The State of the State

The death of former PUCO chairman Sam Randazzo sent shockwaves through state politics on the eve of Mike DeWine's State of the State speech on Capitol Square.

Governor Grandpa Sleepy Tea will be on Capitol Square today to deliver his annual State of the State speech. He could save everybody a lot of time by telling the masses to subscribe to The Rooster.

Not that I expect Sleepy Tea to be that cool. The more likely scenario is DeWine spends a couple of hours pretending he’s some aw-shucks country bumpkin while pitching Ohio as humanity’s next great frontier.

I wrote in September 2022 that DeWine will probably be Ohio’s best governor for the rest of our lives, at least from a competency standpoint. But that doesn’t mean I want to sit around and listen to a 77-year-old great-grandpa blow sunshine up my asshole on a Wednesday afternoon.

Ohio is a fine state for wealthy people who don’t see anything wrong with having to drive a motor vehicle everywhere they go.

If you’re poorer than your average suburban car dealer, however, it’s not as great as the rich and powerful have captured our tax code at the expense of almost everything else.

From US News & World Report:

My mom once asked my dad if they were going to throw me a high school graduation party. “Why?” he asked. “Graduating high school is the expectation.”

Looking at those rankings—Ohio isn’t even meeting the expectations as the seventh most-populous state in the country. And that’s even before considering the State Legislature’s rancid attacks on transgender youth within Ohio.

There’s also the fact that the Joe Biden presidency is unquestionably the best thing to ever happen to the DeWine Administration, as the American Rescue Plan alone pumped $11 billion into state and local fiscal recovery funds.

DeWine has been able to spend most of that money at his own discretion, which Tyler Buchanan of Axios has documented for the last couple of years.

Add in Trump calling DeWine “a stiff” and saying he was through with Ohio’s governor… you might think DeWine would be able to put some respect on Biden’s name, considering he’s leaving public life at the end of his term.

But nope! DeWine will eat his gruel, even after Trump embarrassed him again by putting Bitcoin aficionado Bernie Moreno over the top in the recent Republican U.S. Senate primary where DeWine made a last-minute endorsement of State Senator Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls), which equated to jack shit.

DeWine isn’t worthy of the respect he’ll get at the Statehouse today. It makes me sick that not a single legislative Democrat will heckle that sleepy little man when he gives his scripted speech around noon today. Just one single “Fuck you!” would do, honestly.

There are numerous grievances against DeWine’s reign in Ohio. But most importantly, DeWine’s administration is deeply entwined in the largest bribery scandal in state history (that we know about), which claimed the life of another co-defendant on Tuesday morning.

Down goes the Randazzler

Former Public Utilities Commission chairman Sam Randazzo, recently charged for his involvement in the ongoing HB-6 investigation, died by suicide yesterday on the eve of DeWine’s State of the State speech.

From abc6onyourside.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Samuel Randazzo, a former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, was found dead in an apparent suicide Tuesday, according to the Franklin County Coroner's Office.

The coroner's office said Columbus police found Randazzo, 74, dead in the 400 block of East Mound Street just before noon on April 9. Auditor's records show the property belonged to a consulting business owned by Randazzo.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Randazzo used the business, named Sustainability Funding Alliance of Ohio, Inc., to funnel to himself at least a million dollars meant for an association of large industrial energy users in the state. In total, Randazzo was accused of receiving more than $4.3 million from FirstEnergy and its affiliates.

Randazzo is the second HB-6 co-defendant to take his own life. Randazzo’s death follows disgraced lobbyist Neil Clark, who infamously shot himself in the head while wearing a “Mike DeWine for governor” shirt. You can read about Clark’s corrupt career and death in March 2021 over here.

I feel bad for Randazzo’s wife, children, and friends. But my sympathies end there, considering Randazzo was a career criminal who would have fleeced Ohio energy consumers until his dying breath if the FBI hadn’t interfered.

Suicide is never the answer. And I say that as someone who used to think that it was. But it might have been for Randazzo. He wasn’t charged with racketeering, which means his death gets him off the hook of any conviction, and will allow his family to keep the ill-gotten material gains.

