16 minute read
Upfront
PORTMAN’S TESTICLE HUNT TO BE ABORTED IN 2022
Advertisement
CITING PARTISAN GRIDLOCK
and a desire to spend more time with his family, Sen. Rob Portman announced Monday that he will not seek re-election in 2022 when his term ends.
“It has gotten harder and harder to break through the partisan gridlock and make progress on substantive policy, and that has contributed to my decision,” Portman said in a statement. “We live in an increasingly polarized country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left, and that means too few people who are actively looking to find common ground. This is not a new phenomenon, of course, but a problem that has gotten worse over the past few decades.”
Portman, who attempted to thread the needle in supporting some of former President Donald Trump’s worst and most egregious lies while maintaining a semblance of dignity and professionalism, said, “Over the next two years, I look forward to being able to focus all my energy on legislation and the challenges our country faces rather than on fundraising and campaigning.”
He looks forward to re-entering the private sector and “being able to be more involved in the community and in our family business. And I plan to stay involved in public policy issues.”
“This is a tough time to be in public service. For many of the issues I am most passionate about, I will continue to make a difference outside of the Senate, beyond 2022,” he said. “In the meantime, I am hopeful that President Biden will follow through on his inaugural pledge to reach across the aisle, and I am prepared to work with him and his administration if he does. I was on the bipartisan call yesterday on a new COVID-19 package. I hope the Administration will work with us on a more targeted approach that focuses on things like vaccine distribution, testing and getting kids back to school.”
The Republican, who also served in the U.S. House, was first elected as Senator in 2011.
He made the announcement with nearly two years left in his term, he said, to allow prospective candidates ample time to get campaigns up and running. On that front, almost every frontline Ohio Republican is considering entering the fray. On the Democratic side, both Congressman Tim Ryan and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley have been mentioned as super early favorites. -Vince Grzegorek
Blaine Griffin Will Not Run for Cleveland Mayor in 2021
City Councilman Blaine Griffin told a virtual crowd at a New Year’s celebration earlier this month that he would not be seeking the office of Cleveland mayor in the 2021 election.
If not an outright surprise, the announcement was certainly news. Griffin has long been considered a natural heir to incumbent Frank Jackson and has been on virtually every short list of prospective mayoral candidates published since Jackson won his unprecedented fourth term in 2017.
But Griffin confirmed his decision with Scene, saying he would instead be running to retain his council seat in Ward 6.
“Unless something dramatically changes, I am running for council,” he said. “I am signing up for another four years.”
Griffin was recently appointed by Council President Kevin Kelley as the chair of council’s Safety Committee, replacing outgoing councilman Matt Zone. And if Kelley runs for Mayor — as his colossal fundraising would seem to indicate — Griffin is the most likely successor as council president. Griffin is the current majority whip on council and is seen as something of a peacemaker by his colleagues.
Griffin told Scene that he “just want[s] to be a good public servant,” and believes that for now, he can
UPFRONT
best serve his constituents as the representative in Ward 6. That area includes the neighborhoods of University Circle, Little Italy, Fairfax and Larchmere, with portions of Buckeye-Shaker, Slavic Village and Union Miles. With the ongoing expansion of the Cleveland Clinic and residential development in University Circle, Griffin’s ward remains one of the hottest in Cleveland. He was appointed to his seat in 2017, completing the brief remainder of former councilwoman Mamie Mitchell’s term. A few months later, he won a full fouryear term of his own.
Griffin did not say his current decision was influenced by other candidates in the 2021 mayoral race, but he has no doubt cast his gaze upon the horizon and frowned:
The millennial nonprofit executive and hashtag hot shot Justin Bibb formally his campaign earlier Tuesday. Mayor Frank “There Is No Infrastructure” Jackson has given no public indication about his future, but may say to Hell with it, Feinsteinwise, and seek a fifth term to continue insulating his extended family from criminal prosecution. The unapologetic HB 6 co-sponsor Sandra Williams and Basheer Jones have both indicated their interest, and young outsiders with stylized names and flamboyantly irrelevant credentials seem only too eager to stir the pot, destined for votes in the 200-500 range on primary day. Zack Reed and a walk-in closet of very clean suits lurk in the wings. Kevin Kelley has a fortune at his disposal, but will need something like two billion dollars — ~$10,000 for every impoverished person in Cleveland, disbursed in cash — to rehab his villainous image. The aging thespian Dennis Kucinich has more clout and electoral panache than the rest of the field combined, save Jackson. And it’s only a matter of time before the former mayor, Congressman and presidential candidate enters the fray with tornadic force.
