Betsy DeVos should get some hobbies like the rest of us
Rich Lady Betsy DeVos traveled to Columbus to peddle some anti-trans nonsense at a musty right-wing event.
This dispatch is too long for email. Please open your browser to view it in full.
I used to do cool things on Friday night, like meet a friend at a bar and drink Tito’s Handmade Vodka until I blacked out.
It made me wonder if staying off the sauce was worth it last Friday when I biked to the Ohio Statehouse to observe a group of right-wing grifters co-opt equality language in an effort to specifically demonize transgender women and their participation in women’s sports (in that order).
The “Take Back Title IX” bus images featured professional bigot Riley Gaines and a bunch of unknown, small-time bigots not on her level.
I was curious about the kinds of people who would brave 90-degree heat to stand outside and listen to a bunch of has-been athletes try to pin their personal failures on marginalized people.
There were about fifty people outside the Statehouse. Some faces I recognized:
Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer
Center for Christian Virtue Policy Director David Mahan
Center for Christian Virtue Executive Director Troy McIntosh
Center for Christian Virtue Christian Engagement Ambassador (and former Upper Arlington School Board candidate) Ruth Edmonds
State Rep. Adam Bird (R-New Richmond)
State Rep. Angela King (R-Celina)
State Rep. Beth Lear (R-Powell)
My first clue that Riley Gaines didn’t make the trip should have been that State Rep. Gary Click wasn’t in the vicinity wearing an ill-fitted suit and sweating like a horny cartoon dog while trying to summon the courage to ask Gaines for a 60th picture together.
The event, according to multiple speakers, was funded through the hilariously named Independent Women’s Forum.
The Independent Women's Forum (IWF) is an American conservative, non-profit organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women.[4][5] IWF was founded by activist Rosalie Silberman to promote a "conservative alternative to feminist tenets" following the controversial Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1992.[6] IWF's sister organization is the Independent Women's Voice (IWV), a 501(c)(4) organization.
The event was so riveting that the State Representatives left after 20 minutes, which seemed odd since the event was ostensibly about earnest women complaining about unfairness in good faith!
The speakers were low-rent imitations of Gaines, who herself is a low-rent imitation of a human being. From my vantage point, it would appear that losing in whatever fashion to a transgender woman worked out well for them. They get to travel around the country spewing lies, and get treated as if they are important, rather than the washed up sad losers they are.
But when even I was about to call it quits, the low-energy emcee announced they had a special surprise tonight: Betsy DeVos, the former Secretary of the Department of Education under President Business Deals.
At first glance, I thought I was looking at former House of Representatives candidate Sally Culling, who ended her public life after losing a bitterly contested primary to incumbent Representative Haraz Ghanbari.
But no! The reality was much funnier. It was Big Fish Betsy DeVos.
For those who don’t keep a mental Rolodex of grievances against our nation’s leaders, DeVos’ crimes can be distilled into being born into a filthy rich family, marrying into another filthy rich family, and then using that obscene wealth to shatter public schools.
Most recently, she admitted that she didn’t think the Department of Education should exist. It’s not an exaggeration to say that she wants to send public education back to the Gilded Age. The oily film on top of DeVos’ fetid toilet of associates is her megalomaniac brother and his company of mercenaries that has (in my opinion) committed its fair share of war crimes.
On top of those resumé builders, her family is a major funder of the Independent Women’s Forum, which explains why she was in Columbus to peddle anti-transgender bigotry.
I could have started blasting porn through my Bluetooth speaker, but I didn’t want to make the event interesting. Instead, I waited until DeVos was done with her little spiel, then ruined any chance she may have had to glad-hand with the dwindling crowd.
I’ll give DeVos’ henchmen this much: They were the biggest assholes I’ve encountered in their line of legalized thuggery.
The lead henchman apparently works for Colorado Securities, a private security firm based in Washington, D.C., staffed with a variety of beefy men. President Business Deals reportedly contracts the firm to keep the rowdies in line at his rallies.
