Into the darkness

Matt Huffman is the self-styled king of Ohio who can "pretty much" do what he wants. But the Patriots Caucus will harry, and more importantly, outlast the droopy grandpa from Lima.

State Senate President Matt Huffman, in my opinion, has some questions to answer about the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy.

It’s been over 24 hours since the nascent Speakership campaign of State Rep. Tim Barhorst (R-Fort Loramie) imploded in the most embarrassing manner possible.

I tilt my cap toward Barhorst for at least having the cajones to oppose the years-long ambition of Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) to return to the Ohio House as Speaker.

But my mind is broken in such a way that I couldn’t help but draw similarities to Barhorst’s kamikaze run from this image that floated across my Twitter feed yesterday:

You might have hope that current House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) has another trick up his sleeve. After all, he would only need 14 other stone-cold Republicans to ally with a united Democratic Caucus to throw Huffman in the trash as they did to State Rep. Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Twp.) in January 2023.

Don’t hold on to that hope. I can almost assure you that Huffman has already brokered deals with a handful of Democrats to prevent that scenario.

And if that potential coupe failed, Huffman-aligned Republicans would demand that their majority gets to pick the minority’s leadership—as they’re allowed to do by the bylaws of the Ohio House—as payback for trying to meddle in Republican leadership decisions.

Hell is at our doorstep. And we have the boot-licking cowardice of the House Republican Caucus to thank for that.

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One of my favorite lobbyists asked me this week, “What’s your problem with Huffman?” After all, I get along swimmingly with his cousin, Senator Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City), who I first met during my failed Statehouse run in 2018.

But as for Tim McVeigh Junior, I could have unfurled a scroll that would have hit the floor and rolled for a couple more feet.

Earlier this week, a Sergeant-at-Arms (SAA) blocked me from leaving the Statehouse to prevent me from “harassing” Huffman, which was his description for my asking questions of a public official on public grounds.

The SAA later explained that he had seen some of my previous work targeting Huffman, namely when I ripped off a famous @dril tweet and joked that Huffman was one half of a renowned duo, “The Blowjob Brothers.”

Admittedly, the joke was probably lost on the types of people that generally fill the State Senate chamber.

Another Seargeant-at-Arms booted me from the State Senate since I guess humor is illegal in that rancid retirement home where most Senators wouldn’t know a joke if it were outside shitting on the hood of their Ford-250s.

Calling that “harassment” is hilarious to me when the actual harassment is Huffman leveraging his power to shred the material conditions for anyone in this state who isn’t a white Christian male rich enough to donate to his political campaigns.

But don’t take my word for it! Consider the words of former FirstEnergy Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling and Mike DeWine’s (allegedly) corrupt former legislative director, Dan McCarthy.

From Jake Zuckerman of cleveland.com in April:

“[FirstEnergy lobbyist] Danny McCarthy was on my a-- last night about giving to Matt Huffman – the next Senate President,” Dowling wrote. “He wants us to give him A LOT. Why? Because Huffman is transactional and can get shot [sic] done. And when that happens, it helps the governor because it just makes things easier.”

“Transactional” is the Statehouse’s politically correct word for what most normal citizens call “bribery.”

Thankfully for Huffman, he exists in an era where the Republican-juiced Supreme Court has gutted public corruption laws to make prosecution of corrupt public officials almost impossible if there’s not a tape of the official taking a bag of money labeled “bribe money.”

And in the case of former Cincinnati mayoral candidate P.G. Sittenfeld, even that might not be enough!

It’s a golden era for corruption, especially when you also consider the erosion of the legacy media and Ohioans’ general lack of interest in state politics since politicians being slimy bastards isn’t exactly breaking news to most of them.

But there’s also the issue that, from safely gerrymandered Republican seats based in Lima and the political machine his father handed him, Huffman has successfully circumvented term limits to return to the Ohio House for his second rodeo—this time as a potential eight-year Speaker, which hasn’t happened since legendary Democrat Vern Riffe in an era before voters imposed ostensible eight-year term limits on both chambers.

No level of American government is supposed to be run by “transactional” mob bosses who can draw favorable districts for their political supporters. But that’s precisely what Ohio has in Huffman, along with his patsy, Senator Rob McColley (R-Napoleon), who Senate Republicans elevated to the chamber’s presidency in next year’s General Assembly.

Huffman has overseen the siphoning of money from public schools and handed them to unaccountable private and charter schools that can discriminate against any student they want and don’t have to educate any special needs students.

He has opened our state parks to fracking interests.

He helped orchestrate SB-5, an attempt to establish Ohio as a right-to-work state and a direct attack on collective bargaining rights that would have succeeded if not for those pesky hog voters rebelling at the polls.

