The death rattle of robot art
The Rooster moves into a new era of blog art. A former FirstEnergy lobbyist turns state's evidence. Ohio Congressional Democrats shame their values. And an update on redistricting reform.
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I would trade my crumbs of writing talent for the ability to draw. The disconnect between my brain and my lips with words like “junta” pales in comparison to the malfunctions in my hand when trying to draw any image I’ve conjured in my mind.
In that regard, AI imaging through Midjourney was the closest I’ve come to having any artistic ability. It had its time as short as it was, and it’s overstayed its welcome.
Going forward, you will only see human-created art on these prestigious pages.
Please… hold your applause.
It’s time for me to learn Canva—the graphic design program preferred by perverse politicos from coast to coast.
Here is my first attempt, featuring 24 screaming Jon Husteds.
Gotta say, he’s looking like he just saw the biggest penis in his life.
In the meantime, The Rooster is running a Pride Sale in the month of June. You can join the fabled Patriots Caucus for 33 percent off the sticker price:
That means annual subscriptions for $50.25 and monthly plans for the ultra-cool price of $6.69. There has never been a better time to join, as the price of the brick will be going up soon enough.
If you can’t make the plunge today, no sweat. Be sure to follow on Twitter and Bluesky for more discounted opportunities offered in one-hour flash sales for the rest of the month.
Mid-level HB-6 huckster turns state’s evidence
I often wonder where Ohio would be if the co-conspirators of HB-6, the largest bribery scheme in state history that we know about, had simply watched The Wire.
If they had, they would know it’s generally a bad idea to take notes on a criminal conspiracy—let alone make memes saying, “Fuck anybody who ain’t us.”
But that’s exactly what former FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine did, putting his face on Mt. Rushmore alongside former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, former FirstEnergy Vice President of Bribes Michael Dowling, and the late former PUCO chairman Sam Randazzo.
Pine had been the only member of that infamous meme to escape federal and/or state charges. But that doesn’t mean he escaped scrutiny.
State prosecutors made a new filing about discovery in their case against Dowling on Tuesday. Buried near the end of that filing is a one-line note revealing that Pine had signed an immunity agreement with prosecutors and that he had provided information against Dowling.
FirstEnergy is paying for Dowling’s legal defense despite firing him in 2020. But even with those high-priced lawyers, Dowling can’t feel good about Pine flipping since Pine had his hands in the mud every step of the way in the scheme.
During the trial of former House Speaker Larry Householder, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for his role, the FBI alleged Pine had regular phone contact with Householder between February 2017 and July 2019.
Pine also appears in numerous press articles about the investigation. When a PUCO senior policy advisor wanted a job in the industry he had been regulating, he turned to Pine at FirstEnergy.
From Marty Schladen of ohiocapitaljournal.com in April 2023:
In January 2019, DeWine became governor, Householder was elected speaker and the effort to pass the utility bailout through the legislature got underway. At the same time, PUCO Senior Policy Advisor Pat Tully apparently went job hunting — also with entities his agency was supposed to be regulating.
According to emails twice referenced in the trial. On Jan. 25, 2019, FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine forwarded Tully’s resume to Jeffrey Longstreth, Householder’s political strategist who has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify in the case.
A month later, in February 2019, Tully was made senior advisor on energy issues by the House Republican Caucus, according to testimony in the case and Tully’s LinkedIn profile. Tully stayed in that role until last May — and through the time that the corrupt bailout, House Bill 6, was written, passed, a repeal effort was defeated, arrests were made and guilty pleas entered.
Pine was also involved in funneling $300,000 in dark money to future State President Matt Huffman (R-Lima), a domestic terrorist if there ever was one.
From Jake Zuckerman of cleveland.com in April 2024:
In May 2019, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit FirstEnergy funded and controlled wrote the first of its checks to a fellow dark-money group called Liberty Ohio, a group FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine referred to in an email as “the Huffman C4.” Dark-money nonprofits can raise limitless amounts of money without disclosing their contributors. At the time, Huffman was a state senator, understood to be next in line to ascend to his current role as Senate President, one of the most powerful jobs in state politics.
In that same email chain, Dowling called Huffman “transactional.” A curious choice of words, to say the least!
Pine was also invited to the swanky steakhouse to celebrate the early passage of one version of the bill.
Marty Schladen of ohiocapitaljournal.com in February 2023:
When the Householder-led House passed the first version of the bill on May 29, 2019, there was an obvious sense of euphoria. Jeff Longthreth, a co-defendant who has since pleaded guilty, texted FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine and said, “I have 10-12 reps in the back room at Mitchell’s (Steakhouse) having dinner. They’re all ‘yes’ votes.”
Pine replied, “Headed there now.”
It’s funny because, in May 2017, Pine was emailing subordinates to “keep our fingerprints off any activities.” But he became so deluded by the seeming success of their plot that he was sending pictures of Pappy Van Winkle over company email.
Just more proof that these guys never envisioned any consequences for their actions.
Send all your good energy to the brave soldiers putting sweat equity into the Fair Districts Campaign
We were spoiled last year by the organizers of the Abortion Rights Constitutional Amendment. They made it look easy as Ohio’s hog voters unwound over a decade of anti-abortion zealotry with one November election.
