Stocking Stuffer of Depression

A criminal broke into your house last night and you left him cookies? What's that about?

I know enough about the behavior of my subscribers to know a vast majority of y’all will not bother to click their daily dose of depression that arrived in their mailbox at 4:59 a.m. on Christmas Day. Hard to understand why.

Much respect to anyone who clicked on today’s dispatch because I too keep a list of the naughty and nice.

Most likely you’re spending your Christmas morning with family and friends. I’m spending my morning like a true Communist and drawing connections between the bloodthirsty elimination of the middle class and the famous legend our parents told us about the jolly obese criminal who breaks into every house in the world within 24 hours and distributes the surplus wealth created by his elven slaves.

Somehow as the legend goes the slave-driver is good and as a culture we should celebrate this glory-hound? I swear this made more sense when I was a gullible child.

When I reflect upon all the Christmas gifts I received in my youth, the only one that stands out is a Nintendo 64. (I remember playing Wave Race 64 that night and my dad, who thought “Pong” was a revelation in his heyday, observing how the wave racers dipped their feet into the water to create drag on turns and how he incredulously declared, “I don’t see how video game graphics get better than this!”)

I’m ashamed of how much debt my parents absorbed to purchase toys that I no longer remember. No doubt they would both say it was well worth whatever the spent to see me flip out of over a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine that is undoubtedly swimming in the Pacific Garbage Patch right now. But that happened in an era before parents posted every family moment to social media. The best memory they could have of that moment would be captured by a shitty 1990s camera in a picture buried in dusty photo album that hasn’t been opened in a decade.

But jokes aside… expand that number of well-intentioned parents to the millions of Americans who will receive credit card bills next month and start the new decade behind on their finances.

Somebody is winning in that scenario and it’s not working parents who don’t want to see their children shamed at school by their peers for not having today’s hottest new toy … which at this point is a probably a vape pen.

SHOCKING: THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY CONTROLS COLUMBUS

There is a misconception about the NRA among Ohio liberals. The NRA (and by extension offshoot groups like Buckeye Firearms Association) do not control state Republicans because of how much money these groups donate to their campaigns.

They control Republicans because of how much organizing they do among single-issue voters. If these groups say “jump,” they have a couple hundred thousand voters who will reflexively ask, “How high?”

It’s a similar misconception in Columbus when talking about how the real estate lobby controls local politics. A syndicate of out-of-state developers donating $440,000 to the local political machine in a city the size of Columbus might not sound like much until you realize how the city’s electoral system is rigged to favor the local machine and how these donations produce opportunities to hobnob with powerful politician who hate to campaign.

From Olivia Miltner of matternews.org:

And this spirit of collaboration and partnership has helped Columbus achieve key benchmark goals for prosperity, such as creating more than 150,000 new jobs, securing over $8 billion in capital investment and generating a 30% increase in per capita income (the amount of money each individual person makes), according to One Columbus, formerly Columbus 2020.

But this collaboration has also created a system of close ties where many in the city think one group of people retain power over city priorities, muffling the critiques of those outside the establishment and weakening the democratic functioning of our local government.

Quantifying those ties is difficult, but analyzing donations to city officials’ campaigns can illustrate part of the ties that developers, for example, have to city officials. From 2016 to 2019, major developers gave at least $440,000 to the mayor’s and city council members’ campaigns, according to a Matter analysis of campaign finance data. 

Columbus reformed its campaign finance laws in 2019 to combat issues with dark money — meaning undisclosed donations — but many on the left and right are still concerned that the reform won’t make the needed changes. 

I’m looking forward to 2050 when the local media has been reduced by private equity goals to four assholes such as myself who are bewildered about the lack of affordable housing.

The answer will be because feckless politicians beholden to a craven local political machine chose to serve out-of-state real estate moguls instead of their local residents. Will any of them still be in power or care? Absolutely not. Will this prevent them from looking in the mirror and feeling superior to Republicans? No.

Why did Democrats lose the trust of the working class? Ahhh… it’s hard to say.

SAD BUT TRUE: THE OHIO SUPREME COURT IS OUR LAST HOPE AGAINST AN HISTORICALLY CORRUPT LAW

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (the most powerful politician in the state) was recently named by his peers as the biggest lawmaker friend to lobbyists. A big reason for that is he laundered millions of dollars in dark money into Statehouse elections to elect enough patsies to elect him back to the Lincoln Chair despite his previous tenure ending in a cloud of FBI corruption investigations.

I’m still not sure what Governor Mike DeWine and State Senate President Larry Obhoff got out of ratifying the worst energy law of the 21st century but I’m sure it’s something that will be redeemed in public to the benefit of everyday Ohioans.

An offshoot of well-financed Republicans launched a petition effort to place a public referendum on HB-6 on the 2020 ballot.