As I told one of them before DeVos walked into the danger zone, I wasn’t there to badger anybody but her. I’m entitled to film in public and ask questions, like, why, with all that money, is she not on Titty Island like a normal person and instead trying to bust public teachers’ unions?
I don’t run into people. I don’t try to bulldoze them for space or bait them into a physical altercation, despite the fact that I’m 6’2” and rumored to be 6’3”. Unfortunately, with loose hiring standards and even looser concern for steroid use, any old raggedy millionaire can hire henchmen who do engage in those tactics, as I found out Friday night.
Trials and tribulations ahead for Rep. Ron Ferguson?
State Rep. Ron Ferguson (R-Wintersville) angered swaths of fellow Republicans in the most recent primary.
Ferguson was one of the most outspoken critics of the so-called “Blue 22,” the breakaway faction of Republicans who sided with a united Democratic Caucus to entomb Derek Merrin’s Speakership bid in the most hilarious way possible.
That vote took place on January 3rd, 2023. And Ferguson, to his credit, carried his vendetta into March 2024.
But while Ferguson predicted a complete electoral annihilation of the Blue 22, he disappeared on Twitter early in the night when it became obvious that wipeout wouldn’t come to pass.
However, it was during that campaign that many Republicans came to feel that dark money groups aligned with Ferguson had crossed a line with dirty campaigning.
One infamous mailer that went out against State Rep. Sara Carruthers (R-Hamilton), was so nasty that it lacked proper legal declarations:
The ad seems as if it should have backfired, but it worked. Carruthers lost that primary to a woman who is only really qualified to handle snakes in a tent in the woods during a religious revival.
We have since learned that the money for that flyer came from out of state perverts trying to drag Ohio government even further to the right.
From Andrew J. Tobias of cleveland.com in April:
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A conservative [Virginia]-based group is taking credit for helping unseat four sitting Republican Ohio state representatives, a number believed to be the most at least in recent history, after it spent $2 million in Ohio during the primary election in March as part of its larger goal of ousting Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens.
[…]
The $2 million Make Liberty Win spent paid for political mailers, door-to-door canvassers, text messages and phone calls – all of which, unlike political TV and radio ads, don’t require disclosure to the Federal Communications Commission and thus are more difficult to track in real time.
Barrett Young, the group’s executive director, in an interview said Make Liberty Win opposes Stephens for not eliminating the state income tax, for passing a private school voucher law he said didn’t go far enough and for not doing more to advance pro-gun legislation.
Young’s argument can be summarized as follows: Speaker Stephens didn’t do enough for rich people in a state that has completely bent every aspect of its tax code in favor of rich people.
Michael D. Pitman of journal-news.com also reported on the mailers:
That mailer was sent by Virginia-based Make Liberty Win, a political action committee, that has endorsed a handful of Ohio House candidates. The Ghanbari mailer and the Carruthers mailer were paid with postage out of South Hackensack, New Jersey. The Journal-News reached out to Make Liberty Win but officials with that political organization did not respond before deadline.
You know an attack is particularly vicious when political hatchet-men won’t even put their names on the dirty deed. I’ll never respect that. People can say a lot about me, but at least I’m blogging under my real name.
Recently, The Rooster obtained information that shows Ferguson has connections to a dark money network with very deep pockets.
I will sort through that information in the coming weeks and hopefully talk to Ferguson about it on camera. But from my initial review of the materials that fell off the back of a truck, it looks as if Ferguson is involved with Young Americans for Liberty and Make Liberty Win.
Ferguson, and other dark money fiends, are the inevitable result of the intentional corrupting of our political system post-Citizens United. And from what I gather, he’s about to get a bitter taste of his own medicine.
Longtime readers know I’ll be in the heat of that battle, giving you a blow-by-blow account of the Republican-on-Republican violence.
