They Play to Rig The Game
Would you tolerate getting a restaurant bill with 20% higher prices than those advertised on the menu?
I remember being taught in public school, y’know, that famous Marxist pipeline, that America’s systems of checks and balances, along with its dedication to the peaceful transfer of power, is what made the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave a beacon of democracy to the world.
I used to believe that, too, because I was a sucker who was duped into believing in American Exceptionalism.
We saw how much that system was worth on January 6th, when a diseased game show host sent an army of insurance brokers, SUV salesmen and conspiracy theory fanatics into the Capitol Building to start a fracas that killed five people.
Since then, Republicans across the country have been working around the clock to devise ways reanimate the corpse of Jim Crow to keep black voters at bay so the GOP never has to suffer the indignity of losing Georgia ever again.
We’ve seen this play out in Ohio, a state that Trump won by eight points. Controlling a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, every statewide elected office and a majority of the Supreme Court isn’t enough for the lizard clique that runs our increasingly backwater insane asylum.
One-party rule has allowed the Buckeye State to become cartoonishly corrupt.
A big reason for this is, traditionally, Republicans have had nothing to fear from prosecutors. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder didn’t wake up one day and decide to pull a historic heist. He knew that his actions wouldn’t draw any scrutiny from Republican State Attorney General Ron O’Brien or the then-Republican Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien. They’re all in on the scam.
Householder was right with that gambit. The only reason Householder isn’t trying to primary Mike DeWine right now is because the FBI wiretapped his phone as soon as he returned to the Lincoln Chair. Otherwise he would still be the most powerful person in state politics and not some country bumpkin about to die in federal prison because he wanted to build a deck on his Florida vacation home.
Franklin County voters threw a wrench into the well-oiled machine of Republican politics back in November when they kicked longtime prosecutor Ron O’Brien to the curb and replaced him with Democrat Gary Tyack.
Earlier this week, I speculated that Tyack was dead. We had heard nary a peep from his office as Columbus police officers fatally shot Andre Hill, Casey Goodson Jr. and 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant.
Tyack showed signs of life on Tuesday when he appointed special prosecutors to investigate the shooting of Casey Goodson Jr., the man shot to death by Franklin County Sheriff Deputy Jason Meade six times in the back while he walked into his grandmother’s house armed to the teeth with a Subway sandwich.
Tyack apparently is the type of Democrat that thinks longtime GOP voters are fit to lead an investigation of this magnitude:
This is, of course, pathetic from an acting county prosecutor and all but assures Meade will be “exonerated” while Tyack can pretend he did all in his power to bring Goodson’s murderer to justice.
But even somebody as feckless as Tyack has Republicans shaking in their boots as they may now have to be somewhat competent when engaging in the garden-variety corruption that runs rampant through the Statehouse.
Unfortunately if Republicans don’t like the rules they will change them.
From Laura A. Bischoff of dispatch.com:
House Bill 286 was amended Tuesday to allow those charged with public corruption to be tried in their home counties. Currently, most of those cases, if they are charged under state law, are handled by the Franklin County Prosecutor.
“It’s curious that after more than 60 years of GOP control, now Franklin County has a Democratic prosecutor—one who could actually prosecute public corruption crimes at the Statehouse—House Republicans decide to change the rules. Why should we let those accused of public corruption get to pick their own prosecutor?” said state Rep. David Leland, D-Columbus.
…
In committee, state Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, said the change mimicked one in Texas, which passed in 2015 and allowed officials to avoid Austin prosecutors when facing corruption charges.
“That was the origin of it and we’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to do it," said Seitz, the primary sponsor of the bill.
Seitz is so arrogant he can’t help but say the quiet part out loud: Republicans were waiting for a Democrat to become the most powerful county prosecutor in the state before they took away the jurisdiction over the Statehouse that gave him that title.
Checks and balances don’t apply to these criminals. They will simply change the rules to avoid even a modicum of oversight that might prevent them from keeping their fat hands in the honeypot of public corruption. They are pigs at the trough who have become addicted to the dirty money that lines their pockets and finances their campaigns.
We wouldn’t tolerate this in any other arena of life. Could you imagine the headlines if LeBron James lobbied the NBA to extend the first round of the NBA playoffs to a best-of-nine series after the Phoenix Suns unceremoniously ended the Lakers’ championship defense? Would people tolerate going to a restaurant and getting a bill with prices 20% times higher than those advertised on the menu?
No, we wouldn’t. But we will tolerate this. Republicans will change the rules and continue to rig their way into maintaining power. The small cabal of brain diseased non-Republicans who follow state politics will tweet a bunch of mean things about various GOP hobgoblins, and the rest of the state will shrug and go back to their job that overworks and underpays them.
Which is all fine and good. But we should stop teaching our kids that we have checks and balances. At least in Ohio, that notion no longer exists.
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