RFK, Jr. makes an interesting choice for running mate
RFK. Jr.’s selection of his vice presidential running mate did not get a lot of media coverage from the In-Bed-With-Biden news services. It is part of the strategy of leftwing media to suppress his vote.
RFK, Jr.’s choice is a relatively young woman named Nicole Shanahan. A good Irish name has long been a benefit in elections. That has been established by several studies. (I had a female friend who ran for judge and lost three times. So … she changed her Eastern European last name to a very Irish name and won handily on her fourth try. But I digress.)
Oh, wait! Shanahan is not a full-blooded daughter of Erin. In fact, she is only a fraction Irish. She is half Chinese, one-quarter German and one-quarter … Irish. Is she still a woman of color in the fantastical world of progressive theology?
At 38, Shanahan is considered relatively young to be a principal in a presidential campaign. She would surpass Teddy Roosevelt, who became Vice President at the age of 42. He became President before his 43rd birthday when President McKinley was assassinated.
That is all only of academic interest since the chance of the Kennedy/Shanahan ticket winning in November is slim to none. What is relevant is how well she and RFK, Jr. will do in the election – and which candidate they will draw from. How much will Shanahan help or hurt the ticket?
To get a sense of that, we need to know more about her. She may not be a household name, but there is definitely more there there than one might assume.
First of all, she is among the very-rich – maybe mega-rich. How rich depends on who is reporting it. Estimates range from $6 million to $50 million, But she could be a billionaire.
She is the ex-wife of uber billionaire founder of Google, Sergey Brin – and the settlement amount in their 2023 divorce has never been revealed. Most unofficial estimates put a “b” after the number. It was reported that the divorce was due to her having an affair with Elon Musk – which both vehemently deny. She has a daughter, Echo, by Brin.
She was no arm decoration spouse. Prior to marrying Brin, Shanahan was a successful patent attorney and entrepreneur — the founder of ClearAccessIP, a legal tech company that she sold to IPwe for $300 million.
She is currently “with” Jacob Strumwasser, CEO of Lightning Labs, a software development company that powers the Lightning Network for Bitcoin. Though unmarried, Shanahan and Strumwasser – both surfing enthusiasts – participated in a personal “love blessing ceremony” using water from the shore where they surfed.
Shanahan has been a significant investor in business, medical and charitable organizations, as well as movies. Her political donations were all for left of center causes and candidates. She was an early supporter of RFK, Jr. – and donated $4 million to a Political Action Committee to pay for a Super Bowl commercial.
If nothing else, Shanahan is likely to bring significant resources to the campaign. As a candidate for Vice President, there is no limit to the amount of her own money she can spend on the campaign.
Despite her age, Shanahan will be a credible candidate. She is articulate, knowledgeable and personable. She will have an obvious appeal to the Asian community.
RFK, Jr. has a steep hill to climb – more like a cliff – but Shanahan is likely to be a significant asset to the campaign.
So, there ‘tis.
In the spirit of the season, Horist resurrects RFK claiming he is being ignored by the MSM as Donald J Trump claims he is being crucified and send out 77 TS vomits on Easter. Horist was pretty busy himself on that day. To keep in that spirit, RFK being ignored sure beats being nailed to a cross, I guess. Except NPR ran it. AP ran it. WAPO, NBC, CNN, Reuters The Week, Politico, and even Al Jazeera— but let’s digress some more: NYTimes ran it before it even happened… Even Fox ran it.
BUSTED and a bit whiny too. Or to put it in a Horistism: he’s a lying fucking cad that deserves to rot in hell. Nah, can’t do that. Can’t sink as low as that. I will stick with BUSTED and whiney.
And then the Irish bit…. Being 25% Irish, but my father being 50% and his family being very Irish, I do get how you can be 25% and feel 50% to 100% depending on closeness to family. We were not close, family or father, but my cousin who actually is my Father’s peer and still living —– she’s 100% and has been regaling me as to the family history of which I can barely remember except for one family standard Sunday get together. My father was not political, but this Irish side was as the Sunday sessions featured all the issues of the day, lots of homemade music and song, and lots of food.
To show the cute nature of being Irish, this guy came in 1866, worked those mills, lived on Whiskey Row, kept kids in school, and his namesake worked the station, moved out of Whiskey Row, first a house, then another farther up the hill, and then, finally THE FARM at the top of the hill overlooking the entire town — he had arrived. Turns out THE FARM = one house, two lots……. like standard city lots…..pretty funny perspective is. But I continue to digress, perhaps even a side story…..
These ancestors came over in 1866, worked the steel mills as a puddler meaning dead at 35, but lived to a ripe old age. The Catholic church probably had a lot with our coming, we brought a child that no sane person would have taken on that trip on those coffin ships. We came in our 20’s to live on Whiskey Row in Connie Town with all the signs of the times: HELP WANTED: IRISH NEED NOT APPLY. We worked those mills, we kept our kids in school. The next generation worked the trains, not laying track, but in the stations, one being an engineer. And we put a sign in the train station window: HELP WANTED: ONLY IRISH NEED APPLY: BIDEN’S PREFERRED (Biden not my real name). All that long life from their 20’s to into their 70’s; they could not vote legally. It’s America, remember…. And every Sunday, they would gather to eat, drink, and discuss the issues of the day. Pretty funny, perspective is.
So, yeah, you can be 25% Irish, carry the name, and understand what it means to be Irish, for sure.
