Rooster: The Forever War Takes Another Ohioan
Rooster: The Forever War Takes Another Ohioan
Portsmouth defense lawyer moonlights as sex trafficker, Columbus' lack of pigeons, and more.
*** Housekeeping notice: I’m leaving for the backwoods of Georgia today. I’m taking my computer, and my hope is to continue posting this week via the data network Verizon loves to brag about.
However, I can’t guarantee what service will be like. Should I be unable to post, I will claim four of the 14 annual vacation days I allotted myself when I began this project.
Posts will resume next Monday under that scenario. I have unlocked this post so everyone will be aware of the reason should Tuesday’s dispatch fail to materialize in their mailbox. ***
I hoped to write about Ohio State advancing to the Sweet 16 on the back of me watching my first college basketball game this year. Unfortunately we lost to Houston!?!? Seems like we should be able to beat Houston, but I don’t know. Nobody wants to pay me millions of dollars to coach an amateur basketball team.
Here’s a funny picture to improve the mood:
Today’s most feel-good story involves pigeons. Sorry about that; I don’t make the news. My job is surrounding other people’s reporting with my hot takes and tepid jokes.
You can’t get that combination anywhere else. Please consider a $6 monthly or $60 annual subscription. Football season is right around the corner, at which point the price will be $1,000 a month or $10,000 annually.
RIP, SPECIALIST JOSEPH P. COLLETTE
America invaded Afghanistan in 2001 during the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Something like 98% of Americans supported the war effort. That number might have been lower if we knew the military would eventually find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan or that we’d still be losing lives in the year 2019.
Sadly, Ohio lost another son in an increasingly baffling war effort.
From Bethany Bruner of dispatch.com:
A Lancaster High School graduate was killed in Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of Defense announced this weekend.
Joseph P. Collette, 29, died Friday in Kunduz province as a result of injuries he suffered on a combat mission, the department said in a news release.
Collette was a specialist assigned to the Army’s 242nd Ordnance Battalion, 71st Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group, based in Fort Carson, Colorado.
The department said Collette was killed when the unit he was with encountered enemy fire. The incident remains under investigation.
Not many people know, but I enlisted in the military in 2004 during the start of my senior year. (Fuck college, right?) That changed in March when America invaded Iraq.
I opposed that war effort as I had never quarreled with an Iraqi or laid awake at night fearing the wrath of Saddam Hussein. My recruiter, a sergeant with the AOL screen name of “chicksNthongs,” was not impressed with my decision. However, I figured the United States military would always be there if the college thing didn’t work out.
Well, the college thing didn’t work out. But even by 2010, it’s not like the Iraqi war effort proved fruitful, and fighting to the death in Afghanistan didn’t look like a good time, either.
Reading about deaths like Collette’s breaks my heart. Our leaders clearly have no plan for victory, and young people keep dying… for what? Nothing worthwhile that I can see.
On another timeline, where we didn’t wage two wars for two decades, The Boston Globe published a piece yesterday (the 16th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion) on how we could have spent that money in America.
POWERFUL PIECE OF SHIT SOMEHOW NOT IN JAIL
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opioid Epidemic presents the Ohio River town of Portsmouth as Ground Zero of the opioid epidemic still ravaging America.
It’s a story any Ohioan knows well: Former industrial towns caught wrong-footed by factories moving overseas. The deindustrialization halved Portsmouth’s population, and drugs quickly filled the void of despair.
That created a boon for local defense attorneys. One local figure decided to accept payments other than cash.
From James Pilcher, Liz Dufour, Kate Murphy of cincinnati.com:
[Portsmouth criminal defense attorney Michael] Mearan, 73, is a one-time city councilman who since the 1970s has been a fixture in this small but troubled town along the Ohio River, which separates southern Ohio from northeastern Kentucky.
…
But according to a federal wiretap affidavit, which was filed under seal with the Southern District of Ohio but was obtained by The Enquirer, Mearan is not just a jowly, silver-haired local attorney.
The 80-page affidavit states that Mearan is also a prolific sex trafficker who for decades has supplied his young, female clients with drugs “in exchange for and as an incentive to participate in acts of prostitution.”
The affidavit – filed in August 2015 by a senior special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration – casts Mearan as a central figure in a drug and sex trafficking ring operating throughout the Midwest.
Just further proof law enforcement officials refuse to believe women who are drug addicts or sex workers, no matter how many corroborate a story against a single man.
