The Rooster

The Rooster

Ohio Democrats need one weird trick from Rep. Joyce Beatty

If Beatty would like to continue putting psychic damage on the Trump Administration, there's a salient bipartisan issue from her backyard that will help down-ballot Democrats win in November.

D.J. Byrnes's avatar
D.J. Byrnes
Jul 15, 2026
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Joyce Beatty can help Ohio Democrats win in November with this one weird trick

Background: Dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Foreground: Longtime U.S. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-Columbus)

As you might have seen, longtime Columbus Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty recently dropped a gigaton of psychic damage on Donald Trump by suing to remove his name from the Kennedy Center.

In politics, especially in this era, it’s wise for politicians to repeatedly tell people about their victories. And Beatty has certainly done that.

On Instagram alone, she’s posted 43 times about her battle at the Kennedy Center since June 1.

Here she is on the Don Lemon Show. Here she is on MSNOW. Here she is with Rev. Al Sharpton. Here she is with Rachel Maddow. Here she is on CNN. Here she is in the Atlantic. Here she is in the Washington Post. Here she is in The New York Times.

Here she is, just last night, participating in the well-explored short video format, “preparing for her Netflix documentary” about her fight to remove Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center.

I don’t blame Beatty for spiking the football. Politics is like blogging—it’s inherently an act of ego and self-promotion, and I’ve been known to spike a football or two in my time, as well.

But this game is also about “What have you done for me lately?” And it’s important not to get too high on your own supply. It’s not like Trump collapsed like a dying star when his name came down.

If Beatty would like to continue putting psychic damage on our deranged cheetoh of a president, she won’t have to look far for a salient, bipartisan issue that, coincidentally, is much more localized than Trump’s name on an arts center in Washington D.C.

MEHDI: “How scared are Trump and his inner circle about the content and impact of the Epstein Files?”

SWAN: “We got their focus group data — people brought it up spontaneously. It came up higher than crime, data centers… some of the most salient issues were lower than Epstein.”

[via the Tennessee Holler on Bluesky]

The Rooster excoriated Beatty for her deafening silence on Jeffrey Epstein and his strongest soldier, Central Ohio anorexia magnate Leslie Wexner, on Friday, February, 13.

A little over 12 hours later, Beatty announced in an Instagram post that she was donating Wexner’s money—but not his wife’s—to charity.

She hasn’t mentioned Wexner or the Epstein Files since.

However, her Democratic colleagues did rebuff her effort to join them for the press conference after Wexner’s deposition in New Albany on February 20.

Read into that what you will.

5 crazy moments in Leslie Wexner's deposition

5 crazy moments in Leslie Wexner's deposition

D.J. Byrnes
·
Feb 20
Read full story

On April 6, The Rooster explained why Dr. Amy Acton wouldn’t be bludgeoning the Republicans on data centers or Wexner anytime soon.

Thankfully, former Senator Sherrod Brown learned a couple of things in his 2024 loss to Bitcoin aficionado Bernie Moreno–namely, that you have to hit these perverts where it hurts.

Brown has pounded Central Ohio airwaves with ads from Wexner’s deposition, correctly labeling Wexner as Epstein’s “co-conspirator.”

Democratic Attorney General nominee John Kulewicz also got into the mix yesterday, following The Rooster’s reporting of formerly jailed sex pest Andrew Havas donating $12,986.42 to Auditor and Republican Attorney General nominee Keith Faber, and tying that to Faber also accepting tens of thousands of dollars from two other political figures with problematic sexual misconduct allegations against them.

Follow John Kulewicz on Facebook

“[Ohio Republican Attorney General nominee Keith Faber] has taken over $50,000 from Les Wexner, a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein,” Kulewicz wrote on Facebook.

“Then, after he was called out for it, Auditor Faber stiffed charities on the money he pledged to donate.”

What will Beatty do?

Left: Congresswoman Joyce Beatty boasting about standing “in solidarity” with Epstein’s victims, claiming that “abuse of any kind is unacceptable and must be condemned. Right: The perverse personalized birthday card Leslie Wexner wrote Jeffrey Epstein on his 50th birthday. The card belonged to a book, orchestrated by convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, where seemingly everyone in Epstein’s life made overt references to his sexual appetite for “young women” and girls.
Left: Congresswoman Joyce Beatty boasting about standing “in solidarity” with Epstein’s victims, claiming that “abuse of any kind is unacceptable and must be condemned. Right: The perverse, personalized birthday card that Leslie Wexner wrote to Jeffrey Epstein on his 50th birthday. The card belonged to a book, orchestrated by convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, where seemingly everyone in Epstein’s life made overt references to his sexual appetite for “young women” and girls.

By their own admission in court, State Republicans targeted Rep. Beatty as a pliable, self-interested dealmaker when they decided to gerrymander Ohio with laser precision after they rode the racist Tea Party backlash to Barack Obama’s presidency back to power.

Fifteen years later, Beatty still holds her seat in a district that North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un could win with a (D) next to his name. She will cruise to re-election in November by margins that would make Jong Un blush.

She should spend the time from August to November using her federal powers to go to the Department of Justice to review the unredacted Epstein Files and tell Central Ohio exactly what happened in our backyard for nearly 40 years.

It’s something that Congressional Democrats have been doing since February.

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Technically, any Ohio Congressional Democrat could do that. But Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Cleveland) couldn’t even be bothered to attend Wexner’s deposition despite sitting on the Oversight Committee.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) doesn’t have the internet.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Cincinnati) is probably too busy fantasizing about sniping a Palestinian child and watching their head explode into pink mist like a punctured balloon filled with McDonald’s chicken nugget slime.

And Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-Akron) is probably too busy fantasizing about being the “first couple in Congress” with her husband, Franklin County’s most obviously corrupt commissioner, Kevin Boyce.

No, it has to be Beatty. It’s her district, and she’s the only one with the clout, charisma, and now national credibility who can leverage this story back into the press.

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