Rooster in Review: Revenge is the name of the game
Plus, an Ohio man suffers as beating at the Red Roof Inn from the hands of a criminal polycule.

Budget season in the Ohio House of Representatives is always a timeline of horrors almost beyond human comprehension.
But leave it to Speaker Matt Huffman, who, in my opinion, is a domestic terrorist, to take a biannual season of brutality to an entirely different level.
As The Rooster covered this week, the House’s proposed budget would slash public school funding, claw back saved money from fiscally responsible districts, and abolish the Public Library Fund, the Ohio Housing Trust, and H2Ohio.
All while also continuing their assault on transgender and binary folks with leadership’s bizarre and socially stunted obsession with mandating gender normativity among children.
Part of the reason for the cruelty is that Speaker Huffman, who, in my opinion, has never provided a solid alibi for his whereabouts on April 19th, 1995, wants to abolish the income tax as his latest token of appreciation to the donor and special interest class, which he ultimately serves.
But this budget also feels like a particular “fuck you” to the types of groups and voters that tried to end gerrymandering in Ohio last November.
Huffman’s pro-gerrymandering side escaped the ultimate judgment, despite a massive disadvantage in fundraising, largely thanks to President Business Deals, who increased his margins in Ohio by over three points since his 2020 victory in our state.
Huffman is legendary in his vindictiveness, and this budget feels like a way to assert his power on behalf of the biggest freaks in the state that play an outsized role in electing our gerrymandered legislature.
The good news is that, at 65, Huffman doesn’t have that many budgets left in him. And while Ohio loves Trump, it’s not nearly as enamored of the Republican Party.
We can only hope that one day rural voters awaken from their coma because they’re getting screwed by this budget more than anyone in the state.
This week in Ohio Man…
Listen… I am not going to judge a woman for having five boyfriends. Personally, that sounds like too many personalities and feelings to juggle to keep everyone happy. But if everyone is an adult consenting to the arrangement, I wish them the best of luck stretching societal norms.
However, where I draw the line is when a polygamist like Martina Jones orders her beehive of boyfriends to abduct and torture a man at a Red Roof Inn in Maumee.
From Martina Jones of 13abc.com:
MAUMEE, Ohio (WTVG) - Six people are facing multiple charges for allegedly kidnapping a man and holding him captive in an incident police described as essentially torture.
13 Action News first reported the arrests on March 22, but now we’re learning how the people are connected and what led police to find the victim. Police arrested the following people for the alleged kidnapping and assault: Aaron Bradshaw, 49, Austin Bradshaw, 23, David Cessna, 26, Martina Jones, 28, Michael Esqueda, 28, and Chance Johnston, 27.
Charging documents said the group held a 26-year-old man captive for about a week. During that time, they allegedly beat him with a baseball bat, made him stand for extended periods of time, and only allowed him to eat and drink once a day. The victim only slept for about 10 hours during a seven day stretch.
“He was being essentially tortured, assaulted, over the time frame of a week,” Maumee Chief of Police Josh Sprow told 13 Action News. “His injuries were results of being struck with a baseball bat, struck with fists, elbows, stomping on him when he was on the ground -- which over time resulted in multiple fractured bones.”
Give Ms. Jones this much: She was obviously running that polygamous arrangement like the Navy.
But prison might be the best place for Ms. Jones now. She sounds way too powerful to be left to her own devices.
This week in The Rooster…
Another week of uplifting dispatches for which The Rooster has made its calling card.
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Here’s what you may have missed this week:
Polio... is that you, playa?
A cool thing about working in the Ohio Statehouse as a 38-year-old man is that I can trace fringe right-wing conspiracy theories from my youth to my adulthood, when Republicans attempt to legislate them into existence.
Taking candy from a baby
I recently read (and gave away to a Patriots Caucus soldier in Cleveland) a book entitled Dying of Whiteness: How Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland.
The looting will continue until morale improves
The Ohio House Republican leadership debuted its biannual budget yesterday. One Republican legislator, speaking to The Rooster, referred to it as “the Festivus Budget,” since leadership was primarily focused on airing their petty grievances.
Matt Huffman wants to scam libraries, too
I spent a large swath of my time on Capitol Square this weekend observing the House Finance Committee’s budget hearings. They’re not for the weak of heart.
We’ll do it again next week at the same time and place.
Stay frosty, my friends!
THOSE WMDs. Seven decades of China and Brazil friendship… The great Bedrock clog heist… I’m 73, and heavy metal changed my life… The shared logic of censorship… The balloon boy hoax—solved!
I'm guessing that Martina Jones must have some hidden talent.