This is the result:
Besides Mearan, the women who spoke with The Enquirer collectively named several well-known individuals from the Portsmouth area who they alleged had paid to have sex with them. The list includes former police officers, lawyers, a medical professional, a former high school football star, businessmen and probation officers. The Enquirer is not naming the men unless the allegations against them have been otherwise corroborated.
The entire piece is the best piece of journalism I read this weekend.
Since reading Dreamland, I’ve always wanted to visit Portsmouth because I love rustic Ohio towns — especially along the Ohio River (shoutout to Marietta!) This article changed my mind. I see no need to spend a night in Portsmouth until they put Mearan in jail.
WHY DOESN’T COLUMBUS HAVE PIGEONS LIKE OTHER CITIES OF COMPARABLE SIZE?
My favorite local news series, WOSU’s Curious Cbus, tackled a question I had never pondered: Where are Columbus’ filthy birds???
From Michael De Bonis of wosu.org:
Is it that cities with bigger buildings provide more nesting areas for pigeons? Columbus, after all, has fewer skyscraper than New York or Chicago - and every window ledge is another possible nook for a pigeon to call home. Columbus is also more spread out compared to comparably-populated urban areas.
According to Tonra, perhaps the best indicator of why some cities attract more pigeons comes down to density. The higher the human density, the higher the pigeon density.
"In a place like Manhattan, the variety of places for them to nest is so much larger, and there's more trash to feed on," Tonra said.
The density issue makes sense considering Columbus is the same size of New York City. (That fact has always blown my mind and reinforced just how dense NYC is. At its current rate of growth, Columbus will be there by 2050. [I made up that stat so don’t quote me.])
MAN STOPS SEXUAL ASSAULT ON YOUTH, CATCHES FELONY CHARGE
Above is the look of a man who stopped the rape of a five-year-old and somehow landed in jail next to the rapist.
From nbc4i.com:
Police say they were called to a home on E. 363th Street Thursday for reports of an assault, according to WKYC.
According to reports, Richard Adams, 20, was arrested and charged with Felonious Assault. The report says Adams walked in on a 17-year-old juvenile molesting a 5-year-old boy, then assaulted the teen.
The 17-year-old juvenile is being charged with rape.
I don’t understand how this happened unless he beat the teen into a coma. Even if so, I don’t foresee a jury convicting him of anything more than a misdemeanor. And even that might be a stretch.
OHIO REPUBLICANS SAY PARTISAN SUMMARY OF REPORT CLEARS THEIR BELOVED ORANGE KING
Attorney General Bob Barr, the hand-picked flunky of President Deals, issued a summary of Special Counsel prosector Robert Mueller’s report to Congress on Sunday. Barr says Mueller cleared the president of colluding with Russia, though it did not exonerate him of obstructing justice — a curious case for Barr to make given his previous criticism of Mueller’s definition of obstruction.
The partisan summary was enough for the president’s biggest defenders to claim victory.
From Jessica Wehrman of dispatch.com:
WASHINGTON — When it comes to defending President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan is typically a man of many words fired off with the speed of a professional auctioneer. But on Sunday, his reaction to the long-awaited report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller was striking in its brevity.
“No collusion! No obstruction!” he tweeted. “It’s time to move on.”
Jordan was not alone among Ohio Republicans in declaring glee at the report of Mueller, who neither concluded that Trump obstructed justice nor exonerated him. Democrats, meanwhile, were initially slower to react.
Rep. Bob Gibbs, R–Lakeville, said Mueller’s conclusions “confirms what we knew all along: that neither the president nor anyone in his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.”
“After two years and millions of dollars in taxpayer money, this witch hunt is finally over,” Gibbs said. “Congressional Democrats should reconsider whether they want to drag this matter out after such a definitive conclusion from the special counsel.”
Gibbs is easily one of the dumbest members of Congress, which is quite the feat. (The special investigation will turn a profit on forfeited assets alone.)
But if it’s as these geniuses say, surely they’ll have no problem releasing the full report and underlying investigation documents to show America how clean their big baby is.
While we await that to drop, the Trump family remains under investigation in the Southern District of New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. for everything from running a sham charity to insurance fraud to using the inauguration as an illicit slush fund, among other garden-variety of financial crimes.
THOSE WMDs. Rafi Eitan, Israeli spymaster who caught Eichmann, dies at 92… The banal, evil, all-destructive reign of Mitch McConnell… Nazis have always been trolls… The quiet titans behind Massachusetts marijuana shops… The battle to close Rikers… There is no reason to cross the United States by train.