Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Five O five fifty five KRC the talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
The two series some six.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hopefully will a vacation, no idea, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Thanks for summing it up for the world there tally
appreciate it. Thank you Joe Checker for the SoundBite and
producing the program of lining up great guests today. Brian
Thomas right here, glad to be and always uh interested
in welcome phone calls here in the fifty five KRSE
Morning Show. Somebody you want to talk about like the
deafening silence from since a council members an executive session yesterday,
Feel free five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifty five hundred,
(00:54):
eight hundred and eighty two to three talk Pound five
fifty on at and t fum. Of course, going to
get to that topic today, especially since Christopher Smithmen returns
at six thirty to assess wonder what happened behind closed
doors yesterday. Charlie Luken precedes Christopher. Charlie's going to join
the program at six so five, former mayor of the
City of Cincinnati and of course former board member on
the Railroad board who really pushed for the sale of
(01:15):
the railroad, says there's a lot of money coming in
a whole lot more than they anticipated. Sitting on eighty
five million or so dollars, why have they only spent
five percent of it? Charlie critical He came out speaking
with The Inquirer, and there was an article posted upon
that or about that about his well dismay over the
lack of money flowing out and actually getting projects started.
(01:37):
The city, for its part, claims that the money has
been allocated, it't just hasn't been spent. So I talked
to Charlie after the show yesterday recorded that and we'll
run that interview at six zh five again, followed by
Christopher Smithman at six thirty. Greg Hand Greg Han, he's
the local historian. Interesting guy, proprietor of the Cincinnati Curiosities blog,
(01:58):
retired from the UC as the head of public Relations office.
Prior to that, he was editor of the Washington Western
Hills Press. West said, in addition to the blog, he
contributes regularly to Cincinnati Magazine and presents entertaining history chats
in bars through a program called Stand Up History. Also
author of the Cincinnti Curiosities published by the History Press.
(02:20):
We've got a lot of parallels to apparently draw between
Cincinnati in twenty twenty six and nineteen twenty six, How
on the how do you link those two up? Well,
apparently that was the year that we had a massive
change in government, moving away from the Boss Cox era.
The obviously political machine that Boss Cox was had a
reform party elected. I thought it was kind of funny
(02:42):
get this quote, nineteen nineteen twenty six, the highways of
the city were in a deplorable condition. This is at
the start of the new wave of political control in
the city. The highways of the city were in a
deplorable condition and cried allowed for repairs. Lack of care
and funds to repair such conditions had not been forthcoming
(03:04):
management and the allotment of funds for specific repairs needed
readjusting before order could come out of chaotic conditions. Yeah, said,
it's a slight parallel what's going on. I also mentioned
the streetcar in the public transportation system, So apparently there
is a lot to compare between the city then and now.
So Greg is going to take on that in the studio.
Should be funny and informative. Got a couple of events
(03:27):
coming up we'll talk about with Greg as well. The
return out of Tom Zawastowski. We heard from him last
week and hear from him this week. We the People
Convention dot orgs's website. We got some state topics to
talk about Ohio and Minnesota. Smalley Daycare fraud link. Youet
a lot of fraud out there and sadly enough, on
that note, frightening amounts. On Sunday, judgry Segary Scott Assent
(03:52):
revealed the bad information for fraud, waste and abuse totals
three hundred to six hundred billion dollars a year based
on Government Accountability Office the mints of fraud losses, which
equal about ten percent of the federal budget. GAO figures,
it's up to six hundred billion dollars a year lost
(04:13):
to fraud, waste and abuse. So we can get rid
of this fraud wasted abuse. We can finance a safer,
sounder the United States without taking on more debt. Yeah,
and to Jay out there, it was last week, I guess.
In the wake of what's going on in Minnesota and
the allegations of comparable fraud wasted abuse in the state
of Ohio, state Aunitor Keith Faber announced a new section
(04:36):
of the auditor's website that allows you members of the
public to report tips about potential fraud involving public benefits.
Favor in his statement last week's we want to make
sure that the public resources that are supposed to be
helping the most valuable among us are not lining up
the pockets of crooks. We welcome anyone with evidence of
crime that involves public funds that contact us. We take
(04:57):
these allegations very seriously, scrutinize any evidence of wrongdoing, hold
people accountable for their actions. Are you a member of
government so you could call Signal ninety nine or report
the shenanigans there, or if it evolves fraud, wasting, abuse,
let Favor know through the website. M Josh Williams, Republican
(05:19):
State rep. Said, it have been multiple reports of fraud
and publicly funded childcare programs. We also have that whole
pesky medicaid the fraud thing going on in the state
of Ohio, so let's try to get on top of that.
At least Favor is aware of it. We've got roped
into the Minnesota allegations and given the Ascent comment that
ten percent of everything's being stolen, I imagine this is
(05:39):
a problem that exists throughout the United States of America.
I know the Trump administration is expanding efforts to investigate
all this. How many federal investigators do we have and
how much fraud, waste and abuses out there? The key
to the problem. We spend too much money in the
federal government, so much so that it's impossible to keep
track of it. If you kept track of it before
it goes out the door. Here's a thought, you have
(06:03):
really tight controls before it goes out the door. You
don't need to recreate an evidentiary chain to show how
what ultimately went out the door ended up lining the
pockets of people who engaged in fraud. Just a thought,
little extra effort upfront saves people a lot of money
down the road. So what do we got there? That's
Tom's alis dawsk He'll also comment on BVIC for governor
(06:24):
and his running mate. For those who didn't listen, yesterday,
vive Ramaswamy joined the fifty five Case Mornings show. You
can find that podcast at fifty five care Sea dot com.
