Rooster in Review: Conglomerates can't keep getting away with it!
But first, some words on things to come from The Rooster.
Thank you to all the readers who voted in Monday’s poll in which I gauged the pulse of the Patriots Caucus about ideas to improve the overall product.
Your votes were clear: Most of you would like to see a mailbag in which I answer readers’ most burning questions at least once a month. As such, barring an arrest of a prominent Ohio politician or some sort of calamity, I’ll run May’s mailbag next Wednesday.
You can get an early position in the question queue by submitting your questions through my Jotform. Your anonymity is guaranteed, so speak freely!
Most of you were also open to receiving dispatches on Tuesday and Thursday when the State Legislature is in session and news is brisk. I will officially be keeping an eye out for such chances going forward, though I suspect this new editorial freedom will be used more frequently starting this fall when Election Season whirls into gear.
Freelance writing opportunities, as I stated before, will be available in the coming weeks. Keep that in mind if you fancy yourself an Ohio Politics Knower or know somebody who does. I’m specifically interested in odd Ohio political history or deep dives into public corruption in Cincinnati and Columbus.
Statehouse tours for paying customers will be available when my broken fibula allows me to walk freely—hopefully sometime next month. Please be sure to be on the lookout for that, as I’m excited to showcase the Pervert Palace, which is the Ohio Statehouse.
The votes on a regular podcast weren’t as decisive. I should clarify that if I do proceed with a podcast, it will complement my writing rather than supplant any of it. I believe the readers were clear that they want any co-host to be on the left side of the political aisle, and in that regard, some interesting names reached out to me about such an opportunity. There are some moving parts to this equation—namely, I want to just sit down, record, and leave the audio editing and publishing to a professional—so I hope to have more on this soon, one way or another.
As always, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your readership—even if you’re a freeloading hog huffing fumes in the parking lot. Having people look past my neurosis and poor command of the English language to help build The Rooster into what it has become has been the honor of a lifetime.
If you’re a free subscriber, I’d be delighted if you considered becoming a financial supporter and helping sustain the necessary work of dealing psychic damage to Ohio’s hobgoblin cartels.
In the end, I’m just a man, and I can’t do this work without the help of others!
AEP executives escape criminal punishment for their involvement in the HB-6 swindle
The most frustrating thing about the HB-6 scandal, other than the obvious, is how you sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist when talking about it for more than 30 seconds to anyone who hasn’t been paying attention.
Yes, it's a stereotypical story of politicians being crooks. Nobody is surprised by that. But there is a reason these guys, along with FirstEnergy and other fossil fuel conglomerates, felt they could get away with the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about).
It’s because utility companies have completely subjugated our state and local governments. And while FirstEnergy (rightfully) gets the headlines, AEP was right there in the mud with them, lining the pockets of Householder and company.
But thanks to Dave Anderson, who, again, you should be following on Twitter, we know today that AEP has reached a settlement with the federal government that will see them admit no wrongdoing despite writing massive checks that will keep their criminal executives out of prison.
There are two ways to read this.
If you’re like me, you see this as another example of the federal government being unwilling to play hardball with the executive class. A trend that’s been happening for over 20 years. The federal government, for example, has yet to charge former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and its former Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling for any wrongdoing in the case.
Under a functioning government, Jones and Dowling, along with their AEP co-conspirators, would have already been frog-marched into a prison cell like former House Speaker Larry Householder. That’s just my take.
The other, more optimistic approach is that we can’t judge this deal with AEP until we see the information they gave to federal investigators about the scheme. This settlement was about far more than a laughable “transparency” agreement.
“Time will tell,” as journalists with nothing else to say love to say in such moments. The best I can argue is that it’s still an ongoing investigation.
Until then, please keep an eye on Columbus’ Democratic city council and the odious Mayor Suburbs. I know a lot of them feel I am unfair in my coverage of their little cocktail cabal.
Well, this is a good chance to prove my cynicism wrong! I’m patiently waiting for members of the council or the mayor to speak forcefully about this agreement, which, at the very least, implicates a Columbus “partner” in a billion-dollar extortion scheme at the expense of public ratepayers.
I’m not asking for much here! Just using the leverage of their office to help draw attention to corporate malfeasance, which also helps lay the blame on the Republican junta controlling our state politics.
It seems like an easy play to me! Unless, of course, it’s as I suspect: AEP has subjugated them, and they are too scared to even send a goddamn tweet about this highway robbery.
This week in Ohio Man…
I was drunk in Cuba two summers ago, if you can believe that. There I was, neck-deep in the bluest waters in which I’ve ever swam, incredulous that I could still see my feet and sand at the bottom of the ocean floor.
My friend, Luis, didn’t seem to understand the big deal. “You don’t have water like this in Ohio?” he asked. Brother, I wish!
The truth is that industrial titans poisoned our waterways long ago. It’s a crime we still permit today, thanks to the Farm Bureau allowing farmers to dump whatever the fuck they want on their crops, our waterways be damned.
But the idea of taking a barrel of poison and dumping it into the river and making it somebody else’s problem also extends to individual actors, like the Kenton man who killed 43,000 fish in the Scioto River recently.
From daytondailynews.com:
A Kenton man pleaded guilty to dumping thousands of gallons of contaminated wastewater into the Scioto River, resulting in the death of more than 43,000 fish.
Mark Shepherd, 72, pleaded guilty to one count of negligently discharging a pollutant, according to U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio records. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 12.
On April 17, 2021, Shepherd dumped nearly 7,000 gallons of wastewater containing ammonia in the river, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Ohio. The substances came from his businesses, Cessna Transport Inc. and A.G. Bradley Inc.
At the very least, we should liquidate his company and use that money to repair our waterways. I suspect, however, he’ll only get probation and a paltry fine. Such is the justice of America.
This week in The Rooster…
Here comes the fun. Soliciting ideas on improving the product from brave and noble subscribers, with some added thoughts on the life sentence handed to the second loser who killed my friend.
A method to the madness. My interview with Chris Pan, the EPA failed East Palestine in more ways than we already knew, and Dennis Kucinich… Bitcoin consultant!?
Stop! He’s already dead! The Senatorial knives come out against Niraj Antani, a Republican mayor learns a hard lesson about Republican governance, and they’re fighting geckos in Reynoldsburg for some reason.
THOSE WMDs. Lessons from a mass shooter’s mother… I went undercover as a secret OnlyFans chatter, and it wasn’t pretty… The death of a hiker… The children who remember their past lives… The secret life of Shelby Hewitt, a 32-year-old high school imposter.