But I digress……
Horist pulls out his political anecdote about the Irish name in politics, which has as much value as mine. I would add that the name did not help my father when he ran, he lost with that name. And probably needed a German name with a ski added to it to get elected outside of Buffalo if the name game was important. And Horist, to change your name to get elected is pretty cheap trick, don’t you agree? Probably not the only reason.
Shanahan is a Silicon Valley creation who has literally slept her way to the top with short marriages to very successful people. She met one at Burning Tree turning a neat profit from that trip. Yogo class for one too. She’s smart, savvy, married successful San Fran investor and financier in 2013, divorced in 2015. Married google guy Brin in 2018, started her foundation a year later, separated two years after that, divorced three years later. Contested the prenup, settled which is code words for made out better than her prenup. Most figure just under 1 billion for two years effort….. Horist alluded to that.
She’s a liberal who donates a little, has some flakey health ideas like using light to live longer. She has zero political experience but is quite the entrepreneur, able to create and sell things that sometimes just don’t make sense. But that’s Silicon Valley.
And that’s that. Who cares. I don’t. Horist doesn’t care either. He just hates anything Democrat and this furthers his goals.
Well Frank, you may be correct on Horist. But hey, this lady seems a hell of a lot better than the GOP is offering. She has 10 times the head on her shoulder as Trump, and she has slept around like Trump! Heck, if the GOP had elected to run Haley and this Nicole chick, I would have voted for them in November! I like Asian chicks, that’s why I married one!
Seems like Larry might have been having a slow day and wondering what he could write about.
You really are a dumbass. No democrat has any smarts.
I am not a Democrat, dumbass. Reply to Frank with your ugly comment, he is the Dem, not me. I am an Independent. The only problem with you JW is that the better side of you ran down your mom’s leg. You are an excellent example of why Larry is wrong and we do need abortion, and maybe for people like you, make it retro-active.
WRITERS NOTE: The Horist DISH piece bans commentary as happens more regularly on extreme-free-speech touting PBP where, apparently, software engineers just can’t get er done. I would drop it, but it’s actually a positive piece for NYPost and Horist (for copy/paste), so I post it here.
THE DISH STORY
This has got to be the best piece ever written…..in the New York Post which leveraged the work done by The Western Journal, but added more. Best I can say is news at 11 in that it’s so fresh, the decision is not final yet I believe, that the real media has not investigated yet. And it’s really complex, complicated, and arcane, all at the same time. Why Horist dissed Journalism 101 and dumped the lead to the last paragraph is probably political hackery and spin, but there he tis it.
Here’s the skinny as I see it. (Horist: skinny means the news, the facts, etc. Not dissing your figure….. I know you have problems with idioms and slang, so I digress but don’t want to take a shot as I toe the line :>)
Here’s the skinny:
It’s pretty clear that DISH got a lot of licenses aimed at small business to increase competition by creating strawman businesses.
It’s clear that the DOJ has moved to dismiss in a very unusual, atypical, but not unique fashion. I have troubles even understanding their stake in the cases of VTel vs. Dish except that the FCC is in the middle.
It’s clear that this Dish guy dished big time donations to Biden SuperPac months before DOJ made its move
It’s clear that DISH got $50M Chips n Science grant for building out 5G network shortly after donation was made.
It’s clear this DISH guy been meeting all over Federal government.
It’s muddy as to guilt, but there’s clearly a lot of smoke in this story. As well as a lot of questions about everything that’s clearly stated above. The biggest is connecting the dots. But there’s a lot of dots here.
One point for Horist:
“It has always been and always will be – part of human nature, the political reality. To the victor go the spoils, as the saying goes. When major donors help finance a successful campaign, they expect some “spoils.” No election finance reform can completely eliminate that reality. At best, laws can and do restrict the more flagrant cases of financial campaign abuse.”
Bullshit, in all due respect. Citizens United, the right-wing conservative court’s politicized ruling set the stage for all of this. Reap what you sow. CU allows uncapped donations to SuperPacs. It’s is the root of all campaign financing evils allowing men like the Dish rag, to hide behind inhuman corporations to fund SuperPacs at any amount you can imagine. Corporations are made up of humans, but corporations are not human. They can not vote. They don’t have the rights of a citizen. CU is a blow to Democracy and should be overturned which would end much of the Horist lament. Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy say yes in a 5 to 4 split decision meaning it’s not unanimous or even bipartisan. There’s the rub. And I would think it “rubs” you the wrong way too; I can’t believe you support Citizens United. Do you?
“Too much quid to undo the quo.” Have some faith buddy, it’s not over until this lady judge sings. Have hope that the truth, whatever it is, will prevail. Because there’s a lot of smoke here, but like Trump’s RussiaGate, sure looks like something wrong.
Nice article Larry, I thought she was an interesting choice as well.
Besides the obvious reasons, I am sure there is something we are all missing that we do not know about.
At this level of the game the choices are not always so BLACK AND WHITE as Biden would make it.
Darren … Right you are. And I got a chuckle out of your last sentence. I suspect that Frank and Tom will see it as racist, but they have no sense of humor. Their wokeness killed it off.
This article has received no Stop The Spin (STS) rating because I do not know anything about this lady named Nicole.
I can say that she (Nicole) seems a lot better than Trump. She has a much better head on her shoulder than Trump. And had the GOP partnered her with Haley, I would have voted for them over Biden. But is seems to me that this ticket will probably take a little more from Biden than Trump.