Inside Scoop it is Tuesday. Get the Inside Scoop at
Bright Barton News every Tuesday at eight oh five. The
return today at John Carney, we talked about the price
of gas and oil. Is the economy booming? Rhetorical question?
(06:46):
According to a tweet by Trump yesterday, welcome to reality.
Gas price continue to plumb a nationwide. Now forty three
US dates feature average gas prices under three dollars a gallon. Huh, Well,
that's good news, isn't it. There are a few states
that don't have low gas prices, and yes, all but
(07:09):
one is run by Democrats Alaska, I guess and oh
I'm sorry too. Alaska and Nevada are the only ones
run by Republican governor. The balance of the high gas
price states California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So that topic with John Carney again eight h five,
followed by the Daniel Davis Deep dive, get the latest
from the Iran situation Venezuela and apparently Russia Baum Ukraine
the other day with what was described as a hypersonic weapon.
And then finally, Dusty Roads returns former Ammon County Auto
Dusty Roads, how do property taxes work? And Cann's schools,
(07:47):
zoos and first responders survive without them? M you know,
it's an interesting reality. We got this big year for
the election. A lot of people concerned about property taxes.
Talked to Zach Haynes the other day running for Senate
among other candidates, what do you do about property taxes?
(08:09):
Something needs to be done, and it's got to be
done this year because you remember, there's that ballot initiative
out there which is seeking to, you know, by virtue
of a constitutional amendment outlaw the collection of property taxes
in the state. And I know you know that I
always end up chuckling behind my comments when I say
that out loud because of the Charlie foxtrot that's going
to result if property taxes are eliminated by virtue of
(08:31):
a ballot initiative. Columbus is not prepared to deal with
that challenge. We've got all this time, you know, kind
of going back to the Republicans in Congress not doing
anything to provide a better alternative to Obamacare for the
last several years. Then we run up to this deadline
where subsidies are going to be extended, COVID era subsidies,
(08:51):
making the Democrats very happy, but they need to take
the whim out of the sales of the Democrats what
seems to be only argument as we approach November, which
is the increasing cost of all Obamacare, brought about by
of course, the cost of medical care generally speaking. Now,
the Republicans could have just attacked that over the past
several years, come up with some good ideas that we
could all embrace. Maybe the problem go away. But no,
(09:12):
a lot of wheel spinning going on. So it's a constant.
It's a common phenomenon that spreads across, of course, federal
government and state government. Heel dragging. So property tax is
a huge issue as we move into November. What's Dusty
say about it? Dusty joins the program at eight forty
five to talk about the course tomorrow. Jack Addan and
Judg Jennen of Politano five worn three, seven four nine fifty,
(09:34):
five hundred, eight hundred and eight to two three talk
found five fifty on at and T phones. Yeah, what
did they talk about yesterday? Oh my god, behind closed
doors yesterday went to executive Council. They didn't have to
go to executive session the since a council members. This
of course regarding the Hinton family proposed settlement which broke
over the week, and of course the topic of conversation
last week with Ken Cober signaled ninety nine and of
(09:57):
course widely reported in the Enchoirir. We even had some
comments from councilman Jeff Cameronon and Seth Walsh, like, what
in the hell are you talking about? There's a settlement
discussion going on. I'm appalled and I'm shocked to find
gambling going on in here. No lawsuit filed by the
Hitton family. Why would they be discussing settlement? Apparently it's
been going on since last year. A court of the
Hinton family attorney mister Fannin, who said they've been discussing
(10:21):
stuff since last summer, so what do they.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Do about it?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
They met behind closed doors a couple of hours worth.
What was discussed Scott Wartman's quote from the inquire what
was discussed in a more than two hour long executive
session since any council members wouldn't say, filing past reporters
and refusing to talk h Of course we heard from
(10:52):
the comments last week's city manager to share along said
that they haven't reached a settlement agreement. Family attorney seem
to be outraged over the suggestion that some million dollars
settlement was being discussed. That's news to me. That would
be really a He would be really excited if that
was actually the figures being discussed. Maybe it's something less
than a million dollars, which is the only thing he
(11:13):
hung us out on in an effort to deflate that
this is actually going on, Ken Cober, FOP President, Why
would you do this in executive session? Does the public
not have the right to know how their tax dollars
being spent? Great rhetorical question there, Ken, Yes, we do.
Spokeswoman for the city manager, what do you think? She said?
(11:36):
Decline comment. City manager hasn't released any information beyond the
statement regarding the negotiations with the Hitting family, which isn't basically, yeah,
we're in negotiations, but we're not telling you anything. Why
no comment? Why can't we know? Do they want to
put the seal on the deal and get everything squared
(11:57):
away before you and I get any information?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Is that fair? Is that right?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
For what I learned the other day, sounds to me
like the city solicitor reporting of the city manager. Solicitors
got the power and authority to settle these matters on
their own. So council apparently not even going to get
a word in terms of whether they approve of it
or not. Will any of them go on record keep
(12:28):
your popcorn out? Odds are No. Five seventeen Right now,
I fifty five k see de talk station Feelford to
give me a call me right back after these brief.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Words WKRC censor.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
She always plans on and hopes to, as does our
dog Liam, to take the dog out in the morning,
because she gets up early and we'll take the dog
to the park. And she's got a degree cut off.
If it's colder than then she will not go out.
And guess what nineteen degrees is colder than. Poor Liam
can always tell what he hasn't gone out. When I
(13:05):
get home in the morning, he's got a lot more
spring at his step. I come home when he's spent
out for the morning run, he's curled up into all
sound asleep anyway. Five one, three, seven, four, nine fifty
five eighty eight two three talk is Trump's bluff been
called in so far as Iran is concerned. And now
this past Friday, after he met with the oil executives,
he was talking about the Iranian leadership and threatening him
not to kill a protest or, saying I made a
(13:26):
statement that very very strongly that if they start killing
people like they have in the past, we will get involved.
