Welcome to the July Mailbag
Answering your most burning questions about Ohio politics, the wildest unsubstantiated J.D. Vance rumor, Josh Mandel's current travails, and life in general.
Welcome to the July Mailbag, the monthly installation where I attempt to answer readers’ most burning questions.
Today, we’ll discuss the wildest rumors regarding J.D. Vance, a life update on Josh Mandel, the latest on redistricting reform, and Klondike bars—among other topics.
The first third of this email is free for all to read. The last two-thirds of the dispatch is for the eyes of the Patriots Caucus.
If you’ve been on the fence about helping sustain the work of putting psychic damage on Ohio’s political hobgoblin cartel… here’s your chance to rectify that problem ahead of what should be an insanely busy political season this fall.
I tried to answer as many questions as I could, and I apologize if I missed yours. As always, reader questions are in bold and my responses are in plain text.
Enjoy the show!
Do you think the legislature will counteract the redistricting amendment?
We’ll officially get an answer when Governor Grandpa Sleepy Tea holds a press conference today at 10 a.m. to reveal his position on the matter.
I elevated the threat of a Special Session, where the GOP could place a competing redistricting measure on the ballot, from “elevated” to “high” in Monday’s dispatch. Because I’m a cynical bastard when it comes to the Republican junta and how they’ve operated for basically my entire adult life.
Sleepy Tea has said for the past couple of years that politicians should be removed from the redistricting process, but he’s done absolutely jack shit to rectify that problem. Worse, he played a critical role in going along with Senate President Matt Huffman’s ratfucking of the current process.
Sleepy Tea also reportedly has a problem with the years of election results that will be used by the new committee to dictate the political party makeup of the new maps. Maybe he’ll cry about it at today’s presser.
I spoke to one of the House Republicans that I most respect yesterday. They said they had talked to a State Senator, and neither had been contacted by their chamber’s leadership about dates of availability for a potential special session.
That would track with the main point in last week’s reporting from Gongwer and cleveland.com; that one big hurdle Sleepy Tea would face would be mustering the numbers for a quorum, since a not insignificant number of legislators are on vacation with the deadline of August 7th looming.
That didn’t stop me from placing a massive $1 bet with the House Republican that Sleepy Tea orders a Special Session for reasons I explained in Monday’s dispatch.
We’ll have the official answer soon enough. Either I’ll be a dollar richer and have multiple Bust Up opportunities in the near future, or the Republicans ate shit trying to muster enough votes for a desperate countermeasure to the ascendency of the hog voter.
It’s a good position for folks like us to be in.
How and why did statewide news media miss all of the JD Vance messes when he was running for the Senate? Did it help that he was running against spineless Tim Ryan?
I received many questions of this variant, and I’ll do my best to answer them here.
Running for Vice President is an entirely different level than running for United States Senator. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.
And Vance parachuted back into Ohio as an unknown commodity. He was floundering throughout the race until President Business Deals endorsed him at the behest of Peter Thiel, who, in my opinion, is a fascist oligarch bent on destroying this country so he can rule over the ashes.
I had my criticisms of Ryan’s campaign, and, more importantly, what he has done after that campaign by carrying water for the methane and cryptocurrency industries. I don’t think Ryan ran a smart campaign despite the roughly five-point defeat, which looked respectable to anyone unfamiliar with how Ohio actually works.
The result said more about the Hillbilly Cosplayer than Ryan. Vance was an extraordinarily weak candidate, which is why he ran behind every other statewide Republican on the ticket by a substantial margin.
But after Vance won, he could have continued to tread water as a Senator and not brought a new level of scrutiny upon him. But that’s not who Vance is, which is why he was easily deluded into seeing himself as the heir of the MAGA movement.
Frankly, it’s better it worked out this way. Ohio voters were duped by Vance, but thanks to that, the Trump campaign has opened itself to a parade of unknown horrible since Vance hasn’t been properly vetted.
If this campaign goes south, Trump may never talk to Don Jr. or Elon Musk—two of Vance’s biggest supporters, ever again. Which, you have to admit, would be hilarious.
But it's not as hilarious as Trump throwing Vance under the bus as he’s done with every other subordinate who debased themselves upon the second they become expendable.
It's hard not to get downtrodden over how misguided and inflammatory the Statehouse is. How do you keep a positive attitude as you're reporting — humor, vulgarity, embarrassing them to their faces?
As I have written before, my life was not a straight line to success. I’ve had many setbacks and failures, without even mentioning the chronic alcoholism and substance addiction that almost killed me.
The Statehouse Junta can have its ill-gotten, gerrymandered districts. They can delude themselves into thinking they’re masterful political operators and not weird, off-putting, drunken preachers and sex pests who are obsessed with making life worse for our most marginalized populations.
At the end of the day, I have survived much worse horrors than some leathery State Representative from some largely unknown village can throw at me.
And I’ll be damned if I ever let them take my sense of humor. I have come too far in my life to ever let some low-rent politician take that from me. I have found that my ability to keep that sense of humor amidst the human misery of the Statehouse has made me much more of an effective communicator than the angry drunk that I had been in a past life.
It also doesn’t hurt that I’ve learned that for all their political power and bluster, these guys can’t handle being laughed at. It drives them more insane than they already are because they think that people should thank them for wanting to run for office in the first place.
It’s a lesson I’m glad national Democrats finally seem to be learning. You have to hit these perverts where it hurts, and laughter burns their souls more than moral scolding ever could.
How's the ankle? Can we see the X-rays?
I broke my ankle in late May, thanks to a dipshit bicyclist who came around a blind corner on the Scioto Trail on my side of the lane and left me for dead when I inevitably ate shit.
I went from biking about 120-150 miles per week to zero throughout the month of June. Thanks to the magical hands of Dr. Jeffrey Gittins, I’m back to my old self on the bike.
I’m still dealing with some pain in the ankle when I walk long distances, and I can’t put enough wait on the ankle to do anything faster than an awkward jog.
But, God willing, I’ll be able to roll out the promised free tours of the Statehouse for brave and noble subscribers sometime in August. My plan is to spend the next couple weeks touring the Statehouse with the masters, so I can effectively put my spin on the show that will amuse and inform anyone who redeems their coupon to the show.
What's our little buddy Josh Mandel up to?
Oh my God. I hope you’re sitting down.