who stayed in the race against Trump longer than any of the other dozen-plus Republicans that year and made a point of fighting against Trumpism to the bitter end.
But Moreno, who now pitches himself as the epitome of America First, liked a 2016 post noting Kasich’s victory over Trump in the Ohio primary—and another from Kasich declaring there was “no way [he] would team up with Donald Trump.”
Moreno liked a tweet in February 2016 from former Ohio Attorney General David Yost stating, “A lifelong conservative, I will not support Donald Trump, even if he is the Republican nominee.”
And that same month, Moreno also liked a tweet from Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) criticizing Trump over his refusal to disavow Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist David Duke in an interview earlier that week.
After the bombshell Access Hollywood tape dropped just before the 2016 election, Moreno liked a series of tweets from top Republicans condemning the candidate’s behavior—and even calling for his withdrawal from the race.
Screenshot from Bernie Moreno's Twitter.
“While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him,” then-Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) wrote in another tweet liked by Moreno.
Moreno also liked tweets about a surge in Google searches on how to move to Canada as Trump locked up the GOP nomination, one that mocked a Trump campaign logo, and a tweet rooting for more moderate Republicans to beat “Trump-aligned” candidates in 2016.
Before the Trump years, Moreno had also liked a handful of tweets that would almost lead readers to believe he has Democratic sympathies. In 2014, he liked a tweet from Forbes positively reporting on Obamacare, and another about effective Obamacare advertising.
Moreno isn’t the first Republican to go from anti-Trump to Trump fan.
Moreno’s spokesman, McGuinness, acknowledged that record but cast it in the broader context of the GOP’s shift toward Trump.
Screenshot from Bernie Moreno's Twitter
“It’s no secret that Bernie, like many others, was initially skeptical of President Trump, but he has been a strong supporter of President Trump for many years now and was proud to be the first candidate running for US Senate in Ohio to endorse him in the 2024 election,” he said.
Indeed, after a grueling 2016 primary, many of Trump’s former foes came to his corner. And as Trump is running again for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024—and leading the field, no less—many Republicans are once again preparing to bite their tongues on Trump in exchange for potentially ousting Biden.
But for the purposes of the Ohio GOP primary, Trump’s endorsement still matters. Moreno is heavily angling for it, but he is not the only one. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, once considered a mainstream Republican, has also positioned himself as an “America First” conservative in the race—and won Trump’s endorsement for Secretary of State just last year.
Despite his pivot, LaRose is still not fully trusted by the Republican base, and no prominent MAGA movement figures have yet endorsed his campaign.
Like Moreno, LaRose has made statements critical of Trump, dating back to the 2016 election. Earlier this year, a leaked recording of LaRose, reported by Politico, caught him arguing that Trump’s endorsement is not as impactful as it once was.
State Sen. Matt Dolan (R-OH), whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, has been a vocal critic of Trump. In last year’s GOP primary, Dolan notched nearly a quarter of the vote, a surprisingly strong showing for a distinctly non-MAGA candidate.
Meanwhile, Moreno himself has already endorsed Trump’s latest bid for the White House. In February, the Senate hopeful tweeted miraculous praise for the former president, expressing none of the same hesitations he seemed to share with Trump skeptics back in the day.
“We desperately need a strong President with the backbone to stand up to the political establishment in Washington DC, and will always put America First,” Moreno wrote.
“That's why I’m proud to endorse Donald Trump for President in 2024,” he added.
NOT ALL OF BERNIE MORENO'S POST WERE PRINTED - GO TO ORIGINAL TO
VIEW
BERNIE MORENO
Moreno’s Record Stealing Wages, Shredding Evidence Continues To Cloud His Candidacy
March 11, 2024
Columbus, OH – Moreno’s record stealing his employees’ wages and shredding the evidence to get out of paying them continues to cloud his candidacy – this time in a new TV ad – further putting the image he’s trying to sell voters “in question.”
Reminder: Bernie Moreno refused to pay his employees the overtime they’d earned, destroyed evidence, was found liable for wage theft, and has repeatedly lying about it:
- Business Insider: Trump-backed Ohio Senate candidate shredded documents as he faced a lawsuit accusing him of wage theft
- WCMH: Fact check: Did Senate candidate Bernie Moreno shred documents accusing him of wage theft?
- Mother Jones: A GOP Senate Candidate Blames “Liberal” Judges for His Labor Violations. Just One Problem With That.
- WKYC: No, Bernie Moreno’s claims that Massachusetts courts overturned federal law in wage theft lawsuits and made rulings retroactive are not true: VERIFY
- The Daily Beast: This GOP Senate Hopeful’s Self-Made Story Has a Darker Side
Trump-Backed Crazy Man Bernie Moreno Wins Ohio's Republican Senate Primary Political commentator and comedy writer Erin Ryan and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco are joined by a bicoastal squad of funny, opinionated women to talk through everything from reproductive rights to romcoms. They break down the political news of the week, plus the topics, trends, and cultural stories that affect women’s lives. New episodes drop every Thursday. Get in touch: hysteria@crooked.com.
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