We will be hitting them very hard and where it hurts.
And that doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it
means hitting them very very hard where it hurts. There
have been similar comments about that. I tell the Iranian leaders,
you better not start shooting, because we'll start shooting too.
And that's another statement later that he made. So we've
(13:48):
had these and now we're up to maybe six hundred
deaths widely reported somewhere between six hundred and two thousand,
depending on who you're listening to. That's the death toll
against the Iranian protesters. The Iranians said there's starting to
put a lid and crack down on them. I'm not
quite sure. They cut off the internet access, which makes
getting information out of iron extraordinarily difficult. But what of
(14:10):
this military action extremely complicated, you know, you could look
into give a serious potential for escalating into a full
blown conflict. They are a much larger nation, better equipped militarily,
I guess than say something like Venezuela. They've threatened to
shoot at military bases in the Middle East, if we
launch an attack. They've threatened Israel, of course they have.
(14:32):
So it looks like we're getting ready to get in
a shooting a shooting war. If Trump makes good on
his yet, we are going to react and respond militarily.
A lot of questions been swirling around that, like, for example,
Ran Paul, who's against the idea of this, saying, listen,
we can't support and ensure freedom every country around the world.
But he asked this rhetorical question, how do you drop
a bomb in the middle of a crowd or a
(14:52):
protest and protect the people there. Yeah, militarily speaking, it
could compound matters. So Trump just yet yesterday decided he
was going to slap a twenty five percent tariff on
any country doing business with Iran, kind of sending some
warning signals because that would include China, compounding and complicating
(15:13):
international matters. So further endeavoring to undermine Iranian's economy, which
is the reason that people are protesting in the streets.
Regime change in this particular case, if it comes about,
is going to be a consequence of their currency being
well watered it down to the point of valuelessness. Of course,
the tariffs that have already been placed in the country,
are causing some serious economic challenges for them, and the
(15:35):
people are obviously upset about it, even burning down mosques.
But insofar as tarifts are concerned, Trump said the obvious
the other day talking about the Supreme Court, which is
reviewing whether or not he has the power to impose
reciprocal tariffs on these various countries, saying, if the Supreme
Court rules against the United States of America on this
(15:56):
national security of bonanza, we are screwed. All caps, We're screwed,
saying the actual numbers we would have to pay back
if for any reason the Supreme Court would rule against
the United States of America on tariffs would be many
hundreds of billions of dollars. And that doesn't include the
amount of payback that countries and companies would require for
(16:18):
the investments they're planning on building plants, factories, equipment for
the purposes of being able to avoid payment of the tariffs. Now,
that's one decent point he made. Now say what you
want about the tariffs legal illegal. He used them to
encourage investment in the United States of America, and with
really good result. We've got foreign countries promising billions and
billions of investments. Why to get out of the tariffs.
(16:40):
That's a negotiated resolution, and I would say a fairly
positive one. If we're going to get billions of investment
from foreign countries, that's jobs and investment in the United
States of America, which in yours, of course, stating the
obvious to our financial benefit, pull the tariffs. You've pulled
the negotiated agreement. That would undo a lot of enthusiasm
(17:01):
and a lot of positivity that has been brought about
as a consequence of the tariff. So kind of sitting
on the edge here waiting for the Supreme Court. But
you know you cannot deny again, going back to whether
or not they're legal. If they are deemed illegal, it
is going to be outrageous to undo it, crazy, outrageous.
Five twenty six fifty five kr C the talk station.
(17:23):
Feel free to call out local stories coming up and.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I'll be right back fifty five KRC.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
The fun called post ce.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Monday, thirty two degrees right now here at fifty five
kr CEED Talk Station Happy Tuesday five on three seven
four nine fifty five hundred eight hy two three talk
goes Ton five fifty on at and T phones fifty
five kr see dot cow mentioned Senate candidates for the
seventh seat seventh district here in Ohio. Zach Haynes joined
the program yesterday. You can find that podcast fifty five
(17:52):
car se dot com Monday Monday with Brian James on
thinking about your retirement in the new year. VvE ak
Ramaswami for Ohio Governor and the Smooth Event Episode one
twenty Settlement negotiations and public accountability, which we will talk
about him today coming up at six thirty after the
closed door session from Sincee City Council with none of
the Council's, the city manager, aftab Purvle, or anyone uttering
(18:14):
a syllable about what happened during that meeting involving the
Henny Settlement or the Hinton settlement negotiations over the phone.
