The Rodney Creech allegations show how state government really functions

It's important to remember that the Republican junta hates each other, and they'll knife their so-called allies in the back at the earliest convenience, as Rep. Rodney Creech found out this week.

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It’s war between Huffman henchmen

Left to right: State Rep. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) and House Assistant Speaker Pro Tempore Phil Plummer (R-Vandalia)

Last summer, I received a troubling albeit anonymous tip: State Rep. Rodney Creech, amid a drunken stupor, had stumbled into the bed of his then-15-year-old daughter who later told local authorities she could feel Creech’s “erect penis” through his underwear.

To make matters worse, the “Preble County mafia” was actively working to kill any legitimate investigation into the alleged incident.

Like most folks on Capitol Square, I knew Creech liked to drink and had undergone a nasty divorce from his ex-wife and was not on speaking terms with either of his daughters, which certainly painted his then-bill mandating “equal shared parenting” for divorced parents under a different light.

Nothing concrete on those allegations ever materialized. And never lacking content, I moved on.

Which means you can probably imagine my surprise when, over the past 72 hours, multiple non-anonymous sources came forward with that exact allegation about Creech.

Even more so, they said House Assistant Speaker Pro Tempore Phil Plummer (R-Vandalia) shoveled the dirt behind the scenes, and that Speaker Matt Huffman had stripped Creech of his committee memberships, including his chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee.

Multiple sources said the allegations against Creech would be “hitting the papers” by the end of the week.

On Monday, Creech declared his candidacy for Ohio’s 5th Senate District, currently held by term-limited Senator Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City). While Plummer denies it publicly, he, too, plans to run for Huffman’s seat.

Yesterday, I went to Capitol Square to separate fact from fiction and show people how our state government actually functions.

I cornered Plummer in the Public Safety Committee, which conspicuously lacked the presence of Creech after his committee assignments had already vanished from the House’s website.

I didn’t know what to expect from Plummer, but it certainly wasn’t him informing me that he had reported Creech’s alleged criminal act, which somehow gave him protections as a “witness,” and that Creech was preparing to sue him for slander.

But that’s the power of the camera, folks.

After I cut a video explaining the general thrust of the allegations against Creech, the first report hit the press roughly seven hours later.

From Avery Kreemer of Dayton Daily News:

A state investigation of alleged sexual misconduct involving state Rep. Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria, and a minor teenage female this news organization has chosen not to identify concluded in October with no criminal charges but findings of “concerning and suspicious” behavior by the state lawmaker, a Dayton Daily News investigation found.

While no charges were filed, investigative records obtained by the Dayton Daily News raise questions about how Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson and then-prosecutor Martin Votel — who both later recused themselves from the case due to their relationships with Creech — originally handled the allegation.

Simpson and Votel allegedly took no investigative action and created no record of the allegation when initially told a potential crime was committed, delaying a criminal investigation until it was reported a second time over a month later to a different law enforcement agency.

Everything appeared to jibe with the original anonymous tip I received last summer, right down to Creech’s political allies not following routine investigatory procedures until a second law enforcement agency investigated the matter.

Creech issued the same denial to every media member who asked.

I'm deeply disappointed to see my political opponents dig up an old false allegation, for which a law enforcement investigation cleared my name. It seems to be no coincidence that this political smear piece is appearing just days after I announced my campaign for Ohio Senate. 

I want to be very clear: Dragging my minor child into a campaign and exploiting her for political gain is disgusting and unacceptable. These allegations have been found to be demonstrably false, and I have already begun pursuing legal action against those who are pushing this filth. Like President Trump, I am no stranger to false media attacks. This will not deter my important work on behalf of my constituents, and I look forward to eventually running my Senate campaign on the issues that matter to Ohioans.

It says a lot about the state of the Republican Party when a fully erect state legislator is accused of climbing into bed with his teenage daughter multiple times, and his response is to say that he’s a lot like President Trump if you think about it.

But Creech understands the state of the party better than most. A Republican should never apologize for anything. Anything short of stone-cold video evidence can be pushed aside as “false media attacks.” And even video evidence won’t change much if you have the personal affection of President Business Deals.

Morgan Trau of WEWS reported that Creech said Speaker Huffman initially asked him to resign, something that The Rooster can confirm happened.

But Creech, a diehard Huffman loyalist, is maintaining the good soldier role in public when asked about his loss of committeeships:

I do not think the pressure to step down from my committees is justified but I do believe Speaker Huffman is doing what he believes to be in the best interest of the Ohio House.

I therefore have agreed to step down in order to avoid being a distraction to the important work we are doing for Ohioans every day.

Creech isn’t being honest about “agreeing to step down.” He didn’t have an option. But he’s wise not to make a public enemy of somebody as powerful as Speaker Huffman.

And it’s easy for Creech to claim this is a political hit job under the circumstances. The allegations were initially pushed by Plummer, the only other State Representative who could beat him for that soon-to-be-open Senate seat.

But it’s notable that Creech’s colleagues reportedly heard about the allegations at the same time that I did. They didn’t stop Speaker Huffman from anointing Creech as the Agriculture Chairman earlier this year.