Huffman was instrumental in passing Ohio’s near-total abortion ban, which would still be in effect today if not for the aforementioned hogs enshrining reproductive rights into the State Constitution.

Not satisfied with passing HB-6, the most corrupt legislation in state history (that we know about), which also had the added bonus of destroying the state’s green energy standards, Huffman gave county commissioners a kill switch to block solar and wind projects—but not natural gas or oil projects.

But I don’t hate the man, despite my list of grievances. I pity him.

Most normal people would be satisfied with that political career if they were invested in making the world more miserable.

Most normal people at age 64 would want to return to Lima and spend their golden years with their ten grandchildren.

But not Huffman! He apparently wants to spend his golden years speeding between Lima and Columbus while doing favors for Big Business interests that support his political causes.

He wants to spend his golden years repealing the state income tax, which would lead to the most significant wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in state history. He wants to “crackdown” on universities, which he sees as Marxist factories because a lot of his friend’s grandchildren no longer want to talk to them due to their abhorrent political views.

It’s not enough that Ohio has universal private school vouchers or that we’re the only state in America funneling public money to private and charter schools to expand and build new facilities.

There are always more handouts and favors to give to an unaccountable industry that is not required to educate anyone they don’t want to. Why would he care? He’ll be dead in 15 years and won’t have to live among all the lives ruined by their piss-poor education that the state allowed.

We got a taste of what’s to come on that front on Wednesday with an amendment spearheaded by State Rep. Sara Fowler Arthur.

Arthur is a home-school creature who once served on the State School Board and advocated for requiring schools to teach both sides of the Holocaust.

From Laura Hancock of cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An Ohio House committee has gutted a bill that would have required more transparency for private schools that accept taxpayer-funded scholarships, allowing for parents to have more information when deciding where to send their children to school.

[…]

Also eliminated from the bill Wednesday is a requirement that scholarship students take the same state standardized tests that public school students take. Without that requirement, private schools can choose to administer to voucher students either the state test or one of nearly 40 alternative assessments, which is the current law.

The changes to HB 407 show how powerful the religious and private school lobby has become in Ohio, where nearly $1 billion in public funds a year is now being spent on private school tuition. After the committee adopted the amendment, their lobbyists said they either were now neutral on the bill or continued to oppose it due to some other provisions that remain from the original bill.

These freakish acolytes always insist that private and charter schools provide more quality education than our “decaying” public schools.

You would think they would welcome any chance to prove that. Unless, of course, it’s more about the money than educating students.

Through that lens, it’s no wonder Huffman and his lackeys want to change the rules of the Statehouse to “reduce the noise” and crimp my style. He walks around in a world where some droopy grandpa from Lima has the power to punk a room full of adults into shitting their pants at the prospect of voting against him on a secret ballot.

Well, that will never be me. Huffman’s Sergeant-at-Arms warned me on Wednesday that “good things were coming to [me]” and that I’d be the “man who fell on his sword” if I kept having the audacity to make jokes in the presence of the almighty wizards that comprise the bribery factory that is the Ohio Statehouse.

Because, yes, a rooster is a dumb barnyard animal that crows at all hours of the day. But it will defend its turf to the death.

Despite what some might believe on Capitol Square, I have only scratched the surface of how annoying I can be—even if there’s not a camera in my hand.

I was educated at a public school when Ohio could be proud of its education system. I’m familiar enough with history to know that America was built on telling tinpot tyrants like Huffman to go fuck themselves. No amount of religious whitewashing of our schools will ever change that simple fact.

This cartel—and it’s precisely that—has inoculated itself at the Ballot Box. Even when Ohioans spend time and organize the resources to put the cure to a vote, the cartel will use every lever of power within their machine to protect their ill-gotten gains, as we saw earlier this month with Issue 1.

Thankfully, the Good Lord has blessed me with a particular set of skills to annoy the types of men who have deluded themselves about their place in history because they walk on marbled floors when regular Ohioans have to spend their time working jobs they hate to feed their families.

If state legislators and the special interest groups are going to bow to Huffman like he’s some preordained king, then any other First Amendment response isn’t harassment. It’s patriotism.

Huffman, at best, only has eight years left on Capitol Square. And thanks to the brave and noble readers who support The Rooster, we’ll be around a lot longer than that. In many ways, we’re just getting started.

THOSE WMDs. Cheryl Hines has a choice (other women sure don’t)… The military’s recommendation recession… The Frankfurt kitchen changed how we cook—and live… Tales from the attic… The mystery millionaire of Gage Park.