See what Tom's got this morning, Tom, Happy Tuesday, Thanks
for calling.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Hey, good morning, and start off with some congratulations. My
granddaughter had her first child last night, so I am
now officially a great grandfather.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Graduation and that's a milestone. I'm still waiting for news
that I'm going to be a grandfather.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, You're going to love it.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I know I'm going to I know, I'm yeah, it'll
give me something to do in retirement.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yeah, I've always said if I've always said, if I
knew how much drains ungrain edds were, I would have
had them first. So but it just doesn't work out
that way.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
So you know that kids are like boats. You know,
the best boat is your friend's boat because you get
to use it, but then you don't have to take
care of it the expense of it. Grandchildren, that's best
babies to have around, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Here take them back.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Oh yeah, I'm just here for fun. And and you know,
the dynamic. I was talking to my mother in law
the other day about the dynamic of you know, when
you're when you're the parent, you're paring and young children
and you got grandparents around. There's always that pension and
you know, keep in mind, these are my kids, not yours,
(19:40):
you know, and you know, and and there's always that
back and forth stuff. And then now I get to
I get to experience it from the other side that
I'm the grandparent and I've got to reassure I I
got we got one of our kids and his wife
and their little daughter living with us. So anyway, So
it's it's definitely, it's definitely awesome worth whatever trouble we
(20:01):
have to go through. Grant kids are great so and
kids are great too. Anyway, just real quick, you're talking
about accountability, and we keep bringing this up and talking
about this as the elections come up. We need to
be looking for people who are, like you said, not
only willing to put accountability measures in to begin with,
(20:22):
but are willing to put their foot down and say no,
you cross the line and something has to be done
about it. I don't think if you've grouped all those
people together, I don't think go find a Democrat in
the bunch of them. So as always, folks don't vote Democrat.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Have a great day, Brian, you too, Tom, and congratulations
again five.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Two to three talk.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yes, the case got continued again the trial for Alexander Travinsky,
the slap guy in the Major beatdown last July. The
viral video which captured him issuing a slap but doesn't
didn't fail. The original video didn't show everything that led
up to it. Yesterday, since a City Press Jennifer Bishop
asked for a continuance, the second one for the case.
(21:03):
The first one asked for by Trevinsky, because they added
two witnesses to the list, and I guess that kind
of kicked the trial back a little bit. But this
time the witness described as a key witness not present,
didn't show up a trial, claiming he feared for his safety.
Prosecutor Bishop said misinformation in the media portrayed the witness
as an FBI informant. Going back to last month the
(21:23):
trial was supposed to start, Travinsky's lawyer, Douglas Brandon said
the FBI and informant was included on a witness list.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Brandon later said he never claimed the man in question
was an informant, only that it appears and informant was
present at the brawl, and that the prosecution wouldn't reveal
the identity of the informant. So yesterday Judge Dante Johnson
granted the continuous till on January twelfth, saying it was
the last one, so if the witness doesn't show up
and the next one, they're going to dismiss the case. Apparently,
(21:52):
Brandon said his client wants to trial. Travinsky charged with
get a load of this, How much effort and how
many prosecutor how much proscatorial expense when into this and
ask yourself this question, is anybody other than this white
guy who was involved in the brawl with multiple black people?
Some say it's a racially charged incident. I suppose that's
going to come out in trial. He'd been charged with
disorderly conduct, which carries the sentence of up to thirty
(22:14):
days in jail on a two undred and fifty dollars fine.
Now the revolving jar of door of Hamilton County Justice.
Anybody else think that a disorderly conduct charge with a
twhudred and fifty dollars fine would would see the light
of day in trial.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Now, you may recall right.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
After the incident, the local black leaders were calling for
Travinsky and any other white people involved in to face
similar charges as the defendants who've been charged that are black.
They face felony charges giving the horrific beatdown they issued.
Most notably, recall the video of Holly getting punched in
the face and Cole cocked down and knocked out. Police
(22:55):
union since I polase union claiming the charges against Stravinsky
unwarned and prompted by police motivated orders from the city,
we heard this swirling around at the time, they didn't
want to issue a citation. The officers on the scene,
there was no crime that head that had been committed,
and ultimately it was assumed or it suggested that interim
police Chief Henny was told I believe he was lieutenant
at the time, told to issue a citation. That's why
(23:18):
he's going to be testifying for the defense at the trial,
mister Travinsky, along with the detectives, they are defense witnesses
in this. If you wonder why the waitis didn't show up,
it may be more that the case is falling apart
and they've got nothing that we can say. They're there,
and since it's collapsing, it's better that the witness doesn't
(23:41):
show up and they can say, well, the witness didn't
show up. Ergo, we can't move forward with trial lacking
sufficient sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's just a thought.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Five point thirty six with the five KRC the talk
station oklway stack a stupid coming up or or calls
de talk station, thank you, Chuck. It's five forty on
a Tuesday. Unless you factor in the two and a
half hour delay, we've got here. In which case, what
(24:13):
what time is it after the delay?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Joe? Is it like six fifteen or something?
Speaker 4 (24:21):
It's next to Wednesday of the delay, So if I
hit the dumb button, it's not gonna come back. Okay,
lose the entire weeks worth of programming. Oh anyway, Fortunately
I only had to use that one time personally for
my career twentieth year in radio one time.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Anyway.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Over the local stories are rather stacked of stupid. The Phoenix,
Arizona for this one, got a Way Mo self driving car.
Dave Hatter said he never in a self driving car,
or at least one of those autonomous taxis a lot
of good reasons for that. I'm with Dave on that.
Waimo's self driving car is seen going down to Phoenix
light rail tracks this week, forcing a passioner to flee
(24:58):
the vehicle before it continued along the tracks near an
oncoming train. What video taking my bystander shows the moment
of the self driving car stops on the tracks just
before an oncoming light rail approaches. Passenger runs out of
the vehicle before the car continues. What he going down
the tracks near another train? Andrew Maynard the emergency transformative
(25:23):
technology professor at Arizona State University had this to say,
I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It
obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a
difficult place.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh so.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Cars now have a sense of awareness in need of
empathy and sympathy said, while these situations are rare, they
do happen. Thank you Maynard for acknowledging that this is
exactly one of those edge cases we call them something
unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than
a person. Famos described as equipped with twenty nine camera
(26:00):
So the root systems updated weekly. Yet in the area
where the incident happened, there was construction. The light rail
was added to the spot within the last year, which
Professor Maynard said could have contributed to the rail track
to detour, saying, I think WEYMO has no idea exactly.
(26:20):
My car's map system hasn't been updated since I bought it.
It's a twenty twenty one and you know it's German.
