Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

It really looks like Nate Livingston has gone off the deep end this time.  His website, which was once an interesting source of political viewpoints, has now become a sounding board for the sad details of his personal life.  So to use a phrase once coined by Livingston himself, let’s take a look at what happens “As The Black World Turns.”

At first, it seemed there may have been a political layer to his story—specifically in the allegation that Legal Aid was helping his ex, Amanda Mayes, in a custody battle because he says Tyrone Yates called in a favor.  In this post, Nate wrote:

If you read this blog, you know that some people, including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, have called on Marc Dann to resign from his position as Ohio Attorney General. They say he has acted unethically. Well, would it be ethical for a member of the state legislature to vote to give money to an organization, then call that organization and tell them to spend money on his lover?

In another post, Livingston seems to have acquired a series of emails between his ex and one time Cincinnati Black Blog contributor Monica Williams.  In these posts, the story turns from having a political edge into a weird story of conspiracies.  Here is an excerpt Nate alleges came from an email between Amanda Mayes and Monica Williams:

This is what I’ve come up with. Let me know what you think. I’ve told him it’s OK for him to pick her up this Friday. In the meantime, I’m going to find out how he’s going to do this. (Remember he doesn’t have a license). Once I have all the information (will he be renting or barrowing a car and what kind of car is it), I’m going to call the MI and OH State Police telling them to be on the alert for the car as it is being driven by a man without a license. My hope is obviously that he’ll get pulled over and never make it to MI. That will leave him all messed up. I just run a tremendous risk if he finds out that I dropped a dime on him. If it doesn’t work and he makes it to MI, I’ll just refuse to let Bebe go alone. I’ll go with her. If he wants to trip about that, I won’t let him take her at all. Either way, I’ve bought myself an extra week. Hopefully he winds up somewhere near Lima with the car impounded and a huge fine - not to mention no chance of getting his lisence renewed.

Think it’ll work?

For a moment, Livingston stepped back into the world of politics, trying to establish a case for overall relevance.  At this point, though, one must wonder if he is just grasping at straws, or whether there is any kind of a point lurking beneath the details of his personal tragedy:

Just like many other dirty politicians (even those we like or used to like), Tyrone Yates should have never used his office and influence to get Legal Aid to give Amanda Mayes THREE lawyers. Why? Because Yates has voted to give Legal Aid millions of tax dollars. The first rule of public service is you don’t take government money and give it, directly or indirectly, to your family members or girlfriends.

The fact that Tyrone Yates is gay is only relevant in that it helps explain why he would risk his political career to help Amanda Mayes. You see, this isn’t just about a romantic relationship between two people, this is about a promise Tyrone Yates and Amanda Mayes made to each other: that they’d never reveal that they both have had sex with people of the same sex. Tyrone Yates has had sex with another man; and Amanda Mayes has had sex with numerous women. Had Tyrone Yates not stepped in and helped Amanda Mayes get help from Legal Aid, he risked her going public and telling his secret.

Tyrone Yates isn’t just any old State Representative. He is president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and chairman of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. He is a prominent supporter of presidential candidate Barack Obama, a man who promises to be a government reformer and corruption buster. He is close to Governor Ted Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann. And lets face it, anyone and everyone who knows Tyrone Yates knows that he is getting older but he is still ambitious. If what I’m saying is true, and it is, how long can Obama, Strickland, and Dann stand with Yates?

The problem is that Nate does not keep his efforts focused on accusations that may have a public implication.  Whether or not Livingston’s claims about Yates have any credibility, that kind of writing at least resides in a political realm—which has typically been the function of his blog.  But in his latest series, he’s including things like this:

Oh, want to know what happened to Amanda Mayes’s dwarf rabbit “Spongy”? While Amanda Mayes lived in her apartment on Martin Luther King Drive, her lesbian lover Janice took care of Spongy. If Janice didn’t clean the cage, it didn’t get cleaned. So, when Amanda Mayes moved from Clifton to Over The Rhine, she simply let this poor little rabbit, who’d always lived in a cage, loose into the woods behind her home, where it was sure to die.

If nothing else, the newest developments at the Cincinnati Black Blog show that hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned.

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.