The Hog Tribunal is open for business
This special dispatch comes courtesy of the brave and noble soldiers in the Patriots Caucus.
This special dispatch is courtesy of the brave and noble soldiers in the Patriots Caucus.
I need some of the freeloaders huffing fumes in the parking lot to put some money down on a subscription today.
I lost $1 to a House Republican betting on Governor Sleepy Tea calling a special legislative session.
DeWine didn’t make that move (more on that in a bit), and I’m in dire financial straits ahead of an important business meeting today at Mike Coleman’s Corruption Barn (more commonly known as East Market).
Tomorrow’s dispatch will only be for patriots’ eyes, so you might as well lock in your subscription ahead of what will be a doozy of a political season this fall.
Governor Mike DeWine and his lackeys didn’t put my name on the media list for his press conference yesterday. At first, I thought it was a simple oversight. How could DeWine forget our fabled picture together after his State of the State address?
But no. It was much worse than that. Just when I thought I was starting to get a modicum of begrudging respect from the hobgoblin cartel that controls Ohio’s politics, a security clerk at the Vern Riffe Center informed me that I “didn’t make the cut” for the press conference list.
I’ll remember the insult next time I see Governor Sleepy Tea trundling around Capitol Square. I’ve come to prefer doing things the easy way with politicians—it’s more informative for the viewer. But if Sleepy Tea’s team wants it the hard way, I’ll gladly roast their boy into oblivion next time we cross paths on Capitol Square. A Bust Up of our child-sized governor is always good for The Business Line.
But in retrospect, it’s probably a good thing Sleepy Tea’s minions didn’t let me in the door. The governor didn’t declare a special session thanks to Republicans being unable to muster the required quorum, but that didn’t stop him from shoveling horseshit for an hour.
From Morgan Trau of news5cleveland.com:
But DeWine said it's about the language of the amendment. He tried to support his beliefs by showing a map from a citizen named "Kevin," who scored 100% proportionately by a nonpartisan redistricting website but had to divide up communities inside counties. He also showed a map that he said was gerrymandered by Democrats from the last redistricting process.
"We need to end this writing and rewriting of our Constitution, and we must defeat this misguided ballot initiative," he said.
[…]
But DeWine argued that the focus on proportionality is a huge concern since that requires looking at prior statewide elections and figuring out what percentage each party got on average, and then drawing districts that align with those votes. He believes that having that one aspect be "king," will cause "extreme gerrymandering," he said.
This is a sad, sad state of affairs.
The governor of Ohio, who has been a politician his entire life, had seven months to prepare for this press conference… and the best ammunition he could muster was critiquing a shitpost from a private citizen named “Kevin.”
Of course, DeWine suddenly has a problem with “proportionality” because redistricting reform would use a proper understanding of the word, which stands in stark contrast to how business has been conducted in this state for the past decade.
Here’s one example from the 2016 elections:
So, yes, when Rep. Brian Stewart, who himself represents a gerrymandered district that screws over Democratic voters in Franklin County, claims this proposed amendment is about “manufacturing Democrat[ic] districts,” he’s right—but not in the way he thinks.
I’m built differently, I guess. I have this weird belief that election results mirror the voters who participated. I doubt that Rep. Stewart would complain about “manufacturing Republican districts” if he were a Republican in Southern Illinois who just got railroaded by Governor J.B. Pritzker.
But his partisan hackery is an example of why the Hog Tribunal will have to adjudicate the case. That’s why, despite having the past seven months to prepare, the best argument the other side can conjure is a bunch of bad-faith nonsense about “foreign billionaires” orchestrating a movement led by regular Ohioans.
There’s also this nonsense from Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, who has a melted crayon where his brain is supposed to be:
You read statements like that and understand why you don't have to travel far in Ohio politics to hear stories about Husted’s ex-wife telling everybody she knows that Husted was clinically diagnosed as a narcissist.
You almost have to admire the gall, considering Husted himself got his start in the gerrymandered legislature and has ridden to the precipice of the governorship by riding the legacy of DeWine’s coattails for the past six years. He’ll discover what “merit” means when his gubernatorial crashes like a SpaceX rocket, but that’s another dispatch for another day.
That side can’t argue on the facts; they can’t argue on the logic. So, apparently, all that’s left is skipping directly to bad-faith bullshit that voters at large will easily see through, just as we did in last year’s Special Election and Issues 1 & 2 last November.
Deep down, the Republican junta knows how fragile their power is. They saw what happened to the Michigan Republican Party after their voters passed similar redistricting reform. The Michigan GOP crumbled faster than a Nature Valley crunchy granola bar.
That’s not some far-fetched fantasy regarding the Ohio Republican Party, either. I have learned these past two years talking to power players on Capitol Square that these freaks hate each other. Their alliances are made out of convenience, not friendship or even respect. Their only shared goal is the pursuit of personal power. Nothing more, nothing less.
That’s why power-hungry jackals like DeWine and Husted ultimately fear “proportionality.” It would send their ill-gotten legislative supermajorities into the woodchipper, which is precisely what’s about to happen.
All that’s left to do is laugh at their flailing, pathetic attempts to turn hog voters against themselves. And it will be delightful watching their unbridled arrogance act as if voters are too stupid to understand a fundamental question…
Do you think politicians should be able to pick their voters?
The latest rendition of Issue 1 will pass because any voter who isn’t a leathery freak will answer that question with a resounding “No!” Partisan hacks like DeWine, Husted, and any GOP legislator soiling their diapers on Twitter are the outliers of the electorate, especially in a presidential election.
Had Republicans been forced to interact with the general public over the past 13 years, they might have had the smarts to see this train coming. Maybe they wouldn’t have had to pick on poor Kevin.
Instead, they chose to send us to gerrymandered hell, and now they’ve left the Hog Tribunal with no choice but to return the favor in kind.
If the Statehouse Holy Roller sect thought I was obnoxious before…. well, I promise them this much: They have no idea how obnoxious I can be, but they’ll get an idea when the legislature is back in session after Nov. 5th when the hog voters humble their sorry asses once again.
You can go ahead and bet the bank on that.
THOSE WMDs. The girl who played dead… Racked by pain and enraptured by a right-wing miracle cure… The return of Slim Shady… My mother, the gambler… The new gods of weather can make rain on demand, or so they want you to believe.
Just finished that Dallas Observer article you linked to at the end of the post (The girl who played dead). Tremendous reporting of a heartbreaking story. Hard to read, but thank you for sharing it. I hope Daryl Oudems was able to continue building on the healthy life he'd started, and I hope Lizzie & Latonya Williams were able to find some peace.
I’m for the amendment, but can you explain how the process will play out? Who or how are people put on the committee? I appreciate your work to bring the news to us about our state legislature.