However, most amendment proposals have failed in Ohio's history. This fall, we’ll hopefully be heading toward another seismic opportunity to check Republican hobgoblinery with the Fair Districts Amendment.
I enjoyed this succinct description of the movement via Andrew J. Tobias of cleveland.com:
Citizens Not Politicians’ amendment would replace the Ohio Redistricting Commission, a panel of seven elected officials that’s currently controlled by Republicans, with a 15-member citizen’s panel made up of equal parts Republicans, Democrats and political independents. Politicos, including elected officials, party operatives and lobbyists, and their immediate family members, would be barred from serving on the new commission.
This shouldn’t be necessary since Ohioans thought they ended gerrymandering with nearly 75% of the vote in 2018. However, we probably should have known the Republicans wouldn’t cede their power without an enforcement mechanism written into the law.
The campaign to reform Ohio’s broken redistricting process is moving full steam ahead, according to a spokesperson.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — With a month to go until a pivotal state deadline, the campaign behind a proposed redistricting reform amendment says it expects to collect more than enough signatures that it needs to qualify for the ballot in November.
Chris Davey, a spokesperson for Citizens Not Politicians, declined to say exactly how many signatures the group has collected. But he said this week the group is running ahead of schedule.
“We are collecting thousands of signatures every day. And we will be handing in many more than the required amount,” Davey said.
Music to my ears.
The Ohio Republican Party will no doubt do everything it can to oppose this amendment, as it would effectively end its supermajorities in the State Legislature.
But this is where the infamous hog voter comes into play. The ORP, for all its dominance, hasn’t shown any ability to educate its voters in any election that isn’t between an (R) and a (D).
The party had to make Supreme Court races partisan because GOP voters in the likes of Miami County wouldn’t stop electing liberals to the Supreme Court because they had the most Irish-sounding name.
Republicans failed similarly in the August Special Election of 2023 and in November with Issues 1 and 2.
I remain confident about our chances—if we make the ballot. If you have yet to sign the anti-gerrymandering petition, please consult this website for signature drives in your area.
Ohio Congressional Democrats not exactly setting the world on fire
I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’ve never fallen short of living my ideals. But I also believe that leaders should be held to higher standards than the rest of us, especially when they belong to the ostensible workers-first party.
A dirty, open secret about America’s federal legislature is it runs on overworked and underpaid legislative staffers. And like every other workplace of that size, employers range everywhere from “decent” to “horrendous tyrant who the CIA should assassinate.”
One way observers judge that metric is with staff turnover. High turnover likely means a bad boss. We got some insight into the bad bosses of Congress this week via Legistorm.
Democratic Reps. Shontel Brown of Cleveland (elected in 2021) and Emilia Sykes of Akron (elected in 2022) were the only members of Ohio’s Congressional delegation to make the list.
Brown finished sixth overall and third among Democrats.
Sykes finished 14th among Democrats.
These would be bad numbers regardless, but they’re even more eye-popping because Brown and Sykes ascended to Congress so recently. Names that are fresh on the scene have no business being that high.
And yet, it’s not surprising. Stories of Sykes’ abuse of staff go back to her days at the Ohio Statehouse. And though I’m less familiar with Brown, it doesn’t appear her appearance on the dubious list is a mistake, either.
Here’s former Ohio Democratic Party operative Sam Melendez, who has never pulled a punch on Twitter:
A former Congressional staffer reached out to The Rooster to spill the tea on Brown’s disastrous office location.
“Brown’s West Side office had no staff; she makes all her staff drive to Beachwood every day, and she’s never in Cleveland,” the source said.
Brown also uses public money to keep an empty retail storefront location on the corner of Main Avenue.
“Constituents get to the Cleveland office, realize it’s closed, then have to call and wait for someone to pick up, only to discover they need to go to Beachwood.
“I’m talking people on Medicare, disability, elderly on Social Security, and disabled vets.”
Not good! Though Brown would never say this in public, she probably doesn’t see the value in conveniently serving poor people since they don’t vote in large numbers.
The disgraces didn’t stop there, either.
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Cincinnati) was one of 42 House Democrats to join with all 205 voting Republicans to sanction the International Criminal Court in response to its arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
I love centrist freaks like Landsman because they’ll be the first to opine about the international rules-based order. Or how Americans shouldn’t vote for a convicted felon like President Business Deals because he’s a convicted felon.
But when it comes to blood-thirsty freaks like Netanyahu and Gallant, who have spit in America’s face every step of the way while butchering 30,000 people, then suddenly it’s the International Criminal Court that’s the Bad Guys!
I’m obviously no foreign relations scholar. But it seems like the moral arc of the universe doesn’t bend in the direction of politicians trying to sanction the International Criminal Court because it’s trying to end the bloodlust of an autocrat.
THOSE WMDs. How 1980s yuppies gave us Donald Trump… Controversial Chinese influencer desecrates controversial Japanese shrine… It’s good to make powerful people participate in public systems… Health insurance claim denied? What insurers said behind the scenes… Why Italy’s downtrodden believe Meloni is doing nothing for them.
Glad you ditched the AI art. Here's to shitty photoshops
I am glad you are ditching the AI pics. While I am intrigued by the algorithms' results, and am not a fan of overbroad copyright protections, it really could be considered theft if used commercially. I tend to post the most wrong images knowing they will feed back into the training loop and degrade the theft system.