Griffin might’ve eyed that approaching storm and battened down his hatches. He knows he can ascend the council ladder via a much smoother electoral path. In any case, he told Scene he wanted to continue to “lace them up and give it all I’ve got” as a councilman.
He affirmed that in whatever elected position he holds, he will continue to love Cleveland and work hard. -Sam Allard
Downtown Resident Suing City After Being Arrested Picking up Groceries During Curfew
Mehdi Mollahasani, a downtown Cleveland resident of Middle Eastern descent, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Cleveland for his arrest on May 31, 2020 while attempting to get a grocery order during the city’s post-protest crackdown.
Following the demonstrations and violence during the May 30th George Floyd protest in Cleveland, Mayor Frank Jackson instituted a curfew for the downtown area to physically prevent demonstrators from gathering again.
The curfew zones and times were almost immediately criticized as over-broad overreactions for which the city provided little to no justification but nevertheless included militarized offices and vehicles as well as blocked highway exits and bridges.
Regardless, in accordance with the order, residents who lived downtown were asked to remain at home except for work purposes or to gather essential items.
Mollahasani says in his lawsuit that he did just that — leaving his residence on East 9th to retrieve an Instacart order from a delivery driver who had been stopped by cops outside the restricted downtown zone. Before making it four blocks, he was confronted by Cleveland police officers who “harassed him, and baselessly accused him of looting.”
Mollahasani hadn’t even attended the protest the previous day, let alone participated in any looting.
Despite showing proof of residency, and despite doing nothing more extraordinary than getting groceries and providing proof of the awaiting Instacart driver, police arrested him.
One said he “looked like” a looter.
“In spite of his compliance with every order of the officers, Cleveland Division of Police officers arrested him and caused him to be incarcerated in the Cuyahoga County Jail for days during the novel Coronavirus pandemic. He was later charged criminally and forced to defend himself in court. All charges against him were
dismissed,” Mollahasani’s lawyers at Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein said in a release.
His was far from the only arrest for violating the downtown curfew, which a U.S. District Court Judge ruled recently was problematic in general, saying simply being downtown after the curfew was not sufficient probable cause to arrest people.
That was, however, how cops interpreted it.
Notable among the other arrests was that of Anthony Body, a Bail Project employee, for violating curfew despite having his courtissued ID and traveling into downtown to do his job at the Justice Center.
About half of the 120 cases stemming from May 30 have been dropped to date. About 50 of those remaining involve curfew violations. Given the judge’s ruling, those will likely be dropped or result in fines.
“The defendant police officers abused their power in the most unconscionable way when they arrested Mehdi off the street and threw him into the notorious Cuyahoga County Jail for days for absolutely no reason,” said Sarah Gelsomino, partner at Friedman, Gilbert + Gerhardstein. “The City encouraged their police officers to sweep people off the streets and into the jail in order to prevent additional protest, and they did so without any concern for civilians, like Mehdi, who were living legally within the curfew zone. The City and the defendant officers must account for this blatantly unconstitutional and unreasonable behavior of their officers.” – Vince Grzegorek
At Council Hearing, Chief Williams Doubles Down on May 30th Lies
After testimony about the May 30th demonstrations from local activists Kareem Henton and Julian Khan at a Cleveland City Council Safety Committee meeting earlier this month, Police Chief Calvin Williams refuted the narrative that police had started the riots.
Williams said he’d heard this narrative repeatedly — though it had not been voiced by either Henton or Khan — and said it was simply not the case that police had ignited the violence outside the Cuyahoga County Justice Center. On the contrary, he said, officers had withstood a barrage of objects heaved by protesters, “bricks, frozen eggs, concrete, you name it,” for a full hour before Williams finally gave the order to disperse the crowd. At that point, officers began launching tear gas projectiles and an array of less-than-lethalmunitions.
