What can the party do for you?
A Patriots Caucus soldier brings the heat to the Ohio House of Representatives while The Rooster hits a Columbus City Council candidates forum and lands two big fish.
I awoke yesterday thinking it’d be a good day of content, given the amount of expected protest at the Statehouse about the passage of SB-1.
Despite boarding the Satanic Six Bus headed downtown, I never made it into the Statehouse. Something unrelated to work came up that required my undivided attention.
It was nothing life-threatening, and I’m fine. But I want to apologize to the students, professors, and all the regular folks who stormed the Statehouse in opposition to an anti-diversity bill that also guts collective bargaining rights for university and college faculty. I failed to capture your well-placed anger, and I hope you find it in your hearts to forgive me.
Thankfully, one brave soldier from the Patriots Caucus saved my dignity by doing something that I’ve only ever dreamed about doing: Telling the assembled House of Representatives to go fuck themselves during a session.
The moment was captured in this video, which I pirated from the illustrious Morgan Trau of WEWS, whom you should follow on Twitter:
That’s State Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania) at the end of the clip, and it’s hilarious that he somehow thinks the adage is about throwing bricks at packs of dogs. His mind works in extraordinary ways, folks.
But with no prior context, you might think this 44-second clip features Statehouse security removing a mentally disturbed man from the gallery.
But I know this former Marine personally, and I’ll say that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. When I saw the incident on Twitter, I immediately contacted him for full comment.
Here’s his take:
I showed up yesterday because more regular angry Moms and Dads need to show up and tell these cowards to their faces that we are done with their punching down at our friends and family members.
When the dust settles, this will end in needless tragedies and the responsibility for that ultimately lands on their desks. Josh Williams response is a perfect example of the confirmation bias game they are playing. DEI folks are a “pack of dogs” he’s “throwing brick[s]” at?
If thats the battle we are in, then I encourage everyone who identifies as DEI, including white women and vets, to stop stop letting Ohio reps have access to our spaces.
When there is nowhere left for them to experience culture or community in Ohio, then let’s see if they care about DEI. When they are in spaces we don’t control but have to coexist, those DEI bartenders, day care workers, gardeners, drug dealers, report back publicly on what skeezy things they are up to in those spaces.
I want to know where Josh Williams gets his bricks, who pays for them, and how best to dry up his source of bricks he’s using to assault the ‘DEI pack.” It’s very simple math.
They are terrified of us. There are more of us than them. Thats the point of a pack, genius. Woof Woof.
Given the proximity to the Statehouse, I think Columbus residents bear an extra burden to hassle state legislators when they attack collective bargaining rights or peddle upside down thinking about diversity training equaling racism. Though, I understand not everyone can run a deranged blog that torments these people professionally.
But I wish these legislators were personae non-gratae at the swanky Columbus establishments they love so much. I wish they had to drive back to Applebee’s Country to get a meal after they passed legislation like SB-1. Instead, these guys enjoy anonymity around Columbus because most people don’t have the sense or the mental bandwidth required to pay attention to state politics.
But that’s a topic for another day!
Due to some Republican absences and three “NO” votes from party colleagues, the Republicans only mustered 58 “YES” votes. Depending on how those four absent Republicans would have voted, there’s a case to be made that the House might not have the votes to override a potential veto from Governor Mike DeWine.
However, as a longtime personal advisor to the governor, I think that veto is unlikely.
DeWine is currently pressing Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel to run for governor. And vetoing legislation about “DEI” — the latest catch-all buzzword successfully cooked up by greasy hobgoblins in the bowels of right-wing think tanks—would be a slap in the face to the types of Republicans that vote in primaries.
SB-1 will become law, barring a successful hail mary in the courts. And Ohio will be worse for it.
The Franklin County Democratic Party is standing behind Reckless Ross despite numerous scandals
I’m a lot like George Washington primarily because I’m a big-lipped honkey who never graduated college. But the older I get, the more cynical I grow about political parties.
I realize that Genie isn’t going back in the lamp anytime soon and that America will be saddled with the two-party system for the rest of my life, barring President Xi Jinping and China saving this country from its pitiful state of affairs.
But as for my cynicism, look no further than the Franklin County Democratic Party (FCDP) and Tiara Ross, the party’s chosen candidate for City Council District 7.
The Rooster broke two stories about Ross earlier this month: She drove on a suspended license after accumulating $3,975 of parking tickets and was suspected of cheating in a prestigious law school competition.
And that’s on top of moving into the district one day before the deadline after living her entire adult life with her grandparents in Reynoldsburg and never voting in a city election.
If she were a Republican, the FCDP would have no problem bludgeoning her candidacy with those disqualifying facts. But even though it’s only one seat on a nine-member council, the Party doesn’t want an outside-the-box leftist who would introduce quality legislation that the rest of the body would have to vote against.
If that happened regularly, voters might start to realize that the city council isn’t as nearly as progressive as the constellation of diverse faces makes it appear at first glance.