In typical Statehouse fashion, the allegations of drunkenness and gross sexual misconduct weren’t problematic until they were about to become public.

But even granting Creech that much, it still seems he declared his Senate campaign to make it easier to paint these allegations as a political hit job.

Creech can also claim he has “begun pursuing legal action” against the unnamed parties for “pushing this filth,” but I’ve been around the block long enough to know that people who will sue don’t threaten lawsuits. They’ll skip the threatening part.

Creech’s lawyers also undoubtedly know that discovery cuts both ways, and that’s something he won’t want to endure in the middle of a Senate campaign.

Expect this story to continue developing over the next month. I hope to get Creech on camera if he comes to work later today.

Meatball Ron enters the gulag

I first encountered Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Liberty Township, Ohio, in August 2022.

DeSantis came to the Buckeye State with delusions of grandeur that he would one day be president. At the time, he was seen as a potential rival to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

But all it took was 30 minutes of listening to DeSantis in a sweaty convention center to know that man would never become president. In no small part because he read off notes while using phrases like “biomedical security state.” He never had enough hog blood to top Trump.

Almost three years later, that prediction appears to be one of the better ones I have made in this field.

DeSantis was in the Statehouse on Tuesday, ostensibly to call for America to enact Congressional term limits through a Convention of States, a right-wing pipe dream that could be used to abolish the Bill of Rights.

But what DeSantis is actually doing is trying to keep his name in the news. He still harbors the fantasy that he’ll be the Republican frontrunner in 2028 instead of Vice President J.D. Vance. In reality, Trump has a better chance of being the 2028 Republican nominee than DeSantis.

Hours before DeSantis took the podium in the Warren G. Harding Media Room, I crossed paths with a Republican campaign veteran in the Statehouse hallways.

“I saw DeSantis in Idaho weeks ago,” the veteran said in a quote I’m about to paraphrase.

“He’s trying to take a page out of [John] Kasich’s book by talking about Constitutional Amendments. But I worked for Kasich, and he showed that talking about Constitutional Amendments is not the way to become president.”

It was a point well struck.

DeSantis brought a ridiculous entourage to the Statehouse, and they went to great lengths to prevent me from getting anywhere close to DeSantis. And I take pride in one of his henchmen admitting they were warned about my presence. It means we’re starting to get somewhere in this business.

Unfortunately for them, I know how to play the game. And I’m going to get my jokes off one way or another, which enabled me to produce what I believe is the first video evidence of “Meatball Ron” being asked about the ridiculous lifts he wears in his Keebler elf shoes, a charge he didn’t deny.

It’s not much. But it’s honest work. And I will go to the grave contending that mocking wooden freaks like DeSantis is the hardest pill for them to swallow. You can see it in his face when I call him Meatball Ron as he walked into the press conference.

Roger Goodell wants to make sure there’s money in the banana stand

You know it’s a crazy day of content on Capitol Square when I hear nary a peep about the NFL Commissioner being in Columbus to lobby for a public bailout to help finance a new stadium for one of the NFL’s most disgusting franchises.

But that’s exactly what happened. You guys read about it at the same time I did.

From Rich Exner of cleveland.com, who broke the story:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell joined Browns owner Jimmy Haslam on Tuesday in meeting with Gov. Mike DeWine and other state leaders in the team’s lobbying effort to secure money for a new Browns stadium in Brook Park.

“All of the conversations have been incredibly positive. Tremendous leadership by the governor and leadership by (the General) Assembly,” Goodell told cleveland.com during a telephone interview between meetings in Columbus.

“We think this is a benefit not just to Brook Park. This is a benefit to the entire area, including downtown. People coming here for events will be staying downtown. They will be eating downtown.”

As best as I can gather, this meeting didn’t take place in the Statehouse, which is unfortunate because an encounter with Commissioner Goodell might have been as close as I’ll ever come to trying heroin.

If we had a functioning state government, our leaders would realize that Goodell only came to Columbus to ensure that the scam of public money for private sports arenas continues unabated. He serves the billionaire NFL ownership. Our so-called leaders don’t.

Because the public subsidizing a franchise’s most expensive cost is probably one of the most attractive qualities to the ownership class, and it’s a swindle that the league has every interest in continuing.

If our polluted backwater outpost stopped the public flow of money to the Browns… what’s next? As Goodell probably tells it, the NFL would be on the brink of insolvency.

Boo hoo! As always, won’t somebody think of the disgustingly rich crackers that own these teams and the public service they want you to believe they provide?

On one hand, it’s a good sign that Goodell schlepped his ass to Columbus. It means that the public spigot isn’t flowing as expected. On the other hand, it’s a bad sign because Governor DeWine and our legislative leaders are the exact type of cowards that would fold to pressure from Goddell’s sorry ass.

Keep the pressure on Republican Senators, folks. State Rep. Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) told me last week that his constituents are currently most mad about the proposed $600 million (read: $1 billion in total) bond deal for the Browns.

Nobody is clamoring for this deal other than paid Browns stooges and the wing of the fanbase that couldn’t beat a garden rock on an elementary quiz show.

Any legislator voting for the perpetuation of this scam should be accosted and shamed in public for the rest of their days. It’s the least they deserve.

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