What can Botox do for you?
Jon Husted, who has a syringe of Botox where his brain is supposed to be, doesn't want to talk about the clear and present danger in which he finds himself.
Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted is one of those guys you can tell has spent a lot of time envisioning himself as governor and, thus, the President of the United States.
That makes him one of the most dangerous types of perverts in politics.
As one Ohio House Republican explained to me recently: “People ask me where I want to go in politics. I say I have no lifelong ambitions because when you have those, you’ll do whatever it takes to obtain them.”
Who knows if that’s something that House Republican actually believes or if it’s a slick line—either way, it’s a line that rings true, and Husted is a primary example.
Husted, while not yet charged with any criminal wrongdoing, is perhaps even more culpable than Governor Mike DeWine in the ongoing investigation into the passage of HB-6.
I wrote in April 2022 about DeWine’s guilt. But Husted was deeper in the mud than DeWine. Multiple political people on both sides of the aisle have used the phrase “Golden Boy” when describing Husted’s long-running relationship with First Energy, an organized crime syndicate that sells energy as a side hustle.
Consider the appointment of former Public Utilities Commission chairman Sam Randazzo.
Mike DeWine’s staff compiled a 198-page dossier on why he shouldn’t be named chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, yet DeWine went forward with the appointment anyway.
But Randazzo, days after First Energy had already paid him a $4.3 million bribe, appeared to be short on the votes and thus scuttling a key cog to First Energy’s ultimate plans.
In Randazzo’s indictment from December 2023, federal prosecutors showcase that former First Energy CEO Chuck Jones, who recently got indicted on state charges relating to the scandal, “forced” DeWine and Husted to perform “battlefield triage” to save the appointment.
It would appear that Randazzo caught himself in quite the web of deceit, as Gongwar reported earlier this week that the federal government dropped over two million pages of documents in the discovery against him.
Defense counsel for the ex-Public Utilities Commission of Ohio chair told U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black on Wednesday they have received 2.2 million pages and counting in discovery materials from prosecutors.
"We certainly have our work cut out for us," Randazzo attorney Andrew DeVooght said during a status conference updating the judge on developments in the case.
"We are working diligently through those," he continued. "As you can imagine, we're moving along but have a ways to go."
The beauty of this ongoing investigation is that none of the co-conspirators have any loyalty to each other.
Sure, they might have deluded themselves into thinking they were friends when the gravy train was rolling and the champagne was flowing, but those relationships undoubtedly look funny in the light of federal and state investigations that could yield lifetime prison sentences.
For example, and I’m just spitballing here, it’s hard to think of Randazzo, Jones or former First Energy Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling, not spilling the beans on what they know about Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted’s involvement in the scandal.
I got a tip yesterday around 1 p.m. that Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted would be speaking to a crowd in Statehouse atrium at 2 p.m. I had my cat clear my schedule immediately.
I found Husted giving an address to Choose Ohio First Scholars, which is a government program designed to make our polluted backwater outpost more competitive in the STEM industry. Husted, who has been instrumental as anyone in attacking public education in Ohio, rambled about the greatness of the state in a speech that I’m sure, like me, most attendants have already forgotten.
It’s funny in those moments, waiting for the pony show to finish, and watching Husted’s team frantically start texting each other after I enter the fray. It makes me realize that The Patriots Caucus is starting to get somewhere with these freaks.
As soon as the ceremony ended, however, five gremlins—Husted’s chief of staff, press secretary, communications director, a security guard and some other underling charged with filming our encounter—materialized out of the woodwork to form a phalanx around their boss.
It would be bad for my business if every politician ran like a bug. But it’s good for business when Lieutenant Governor Husted, one of the most powerful politicians in the state and odds-on-favorite to be our next governor if he’s not in prison, shuffles his way through the Statehouse while absorbing body blows from a communist blogger.
If you learn one thing from this blog, it should be that our cabal of overlords, first and foremost, are not impressive people. Their egos are inflated by their everyday existence in which they’re surrounded by paid flunkeys and shuffled into various photo ops.
Husted, even in the presence of his Praetorian Guard, was reduced in under three minutes to nothing more than a 56-year-old man with too much Botox in his forehead.
In that light, it’s easy to see how a guy like him stumbled ass-first into an ongoing investigation into the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about). He’s not a bright guy, and that’s before even taking into account his lack of sleep as the feds draw ever closer to his doorstep.
State Rep. Ferguson is running out of friends
The March 19th primary will go a long way in determining the Ohio House Speaker in 2025. State Senate president Matt Huffman (R-Lima), a domestic terrorist, is hoping his field of pawns topple supporters of current House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) in a proxy war that has stymied the flow of government spending bills.
But according to multiple Statehouse legislators, there are other, lesser-known Republicans that also have ambition for Speaker. One is State Rep. Ron Ferguson (R-Wintersville), an elite troll if not the most effective legislator.
Ferguson has been on a 13-month crusade against “the Blue 22” on social media and in the Legislature. He has irked Speaker Stephens to the point that Stephens stripped Ferguson of his committee assignments.
But as one legislator told The Rooster this week about Ferguson’s ongoing campaign efforts, “I never thought Ferguson was working that hard for somebody else.”
According to multiple sources, Ferguson and Huffman had an animated conversation this week about who, in fact, would be running for Speaker should their side be successful in toppling Stephens’ supporters on March 19th.
To be clear, this would be akin to me challenging LeBron James to a basketball game. Huffman has a proven record of being “transactional” for special interest groups and passing their agenda. Ferguson has a bunch of tweets. Nobody other than Ferguson would support him for Speaker over Huffman.
To compound Ferguson’s problems, another legislator relayed that Ferguson got into a follow-up spat with State Rep. Nick Santucci (R-Howland Twp.), a peer of Fergusons’ and another ambitious legislator.
I like Ferguson on a personal level. He’s entertaining on camera, doesn’t run like a bug, and knows how to hate, which I respect. But my God, the Blue 22 and Democratic colleagues already want to throw him off a bridge. It’s baffling to see him torching his goodwill with the likes of Sen. Huffman and Rep. Santucci over something delusional as him one day being Speaker.
You need allies in government. You need to build coalitions. And while I somewhat admire Ferguson’s desire to watch the world burn, it’s no way to pass an agenda to the benefit of the people he serves back in his district. But Ferguson wouldn’t be the first legislator not to be interested in that.
THOSE WMDs. Police chases are killing more and more Americans… A marketplace of girl influencers managed by moms and stalked by men… A killer among them… The pedal-to-the-metal, totally illegal, cross-country sprint for glory… Three abandoned children, two missing parents, and a 40-year mystery.
You know that season of Parks and Rec when Ben is working for a Congressman in DC who speaks in mindless catch phrases and then goes and sits in an office and just stares at the wall blankly?
Thats what Husted reminds me of exactly.
I had the opportunity several years ago to attend some parties put on by the employer of Husted's wife that he also attended. To describe him as a socially awkward dope would be totally fair. Stay after this topic DJ!