Jimmy Haslam rubs Central Ohio Democrats' face in it
Fresh off a $50 million backroom deal with Franklin County and Columbus Democrats, MAGA oligarch Jimmy Haslam and other rancid perverts are rolling out the green carpet for Senator Jon Husted.
The Rooster would have opposed the Columbus and Franklin County’s deal for an NWSL expansion franchise if it included one cent, let alone $50 million, in public money to the parasitical billionaire class.
But it was especially sickening that the money went to Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, a man who once cut a $92 million check to settle a federal lawsuit against Flying Pilot J for systemically defrauding minority truck owners in a scheme one former executive said Haslam “loved.”
Haslam, like all oilgarchs, has a brain disease where no amount of money will ever be enough. Days after successfully extorting $600 million from the Republican-dominated State Legislature, Haslam and his wife “Sweet Dee” closed on a $25 million beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
Before the ink was dry on the NWSL deal—which will see Columbus’ poorest census tract lose its only public green space for the new training center—Haslam participated in a fundraiser for the notorious conman Vivek Ramaswamy at the Junto Hotel in Columbus.
A month after the deal, Haslam and “Sweet Dee” are set to host a fundraiser for Jon Husted, who has a petri dish of frog sperm where his brain is supposed to be, in Cleveland on May 28.
The woefully understaffed legacy press doesn’t spend much time covering fundraisers. And it makes sense in a way; gangs of rancid perverts shuffling into a room to throw jewels at the feet of their favored prostitute isn’t exactly breaking news in American politics.
But this particular fundraiser, like the Columbus Partnership’s fêting of Ramaswamy, offers insight into who, exactly, would like to see one of the dirtiest politicians in recent Ohio history re-elected to the United States Senate as a rubber stamp to Trump’s open corruption in order to ensure the tax cuts keep flowing.
The Haslams need no introduction as the couple that gave the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history to Deshaun Watson, a brittle sex-pest who has hampered the already tepid Browns offense any time he’s stepped on the field for the past four years.
The special guest, Senator John Kennedy, is the type of fraud that pretends to be some country bumpkin from the sticks in Louisiana when he graduated from Vanderbilt, Virginia and Oxford.
Other headliners shouldn’t be ignored.
They includes the likes of Jay Lucarelli, the CEO of MinuteMen Staffing that one Cleveland-based source described as a “union-busting scumbag.”
That Lucarelli would find comfort at Husted’s hearth should further embarrass the regional trade unions that endorsed the Senator. But that’s a topic for another day.
Another headliner is John Cafaro, a Youngstown-area businessman who looks like a Paul Bearer cosplayer who just drunkenly stumbled out of a bar near Wrestlemania.
Cafaro has a history of patronizing “transactional” politicians, like the comically corrupt former Congressman James Trafficant.
From The Youngstown Vindicator in 2010:
A pretrial services officer had sought information pertaining to Cafaro’s income and value of his home and cars. Instead, she said she got only “general information.”
And that’s when the smack down took place. The judge wasn’t in any mood to listen to excuses or explanations.
It certainly was a change from when Cafaro admitted to providing an “unlawful gratuity” (a bribe?) to former Congressman James A. Traficant Jr. and to committing perjury in federal court — and not spending a single minute in prison.
Instead, he walked away with a fine and probation. The justification for that kid-glove treatment was his testimony against Traficant, who was found guilty of 10 criminal charges including racketeering, bribery and tax evasion.
Traficant spent more than seven years in the penitentiary.
In a functioning society, a politician advertising a fundraiser with a huckster convicted for an “unlawful gratuity” would result in an automatic loss at the ballot box.
But this is Ohio, where Husted could get caught on tape, naked and cackling while accepting a cash labeled “unlawful gratuity,” and he would still earn 40% of the vote thanks to the (R) next to his name.
But that’s not all!
Also appearing in the hobgoblin nest is Kevin Stein, the “retired” former CEO of TransDigm who got caught fleecing taxpayers for $21 million during Trump’s first term, only to work his way back into political good graces by opening his check book to Trump and his concubines.
From Hunter Woodall and Eleanor Watson of cbsnews.com in July 2025:
TransDigm may be little known to the public at large, but the company has attracted attention in the halls of Congress. Within the last decade, Stein has testified to lawmakers amid scrutiny of the business, which deals in parts for both military and commercial aircraft.
“As my oversight has exposed, TransDigm has spent years fleecing taxpayers to the tune of millions of dollars,” Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a statement.
“The Department of Defense Inspector General needs to conduct aggressive oversight of TransDigm’s abuses and ensure proper accountability is had. At the same time, the Defense Department must step up its game to implement enhanced internal controls and explore alternative pathways of production, including through reverse engineering of spare parts, to avoid being swindled by contractors like TransDigm.”
Guys like Haslam have always run the Republican Party in their quest to establish their permanent ruling class over America.
But Trump’s second term has opened the flood gates to lesser-known parasites like Cafaro, Stein, and Lucarelli as long as they put the apropriate number of zeroes on their donation checks.
That they’re all flocking to Husted should be all any Ohio needs to see to make their decision at the ballot box in November.
If Ohio Democrats are going to win… this might be the year (emphasis on “might”)
Covering Ohio politics is dark and full of terrors.
Even for me, a well-compensated professional, my mind oscillates between “never let the bastards take your hope” and “you can’t get hurt if you always expect the worst.”