Because of that, I never expected the party to drop Ross. And they won’t, either, as evidenced by the above fundraising flyer featuring the county prosecutor, a councilwoman, and multiple state legislators as hosts.
It’s not just women, either. On Tuesday, I encountered Senator Bill DeMora (D-Columbus), a Franklin County Democratic Party insider, if there ever was one.
I asked DeMora about the party’s support of Ross. He said he would be in Italy during the endorsement vote next month. When I asked him for his views about supporting Ross, he pleaded the 5th Amendment.
DeMora is the bulldog of the Senate Democrats. He showed up yesterday for students and professors. I won’t deny that.
However, simple questions about Ross had him acting like a criminal defense attorney because he didn’t want to say anything negative about another Democrat on record, even if she deserves criticism.
It was essentially more of the same from City Attorney Zach Klein, whom I finally encountered last night in Goodale Park outside the city council candidate forum.
Klein is all but officially running for mayor in 2027, and I hawked him leaving the forum after giving a stump speech that got cut off due to time constraints:
Klein and Ross have this new schtick where they act like she’s Mother Theresa doing labor on Christmas, when in fact, she gets paid a handsome city salary and has been ordained as the party’s city council candidate since before she moved into the 7th District on May 5th, 2024.
It reeks of someone running for office doing something saintly so they can turn around and use it for political propaganda.
Still, I enjoyed my time with “City Attorney Press Release,” as one member of the Patriots Caucus chatroom dubbed him. I didn’t know what to expect from Klein, but I should have realized that he would never run from a chance to look like White Obama in front of a camera.
I regret forgetting to ask Klein why he took a $10,000 donation from Martin Savko, a Trump supporter and former client of convicted felon John Raphael. Savko was a once-lavish donor to city council, which was a worthy investment considering his company enjoyed roughly $85 million in city contracts before Raphael ate shit on the Redflex scandal.
I mean, I know why: Savko wants to grease Klein’s pockets on the chance he’s the next mayor, and Klein’s not going to say no to free money. But I would have liked to hear him wiggle out of having to say that.
I also regret not pressing Klein on being a Republican until he wanted to run for office. Klein, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, peddled this notion that it was merely a high school phase when, in reality, he was a member of the Federalist Society and celebrated George W. Bush’s win over Al Gore, which was an actual stolen election that put America on its collision course with the dustbin of history.
But Klein wasn’t the only big fish in the pond last night. I also got my first chance to speak with FCDP chairman Michael “Big Sexy” Sexton.
Sexton was one of four judges in my residency challenge of Tiara Ross’s candidacy at the Board of Elections. Given her status with the party, I knew he was in the tank for Ross from the beginning.
But I was somewhat surprised to see that Sexton didn’t recuse himself despite donating $250 to Ross’ campaign. It’s not like he would have had to look far for another Democratic apparatchik willing to due their sworn-duty if Sexton actually cared about avoiding even the illusion of impropriety:
This interview is precisely why I do what I do the way that I do.
Sexton is the party chairman of the most powerful Democratic county party in Ohio. That isn’t to say he’s an all-powerful wizard—the raw power of party chairs can sometimes be overstated. But he’s still one of the most influential political figures in Central Ohio, and yet, you never have to see him answer questions live and in the flesh.
I pressed Big Sexy hard enough to the point he coughed up his number, which might mean the Patriots Caucus is starting to get somewhere in Franklin County.
While I think my chance of being in his inner circle has long since sailed, I intend to press him for information like any other source… because it’s much easier to get on my contact list than to get off it!
We’ll hopefully hear from the chairman next month at the public meeting where the FCDP votes to endorse city council and school board candidates.
THOSE WMDs. Measles outbreak surges across the United States… The big, empty promises of the ballooning credit-repair industry…. My family’s slave… You’re not a criminal, but you’re going to jail: My ICE detention as a Candian… Damned Yankee: A dark secret kept John Malangone from fulfilling his promise.
Yet another banger.
1. Josh Williams will regret that quote. I would not be surprised if DEI across Ohio “released the hounds” on him for this.
2. I was at the Council thing last night too (DJs sprint after Klein should have been clocked). Tiara behaves like a sorority’s over medicated springer spaniel mascot that is hallucinating it’s actually a Disney Princess. Kate ran circles around the other two as the independent in the room.
3. I’ll never forget DeMora screaming obscenities at Joe Motil from the sidewalk during DooDah in support of Ginther. He was really losing his shit, too, like a child, on the sidelines of a parade for kids and families. It was unhinged foaming at the mouth partyism, it just seemed so childish and stupid, and in defense of Fat Andy too… no matter how many times people try to claim he’s one of the good ones, I don’t believe it. He’s a red flag farm.
Great appearance on chapo recently. Do you think their brand of political party is viable to write home about in Columbus? I did a dsa meeting after the onset of covid and felt it less organized than the high school jv debate team. Would be great to see a third party candidate with a brain and heart get some rooster spotlight.