So I’ve watched 5 of the 6 episodes of Drew Carey’s right wing funded Republican hit piece on the city of Cleveland, which he used to call his hometown.  Drew Carey should be ashamed of himself for attaching his name to a blatantly partisan defecation on Cleveland.

Presenter Nick Gillespie, a known tool of the hard right, takes shot after shot at Cleveland, setting up his interviewees to play the role of locals who hate the place.  Paulius Nasvytis, owner of the Velvet Tango Room, and a big supporter of my campaign, makes an appearance as a business owner complaining about red tape, and is thus portrayed as the symbol of all that is wrong in the city, must deregulate all!  Clever.  I’m sure Paulius liked the exposure, not so sure about the portrayal.

My own councilman Joe Cimperman gets stereotyped as a greasy politician who had to grease the skids for a business, as if Cleveland is the single place on the entire planet where zoning exists.  When Cimperman asked Gillespie which businesses claim Cleveland sucks for business, Gillespie could not put a single business owner on camera to complain about the business climate of the city.  Not one, implying they are all afraid of the big bad union thugs.

Then there’s Michael DeAloia, self proclaimed Tech Czar, whose claim to fame since leaving city government after Jane Campbell got tossed as mayor is to attempt one social media guru jujitsu after another, talking more deregulation.  Not sure if Michael knew he’d be played as a champion of total deregulation, but hey, maybe they paid him.  Thomas Mulready of Cool Cleveland makes an appearance, proving yet again that no one, NO ONE does self promotion better, even if it means being a sockpuppet for, you guessed it, total deregulation of business.

Then we have the parade of known partisan hacks from the knuckle dragging, reality challenged hard right (which is of course why Matt Naugle, the flag bearer of the hard right mutant alien dementia infested Ohio blogosphere, has embedded every episode), bashing labor unions of all stripes, advocating Ann Rand’s utopia for a place none of them grew up in.  Jonathan Adler of Case Law School, a National Review blogger, Federalist Society purist asshat, makes one appearance after another to pimp deregulation of every single thing in sight.  Kevin O’Brien, last seen genuflecting to George W. Bush’s every utterance and the PD’s resident neanderthal birther global warming denier, does the same.

That’s before you get to the …um….”facts”.  Gillespie makes a special case out of privatizing city-owned golf courses (?!?!), singling out  2 of the only golf courses in all of Northeast Ohio with largely African American customers – Highland and Seneca, both of which I’ve played often, and both of which are perfectly fine courses – then leaves out Big Met, the most played golf course in the entire state, run by the Cleveland Metroparks, which is run by the State of Ohio and Cuyahoga County, and which is widely considered one of the top public courses in Ohio.  Clever again.

Gillespie points to an example of privatizing parking lots in Chicago, without once mentioning just how big a stranglehold private parking lot owners currently have on Cleveland, to the point of directing placement of “No Parking” signs along vast swaths of empty curbland surrounding their property downtown, for no reason other than to force cars into their lots to take their money.

But what really ought to make Drew Carey ashamed is that not one second of these five episodes is devoted to the most calamitous effect deregulation has had on Cleveland in the last decade – foreclosures.  Not one step into Slavic Village, the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis in the entire country, all brought on by deregulation of the mortgage industry.  The vast nuclear winter we live with in Cleveland caused by the very deregulation this series trumpets somehow eludes the microscopic gaze of Reason.TV, Drew Carey, and his funders who are always, always the first in line for the very handouts they claim to be advocating against.

I’d wait for the 6th and last episode of this total farce, but I’m betting we’ve seen what we need to see.  Drew Carey – you’re a disgrace to Cleveland.  How dare you claim to “Save Cleveland” without once addressing the wreckage right before your eyes.  You should apologize to this city.

Tags: drew carey, drew carey saves cleveland, reason saves cleveland, reason.tv saves cleveland

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