Niraj Fly Me Out
Niraj Fly Me Out
Why is Ohio's most loathsome state senator grifting in a city he doesn't represent?
Today I offer a reprieve from the insane ramblings of a communist who lives in The Bottoms. Things have been heavy lately, so I decided to mix it up and assign special correspondent Max Littman, whom you should follow on Twitter, to answer a simple question: What the Hell was State Senator Niraj Antani doing on his recent soccer stadium tour in cities he doesn’t represent?
It was a simple question with a wild wormhole that landed in a place where only Antani’s antics could have taken us when we started with two simple pictures.
So, without further ado, we turn the microphone over to Max.
Some of the weirdest kids growing-up were the menaces that turned into suck-ups as soon as a teacher showed up. They were all beloved by the administration, their parents, and the janitorial staff, but they sucked at the end of the day.
Anyways, that brings us to Ohio State Senator Niraj Antani who, to the best of my knowledge, has never had that happen to him. Niraj is hated by everyone to have the misfortune of crossing paths with him.
To anyone who hasn’t read into Niraj, he was last spotted taking on the venerable Rooster CEO and former sports blogger D.J. Byrnes. This encounter led Niraj to issue the dubious claim to D.J., “You know what, buddy? FUCK YOU! I’m going to own you!” before disappearing into the sunset in a way-too-large Ford F-250.
Niraj has the further dubious claim of being so hated by his peers that he routinely wins/places on the Cleveland.com list of worst legislators. Here he is in 2020 winning Biggest Self-Promoter, in 2019 winning Biggest Windbag, Worst Dressed, and Biggest Self-Promoter, and in 2018 finishing runner-up in every one of the worst categories.
To say he is hated by his peers is probably an understatement; there’s such a visceral dislike of Niraj in the vaunted halls of the Statehouse that I personally have seen people scamper away when he starts walking their way.
All of that is to say, I was a little surprised the other day to see the news that a friend actually flew out to see him. I fly out to see my friends on occasion, with a very strict rule that I have to enjoy their company. This seems to be a deal-breaker for being friends with Niraj.
This post raised several questions for me. First, who in their right-mind would, “fly out to come with,” with him? Second, why is Niraj touring a stadium in Cincinnati that is decidedly not in his district or where he works in Columbus?
For the first question, I decided to do some digging on who exactly this Cheyenne Foster figure is. As it turns out, she’s an obscure soccer vlogger with a fairly pathetic following especially considering its production value.
Interesting to note is her video about athletes sticking to sports, advocating for people to stop telling them to stick to sports and rather allow them to express their political views. This, for a friend of Niraj, is shockingly not a bad take. It’s just surprising when Niraj is a State Senator for a party that absolutely does not believe in this.
Perhaps I wondered, this Cheyenne is just an old friend of Niraj and a soccer nerd who got the experience to tour a cool new stadium and pounced on it? Well….
Unfortunately I regret to inform you that is exceedingly incorrect.
How many soccer vloggers do you know that lobby on the side for Koch Industries?
(At least she is connected to not at all problematic former Ohio Rep. Wes Goodman!)
What seemed like such a nice friendly outing between a State Senator and the girl who flew out for him, appears to instead be a lobbyist for Koch Industries wheeling and dealing with a power-hungry state legislator. More on that in a minute.
It does appear that we’re not the first to see the hypocrisy of Ms. Foster, as this twitter user pointed out. It’s a bit hollow to argue for separating sports and politics while you’re a vocal supporter of President Business Deals and seem to idolize Ivanka Trump:
It appears the David Koch defender who definitely positively doesn’t work for Koch Industries has logged on.
What’s even more interesting is that in all of her postings surrounding visiting F.C. Cincinnati's stadium, Niraj is never once mentioned:
However, she didn’t just even visit the FCC stadium with him, it appears that she also then toured the new Columbus Crew SC stadium with Niraj, despite no photos of them together there. Awfully convenient that they both posted about being on tours there at roughly the same time.
These tweets of them both being at the stadium are a whopping 12 minutes apart.
Perhaps Ms. Foster was worried that it would look bad if she publicly posted about touring stadiums with a Republican State Senator (who has done things like advocating for 18 year olds in schools to have guns).
It seems to me that she’s embarrassed of the company she’s keeping, similar to the lobbyist who quite literally ran away when spotted with Niraj by D.J. a few weeks back.
If these lobbyists don’t want to be publicly humiliated by spending time with him, they should think more about the company they’re keeping.
A further question this posed to me is, was she actually there as his friend and soccer vlogger or was she there as a lobbyist? Lobbyists and elected officials can be friends, sure, but how often does one fly out to see another then go on multiple tours of dubiously publicly funded infrastructure with them?
Koch Industries employs a robust 5-person lobbying team in the state of Ohio, of which Ms. Foster is not one. She then legally could only have been on a visit with him as strictly a friend and vlogger. Which in a state as corrupt as Ohio would be a massive coincidence.
If, however, Ms. Foster was with Niraj to advance the interests of her employer this would be considered a lobbying activity, and given she is not a registered lobbyist in the State of Ohio, this would be illegal. We certainly wouldn’t want Niraj up to anything illegal in our state!
This now goes back to my second question, why is Niraj touring a stadium in a city he does not represent? Taking a look at his subsequent Crew Stadium visit it once again is in a city he does not represent. I take no pleasure in speculating this, but it appears to be that Niraj is gearing up for an eventual statewide run.
It’s no secret Niraj is relentlessly ambitious, and stadium pictures across our great state of Ohio are just a sign that Niraj is looking to posture statewide as best as possible. Koch Industries support and funding would definitely help this, they’ve done a great job funding the radical and far-right across the country as they’ve used their unlimited fund to help destroy this place.
Unfortunately for Ms. Foster you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be a happy-go-lucky soccer vlogger going on trips to different stadiums, while also being a lobbyist for a ruthless and tyrannical company. In the intro here I mentioned the absolute suck-ups who were complete menaces behind closed doors, and it appears with Ms. Foster that’s what we have. Screaming equality and player freedoms from the rooftops, while wheeling-and-dealing with Niraj Antani across the state and lobbying for one of the worst companies in America behind closed doors.
The Rooster reached out to Ms. Foster for comment and she declined to comment. The Rooster did not feel the need to reach out to Niraj for comment because it would’ve been something stupid.
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