This is sort of small change, but the national situation is so dispiriting and disconnected from reality I think we need a distraction.
Plus. I love this headline:
State rep found drunk was on House speaker’s car
On the car. An important detail.
State Rep. Jerrod Martin was passed out drunk on then-GOP Minority Leader’s William G. Batchelder’s Chevy Suburban when Martin was discovered by Riffe Center security last year.
Newspapers are working backward from the OVI/child endangerment charge which came last week:
The Dispatch reported today that Martin, charged with DUI and child endangerment a week ago, was found intoxicated and unresponsive in the House parking garage early the morning of March 24, 2010. The Beavercreek Republican was treated by a medic at the scene and released shortly after 4 a.m. to Dittoe, then with the GOP House campaign team and now communications director for House Republicans. Dittoe had been sent by Rep. Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican and veteran lawmaker who was back in his district.
And there’s more:
On May 16, 2010, the night manager at the Residence Inn in Beavercreek called police about guests yelling and fighting on the fifth floor at 4:30 a.m. Officers found Martin and six other men “highly intoxicated” at a bachelor party. The men said they weren’t fighting; just having a “friendly wrestling match in their hotel room,” a Beavercreek police report said. Martin’s parents were called to pick up the men and their belongings, according to the police report. Police noted that the room was tidied up and not damaged.
An OVI is taken seriously, and a child endangerment charge in Ohio will trigger a concurrent investigation into whether the children in the vehicle with the impaired driver are abused, neglected or dependent.
It looks like he finally staggered over the line. Calling his mom or a GOP hack won’t get him out of the latest charge.
Republicans in Ohio dropped the push for a photo ID requirement at the polls in 2012. I’m starting to think it’s because their leaders won’t have a valid driver’s license.
jwb
“Republicans in Ohio dropped the push for a photo ID requirement at the polls in 2012. I’m starting to think it’s because their leaders won’t have a valid driver’s license.” Nice line.
Olive Oyl
What’s an OVI?
Kay
Operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
jwb
Olive Oyl: Teh google says “operating a vehicle impaired.”
currants
serious question: why does that have to be different in every state? OVI, OUI, DUI…..
(Also, too, sometimes “influence,” sometimes “intoxicated,” sometimes “impaired”…)
bemused
Were the kids in the vehicle his and how old were they?
Dennis SGMM
Martin is a Republican. He will be forgiven anything short of being caught in a motel with a live boy or a dead girl.
kay
And Google is right and I’m wrong, so thanks for looking it up.
They want the broadest definition possible, and impaired is broader than intoxicated.
cleek
On Vehicle, Intoxicated
kay
I think it’s a fair question to ask police why no one was charged in the motel room incident. Not even disorderly or a local ordinance violation? That doesn’t sound right to me.
“I’ll just call my mom”. Is that how it went?
artem1s
so proud to be an Ohioan right now. :P
Dennis SGMM
@kay:
Seems to me that they could have at least been charged with disorderly conduct. I’d guess that if they were people of color they’d have had to call Mom from jail.
Stillwater
Martin’s parents were called to pick up the men and their belongings
I love the visuals that accompany this sentence: Martin shuffling slowly under the scornful gaze of his disappointed, pissed off parents, not even saying goodbye to the other kids at the sleepover…
Dennis SGMM
@Stillwater:
“And for God’s sake put your pants on, Jarrod!”
kay
Well, yeah, Dennis, It isn’t just people of color, either. Everyone gets charged with something or other here, in white-rural-poor-people-land, unless they’re in the group of people who “make mistakes” but aren’t inherently bad :)
I have come to believe it’s because if you force police to come out at 4:30 in the morning, they aren’t leaving without citing someone for something.
Brachiator
Very droll.
gocart mozart
Martin’s gonna be soooo grounded.
Yevgraf
Drove diagonally across Ohio last month. Your roads are falling apart, construction sites abandoned. Conservative government is working out great.
Dennis SGMM
@Yevgraf:
They had to give up some things to finance all of those speed traps.
dead existentialist
Cleek: That was precious and to the point.
Citizen_X
Yes, this is pretty sorry, but I’ll bet you that if Rep. Martin’s mom called about the reply button, he’d get it fixed.
gbear
I wish that more conservative Minnesota legislators would get arrested for stuff. Right now all we have is this guy who claims all he was doing was stalking a girlfriend.
sukabi
@Dennis SGMM if they play their cards right, the speed traps will be gigantic holes in the roads… think about all the money that will be saved.
Villago Delenda Est
Are there any Republicans left who are not utter scum? How could people like Mark Hatfield, Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln ever have been associated with this den of poltroons?
Villago Delenda Est
Not likely. He’d denounce his mother as a Kenyan soshulist for even suggesting that the reply button is out of order and needs fixing.
kay
With his loaded gun at the ready.