So if I have to pay for the map upgrade,
I don't know. I have to get a second mortgage
on my house. Yeah, it has no idea like the
rerouting into like route thirty two where they did all
that road construction. Yeah, my car has no club anyway,
(26:41):
I think let's see ices. I think WAYMO is a
challenge because no matter what they do with their system,
there are always going to be unexpected circumstances where they
have to learn from them.
Speaker 7 (26:50):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
In other words, your car has to get hit by
a train, and WEYMO will learn from that and then
make sure nobody else gets hit by a train. Maynard
professors said these cars in many circumstances are safer than
human drivers because they don't have distractions like human drivers does. Yeah,
they don't take drugs either. But light rail operation staff
(27:13):
responded to the scene. WAIMA was contacted to minimi service
impacts northbound southbound trains exchange passengers before resubversing direction to
continue service. That from the Valley metros Bergs person. Fortunately
no one harmed and no significant delays came from that. Yeah,
coming to street car near you, Joe.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yesterday.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
We keep installing speed bumps. I don't know if you
saw it. I think it was in Detroit. They had
video on local news from an incident, But was it Boston? Yeah,
that was the one. You saw it? Some idiot going
seventy miles an hour down a residential street that had
speed bumps. But it hits a speed bump and of
course just loses all control over the vehicle. It ends
(27:57):
up doing just tons of property damage. A guy got
even it was thrown out of the car, got out
of the car and he stood there looking at the
state of disbelief. Yeah, all right, and then he pulled
his pants up, of course, because his pants got pulled
that as a consequence of the of the of the
stupidity he engaged in. But yeah, you can put the
speed bumps in. That doesn't believe, That doesn't mean, as
(28:18):
the professor pointed out, that the drivers are going to
be safe. Five fifty Speaking of drivers, it's five fifty
here fifty five K see talk station Tuesday. After the
(28:40):
top of the iron is Charlie lucan former mayor and
a Southern Railway board member. He's not on the board anymore,
but he was an advocate for so on the railroad.
He's not an advocate for how the money is well
not being spent. Says they've insufficiently spent the money, only
five percent of the total money collected. Why is that
Charlie looking after the top of the iron is Christopher
Smithman is going to chine in on the behind the
(29:03):
closed doors Rodney Hinton's settlement discussion. They had an executive council,
which means we don't know anything, and of course, with
the council members refusing to speak with media, we don't
know anything. City manager share along not re speaking with media,
nor would her spokesperson. We don't know anything. Why don't
we know anything? So we'll get a smith event. Chapter
two coming up with six thirty lots of guests following
(29:25):
that as well five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifty five,
eight hundred eight two to three talk gay scratching my
head over that this is even a thing or a story.
Trust me, I'm a parent. My son happens to be
thirty one years old. But yes, a long long time ago,
when he was a tiny todd he did collect Pokemon cards,
much to my chagrin. I don't understand it. I never did.
(29:48):
Over forty thousand dollars where the Pokemon cards stolen from
the Mogu Games This and Everett Washington. The owner Michael Duran,
reported that the thief used an axe to smash the
window and take off with all these trading cards, which
the article describes as valuable. I suppose beauty is in
the eye of the beholder value. Thank you Joe us
(30:12):
reading my mind on that one. That's why I started
off by acknowledging that, yes, my son at one point
collected Pokemon cards. That's exactly how I felt about them
at the time. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Security footage captured the subject stealing the items, and why
are you doing that?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Well, here's the reason, Because somewhere in the world someone
has valued a single card at over four thousand dollars
one one piece of plastic.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
They are You're right, they are cardboard. You know, you
should get in touch with our friend of the Sinsinni
type in print museum to see if they could actually
duplicate these cards, create fake ones.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Paper breaking is one of several incidents apparently this guy's
store has experienced. Popular store it is. He said, We've
been broken into four times, We've been arm robbed once,
multiple snatching grabs worth thousands of dollars worth of product.
Frustrated at the lack of accountability for the committing crimes.
He also pointed out that all the local businesses in
(31:20):
the area are considering leaving, that this is no Homish county,
he said, I mean, there is a reason why businesses
are moving out of snow Hoomish County, Washington. Just I'm
here every day and now it feels like I'm targeted.
So mister Duran also considering rolling up the carpet after his.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Lease is up.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
I don't want to, but at some point this town
becomes very non business friendly. Yeah, when crime runs amok?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
All right?
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Not familiar with the group, Joe, you're a fan of
Australian rock duo Bootleg Rascal. You got all of them,
don't you? Every one of the eight tracks? Anyway, they
apparently started their Reasons tour Brisbane, Australia celebrations apparently described
as taking a turn. What a marriage proposal didn't go
(32:12):
quite as plan video shared by the band. This is
like the kiss cam video, which the band described as
p d a gone wrong. Man scene standing on stage
with a microphone addressing the crowd. My partner and I
came to watch Bootleg Rascal about two three years ago,
he said. Then he called out Jamie where are you?
(32:35):
Can you come up on stage? Quickly crowd began cheering
and clapping. The woman showed up out from the crowd,
stepped up on stage and speaking to the woman, the
man told her quote, we saw Bootleg Rascal about two
years ago. I thought, you know, they're our favorite band,
and I thought today, why not? Maybe today is the time.
(32:56):
Then got down on one knee. I know you know
what's coming. Ron didn't get the reaction he was hoping for.