“Trust starts with the truth,” he said, referring to the mistrust between the community and the police. “I can never let a lie stand.”
Seeing as Williams had broached the topic of truth and lies, Councilwoman Jenny Spencer took the opportunity to follow up. She informed Williams that many of her constituents in Ward 15 had lost trust in him specifically, due to his comments in the aftermath of May 30th’s unrest. She asked him to clarify his allegations, which had been later denied by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff, that protesters breached the Justice Center during the confrontation.
Williams said he stood by his statements. He directed council to page 13 of the after-action, which contained a summary of how Cleveland Police came by this information. He’d responded in a similar way when asked the same question by Scene last month, when the after action review was first released.
Spencer then asked Williams to confirm whether or not there actually had been a breach, but Williams dodged, saying again that the original information had come from an officer with the county sheriff’s department, not the city of Cleveland. And anyway, he’d never said that he physically saw protesters inside the justice center, he said, and the information had no correlation with officers’ response to protesters. (Nevertheless, at a press conference the night of May 30, Williams said that protesters had not only breached the justice center but were starting fires and attempting to free the prisoners. The origin of those incendiary embellishments remain unknown.)
Both Williams and Safety Director Karrie Howard said that the day’s events had been rigorously reviewed and that fault had to be accepted on both sides.
Spencer, meanwhile, continually sought comment from Henton and Khan, noting that the reason for the hearing was because the afteraction review had been written entirely from the police perspective. Councilwoman Jasmin Santana concurred, and thanked committee chair Blaine Griffin for hosting the conversation, asking that activists and organizers be given a regular seat at the table in Safety meetings in 2021.
Henton reframed comments by both Williams and Councilman Mike Polensek, who had been effusive in his praise of the police and who called the riots the “disgusting” work of “thugs and terrorists.” Henton said that regardless of where people came from to demonstrate — Cleveland, Lakewood, Solon or Pennsylvania — “people who are treated humanely aren’t coaxed into unrest.” He said that there were those present who were certainly eager to express their anger, but that their anger was a result of their humanity consistently being denied. He also said that when people blame others for unrest, it signified to him that they were avoiding personal responsibility.
Henton is the leader of Black Lives Matter Cleveland. He told Griffin that, unlike at other demonstrations in the past, no city officials had called or texted prior to May 30th about the day’s logistics. Only councilpeople Joe Jones and Jasmin Santana had been in contact. This was “kind of a surprise,” Henton said. -Sam Allard
Two Members of Self-Described Ohio Militia Charged with Participation in Capitol Riot
Two members of a self-indentified Ohio ‘militia’ have been arrested and charged by the Feds for their participation in the Capitol riot on Jan 6.
Jessica Watkins and Donovan Crowl, both of Champaign County, have been charged with entering a restricted building or grounds; violent entry or disorderly conduct; and obstruction of an official proceeding.
They are both duespaying members of the Oath Keepers, a “large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”
And they are both tied to the indictment of Thomas Caldwell, a Virginia man referred to by Watkins as their “commander” who the Feds allege conspired to plan the attack.
In one message quoted by the FBI in his indictment, someone wrote, “All members are in the tunnels under the capital. Seal them in turn on gas.”
In another message quoted by the Feds, Caldwell told Watkins, “We need to do this at the local level. Lets (sic) storm the capitol in Ohio. Tell me when!”
Watkins, who was arrested after returning to Ohio following a stay with Caldwell, was interviewed by the Ohio Capital Journal last week.
“To me, it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw until we started hearing glass smash. That’s when we knew things had gotten really bad,” she said, noting that, “I don’t want to call it a false flag, but it was some people hijacking what started off as a peaceful movement.”
“I didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t destroy anything. I didn’t wreck anything. If they want to charge me, that’s fine, but you’re welcome,” she said.