The dark money minions that financed HB-6 obviously know what would happen if Ohioans were ever actually allowed to vote on the issue as evidenced by First Energy spending millions of dollars to bamboozle Ohio voters and convince them the anti-corruption forces are actually pawns of the Communist Party of China. (I wish I were making all of this up.)

The repeal effort fell short after allegations (aka proven incidents) of pro-corruption goons intimidating and bribing anti-corruption petitioners.

Anti-corruption operatives turned to the Ohio Supreme Court for an extension on collecting signatures and the court that includes the son of the governor who signed the law has agreed to hear the case.

From Jeremy Pelzer of cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio—The Ohio Supreme Court gave a Christmas Eve present to opponents of the state’s new nuclear bailout law, agreeing Tuesday to weigh in on whether backers of a referendum that could overturn the law should be given 38 additional days to collect petition signatures.

In October, a federal judge asked the Supreme Court for its opinion on whether to grant more time to Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, which failed to gather the required 265,774 signatures by the time House Bill 6 took effect on Oct. 12.

Under state law, referendum seekers have 90 days to collect and submit the signatures. But what the Supreme Court will weigh in on is whether that 90-day period starts when the bill is signed by the governor, or when referendum supporters get formal approval from Ohio’s attorney general and secretary of state to begin collecting signatures.

I figure the Democratic justices Melody Stewart and Michael Donnelly will vote to extend the deadline for the anti-corruption forces.

At that point it becomes a crapshoot of hoping two of the remaining five Republican judges having enough heart to step outside the party machinery that ordained this awful policy.

And given that for some reason the one justice who is the son of the governor that signed the bill into law (who also enjoys fucking his mistress in his mom’s condo) doesn’t have to recuse for ethical reasons… it’s probably more like hoping two of four Republican justices have morals.

Maybe I’m wrong, but to me the fact the Supreme Court accepted this case on Christmas Eve means they want as few people as possible to know about it. It reeks of that typical Ohio Republican move where they undergo ceremonial actions to pretend they care about due process before they bring out the partisan hatchets behind the scenes.

If I am wrong about the spirit of the Ohio Republican Party and they extend the signature deadline then I will donate $50 to one state-level candidate with an (R) next to their name. I hope I’m wrong.

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR WHERE REGRESSIVE TAX TICKETS ARE VERY POPULAR

I used to throw $5 on the Mega Millions when the jackpot grew to something ridiculous like $32 billion or whatever fuck number the government jackboots make up to entice poor rubes like me into throwing away their money for a couple of hours of fantasizing what a Marionaire degenerate like myself would do with $32 billion like the only two answers aren’t going bankrupt or dying.

I read essays that explained how state lottery officials (and this applies to any state with a lottery, not just Ohio) target poor neighborhoods with lottery advertising for a regressive tax instead of properly taxing the wealthy.

I haven’t thought about buying a lottery ticket in years. And then last Sunday I was pissing in a luxuriously appointed bathroom in a van owned by a Browns fan who won the Mega Millions and retired early.

It’s Wednesday morning and I’m still thinking about what I’d do with a Mega Millions jackpot (nothing good). And yet I’m still not surprised the sales of regressive tax tickets spike during that famous time of year when Americans break the bank to engage in a Ponzi Scheme of gifts with their friends and family.

From Cornelius Folk of daytondailynews.com:

Lottery sales have risen in Greene, Miami and Montgomery counties since the release of holiday scratch-off tickets, and in the past, lottery sales in local counties have increased during the holidays.

Across the state, the holiday period is about the most popular time of year for lottery game sales, said Marie Kilbane, spokesperson for the Ohio Lottery Commission. Around the state, sales are up nearly 40 percent since the holiday games arrived.

Statewide, the week of Dec. 15 to 21 had the highest volume of lottery sales of any week so far in 2019. In 2018, the week before Christmas also had more lottery sales than any prior week.

I understand the thought process behind buying lottery tickets for a Christmas present. It’s a cheap way of giving your friend the dream of winning $10,000 to $1,000,000 or whatever.

All I’m saying is don’t do it. Don’t buy lottery tickets for Christmas presents unless you are already retired. Because if you’re not and you buy a ticket for your friend and they scratch off a quick $500,000 then there’s going to be some resentment. Even if they break you off $50K or whatever. There will always be that thought in your mind that you let a jackpot slide through your fingers. And that’s the last thing you want to be thinking about during the Christmas season.

THOSE WMDs. YouTuber behind jaw-dropping foam explosion explains the clean-up process… Six steps to mentally survive the holidays… Film Study: How Ohio State’s defense can slow Clemson’s defense… Big Business counts on the courts keeping its secrets… Whatever happened to waterbeds?