How to carry a vendetta
The only blog post you'll read today involving the state's largest bribery scandal and Palestine.
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John Fortney, the Communications Director for the Ohio Senate Republican Caucus, treated me very unfairly last week.
I asked Fortney when I could be a guest on The President’s Podcast, the laughable production featuring Fortney and State Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) with an intended audience of 15 people maximum.
Fortney claimed I didn’t have the juice for that. It was odd to say, considering one of my TikTok videos probably has more views than The President’s Podcast has total downloads, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
Fortney, however, crossed the line by claiming that I’m a blogger (fair) who “does” and “sells dope.”
At first, I thought he was accusing me of doing and selling heroin. But then I remember men of a certain age only refer to marijuana—something I haven’t used, let alone sold, in over a year.
Selling dope would be more honorable than carrying water for the odious State Senate, which is where the rare good ideas produced in the Statehouse go to die. It would be more cooler, too.
You can watch our full exchange on Twitter.
But as we say on the Westside of Columbus: When you stand with the Lord, the Lord will stand for you. And wouldn’t you know it? Earlier this week, Jake Zuckerman of cleveland.com reported FirstEnergy directed $300K to a dark money group affiliated with Senator Huffman, who at the time was a regular member.
FirstEnergy’s lobbyist, Ty Pine, in a May 2019 email referred to Liberty Ohio as “Huffman’s C4.” Neil Clark, a lobbyist indicted alongside ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, told undercover FBI agents around that time that Huffman has “already set up” a 501(c)(4) of his own. And Mike Dowling, an executive who has been criminally accused of orchestrating FirstEnergy’s bribery campaign, told the company’s CEO Chuck Jones in a text message that they’re going to “need some (C)(4) infusion” because Huffman “wants us to give him A LOT,” also noting that Huffman is “transactional and can get shot [sic] done.”
The Huffman money is in addition to the nearly $4 million in dark money FirstEnergy gave to Governor Mike DeWine, the $1.5 million it gave to Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, and the $4.3 million bribe it paid to the late Sam Randazzo days before he became the Chairman of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission.
That’s on top of their deal with former House Speaker Larry Householder, who is currently serving 20 years in federal prison for his role in what FBI agents call the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about).
Why do you suppose FirstEnergy, in the earliest days of what became the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about), funneled millions of dollars in dark money to the most influential politicians in the state?
I obviously have my theories. But I wanted to talk to Huffman’s Senate compatriots about the newest HB-6 revelations—while also proving to that gremlin Fortney that while he might not talk to me, members of the prestigious State Senate do!
And there may be no more influential Senators outside of Huffman than Senate Majority Floor Leader Rob McColley (R-Napoleon), whom many Statehouse observers expect to replace Huffman as President next year, and Senator Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland).
Senator Cirino was the first unfortunate legislator to walk up the Statehouse Senate side’s stars into my camera's waiting lens. Cirino and I get along fine when he’s not pushing anti-transgender nonsense or waging a nonsensical war on woke with our state’s institutions of higher learning.
But thanks to Fortney’s antics, I had to put Cirino on the hot corner!
It’s funny to me that these guys instinctually give an answer like, “Oh, I don’t know much about [the latest installment in the biggest scandal in state history].”
It’s obviously bullshit. Or, at the very best, an honest admission as to why they’re too busy to be in this line of work. But either way, I’m one of the few people in the state who can quickly get you up to speed.
If only they had the sense to subscribe to The Rooster like the brave and noble soldier reading this dispatch, we wouldn’t have to waste that kind of time. The thing about HB-6 is it’s easy to sound like a conspiracy theorist unless you know exactly what you’re talking about.
Here are some cast of characters that I reference in our conversation that normal people might not know:
Michael Dowling, the former FirstEnergy Vice President of Bribes. FirstEnergy is still paying Dowling’s legal fees despite firing him for cause in 2020. It’s a curious choice given that Dowling is the bridge from the company to the dark side of Ohio’s pervert playground that masquerades as our political system.
Dan McCarthy, the former legislative director for Governor DeWine, who mysteriously resigned for unexplained circumstances in September 2021. Months later, we learned of documents in which McCarthy pleaded with HB-6 co-conspirators to keep his name off an official form with the government. Almost a year after McCarthy’s initial resignation, DeWine appointed the so-called “longtime Democrat” McCarthy to the Ohio Racing Commission. The State Senate unanimously confirmed McCarthy to the position in May 2023.