You can read this one of two ways: that this is a victory for Governor DeWine, who is guilty as hell, and Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, who personally recruited Randazzo to the PUCO chairmanship. Dead men famously tell no tales.

But the other way is the feds, already surpassing two million pages of documents in discovery, didn’t need Randazzo’s testimony to further propel the ongoing investigation. Randazzo wasn’t working for a drug cartel who would murder his family. He had every reason to try and cooperate with federal prosecutors to try and lessen his sentence.

But his suicide would certainly make sense if federal investigators told Randazzo that his confession was nice, but he was still dying in federal prison for his crimes that began long before this infamous gang of idiots tried the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about).

I don’t want to sound callous about a man’s death. But it’s hard for me to feel any sympathy for Randazzo. He could have had a comfortable lifestyle without the crime. But it wasn’t good enough for him! He had a $3 million house in Naples—honestly, the first sign of trouble—and he still went back into the mud to rubberstamp the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about) as chairman of the PUCO board.

You almost have to admire the audacity. Almost.

Governor DeWine’s office surprisingly didn’t comment on Randazzo’s death. That’s quite fitting considering DeWine’s longtime Chief of Staff, Laurel Dawson, recently testified that she was aware that FirstEnergy had bribed Randazzo with $4.3 million days before the DeWine Administration appointed him to the PUCO board.

The Ohio Attorney General’s office recently said it plans to call Dawson to testify about what she knew in the ongoing case against former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling.

Dawson, by the way, is married to Michael Dawson, a former FirstEnergy lobbyist whose name appears throughout the charging documents in the investigation.

The Dawsons listed their Bexley home last month, as originally reported by The Rooster:

Follow The Rooster on Twitter for all of Ohio’s depravity. All the time.

Maybe the Dawsons are coincidentally looking to downsize! Or maybe they need money for a pricey legal defense. Or maybe they realized they’ve flown too close to the sun of corruption at the center of Ohio’s politics, and they’ll be moving to Naples later this spring!

But it brings me back to my original point: Why the Hell should anyone in the State Legislature entertain DeWine today? He’s more unpopular with Republicans than Democrats. He owes Joe Biden for the lifeblood of his administration—including the much-ballyhooed Intel plant.

And Hell, it’s not like the Democrats have anything to lose, either. It’d be nice to see one of them just rise to say, “Fuck you, dude!” If only to get kicked out of the proceedings like they’re me.

It wouldn’t change anything in the grand scheme of things. But at least DeWine would have his bubble punctured, even if for a couple of minutes. It’s an embarrassment to the state that we let him walk around like we don’t know that the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about) went straight to the top.

The Bust Up List

I’ll be on Capitol Square early today. Gotta say, I’m in the mood to get in somebody’s ass (and not in the good way, either!). It feels like this past month has almost reset my grievances against the most flagrant offenders in the State Legislature.

I’m sure that will change later today when I see some freak like State Senator Andy Brenner (R-Powell) stumbling around looking drunk in his father’s fancy suit on Prom Night.

State Rep. Brian Lorenz (R-Powell) should keep his head on a swivel, though. He won his gerrymandered seat through appointment. So it makes sense why he would hassle a private citizen in a park for the high crime of trying to end that charade.

State Rep. Brian Lorenz (R-Powell), left, and a tweet from an Ohio activist accusing Lorenz of hassling them in a public park for the high crime of collecting signatures for the anti-gerrymandering petition.

Lorenz is playing a dangerous game as that seat ain’t nearly as Republican as it used to be, thanks to suburbanites leaving the GOP in droves. I’m sure Lorenz will have some sort of bullshit excuse, but don’t worry—I’m not in the business of listening to tripe like that.

Other than that, it should be a great day of content with all sorts of players, hustlers, bandits and desperadoes involved in state government roaming the halls of the Statehouse.

Look for your debrief on Friday morning, as it should be a banger!

THOSE WMDs. The family who vanished into the bush… The Boeing Nosedive: A once-valuable company sold its soul to the shareholders… What happened during one of the worst mountaineering accidents in history… Henry Johnson, the one-man army that fought off a dozen German soldiers during World War I… How to protect yourself (and loved ones) from AI scam calls.