The woman scene shaking her head, grabbing his hand before
trying to pull him back up to stand. The man
could be heard repeating no, no, before she ran off
the stage. He stayed kneeling until a person dressed in
(33:21):
a Scooby Doo costume ran up and helped the man
get to his feet. No answer or explanation as to
why someone at this concert was wearing a Scooby Doo costume,
and as you might imagine, the social media commentary on
that one is rather comical, including some of the comments
(33:43):
from the band. Yeah, get a handle on where you
are in your relationship. If you've talked about marriage and
this is like a foregun conclusion, then yeah, maybe go
ahead and do it. In public if you think that's right,
as long as that possibility of embarrassment, though, isn't there
five and five fifty five kr CE DE Talk Station
Charlie Lucan, former mayor and former Southern Railway Board member,
(34:07):
on why the hell isn't the city spending the railway
money that got coming in a lot of it to
Christopher Smithman at six point thirty on the executive session
from Sinceney City Council where we learned absolutely nothing that's
coming up.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I hope you can stick around.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Today's tough headlines coming up at.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
The top it Hey, it's Brian Thomas. Pleased to welcome
former mayor of the City of Cincinnati and former member
of the Cincinni Southern Railway Board who did advocate for
the sale the one point six billion dollars sale the
railroad previously owned by the city. That money put into
a interest generating fund to produce more money than we
were getting annually through the lease deal. And apparently that's
worked out. We had a good investment year last year.
(34:42):
But Charlie Lucan, you were interviewed by the Cincinnati Inquirer
several days ago and you expressed some disappointment that the
railway money which has apparently come in, but that only
five percent of what's.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Come in has been spent.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Your reaction to this and what's your take on why
it hasn't been spent, Charlie.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Well, first, two years ago, Brian, we promised the voters
that we were going to do this, and when we
did it, if we generated the money we expected, which
we have, and then some that we would get to
work on streets, bridges, playgrounds, et cetera. And so it passed.
The money's there. There's one point almost one point nine
(35:22):
billion now in that fun Two years later and yeah.
Speaker 8 (35:27):
It's up.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
It's up two hundred and fifty eight million dollars. So uh,
and that's after paying the city there fifty seven million
dollar allot meant last year. So yeah, we promised. It's
getting bottlenecked at the City's inexcusable. And I finally I'm
not on the board anymore. I resigned after we passed it.
(35:51):
I still think it was a good idea to pass it.
I'd rather have the city in the board's hands for this,
for the benefit of the taxpayers than in the railroads.
But right now we're not getting much done with.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Well, that seems obvious.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
And as the reporting points out, and you pointed out
four point five million spent out of the eighty five
million in railway money that apparently is available, that's the
interest that was generated off of it. But Molly Lair,
who is the city manager spokesperson, said, well, fifty one
million of the railroad money in this fiscal year has
been allocated toward road projects in various stages of planning
(36:27):
and developments, as well as a million more railroad dollars
allocated toward other infrastructure. It seems to me she's drowing
a distinction between allocation and spending.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
So that's right, that's Washington speak. Yes, all that is
you can allocate things all day, you can plan things
all day, but it doesn't get it doesn't get the
shovels in.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
The ground right now, Which leads me to a burning question.
I think I'm not the only one that has who
selects the projects. We were all told that this money
could only be spent on existing infrastructure. I mean, we're
behind four hundred or so road mile repairs. We all
can name a ton of projects. You alluded to a
few at your opening statements on the interview here of
(37:11):
what needs to be done. So we all know what
infrastructure is. But any of these projects have they been scrutinized?
Do we know what this the allocated money is going toward.
Has anyone done a review and thoughtful analysis of whether
it falls in the category of existing infrastructure? Because we
were all expecting the Shenanigans to come out of the
city council like they build a second leg of the
(37:32):
street car, which I would argue isn't existing. So where
are we on this and do we know what I
would too?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I would argue that, and we had that conversation. But
there is a list, it has been studied, this list theoretically,
when we passed it, we were toward I was told
that all these projects were quote shovel ready and I
looked at them and they are all the things that
you would think are basic to a city, playgrounds, regis streets,
(38:00):
et cetera. I mean, there's there's a list of five
hundred million dollars plus and growing, and unfortunately the money
hasn't gotten there. So we have not benefited as a
city much at this point from the passage of the
railroad issue.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Well, can I ask you a direct question. Does the
the Cincinni Police Department and stuff? We're down a couple
of hundred officers. The problem is obviously known, and at
least I've finally been acknowledged by AFTAB provol and some
of the other members accounts. We do have a crime problem,
but we can't get anybody to take the police positions.
Can the railroad money, because since a have to have
(38:41):
Parvole is talking about increasing the income tax for the
purposes of public safety, can the railroad money be properly
allocated to help support the police department made by raises
or something. Isn't it an existing infrastructure?
Speaker 5 (38:53):
No?
Speaker 3 (38:54):
What the what the railroad money can be used for
is to alleviate some of the stress stress on the
safety budget by let's say, remodeling District two or buying
new police cars, or buying new computers or new weaponry
or whatever it might be that is existing infrastructure. But
(39:14):
in terms of paying salaries, this was all put in
a guard rail by my old friend Bill Siitez in
Ohio and the Ohio legislature before this whole thing passed,
So it's pretty strict and you can't pay salaries out
of it, which I have to think is a is
(39:34):
a good thing, because lord knows what they would spend
it on if.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
You could, yeah, iris contracts or something on this.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Brian, Brian, I want to emphasize this is this is
not brain surgery. This is pretty basic running a city stuff.
And when you ask why there's no money getting out there,
and the answer is because it takes a while to
contract or because we are doing compliance, that's unacceptable. I
(40:06):
agree that is just that is just government jargon. That
means nothing. It means we can't do it. And you
have to at some point question the basic competence of
the people that are that are in charge and supposed
to be able to do this well.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Greasing the skids, get the money out into the world
where it's going to do the most good. If they've
identified that as a problem, sounds to me like that
an easy thing to fix in front of them.