You can call McCarthy “corrupt” to the face of any State Legislator, and they will basically shrug like, “What are you going to do?”
Ty Pine, second from the left, in happier times.
And that’s without even mentioning C-List celebrities in the HB-6 scandal like Ty Pine, the former FirstEnergy lobbyist of the henchman-level variety who has yet to be charged with a crime despite being all over investigation documentation.
You can see one example above in the infamous “FUCK ANYBODY WHO AIN’T US” meme celebrating what the criminal conspirators thought was the finish line of a years-long RICO scheme.
And here’s another telling example from Marty Schladen of Ohio Capital Journal in March 2023:
When the Householder-led House passed the first version of the bill on May 29, 2019, there was an obvious sense of euphoria. Jeff Longthreth, a co-defendant who has since pleaded guilty, texted FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine and said, “I have 10-12 reps in the back room at Mitchell’s (Steakhouse) having dinner. They’re all ‘yes’ votes.”
Nothing more than pigs feeding at the public trough!
And it’s a bad look for Huffman, who wants to return next year as the Speaker of the Ohio House, to be linked to that motley crew of white-collar criminals.
And when Cirino tries to play it off like he isn’t up-to-date with the latest revelations, I had no choice but to remind him that two people charged in the case have already died by suicide.
Sam Randazzo aka “The Randazzler,” the former PUCO chairman. One of the most knowledgeable utility and energy lawyers in Ohio who spent his life doing the bidding of energy conglomerates and ripping off the public while enriching himself. He died by hanging himself in the decrepit warehouse on the near-eastside that served as the address for an LLC through which he embezzled millions of dollars from his utility company clients.
Neil Clark the former corrupt lobbyist. Originally charged alongside then-House Speaker Larry Householder, Clark died by suicide next to a retention pond in Florida while wearing a “Mike DeWine for governor” t-shirt. The revelations from his tell-all book, I’m Just a Lobbyist have not been too far off the mark as the investigation has unraveled. I profiled Clark’s career in March 2021, shortly after his demise.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) is widely seen as the next State President. Those same Statehouse players also usually mention that promotion in the context of McColley serving as Matt Huffman’s gimp, should the domestic terrorist from Lima successfully return as House Speaker next January.
I hadn’t tried to get McColley on camera until Wednesday. Like Cirino, he first tried to pretend he hadn’t heard the latest revelations about Huffman’s machinations.
I eventually pressed McColley on the word “transactional.” It’s a word that I’ve heard quite a few times about Huffman, and it’s something McColley most likely has heard, too. I’d say it’s the politically correct term for “bribery,” but I wanted to hear McColley’s take.
Notice McColley’s lawyerly shiftiness under pressure. He refuses to define the word “transactional” before saying he doesn’t believe the accusation lands fairly on Huffman. And then he gets the Hell out of Dodge by walking into a restricted area where unwashed perverts from the public can’t follow.
I’ll post the full video on Twitter later today.
Though I obviously don’t agree he’s as clueless as he pretends about the HB-6 investigation, I respect that McColley stood and talked for five minutes when he could have walked into the restricted catwalk and ducked the conversation entirely.
I’ll gladly clown guys like our Botox-swollen Lieutenant Governor with pants that don’t fit, but I’d much rather stand and talk because it’s a more informative process for the viewers.
“I’m Tim Schaffer!”
I pride myself on knowing the names and faces of the Ohio Legislature better than 90 percent of the Ohio populace, which isn’t as impressive as it seems.
But I’ve apparently got some work to do on the Senate side.
After securing interviews with Senators Rulli, Cirino and McColley, I must have been feeling froggy. Because I saw Senator Mark Romanchuk (R-Ontario) walk past me.
“Senator Romanchuk,” I asked. “You guys ever find the patriot who leaked that video of you telling the Ohio Manufacturing Association about the State Senate’s attempt to [butcher the legal marijuana law passed by Ohio voters]?”
There was one major flaw in my question.
“I’m Tim Schaffer,” said Senator Tim Shaffer (R-Lancaster).
We both had a laugh. But that’s how it goes in this game. Sometimes you’re the cock of the walk; other times, you’re the featherduster!
Ohio State and local cops goof response to pro-Palestine encampment on campus
I am an “alumnus” of Ohio State, which is a fancy word meaning I earned enough credits before partying my way out of the university before graduating. But I often say that I am a fan of the Ohio State athletic players, most of its students, and some of its coaches.