Charging documents cite the interview, evidence from videos and photographs, as well as posts made by Watkins on Parler, the recently de-platformed network favored by the right in which she wrote, ““Me before forcing
DIGIT WIDGET
$565 million
Total investment by the state of Ohio, the nonprofit economic development agency JobsOhio and the Cleveland Clinic to create a new socalled “innovation district” in Cleveland, centers on health care research.
$265 million
Amount of the total investment dedicated to a new building on the Clinic’s campus, which will literally be called the Global Center for Pathogen Research and Human Health.
$261.7 million
Philanthropic gift by the Lord Foundation to the Clinic in 2019, the largest single gift in the hospital system’s history.
$1 billion+
Estimated value of Cleveland Clinic property in Cleveland, on which it pays no property taxes.
clevescene.com
UPFRONT
entry into the Capitol Building. #stopthesteal2 #stormthecapitol #oathkeepers #ohiomilitia,” and, “Yeah. We stormed the Capitol today. Teargassed, the whole, 9. Pushed our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even. The news is lying (even Fox) about the Historical Events we created today.”
Crowl, another member of the militia and a former Marine, was charged with similar supporting evidence in addition to information from an interview he did with The New Yorker. He, “confirmed to the writer that he entered the Capitol, saying that he went to Washington, D.C., to ‘do security’ for’ “V.I.P.s’ whom he declined to name. Crowl also stated to the writer that his intentions had been peaceful, and that he had never been violent. At the same time, he admitted during this interview that he ‘expelled three fucking people’ whom he said had been injured. He further elaborated about ‘patriots [who] dragged this fucking maggot off the wall and started beating his ass.’”
The Ohio State Regular Militia was formed in 2019 by Watkins and has appeared at various protests in Ohio. -Vince Grzegorek
Class Action Suit Targeting Cleveland Clinic’s Billing Practices Gets Big Victory
A Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Thursday denied the Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s motion to dismiss a potential class-action lawsuit targeting the hospital’s billing practices.
Judge John P. O’Donnell ruled that the suit may go forward, and that the arguments advanced by the Clinic’s legal team — basically, that certain Ohio consumer protection laws don’t apply to the Clinic because of exemptions for transactions between physicians and patients — were faulty or unconvincing.
Daniel Myers, attorney for plaintiff Amanda van Brakle, told Scene he was glad the case can move toward a trial.
“Since this case started, more people have come forward with issues, and we’ve filed additional cases against other hospitals engaged in similar conduct,” he wrote in an email. “If the case is ultimately successful, we look forward to hopefully getting hospitals to be transparent with pricing upfront, preventing many surprise medical bills, and requiring accurate medical billing for patients of Ohio hospitals.”
The suit emerged after van Brakle underwent a radiology exam at a Lakewood Cleveland Clinic office in 2018. She was never provided an estimate for the procedure, and the partial payments that she submitted over time were not regularly and coherently applied to her balance. An initial lawsuit filed in October sought up to $5 million in damages and alleged that the Clinic’s unfair billing practices created confusion, caused undue stress and resulted in the financial ruin of many patients.
The Clinic argued in its motion to dismiss that unlike goods and services which have a known price, the medical services it provided were dependent on a specific patient’s needs, whether or not that patient had insurance, and the specific terms of the insurance plan.
But Judge O’Donnell refuted that line of argument. He ruled that radiology and imaging services, which are outpatient procedures and, at least in Van Brakle’s case, were not administered by a physician, are “the very definition of a routine test.” There was nothing preventing the Clinic from knowing the procedure’s approximate cost and furnishing a written or oral estimate up front, regardless of van Brakle’s insurance status.
O’Donnell also agreed with county precedent in ruling that even though physicians are exempt from the Consumer Sales Practices Act, the hospitals they work for are not. -Sam Allard
TownHall and Scene Agree to Settlement of Lawsuit
We are pleased to report that Scene and TownHall have finally settled their legal dispute related to Scene’s inaccurate report regarding the race and gender of the subject of a social media post made by a TownHall manager last May. Scene has admitted that its report was inaccurate, and sincerely apologizes for the error. Regarding the settlement, TownHall owner Robert George stated, “I will always stand up for my patrons and employees when faced with false and misleading allegations.”
scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene
