Welcome to Hog City

Ohio's hog voters are set to teach the state's Republican junta one final lesson.

Photo by Mika Ruusunen on Unsplash

Do you feel that, folks? The vibes have shifted. Just two weeks ago, we were lamenting that poor Sleepy Joe might not have anything left in the tank after President Business Deals acted like he got shot.

And now look at us. Unburdened by what has been. And that was even before Secretary of State Frank LaRose (remember that bum?) waited until 5 p.m. on the day of the legal deadline to announce the Redistricting Reform made the November ballot.

I’m biased, but I’d there may never have been a better time to subscribe to The Rooster so you can stay abreast on what will be a bonkers campaign season:

As always, thank you for your readership—even you freeloaders huffing fumes in the parking lot. The Business Line continues its humble ascension, and every set of eyes helps put psychic damage on Ohio’s political class.

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Get dumped then, Ohio Republican Junta!

Counterclockwise from upper left corner: Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green), Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), Senate President Tim McVeigh Jr. (R-Lima), Rep. Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), Auditor Keith Faber, Attorney General “Dusty” Dave Yost, Senate Floor Majority Leader Rob “Super Gimp” McColley (R-Napoleon), Governor Grandpa Sleepy Tea, Reps. Sara “Nazi Princess” Fowler Arthur (R-Ashtabula) and Beth Lear (R-Galena)

Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima), who, in my opinion, is a domestic terrorist, didn’t know how good he had it in May 2022.

Huffman, never accused of humility, couldn’t resist bragging to The Columbus Dispatch about how Republican legislators dictated public policy to Ohio’s 11 million residents.

“We can kind of do what we want,” Huffman said.

Left unexplored in that soft profile was how the Republican junta came to enjoy supermajorities in both legislative chambers. That is, they wiped their asses with the State Constitution after Ohio voters passed an ostensible anti-gerrymandering amendment by a 49-point margin in 2018.

As for Huffman, you can’t blame a power-hungry jackal for doing what a power-hungry jackal was put on Earth to do.

The man is addicted to power, and it probably felt pretty good as a reactionary, stone-cold freak to pass the six-week abortion ban, a slew of anti-transgender nonsense, and universal school vouchers—not to mention the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about), in which Huffman has been implicated.

However, their plan had one fatal flaw: The Constitutional Amendment Ballot Initiative, initially enshrined in our State Constitution on September 3rd, 1912.

If I could go back in time, I would probably kill Baby Hitler. But I would have to think long and hard about going back to September 1912 to kiss the feet of the populist hogs that created that beautiful tool to circumvent the kind of political tyranny that cryptofascists like Huffman have spent their careers bringing to Ohio.

The beauty of Redistricting Reform is that it’s a very simple question: Do you think politicians should be able to pick their voters? As I told the House Government Oversight Committee in May, Ohio’s hog voters understand they’re supposed to be angry with our State Legislature.

That’s why Huffman has spent his entire career trying to avoid any honest referendum and why he couldn’t accept any blame when Ohio’s hog voters enshrined abortion rights in the State Constitution and legalized recreational marijuana in November.

As far as I can tell, Huffman’s argument to the voters will be that Redistricting Reform is a plot hatched by “liberal elites” in Washington D.C.

It’s the kind of bad-faith nonsense I have come to expect from that side, but it’s telling that this amendment has been in the works for the past seven months, and that’s somehow the best counterargument they have conjured.

An internal Democratic poll obtained by The Rooster showed that Redistricting Reform will begin with almost an insurmountable lead: 53.4% of voters approving, 14.8% opposing and 31.7% unsure at this stage in the game.

The crosstabs of the Democratic internal poll obtained by The Rooster

It’s hard to overstate how screwed the Republicans are when it comes to this amendment. It would take a literal mountain of $100 bills to move those numbers within the margin of error if persuasion were even possible.

That’s on top of Republicans needing to finance a presidential campaign, a Senate campaign, and 12 competitive Ohio House campaigns.

Elections are a zero-sum game with limited resources. Considering the reform side will once again be willing to spend what it takes to finally end gerrymandering in Ohio… you have to wonder where Republicans will find enough rich people dumb enough to throw their money in the furnace for a losing campaign.

As I have written before, ending gerrymandering won’t be a silver bullet that turns Ohio into a communist utopia. But ending Republican supermajorities in either chamber would go a long way to ending the extremist ideas that routinely get floated as legitimate on Capitol Square.

As a recovering alcoholic, I could have told Huffman and his ilk that this is where addiction leads.

I got off the vodka before it led to my grizzly demise. And thankfully, we’re about to get a good look at what that demise might have looked like, courtesy of Senator Huffman and his conniving cabal of creaky crackpot crackers.

Being sent to Hell, courtesy of the average non-political hog voter, is precisely what these chumps deserve. And they can bet their eternal souls that when they arrive in Hell in November, it will be my melon-sized Irish cranium that greets them in eternal damnation.

And yes, I’ll be sure to tell them that The Patriots Caucus sends its regards.

Get your Hog Voter Social Club shirts here! Shop for official merchandise from The Rooster, printed by Franklinton-based Supporter Supply Company.

What the Hell is going on in West Chester?

Senator George Lang (R-West Chester) in the blue shirt on the shirt, standing with the Last Ohio Militia.

A general rule of thumb is that it’s never good news when an Ohio state legislator earns international headlines.

Senator George Lang (R-West Chester) did just that this week at J.D. Vance’s first rally as a Vice Presidential candidate in Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio.

From The Guardian:

“I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved,” Lang told a Republican audience at Vance’s former high school in Middletown, Ohio, as he prepared to introduce the vice-presidential nominee.

“It’s the greatest experiment in the history of mankind, and if we come down to a civil war, I’m glad we got people like … Bikers for Trump” and the group’s national president, Mark “Smitty” Smith, “on our side.”

That side can have Bikers for Trump; I’m more than comfortable with the United States Army enforcing the iron will of Supreme Leader Kamala Harris in that scenario.

I texted Lang almost immediately when the news broke. My point was that, as a member of the Radical Left, I often wished Democrats were as cool as Republicans thought they were. Harris, for example, is a former prosecutor and darling of Wall Street.

I don’t see her leading a Communist revolution! I think our humble republic would survive her, actually.

“I hope I’m wrong,” Lang responded. Me too, Senator! Me too. I disagree with him politically, but I’m not trying to shoot him or anyone else in some Civil War.

And I like Lang, personally. He was undoubtedly the better choice in the March Republican Primary when he ran against Candice Keller, a Hall of Fame-worthy kook. And unlike a lot of other Ohio Republican Senators, he’s funny and doesn’t seem like he has about 50 embalmed corpses in his basement.

But I think this is an example of what happens when you live in a right-wing echo chamber. You can come to believe that “Bikers for Trump” would be a worthwhile ally in the fight against America’s military-industrial complex.

But it was another black eye for West Chester, who has already inflicted us with the presence of State Rep. Jennifer Gross at the Statehouse.

Do any brave and noble people reading this dispatch have any insight into what’s cooking in West Chester? Is there fentanyl in the water? Please send me an email or sound off in the comment section so other readers can gain some knowledge.

HB-6 went to the top!

Image via Greg Coleridge on Twitter.

The timeline for the HB-6 scandal began with Larry Householder traveling to Donald Trump's inauguration aboard FirstEnergy’s private plane. Householder even dined with since-indicted FirstEnergy executives in D.C.

And now we have learned, somewhat unsurprisingly, that the scandal reached all the way to one of Trump’s top fundraisers.

From Donald Shaw of sludge.com:

The Trump campaign’s largest known bundler is a lobbyist who advised coal and nuclear power company FirstEnergy on its effort to secure a $1.3 billion bailout from Ohio ratepayers and who pleaded the Fifth Amendment when called to testify on his role in a bribery scheme for which the company was criminally charged. 

Geoff Verhoff, a senior adviser at public affairs firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, has bundled more than $3.6 million this year for Trump 47 Committee, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission. Bundlers collect contributions from other donors and deliver them to campaigns. 

Hmm… doesn’t strike me as the actions of an innocent man, that’s for sure.

And while there have been slugs that seemingly move faster than federal prosecutors when it comes to prosecuting anyone above Householder, a recent filing by prosecutors shows they ain’t done with FirstEnergy yet.

Until that case is officially closed, we can continue to pray on the downfall of almost every statewide Republican leader.

It ain’t much, but it’s honest work that won’t land us in federal prison for the next 20 years.

THOSE WMDs. Richard Hanania, who has the ear of J.D. Vance, wrote for white supremacist websites under a pseudonym… Inside the mind of an American shooter… Seven signs you’re not drinking enough water… A Cornell professor invented what may be the best barbeque chicken recipe ever… My friend’s solution to her “unhappy” marriage is absolutely insane.