Rooster in Review: Say it ain't so, Laura Bischoff!

The Columbus Dispatch goes to war on behalf of the notorious conman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Laura Bischoff, the venerable political reporter for the Columbus Dispatch, went to war for the notorious conman Vivek Ramaswamy earlier today.

Earlier this week, The Rooster reported on Ramaswamy trying to bum-rush the New York Knicks. It relied on a single trusted source who had provided verified intelligence in the past and had first-hand knowledge of the encounter.

Given that my credibility has been impugned by a reporter for whom I’ve held nothing but respect for over a decade, here’s a portion of the conversation, with the original time stamp from Monday night:

Bischoff, whom I’ve described as “the GOAT” numerous times in the past, did not discuss the sourcing or even link to the report, leaving readers to judge its veracity.

Instead, she dropped this oblique line:

Byrnes reported other unproven allegations about Ramaswamy in the recent past.

This is in reference to an April 27 dispatch about infidelity rumors swirling around Ramaswamy’s campaign and his former employee.

The word “rumors” was intentionally included because The Rooster is dedicated to providing hard news and insight into insider gossip not available to the average citizen.

This style of coverage invites certain criticism and naysayers, and we accept that as the cost of doing business.

But it’s unfair to categorize The Rooster with that unspecified generality when this is the same publication that nuked Ramaswamy’s selection of Josh Mandel as a running mate and also liquidated the billionaire’s private security team in the last five months alone.

For Bischoff to quote Ramaswamy’s pissbaby novel at length in an attempt to discredit my reporting is a perfect example of why The Dispatch is on the way out and The Rooster is on the ascendancy.

It’s the same playbook the corporate press ran in Sept. 2025 against our report about Ohio State’s planned moment of silence for Charlie Kirk that public records later vindicated in spades… to radio silence among the same naysayers who lobbed the same tired criticisms.

Ramaswamy, like most politicians, is a living testament to the futility of fact-checking.

It defies belief that he would be treated as the authoritative final say on a story that obviously embarrasses him. As if there’s a reality in which Ramaswamy would have given kudos to The Rooster for gumshoe reporting.

Instead, Bischoff is reduced to stenography on a post where a storied liar like Ramaswamy laughably claimed to be a lifelong Cavaliers fan and used curious phrases like “state-sponsored security team” in place of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which currently protects Dr. Amy Acton.

The Dispatch obviously wants The Rooster dead. And that’s fine. We welcome the loathing.

But I would have at least thought they’d be better than using a social media meltdown in an attempt to discredit me, while offering no original reporting of their own.

I now know better.

The Rooster stands by its report and hopes to have more in the near future about Ramaswamy’s “state-sponsored security.”

In the meantime, we will continue cultivating an audience that knows the difference between hard news and gossip—no matter how many tears Ohio’s corrupt political class and their corporate cronies shed about our work.

This week in Ohio Man…

The other day, while walking out of the corner store, I noticed a Bitcoin ATM… a petrifying sight to say the least in a neighborhood like the Hilltop.

For years, I have said that Bitcoin is little more than fake internet nerd currency preferred by pedophiles, drug dealers, money launderers, and other low-rent swindlers.

And this particular ATM was emblazoned with two signs declaring that any patron who arrived at the fake internet currency machine at the direction of “someone on the phone” was the victim of a scam and warning them not to proceed further.

But it would appear the scam artists are upping their game by impersonating sheriff deputies to spur their victims to the nearest Bitcoin ATM.

From the Logan County Sheriff’s office:

This male was wearing a Ohio "Deputy Sheriff" Patrol uniform representing himself as a member of law enforcement came into the Village of Timberlake on 05/19/2026 and added a team of individuals via telephone to aide in convincing a resident to withdraw $9,300 in cash and deposit it into a Bitcoin machines and hand over confirmation information to them.

The unidentified male advised the resident that he had a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear for jury duty.

Good time to remember that a sizable portion of the Ohio State Legislature wanted to invest public money into the fake internet nerd currency that saw its “value” tank over the past two years.

This week in The Rooster

Photo by Henrique Malaguti on Unsplash

It was a brisk week of business at Rooster Worldwide LLC despite the shortened work week, in large part thanks to the notorious conman being a clout-chasing nerd.

• From the Archives: The Origins of The Rooster. No original dispatch in observance of Memorial Day. But here’s a hit from 2023 tracing The Rooster’s origins to December 2001.

• Vivek Ramaswamy failed to bum-rush the Knicks’ championship celebration. This week’s most-read dispatch if you can believe that.

• On that auditor appointment. Columbus’ new auditor comes from a law firm that’s billed the city over $900K for bond work since 2019. A continuation of that relationship would open a web of conflict.

• The Cincinnati Enquirer’s All-Star Contributor calls your neighbors pedophiles. Cincinnati-based freelancer, Scott Templeton, debuts with a piece about the dangers of corporate media’s addiction to social media “engagement” at any cost.

We’ll do it again at the same time and place next week.

Until then… stay frosty, my friends!

THOSE WMDs. In the wake of Uvalde, emboldened Texas school police have pepper-sprayed, tackled and tasered students… For far-right extremists, the rise of a new enemy: Women… The human-trafficking victim next door… From 2003: Dot com Drug Dealers… Jeffrey Epstein’s assistant: What did she know?