Businesses Love 11-Year-Old Mothers
Frat hazing rarely results in criminal charges, Ohio House votes to ban tow spotters, and more.
I chortled when Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, he who escaped corruption charges in his last rodeo in the Lincoln Chair, promised more transparency from the House in his second go-round.
I’m big enough to admit he proved me wrong by keeping to his pledge to allow Ohio Channel cameras into committee rooms.
If only Senate president Larry Obhof had the same commitment to transparency:

Not a coincidence this happened with the a pro-LGBTQ bill. Republican leaders ain’t stupid. They know their minions can’t be trusted to make an atrociously bigoted comment that would ignite a firestorm. Best to keep it hush-hush when trying to discriminate against the gays in 2019.
HUSTED: BUSINESSES WON’T MIND US FORCING 11-YEAR-OLD WOMEN TO HAVE THEIR RAPIST’S BABY

Lieutenant Governor John Husted earns a higher salary than Governor Mike DeWine as part of their backroom ceasefire that saw Husted shelve his gubernatorial ambitions for at least four more years.
During the campaign, it appeared the Republicans had goofed in that decision considering it was Husted who met with media in post-debate scrums.
Husted has a way with words as only a career politician can. However, not even his silver tongue could save him from the barbarism that is Ohio’s six-week abortion ban.
Husted, who has zero private sector experience outside of an undefined term with the Republican-backed Dayton-Area Chamber of Commerce following graduation, says some businesses leaders will love the state turning back the clock on women to a time they died from back-alley abortions.
From Randy Ludlow of dispatch.com:
“I’m sure to some people it will serve as a positive and to others it will serve as a negative,” Husted said of the pending law — now challenged in court as an unconstitutional state restriction — to forbid abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, typically around six weeks into pregnancy.
“But I will tell you when you look at what the state is collectively doing as it relates to children, we are compassionate and caring about what happens to Ohio’s children from the earliest stages of life through death,” said Husted, who focuses on economic development and workforce development initiatives.
…
“If people want to look at the whole of what the DeWine-Husted administration is about, it’s about helping kids at every stage of life,” he said. “It’s about helping kids that are unborn. It’s about making sure we lower the infant mortality rate. It’s about more money for foster care so kids devastated by the opioid crisis have a safe place to be and grow and thrive.”
Ohio has trimmed its social safety net to the bone, stripped school funding, and stood idly as the opioid epidemic ravaged our workforce.
They’re attacking abortion access—a scientifically proven disaster for infant mortality rates.
I’m no business guru (breaking news, I know), but it seems to me businesses outside of elder care don’t want to come to a state that’s hemorrhaging young people. For all the GOP’s attacks on high taxes and regulations, businesses and people seem to keep flocking to places like New York and California. Might be something to think about if they could get their galaxy brains out of women’s uteruses and focus on stuff that moves the state forward.
WANT TO KILL A KID AND ESCAPE PUNISHMENT? TRY HAZING.

Here’s another example of Ohio’s commitment to kids in all walks of life: While fraternities at state universities keep killing kids in hazing rituals gone awry, local prosecutors rarely (if ever) bring criminal charges.
From Jennifer Smola, Lucas Sullivan, and Mike Wagner of dispatch.com:
Universities took action against the fraternities, including suspending or expelling the organizations. But despite a law enacted in 1983 making hazing a fourth-degree misdemeanor in Ohio, no one has been criminally charged in any of the cases.
This includes city and county municipal courts where hazing charges might be filed against students attending Ohio State University, Ohio University, Miami University, University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, University of Dayton, Wright State University, Cleveland State University, Kent State University, University of Akron, Bowling Green State University, University of Toledo, Youngstown State University and several other smaller colleges located in those jurisdictions.
There were two hazing charges in Bowling Green, in 1988 and 2008, one in Cleveland in 2006, one in Athens in 2009 and one in Akron in 2014. No hazing charges are on record in Franklin County Municipal Court in Columbus.
“You have students being assaulted, embarrassed, shamed and, in some cases, dying in these hazing rituals, but most of the time they aren’t facing criminal consequences in Ohio or around the country,” said Hank Nuwer, a professor at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, near Indianapolis. He tracks hazing deaths and is author of the book “Hazing: Destroying Young Lives.”
The phenomenon occurs because most local prosecutors are cowards who tabulate career success on their conviction percentage.
Frat boys usually hail from wealthy families (after all, it ain’t cheap to heat and cool lavish Greek Life mansions), and the national organizations have dough, too. They make tougher targets for conviction than the low-wage worker who got popped for a DUI after a 12-hour workday driving home to a house he can no longer afford.
The answer, as always, is banning Greek Life entirely. This will upset many future accountants and middle managers with rage issues, but it must be done. I honestly feel embarrassed our country allows them.
GET DUMPED THEN, TOW SPOTTERS?

