They must have me mistaken for some other insane Communist blogger

Criticism of The Rooster's latest report is more than fair. But here's why I did what I did.

The Rooster published an iPhone photograph at noon on New Year’s Eve featuring disgraced (former) Ohio State Rep. Wes Goodman (R-Cardington) and Ohio House Speaker-Elect Derek Merrin (R-Monclova Township).

The photograph showed the two enjoying a private and relaxing afternoon on Oct. 16, 2017, at Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Bonita Springs, Florida.

The photograph in question began circulating in Republican circles hours after Merrin, originally considered a distant third-place candidate in the Ohio House Speaker’s race, brokered a deal with co-favorite State Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) to prevent State Rep. Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) from a six-year reign in the Lincoln Chair (that’s what the Statehouse pervert jargon for the House chamber chair in which the Speaker sits).

Merrin, however, is not well-liked among his colleagues, and he has not yet officially won anything.

The official vote is this week, and now there are Democratic groups circulating the picture in a final effort to deny Merrin, who was hand-selected by the Center for Christian Virtue, a two-year term to shepherd as many reactionary hobgoblin projects into reality.

I did not make the decision to publish these pictures easily. It was not a decision overnight, but rather weeks. I knew even discussing rumors about Merrin would be considered “outting” him to some friends, acquaintances and allies.

My actions, in their eyes, make me no worse than other homophobic right-wing freaks that I claim to oppose. And if they want to terminate their support of me, I accept their decisions as consequences of my actions.

I obviously don’t agree, but it’s fair criticism. I’m sorry that my actions disappointed anyone or diminished any modicum of respect they may have for my traditionally cantankerous attitude.

But I point to when the Big Apple gossip blog Gawker “outed” Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance’s sugar daddy. That Thiel is gay was an open secret in Silicon Valley. What Thiel actually resented was Gawker’s audacity to print what anybody relevant already knew.

Thiel responded by funding Hulk Hogan’s successful lawsuit against the company that bankrupted the company and saw it liquidated and sold for parts, as is a common story to relevant media institutions in this country that helps explain our current predicament.

Thankfully The Rooster is not nearly as influential or as rich as Gawker. But that will never stop me from acting like it is.

Merrin is in line to be the third-most powerful politician in the state. His first two picks for Chief of Staff refused the job, despite working for the Christian lobbyist organization that placed Merrin in the Lincoln Chair. There is an unusual number of openings for a new Speaker, too, since nobody wants to work for a guy who treats everyone like shit!

His job, being a landlord, is living off the wages of other people who actually have to work for a living. He treats the people who are trying to help him obtain and maintain power like shit. How do you suppose he treats people that aren’t actively helping achieve his life’s ambition?

Merrin’s sexuality is only sinful in the eyes of the political culture he has spent his life furthering in this state. Not my problem. To me, his sexuality is peanuts in the equation. The photo is damning because it shows Merrin fraternizing with a well-known sexual predator mere weeks before that predator resigned in national disgrace.

Merrin and Goodman could’ve told me that it was just a picture of one man rubbing another man’s shoulder and to go fuck myself. I wish they would have; I would have had no problem printing that.

But they didn’t because they are a prisoner to the anti-gay culture in which they exist and participate. Sorry that his voters think the idea of two dudes fucking is weird or whatever. Those rumors are in the open, and I’m not going to treat my readers with silken gloves by refusing to discuss what’s being talked about openly in Statehouse group chats. It’s massive context given the impending, bitterly contested Speakership position.

It’s news, whether the critics like it or not. I take no pride in it, but that’s the nature of the business. Those are my marching orders from my real boss — the brave soldiers in President Xi Jinping’s Patriots Caucus, which you can currently join on the one-day extended 50% off sale to start your 2023 by ruining a state legislator’s afternoon.

A clearly disappointed friend, whom I respect deeply, asked me on Twitter what was my goal if even I acknowledged that these guys jerk off to being called hypocrites.

My only goal was to ruin Merrin’s New Year’s Eve plans, whatever they may be. This is a holy war, as I see it, and it’s not like I can vote thse bums out of office or even join a burgeoning communist militia movement deep in Hocking Hills.

Any result stemming from the report would be funny to me. The funniest outcome would be Merrin losing the position. That could happen according to parties in both sources, and it would be hilarious if it did.

The Rooster has not ever, nor will ever subscribe to Michelle Obama’s thesis that when our enemies go low, we must go high. That’s straight Charlie Brown loser talk.

Fascists are openly congregating in public. And I’m supposed to pull a punch on the future Speaker of the Ohio House that was hand-picked by the most influential Evanglical lobbyist group in the state?

Not a chance. No, sir! Not me.

At the end of the day, my pulsating inferiority complex wants my friends and enemies alike to know that when I set my sights on an elected miscreant, there is no gutter into which I won’t stoop to make their lives worse in any possible way and expose their misdeeds to as many good samiritans as my typo-ridden screeds will allow.

It pleases me to know that Merrin asked one of his asocial underlings, “Who in the fuck is The Rooster?” I feel good when I think of CCV gremlins having to process the phrase, “Bark with the Freaks.”

These people spend their days laying the groundwork for the further destruction of public schools, further attacks on transgender teenagers, and furthering massive wealth inequality that is destroying the standard of living in our polluted backwater outpost that already lost its national political influence.

Publishing embarrassing information about these freaks is the only legal weapon I have against the people that are making life worse for everyone I know.

That was The Rooster guarantee in 2022, and that’s The Rooster guarantee in 2023, too.

Go ahead and set your watch to that.

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