Dingus of the Week: Ohio GOP

Hot labor summer!

This week, the Ohio GOP put to a vote, Issue 1, which would have made it harder to amend the state constitution.

To the untrained eye (e.g. people from Wisconsin), this issue, seems a little convoluted. But Zeeshan Aleem writing for MSNBC clarifies, “Republicans put the measure up as a cynical effort to block the passage of a November ballot measure that will give Ohioans the opportunity to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. If Tuesday’s ballot measure had passed, then voters who favored abortion rights would’ve had a higher, maybe even impossible, bar to meet in order to secure those rights in November.”

It did not pass. On Tuesday, 38 percent of Ohio voters showed up to the poll to say, “No. Wtf! Knock it off” to the Ohio GOP’s plan. Must be devastating to know that, the people who voted for John Kasich thought your ideas were bad.

Even Geraldo Rivera, showed up to the polls to vote against Issue 1, marking the first time that Geraldo showed up to an overhyped media event that wasn’t a complete bust.

Listen, Ohio GOP, you tried.

And no one can say you didn’t give it your best effort. You absolutely gave it the Old Ohio Try as we call it in the Midwest, and if you aren’t in the Midwest, the Old Ohio Try refers to being as undemocratic as possible.

You also gave it the Cleveland Browns try, by which I mean you made your best throw but it got intercepted…by Democracy.

And I’ll give you credit, the effort at subverting the will of the people lasted longer than William Henry Harrison’s presidency. So, that’s not nothing, my boys.

But despite a devastating loss, that once again proved that preserving abortion access is an immensely popular issue, the Ohio GOP is doubling down and seems to be saying they will try again.

"I don't know what you have to do to make them learn," Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown said in a Wednesday press call.

And Now for Good News:

First of all, let me just say, “Heck yeah, Ohio.”

Also, it’s Hot Labor Summer¹ and the girls are organizing. According to the Cornell College Labor Action Tracker, so far in 2003, there have been, more than 200 strikes have occurred across the U.S. involving more than 320,000 workers.

This week, visual effects workers at Marvel voted to unionize.

And thousands of city workers in LA walked off the job to protest unfair labor practices.

The Hollywood writer’s strike hit the 100-day mark.

And autoworkers are eyeing a strike as well.

It’s state fair week, and you know that I love the fair. I will be going next week to see The Chicks and eat a lot of fried food. But one thing I love the most about the fair is how it brings out petty regional rivalries.

To wit, Amy Klobuchar is allowed to talk shit about me all day if she has to.

And look, does Minnesota have a state that is feeding kids free school lunches, selling legal cannabis, and no state-wide book bans? Yes.

But do they have the best state fair? Well, that’s for you to decide.

Sorry, this is the only match-up I care about. You can argue about it in the comments.

What I Am Drinking:

This week, I went to court to cover the trial of the man who drove through a crowd of pro-abortion protesters on June 24, 2022. I’ve written about it here and here.

On Thursday, David Huston, the man accused of driving through the crowd of protesters was found not guilty on both charges stemming from that incident. I would write more about it. But I don’t want to.

I feel tired.

I knew it was possible this would happen.

An investigation by the Boston Globe found that between May 25, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, found 139 incidents of motorists driving through crowds of protestors. In all of those cases, only 65 of them were charges filed and in only 4 were motorists found guilty.

Protests by their nature are to disrupt the status quo. But the status quo holds on so tightly.

I think you could only rule that he was not guilty if you thought, in some way, that those women deserved it. That we deserved it. That we were asking for it.

It’s also the third anniversary of the derecho. I wrote about the derecho for the Washington Post in 2020. I also wrote about the derecho in 2021.

So, this week, I went to my favorite place and used a gift card that people in this newsletter community gave to me after we ran Relay Iowa, and bought me and my friend Molly the very good wine—a cab franc that I love. I don’t know what kind. I just go in and tell them I like wine that is fuller, drier, and full of flavor. And they delivered. I love this restaurant, not just for the care that they put into their food and drinks, but for how much they care for this community. The couple who runs it, could literally go anywhere. But they are here, running a world-class restaurant, that is also my refuge, offering a glass of cab franc and friendship.

1. Thank you to Caitlin for the term.