Speaker 8 (40:33):
That's right, it's fairly easy.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
And I would this this probably will never happen, but
I would recommend that they get somebody from business or
a few people and they create some kind of an
extra outside city hall group that's going to take this
list and that's going to work this list through with
(40:57):
the money that's already there, and I think we might
make some progress because I just think it's this is
one of those things where it's sitting on this guy's
desk for a while and this woman's desk for a while,
and it never goes anywhere.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
We need the outside sector and their knowledge and experience
to fix the problems with the city government because the
city government doesn't know how to get the money out
into the world where it needs to where.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It can help us. That's interesting, Charlie Luke, And it
really is.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Well that's what I think. I mean. You know, I
created the three CDC, and that's was created primarily because
the city did not know how to do economic development.
So now it's given to people outside to do what
was the business of the city. And I know that
sounds like, well, why do we have the.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Government at all?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
But I think that's the answer here.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Well, it's also it forces us to go into another
discussion and we don't need to do engage in a
lengthy ones sir, about the work that non government organizations do.
They get the money because they're allegedly in a better
position to fix the need that they're being given money
to fix. And yet we find out quite often that
money is used for political purposes, is not properly spent,
or there is no oversight to see that those NGOs
(42:10):
are doing what they promised to do with the taxpayer
money allocation, right.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
I mean, I get that, but I you know, going
back to the three CDC example, if you get the
right folks who are in it for the right reasons,
and I think they're out there, I think I think
you can make a big difference. But we're just going
in circles. And as I say, I campaigned for this,
(42:37):
you probably recall it there. You will recall there where
a lot of people are against it, and I get that,
but those of us that campaigned for it are starting
to look pretty bad.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Well, and you do have a reputation to protect, and
it's a solid reputation, Charlie Lukan, You've done well by
the city, and I know you have all the right motivations,
but this does look bad. The optics are terrible. Where
is the money, Charlie Lucan, he said he'd bring it
to us. It's there, and it's turned out to be
better than we originally thought. The problem seems to be
with the ones that are responsible for it. I guess
it takes really the right folks to choose the right
(43:11):
outside folks to make sure the work gets done. Maybe
that leads us to where our problem is my subjective opinion,
Charlie Lucan, keep up the great work and keep speaking
out loud about this. I know that we will all
benefit ultimately once they get this money out into the world.
And I know that was your goal and talking to
the enquire about it. And it's been a pleasure to
have you speak with my listeners of me today. It's
really great.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Brian see the talk.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
Station at six twenty here at fifty five Kerr see
the talk station five point three seven eight hundred eight
two three talk on five fifty on AT and T phones.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Interesting analysis, Charlie Lucan, just speaking truth to power, saying
it like it is. Look sounds to me like you
can boil this down to absolute incompetence or bureaucracy. People
that don't know where to spend the money. Necessarily, they're
sitting on eighty some odd million dollars, only five percent
of that has actually been spent on existing infrastructure projects.
(44:07):
And you seem to be comfortable that this money is
only going to existing infrastructure, which was the limitation. So yeah,
you can get the police stuff, but you can't use
to pay salaries. And of course I appreciate the concerns
that would be raised if you could use this railroad
money for salaries, going back to the idle common about
Irish Rowley. But we need outside people that know what
(44:27):
they're doing. Is that a veiled shot at since the
city council for a suggestion that they don't know what
they're doing? Or can we just just walk away collectively
and objectively agreeing that maybe they don't. You need the
right folks with the right motivations. Referring to this outside
(44:48):
entity that he thinks should be quality should be you know,
business individuals who have an understanding of infrastructure projects, how
to get them done and accomplished, to get the money
out into the world where you and I might benefit
from it. The operative ord and that statement might because
do we have any idea which projects the money has
been allocated to. I suppose we can track where the
(45:08):
five percent has been spent, Probably not on a road
in your neighborhood, maybe speed bumps in your neighborhood. But
what about the projects that you know they have been
approved this fifty one some odd million dollars. Do we
have any idea on that? And I'm just asking out
loud because I don't know that they have any open
(45:29):
meetings for people to offer suggestions about where this money
should be prioritized. Since a council can't get the money spent,
if they're having struggles getting contracts in place or getting approvals,
maybe they need to look inwardly and figure out why
it's so damn hard to get a project to prove
and listen to everybody who's tried to get a project
(45:50):
approved in the city of Cincinnati walking into a bureaucratic nightmare.
Back to my friend the late Elmer Hensler from Queen
City Sausage. He just merely wanted to expand his plant.
That's all he wanted to do. Expand it, make it bigger,
create more jobs. It's an industrial area of the city already.
It's not like they were planning on doing a housing
project there. He had the space, he owned it. It
(46:12):
took him years and years because of the bureaucratic red
tape to expand a facility that was going to do
nothing but benefit the City of Cincinnati by greater tax revenue.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Why but he's just.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
One that I know of in a long, long, long
line of people who are screaming and yelling about wanting
to do development in any given neighborhood to the benefit
of the neighborhood and stop by Cincinni City Council or
the bureaucratic Mexicos on behind the scenes, asked Corey Bowman.
He described many times here in the Morning Show when
he was running from mayor about the struggles in his
neighborhood in the West End. West End really could use
(46:45):
an infusion of development. There are developers out there apparently
that want to do that, but they're blocked. I don't
know by what the city's view of what the future
is going to look like in its mind as opposed
to what the residents of any neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
One.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
Yeah, there's that impediment. So I guess all in all,
for those who didn't think that the interest generated would
meet what we were making by way of lease payment
or when we were negotiating this, because the lease deal
is up which led to the sale of the railroad,
how much we could have negotiated by way of an
increase in annual lease payments. At least when you have
(47:22):
a good market year like last year, the interest generated
is significant, and I would argue does exceed what we
would have what we might have been able to wrestle
out of the railroad by way of an ongoing lease arrangement.
