Rooster Quarterly Mailbag: April 2024
Rooster Quarterly Mailbag: April 2024
It's time to answer some of your most burning questions.
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Welcome to the Quarterly Rooster Mailbag, where I let you do your job for me under the guise of answering your most burning questions.
I apologize if I didn’t answer your submitted question. The avalanche of these things gets larger every time, and a lack of an answer has nothing to do with the perceived quality of your question!
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Today is another brisk day of business at 1 Capitol Square. I’ll be tweeting throughout the day and will have your full debrief on Friday morning. The content gods smiled upon us yesterday, so let’s hope that trend continues with both wings of the Ohio Legislature in session this afternoon—may God have mercy upon us all.
Until then, enjoy the show! Questions are in bold and responses are in plain text.
Who are you?
I’m D.J. Byrnes, owner and operator of The Rooster, the largest independent voice in Ohio politics. You can learn more about my origin story in this self-aggrandizing blog post.
How do you square the circle of being a self-proclaimed communist but also not only believing housing should be a commodity but that Ginther et al. haven’t given enough tax breaks to developers to stimulate housing production? I know being a Warren Dem would be on par with Ho Chi Minh in Marion but this ain’t Marion.
It ain’t Hanoi in ‘68, either.
I don’t know if you follow leftist discourse online, but we’re probably a couple of months away—at best—from seizing the means of production and guillotining the ruling class.
Until then, I recognize my views are in the minority. But that doesn’t stop me from pushing toward the dream of a classless workers’ utopia, however naive my political opponents may find that quest.
If it makes me a bad communist for not spending emotional capital fighting a much-needed zoning revamp during an ongoing housing crisis in Columbus, I’m not going to die in shame. I’m already a terrible Communist because I’m not recruiting fellow militia fighters from a lair in Hocking Hills. And I still haven’t figured out what “theory” is either.
As I explained in September 2021, “communist” is a catch-all word to describe my politics out of my desire not to be co-opted the Democratic Party, which quickly absorbed and bankrupted meaningless phrases like “Progressive.” The worldview isn’t some boogeyman in normal countries that weren’t pounded with six decades of anti-Communist, Cold War hysteria. At the end of the day, the communists were the first to be persecuted by the Nazis for a reason.
As the new Josh Mandel, where do you think Secretary of State Frank LaRose ends up after his term? Where does Frank Larose think he ends up after this term?
The current gossip is LaRose has switched his life vision from being a United States Senator to serving as Lieutenant Governor under Jon Husted.
That would be music to my ears because I’m starting to get major LaRose vibes from Husted. And for all of LaRose’s faults, he was only trying to get his hand in the FirstEnergy cookie jar. He didn’t do the RICO like (it appears) Husted did.
But I don’t know why Husted would want LaRose on the ticket. His whimsical Senate run infuriated moderates and MAGA freaks among the party bosses. He didn’t even win his own precinct, and worse, he’s a terrible fundraiser. Why bring that loser stench onto your ticket, which is already looking weaker by the day?
How tall are you? Or, how small is DeWine? You looked like Godzilla shaking his hand.
I am six-two on a good day. DeWine is probably five-foot-five.
Do you know if Joe Deters knew Mary Stier was Justice Pat DeWine's mistress when he hired her in the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office? Asking becasue after Deters' hired Justice DeWine's mistress, Gov. DeWine appointed Deters to sit on the Ohio Supreme Court -- then brought the mistress back to Columbus. Cozy, huh?
I sure do!
I wrote about it on November 01, 2023.
You used to always comment that people who lived in the suburbs but drove into the city for work/events were akin to tourists, yet even crisscrossing the state on your bike you rarely seem to interact with any of the communities or people you come across more than the state rep who complains that their F-350 super duty (pristinely washed, of course) can’t fit in any of the parking spots in the short north.
How do you actually engage with the city of Columbus/state of Ohio outside of the statehouse and the occasional lunch break?
I would say the biggest difference when I travel through other neighborhoods is that I’m not polluting the environment with excessive noise, toxic emissions, or an outsized threat of killing a small child I can’t see crossing the road. My bike also significantly reduces wear and tear on road infrastructure and doesn’t require an entire parking spot for parking.
My trip to Cincinnati was a straight commute of 145 miles in a single day. But that still doesn’t mention all the small conversations I had with strangers on the trail, whether at rest stops or on the trail itself.
It also introduced me to downtown Loveland, where sometime in the near future, I’ll spend a night or weekend spending money within their local economy that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
Xenia, Morrow, and London were other cities that got my commerce. I’m not limited to corporations that extrapolate local wealth, like the ones that tend to line highway exits. London, by the way, advertises itself as the Trail City.
Riding the bike via the Ohio Erie Trail also made me appreciate our state’s nature, like hearing the frogs at night near Loveland or Little Miami State Park.
Next month, my trip to Cleveland will include stops in towns like Mt. Vernon and Millersburg. It won’t be a straight shot, so it’s going to allow me more time to learn the history and bike around those cities and partonize local businesses.
I understand that not everyone wants to bike to Cincinnati or do regular 18-mile commutes like I do. But my favorite ride is one around the neighborhood, and I would contend that a vast majority of trips under five miles are better suited for bikes, whether acoustic or electric. I interact with neighbors and learn more about the city than I ever would secluded in a personal vehicle on the highways.
If I want to visit other cities in Ohio in the dead of winter or whatever, I can always rent a vehicle for a fraction of the price of ownership.