Last night, I had an Ohio Halloween nightmare.
I dreamed I lived in Ohio, in Portsmouth, in the First Ward, where Timothy Loper had been elected to the First Ward seat as a reform candidate but then had sold out to the rich white trash who run Portsmouth. I dreamed I filed charges against Loper with the County Board of Elections charging he was not living in the First Ward, as the City Charter required, but was a carpetbagger living in the Fourth Ward. I dreamed Loper had then been removed from office by the County Board of Elections.
I dreamed I was next represented on the city council by lawyer Mike Mearan, who was appointed, not elected, to replace Loper. I dreamed Mearan was involved in prostitution and drugs. I dreamed Mearan’s 24-year-old stenographer was arrested for transporting Oxycontin from Columbus to Portsmouth in an automobile rented to Mearan.
I dreamed Portsmouth’s previous mayor, a failed businessman named Greg Bauer, had conspired with the rich white trash to pay the Marting Foundation $2 million dollars for an empty, virtually worthless former department store. I dreamed Mayor Bauer, because of the Marting scam, was recalled from office by a large margin, as were two other council members.
I dreamed the Marting sale to the city was ruled invalid by the courts after a suit was brought by a crusading couple, Teresa and Bob Mollette.
I dreamed the current mayor of Portsmouth was James Kalb, who had never risen above the level of grocery clerk at the local Kroger’s Supermarket but had made a career for himself in city politics by being the tool of the rich white trash. I dreamed Kalb conspired with other members of the city council to get the rich white trash off the hook by absolving them of any blame in the Marting scam and taking the Marting building off their hands, with them keeping the $2 million, and the city resuming its plans to convert the Marting building into a city hall. I dreamed that an employee of Kroger’s told me Kalb had never amounted to much at Kroger’s because he was lazy and not too bright, and that he was now using his union rights to to keep his Kroger job open in case he wanted to return to it someday, thus keeping someone younger who needed a job from filling it.
I dreamed I was a member of the Concerned Citizens Group, which managed to get the city’s plan to convert the Marting building on the ballot as a referendum, where the voters rejected the city plan by a wide margin.
I dreamed Portsmouth police chief Horner had denounced citizens who conducted recall campaigns of local officials as “domestic terrorists.” I dreamed the police chief refused to account for how he used a private discretionary police fund, consisting of money obtained in drug busts. I dreamed the police chief’s son was dealing drugs at Damon’s Restaurant, directly across the street from the Portsmouth police station. I dreamed the chief’s son was arrested and convicted but that his arrest and conviction were expunged from public records.
I dreamed the Ohio Secretary of State was Ken Blackwell whose own wife does not campaign with or for him. I dreamed he was accused of using his position as head of Ohio elections to help elect George Bush in 2004. I dreamed Blackwell was described in a poem by Cincinnati’s African-American poet Nikki Giovanni as “a political whore.”
I dreamed that one of Ohio’s senators in Washington was Mike DeWine, who had a promiscuously sexual staff assistant who used to tell people, according to the Washington Post, that her job in DeWine’s office consisted of throwing out “ the stacks of letters from earnest voters who believe members of Congress actually care what they think.” I dreamed this promiscuous staffer, shown here exposing her breast in front of the Capitol, was screwing everyone in Washington and that DeWine was screwing everyone in Ohio.
I dreamed my representative in congress was Jean Schmidt, who had denounced Congressman Murtha on the House floor as a cut-and-run coward, even though Murtha was a decorated war hero. I dreamed Schmidt had been voted one of the ten dumbest members of the House, and that in her latest campaign brainstorm she had raised the possibility of making part of her district a nuclear waste site.
I dreamed the governor in Columbus was Bob Taft. I dreamed I read on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, that Taft “is known beyond the state’s boundaries for the recent corruption scandals under his administration, particularly Coingate.” I dreamed that Time Magazine judged him to be one of the three worst governors in America, opining that “The only thing more stunning than the spectacle of a quivering, hangdog Ohio Governor pleading no contest in August to criminal charges is the fact that he is still in office.” I dreamed that Ohio’s slogan, “The Heart of It All,” meant the heart of all the corruption and election tampering.
I dreamed the president in the oval office was George W. Bush, who is considered by some historians to be the stupidest and most incompetent chief executive in the history of the United States, and as the president who has presided over the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States. As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.
I dreamed this and much more, and when I awoke I realized, “Oh, my God, the nightmare is true. I live in the First Ward of Portsmouth, in Ohio, in the United States of America, and Mearan is the First Ward councilman, Horner is the chief of police, Kalb is the mayor, Blackwell is the secretary of state, Schmidt is the congresswoman, DeWine is the senator, Taft is the governor, and Bush is the president.
Shit! This is not a Halloween nightmare. This is an everyday reality!