Outside of the athletic realm, Ohio State hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory in recent years. There’s the long and continued story with Les Wexner, who weirdly found himself in the company of Jeffrey Epstein, one of the most infamous pedophiles in human history, over the course of decades. There’s the cover-up of the systemic abuse from deceased Doctor Richard Strauss and the continued legal efforts to deny victims their fair compensation.
And then there’s how the university decided to respond to campus activists deciding to start the kind of encampment for justice in Palestine that has been sweeping the nation.
A Twitter account I won’t name mentioned me to say the student’s encampment was merely performative given most students would leave campus in a couple of weeks anyway.
Obviously, the Ohio State administration, Ohio State police, Columbus Division of Police, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol disagreed about the protest's performative nature.
The police met students at 4 a.m. on the South Oval, threatening them with arrest if they dared pitch tents on the public grass of the university they pay tens of thousands of dollars per year to attend.
Again, if I were in the administration, I would have simply let the kids sleep on the Oval as long as they weren’t obstructing sidewalks or shouting anti-Semitic slurs at Jewish students. But I’m a normal 37-year-old guy who isn’t generally bothered by the opinions of college students!
Instead, Ohio State summoned the state’s monopoly of violence against peaceful protests in an attempt to kill the movement in its cradle and appease bad-faith critics like State Legislator Brian Stewart (R-Ashville):
I’ve seen a parade of rancid right-wing grifters come through Ohio State’s campus, and the administration treated it as some solemn display of fealty to our First Amendment.
I remember last summer when, blocks from my old apartment, Neo-Nazis at Land-Grant Brewing made genocidal death threats to a drag show attended by children.
I remember the stumblebum Proud Boys coming to Columbus in January and spewing a bunch of violent rhetoric against minority residents.
The cops did nothing to them! It was more like, what can you do? We’ll let these 20-some Neo-Nazis climb into the back of a U-Haul and drive onto 315! We’ll let the Proud Boys come to our city, spew racist nonsense, and then drive off in cars without license plates.
But if it’s college kids in tents on the Oval asking the Israeli government to stop the wonton massacre of women and children, then suddenly it’s treated as a foreign invasion and you get laughable orders from the state’s paid thugs that Ohio State students “can no longer sit” in public areas:
The coalition of police arrested three protestors for the high crime of sitting on the Oval and having the wrong opinion about the “conflict in Israel,” as it’s usually called in our media system, like it’s a symmetrical conflict.
That only sparked a higher and more committed turnout for the rally on the Oval at 5 p.m.
Again, the Ohio State Administration should have told protest leaders to keep it off the sidewalks and not harass passersby, and they could have most likely waited out the protests.
Instead, the University and Columbus’ public paid a bunch of thugs at their laughably swollen overtime rate to descend on the protestors and arrest them en masse.
Go watch the videos for yourself from reporters on the scene:
You might be surprised to learn that the coalition of police forces clad in riot gear successfully dispersed a group of unarmed college students. Again, the lack of symmetry in the encounter probably didn’t stop our brave boys in blue from feeling like they had successfully repelled an attack from Atilla the Hun.
If I were Columbus City attorney Zach Klein, I would simply announce that I wouldn’t be prosecuting any of the trumped-up charges against college students for doing something more productive than getting blind drunk like I did. The cops already think he’s a communist, and 70 percent of them don’t even live in the city, which means they can’t vote against him when he runs for Mayor in 2027.
But I don’t think he’ll be as “progressive” in this moment as he’ll pretend to be when he uncorks that campaign. It’ll be the 10,000th example of how bankrupt that word has become in Columbus.
But this is the price Ohio State pays for living under the thumb of the Republican Statehouse Junta, on whom the university depends on critical funding despite half the legislators wanting to end the experiment of American public education.
Administrators should have a little more pride. But I’ve followed the university long enough to be unsurprised when gutless careerists defend the #brand over the lifeblood of the university.
Hopefully, fellow Buckeye alumni will remember the administration’s abhorrent response the next time the university spams your inbox begging for another donation of your hard-earned money.
I would wager your money would be better spent defending the young people currently under the heel of the state:
My prediction is, like the George Floyd uprising, seeing the state’s jack-booted thugs beating their friends will only spur more people into the next stage of the protest.
I’ll be there if that’s the case.
THOSE WMDs. ShotSpotter keeps listening after contracts expire… It took me months to get ADHD meds the DEA says are overprescribed… American auto companies now peddling $75K trucks for cappuccino runs… The man who killed Google search… How international gold dealers exploited a tiny African kingdom’s economic dream.