I can’t believe this is how he talks to the newspaper. Not getting it. Huge flashing lights appeared before women all over Minnesota when they read that.
Citizen_X
It’s well worth clicking through the first link to see this goober at his DUI–sorry, OVI–arrest. Straight off the turnip truck, that boy is. And he’s, what, mid-20’s to 30? Hell of gut to have developed at that age, Jarr. You ain’t playing Right Tackle any more; quit eating the two steaks a day.
ppcli
Man, these Ohio legislators are entertaining. I mean, I know that here in “that state up north” people say things about Ohio people. But I always thought it was just Michigan – Ohio State week hyperbole.
ppcli
@kay: Not just the women, I assure you. You’d be amazed at how many men have had sisters or close friends who got entangled with controlling psychos like this. You just need to see that hell unfold once, and forever after you recognize the patterns all over the place. Amazing how rarely the script deviates from the standard one.
gbear
[email protected]:
Yea, I don’t think that quote did much for his post-divorce dating prospects. The stunt did cost him the chance at any leadership roles in the GOP caucus.
Nutella
@Dennis SGMM:
Laws, like taxes, are for the little people. Rich and/or influential white men are above all that.
ETA: As clearly stated in the first linked article:
scav
ah minutia: stopped in part “for driving left of center”
arguingwithsignposts
I have driven the width of ohio several times over this summer, and i make sure to extend a hearty middle finger every time i see that prick kasich’s name on the welcome sign or his smug face in a photo at the rest stops. Other than that, the drive is boooooring.
Martin
I love stories like this. Makes me feel like CA state legislature is just a little less fucked up.
Yevgraf
For nightmares for women, Google Steve Nunn and Kentucky.
He’s a former GOPer now serving life without parole for the ambush slaying of his girlfriend. He had it all – dad was a governor, he’d been in the legislature AND ran for governor himself in 2003.
Joey Maloney
I can’t place the musical reference in the post title.
WereBear
I’ll bet you don’t have to be a modern GOPer to be an abusive mate; but it helps.
DIsrespect for women as people. unbothered by hypocrisy, selfish and smug; your garden variety Republican is halfway there already.
JWL
In a documentary about the late actor, a drinking buddy of Lee Marvin told this story: Stumbling out of a bar one night, Marvin grudgingly relinquished the keys to his more sober friend. Then, in a fit of drunken petulance, he refused to get inside the car, and instead climbed atop it and held on to its luggage rack. It was a short ride home, so the friend figured ‘what the hell’. A few minutes later, a cop pulled him over on the coast highway, and slowly approached the driver’s side with his hand on his gun. When he got close enough, he visibly relaxed, and simply asked the guy if he was aware that Lee Marvin was on top of his car. Marvin’s friend explained what was happening, whereupon the cop told him to be careful, and cut them both loose.
Some things never change, some things do.
quannlace
one of the articles stated that despite his murder conviction he’ll still receive a state pension. Ah, public service does have it’s rewards.
trollhattan
I feel like my life’s always in danger of drunken Republicans.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/07/martin-garrick-pleads-no-contest-drunken-driving.html
http://www.kcra.com/news/11404584/detail.html
trollhattan
@JWL:
“An infestation of Lee Marvins” would be a good band name.
I’m going to assume the driver was sober enough to say, “Jeez, again!?”
debbie
@ Yevgraf:
And now, because unemployment rose last month, we are free to call Kasich a total failure. That didn’t take long!
bkny
he called his mommy? ..
but on a serious note, the guy definitely has issues with alcohol and hope for his children’s sake he seeks help. although not likely when he refuses a breathylizer and looks forward to vindicating himself. next time you hear about him, will likely be some car accident — and as always seems to happen in drunk driving situations, he’ll walk away, leaving a couple of broken bodies behind..
Peggy
The link at the top of the story isn’t working. Here’s one that works.
R-Jud
@Joey Maloney: It’s the Decemberists, I think.
Mr Stagger Lee
@arguingwithsignposts:
Ohio has really fallen how would Roger Clemons put it? Ah Yes
Kathleen
Yevgraf: I know Kasich would love to hear your thoughts on what would make Ohio “cool”. Seriously. He really wants to make Ohio “cool” because it currently is not viewed as such. He also hates our pink drivers’ licenses. We have no other problems in Ohio.
Dr. Morpheus
@Kay: How many goddamn different acronyms do the courts need? DWI, DUI, and now OVI?
What the fuck is the point?
Paul in KY
Kay, this line: ‘Republicans in Ohio dropped the push for a photo ID requirement at the polls in 2012. I’m starting to think it’s because their leaders won’t have a valid driver’s license.’
Comedy gold! Wish I’d wrote it.