Rooster in Review: From the bowels of the Statehouse
Nana Watson is out as Columbus NAACP president after raising Hell about the city throwing around tax abatements like candy.
Welcome to a historic dispatch. I’ve toiled in far-flung places like Mexico, Ireland and France. But I’ve never been humped over a keyboard in the Ohio Statehouse, which is rather ironic considering I’ve spent the past six years blogging about the various levels of hobgoblinery afoot on Capitol Square.
I just wrapped an 80-minute interview with former State Legislator and Preble County Commissioner Gene Krebs—the first Republican I’ve ever heard advocate for state investment in worker-owned co-ops as sound economic policy.
I’ll have the full interview along with pertinent two- and three-minute clips at some point next week. To say I’m pleased with the outcome of the interview would be an understatement. Styles make fights, but they also make interviews, and Krebs brought the expected intellectual rigor.
We also have some big Friday afternoon news: Long-time Columbus NAACP president Nana Watson is being forced out of the job.
Samantha Hendrickson of dispatch.com reports that the organization alleges that Watson “mishandled membership dues, including to the point of delaying an election for the local chapter; refused to work with other organizations in the community, failing to attend conferences and meetings; and made false statements about communications with the NAACP's national office.”
Which, yeah. That will get you booted from a job if all that is true.
I don’t know if Watson is innocent or guilty of these allegations.
But I do know Watson, over the past couple of years, has started (rightfully) raising hell about the city throwing tax abatements around like Monopoly Money and the down-wind effect those have on school districts and marginalized communities.
Watson was expected to face a challenge in the presidency from local defense attorney Sean Walton.
And now, after a decade in office, all these allegations become public? Quite convenient for her opponents, if nothing else.
As dispatch.com noted, Watson has 15 days to fight her appeal.
It’s a great time to join the ranks of the Patriots Caucus to ensure you can stay abreast with the state’s politcal affairs from a unique perspective.
If you enjoy the tweets and free dispatches, you’ll love knowing you’re helping sustain the work required to put psychic damage on the hobgoblin cartels that control our state and local governments.
This week in Ohio Man…
I enjoy shoveling snow and clearing the sidewalk in front of my husband’s and our neighbor's houses. But I realize that many people consider me a stone-cold freak.
That is why I understand the allure of purchasing a snowblower when a simple shovel will do the job. Why work hard when you can work smart?
But I can’t cosign on using a blow torch to remove snow. It probably sounds good in theory, but it’s a lot harder to execute as one Cincinnati man found out the hard way.
From Jack McLaughlin of 614.now.com:
A Cincinnati man accidentally set his home on fire while trying to melt the ice from steps on his property.
Cincinnati Fire Department (CPD) crews responded to a home on fire in the 600 block of Hawthorne Ave. just after 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 19.
According to CPD, the homeowner was attempting to melt the ice on his exterior steps with a propane-powered torch, when he accidentally caught the siding of his house on fire.
I’m not an insurance executive, but I will assume that the homeowner's policy doesn’t cover that sort of negligent accident.
This week in The Rooster…
Another busy week at Rooster Worldwide LLC. We’ll do it again on Monday at 4:33 a.m. See you then!
Welcome to Scam City. It’s a scam all the way down with Donald Trump returning to power, Vivek Ramaswamy running for governor and an “AI” arms manufacturer allegedly coming to Ohio.
Time and change will surely show. As Ohio State basks in another national title, the State Legislature moves quickly to undercut the university system further.
Crocodile tears never tasted so good. Speaker Matt Huffman, who, in my opinion, is a domestic terrorist, has enacted “the Rooster Rules” at the Statehouse. The work will continue nonetheless.
Birds of a feather. “Saint Claire” returns for #FreelanceFriday to examine a shady Cleveland nonprofit in cahoots with FirstEnergy. This dispatch is free for all thanks to the generosity of the rank-and-file members within the Patriots Caucus.
THOSE WMDs. Chasing the myth of Mexico’s super-runners… How a 6,000-year-old dog cancer spread around the world… American tragedy: The colorful life and shocking death of Ovid Neal III… The Los Angeles Dodgers have gone from villains to supervillains… Did cellphones bring down violent crime rates in the 1990s?
Gene Krebs is often on the Columbus on the Record panel; he and Terry Casey usually have some of the best takes of the political strategists WOSU invites.