When I attended Ohio State (using the word “attended” very loosely here), I heard local tow companies paid homeless persons to sit outside various establishments frequented by college kids to spot if any of them left the property or parked illegally.
I chalked it up to one of those urban legends you hear in school, like how Marilyn Manson got a rib removed so he could suck his own dick—something we talked a lot about in 3rd grade for some reason.
Anyway, turns out spotters are a real thing, and the Ohio House just voted to ban them.
From Ron Regan and Mark Ackerman of news5cleveland.com:
CLEVELAND — Ohio lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ban the use of "spotters" employed by tow companies following an exclusive 5 On Your Side investigation .
House Bill #113 was sponsored by Representative Tom Patton who credited our report that revealed how a local tow company had relied on a "spotter" hiding in an unmarked vehicle to call in a tow trucks moments after vehicles parked illegally.
…
The legislation is not opposed by either of Ohio's two largest towing associations and will now move on to the Ohio Senate for a vote.
I don’t know what makes me more leery: the Ohio House passing people-first legislation or that notoriously unethical tow companies didn’t fight a loss of revenue tooth-and-nail.
We’ll have to wait to see what happens, but my guess is the tow companies must not think this will be enforceable. And even if it is, it’s not like they keep any of the spotters on payroll.
WON’T ANYONE THINK OF JOHN TRAVOLTA?

[Extremely cursed image of John Travolta and Butler County’s MAGA Sheriff who is not wearing a cowboy hat for the first time in his life.]
Ohio is one of eight states that hasn’t recovered to pre-Recession tax income levels. Given that government always needs new revenue streams, the Ohio House recently moved to wax film credits that bring Hollywood elites to our humble state of pregnant children.
The pushback begins today in front of a Senate committee, and the revolution probably won’t be televised.
From Erica Thompson of columbusalive.com:
Earlier this month, the Ohio House cut the $40 million Ohio Motion Picture Tax credit. Film productions with budgets of $30,000 or more are eligible for a maximum 30 percent tax credit. The Senate disagreed, voting instead to further expand the eligibility for the tax credit. A final decision on the budget will be made by June 30.
“Every film chases tax credits,” said John Daugherty, executive director of the Greater Columbus Film Commission. “It’s the nature of the business. If the tax credit goes away, the films here are going to go somewhere else.”
It also means that local filmmakers, including some with projects already in the works, will have to readjust their budgets. Ohio-based post-production companies, as well as independent studios, could be put in financial binds.
“Since 2009 when the Motion Picture Tax Credit was enacted, there’ve been over 5,000 full-time equivalent jobs,” Daugherty said. “If the tax credit were to go away this year, that’s going to affect thousands of people across the state.”
As an unelected blogger, I usually have strong opinions one way or another because who the hell wants to read milquetoast “time will tell” centrist garbage early in the morning?
But I see both sides on this issue. On one hand, fuck Hollywood. It’s not like they ever have anything positive to say about Ohio. On the other hand, I hate to see people lose their jobs.
SNUBBED TEEN WANTS TO MURDER OHIO STATE

One of the most embarrassing things about working for Eleven Warriors was having to stay up-to-date on current comings and goings of recruiting. Who the Hell are these grown ass men following the everyday whims of high schoolers? Well, for a long time, they were my customers.
One story of which I’ll never tire, however, is the one where some arrogant Michigan commit (redundant, I know) promises to bludgeon the team that has whooped the Wolverines all but twice since 2001.
Enter five-star quarterback J.J. (Juthry Jefferson, probably) McCarthy, who can’t even remember Michigan’s last win over a non-interim Buckeye coach.
From Ari Wasserman of theathletic.com:
“I used to love them, now I want to kill them.”
…
“Coach Day told me he wasn’t going to take (a 2021 quarterback) until the end of summer or anything like that because he wanted to make sure everything was all good, so I didn’t really worry about all that during my visit,” McCarthy said. “But I didn’t get that feeling when I was there. I really didn’t, with all the coaches there and how they interacted with us, I didn’t feel the big family tradition part of it. It was either you’re good at football or you’re over here. That’s what I felt.”
“It was either you’re good at football or you’re over here.”
Exactly. Welcome to the other side, J.J.

THOSE WMDs. America’s last slave ship discovered in Alabama… How the Urban-Rural Divide became America’s political fault line… The untold story of women cryptographers who fought World War II…New York has a supervillan pulling emergency brakes and destroying subway commutes… Zoomers might save malls.