It sure would be funny if the FBI arrested Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted
I broke down on Friday and wrote a personal plea to Kenneth Parker, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
Please, Mr. Parker, I said. Our state is overrun by Slimeball Governor Grandpa Sleepy Tea, his revolving door lackey Dan McCarthy, and Lieutenant Governor Botox Addiction. Lock them up and restore law and order in our fair state!
Shockingly, Parker didn’t appear to hear my pleas. But on Friday night, even more damning information dropped about the Lieutenant Governor.
From Morgan Trau of news5cleveland.com:
Once in office, records show that it was Husted, not DeWine, who allegedly helped lead the charge for the bailout bill.
Dowling emailed [since-indicted former FirstEnergy CEO] Jones before H.B. 6 passed in 2019, saying the governor “left the details of H.B. 6 to others — John [sic] Husted and Danny." Dan McCarthy was DeWine's legislative director after having been a lobbyist for FirstEnergy.
Along with McCarthy appearing continuously in the documents, so does John Kiani. Kiani was the executive chairman of FirstEnergy's subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions.
“Husted, Sam, Evans and Danny McCarthy are fighting to the end and we've been talking to them all day," Jones texted Kiani. "Everything that can be done is being done."
It must be humbling for Husted to completely debase himself for FirstEnergy executives, only to learn they couldn’t even properly spell his first name.
As I’ve said before: I won’t believe we live in a world where DeWine goes to prison until he’s actually sentenced and processed. But it’s definitely conceivable, albeit somewhat improbable, that we live in a world where Husted could have flown his career of corruption directly into the Sun.
Also of note, a friend of The Patriots Caucus sent this image from the latest FirstEnergy document dump.
It features Trump henchman (and future Ohio Republican Party chairman) Bob Paduchik arranging dinner with since-indicted FirstEnergy executives a week before the legislature passed HB-6.
Paduchik, a prolific tweeter, has yet to mention “HB-6” or “FirstEnergy” in any of his tweets. But a week after this dinner, Paduchik was on the horn bending the ear of state legislators in favor of First Energy.
From Gavin Bade of politico.com on May 29th, 2019:
The Ohio House approved a bill Wednesday to gut clean energy standards and subsidize at-risk nuclear and coal plants after a last-minute push from a Trump reelection official to secure its passage.
Bob Paduchik, a senior adviser to the Trump reelection campaign, made calls Tuesday night to at least five members of the Ohio House of Representatives, pressuring them to vote ‘yes’ on the bill, five people familiar with the outreach told POLITICO. Sources said Paduchik emphasized preserving jobs at the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants, both located in northeastern Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. Backers of the bill say the plants support a total of 4,000 jobs once contractors and suppliers are added to the mix.
[…]
Paduchik did not return requests for comment, but confirmed to a local reporter that he called lawmakers to support the bill, saying he did so as a personal matter.
A personal matter, eh? Probably easier to peddle that kind of horseshit before you know your texts were captured in a federal investigation into the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about).
It must be said that Paduchik has yet to be accused of a crime, but it’s still hilarious to see the level of discourse among co-conspirators like former FirstEnergy Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling as his gang of bumblefucks rolled into RICO territory.
Here’s another example of their level of humor, as passed on by that same friend of the Patriots Caucus:
Remember: This is the guy that FirstEnergy (allegedly) appointed to oversee the $60 million bribery slush fund. You would think you would want a higher-tier operator in that position, but it just goes to show you that a lot of times in corporate America, you don’t have to be smart.
You only have to be willing to sell your soul for the company.
THOSE WMDs. Britain embraces The Bomb… How one mom went from astrology to conspiracy theories to murder-suicide… Potatoes are the perfect vegetable—but you’re eating them wrong… The secret military planes that landed at bases where I was stationed… He memorized the world with Google Maps, and now he’s exploring it.
It warms the heart to see that lowlifes who would otherwise be employed as carnies in some hick traveling circus now find meaningful employment « protecting » plutocrats from reporters.