That said, the money apparently isn't doing any good for
the city of Cincinnati. Unbelievable. Yet, we do need competent
(47:45):
people who know what they're doing, and elections do have consequences.
Six twenty five, If you've have KC detalk station, Christopher
Smitheman returns has a reaction to the closed door session
yesterday with a very happy one to you. Comping up
off the top of the our news, we'll hear from
Greg Hand. He's a local historian and comedian. Similarities between
(48:07):
twenty County or since in twenty twenty six and nineteen
twenty six, Tom's Awastowski fast Forward one hour got a
variety of state topics to talk about with him, the Ohio, Minnesota,
Somali daycare fraud link, et cetera. In the meantime, Welcome Back,
Volume two, we're making this a habit. Christopher Smith and
former virus mayor of the City of Cincinnati with the
Smither event. Christopher, your reaction to council, Yes, going into
(48:28):
executive session and note not speaking a word to the press,
not a single council member, the city manager, the city
manager spokesperson, the mayor. Nothing. We have no idea what happened, Christopher.
Welcome back, my friend. It's always great having you on.
Speaker 9 (48:43):
Hey, thank you so much. It's everything that's wrong with government.
Brian Thomas, you know, of one to go into executive
session and not tell the public the agenda of the
executive session. Yeah, that's right, that's a good session. You're
supposed to say, this is the reason we're going into
executive session, and our discussion is very narrow. I mean,
(49:05):
you tell the public the agenda because you don't want to.
You don't want to say, we're going into executive session
and we're going to be talking about all of these
other things. Right, so to go and just deal with
that issue. But the public should have been informed prior
to the executive session, and there should have been a
roll call vote of all non members of council of
what the agenda was. It's all secrecy, and it's all
(49:26):
intentional for our city government to conceal their discussions with
the settlement talks with the Hinton family.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
Well, Christopher, you know, based on what you said, they
could have been talking about something completely different. We've all
been operating under the presumption that the closed door meeting
was in as a consequence of the revelations that there
were settlement discussions going on behind the scenes between the
city manager and the Hinting attorneys. Either of those sides
denied discussions were ongoing. I think they just most argued
(49:56):
with the characterization in the media. But that's what the
predicate wast well as presumably that's what they went in
there for. But we really don't even know that, do we.
Speaker 9 (50:05):
We don't. If I were a lawyer, I would be
filing a lawsuit against the City of Cincinnati today asking
for the agenda. What was the agenda of the executive session.
You don't have to tell me what you discussed, there
are no notes, but you at least have to tell
the public what the agenda was. You can't just go
(50:28):
into secrecy as a government, close the doors and not
tell the taxpayers, who are, by the way, the ones
who are on the hook to pay the bill. What
you're talking about. But this is the secrecy of this mayor,
this manager, and this council, and elections have consequences. My
heart goes out to every law enforcement officer that's out
(50:50):
there because I wanted to share, which I know you covered, Brian,
is this is the case last year where the young
man had a gun and a stolen car running from
an officer. He was African American, the officer involved was white.
That young man turned with a weapon and unfortunately that
(51:14):
officer had to take his life for fear of his
own life. We've had the prosecutor clear him. They have
much economy prosecutor clear him. Obviously, we have the Cincinnati
Police Department clear him. The bottom line was, my heart
goes out to any loss of life. But the officer
(51:34):
made a split second decisions, which is what they have
to do every single day. The hitting family, the father
then decided the next day he was going to take
his vehicle and run over a sheriff. A sheriff who
has nothing to do with the Cincinnati Police Department. He's
out there, he had adopted a couple of children. He's
(51:57):
out there, had retired doing traffic at a at a
UC graduation and the father ran him over. This council
went into executive session most likely to discuss a settlement
to the family because their child was shot who had
(52:18):
a gun in a stolen car running from an officer.
And that is what is so sad about all of this.
If I were a taxpayer, if I were a lawyer,
I would be filing a lawsuit today demanding what the
agenda was of that executive session.
Speaker 4 (52:34):
And so to be clear on this, and let me
leave no question mark to go into executive session, there
is a rule an obligation for counsel to let the
public know the subject matter of the executive session, and
that did not happen yesterday before.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
They went in.
Speaker 9 (52:50):
That's that's my understanding.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Well, you were a former vice Manati.
Speaker 9 (52:55):
Oh no, that's the truth. Oh no, that's the truth.
But the question is if no one can calls you
on it. That's why lawsuits after the attorney, because people
do things that are illegal and they get away with it.
The question is will counsel in a transparent way communicate
with the public why they went into executive session. So
(53:16):
for example, for example, I sit as one commissioner appointed
by the governor over the casinos for the state of Ohio. Okay,
we went into executive session approximately two months ago. All right,
roll call vote of all seven commissioners and an agenda
item of what we were going to discuss. We were
(53:38):
being sued in our capacity as commissioners, and we communicated
we're going into executive sessions so our lawyer can brief
fund right on that litigation. That's why we went into
executive session. And guess what when we went into executive session,
we only discussed that agenda item and then came out
(54:00):
of executive session and brought the public back in.
Speaker 4 (54:03):
That's the way it's you do, That's the way it's
supposed to work. And knowing full well that that's the
way it's supposed to work, why did the city take
us down this road which might lead to even more
litigation and more legal expenses. Let's pause when Christopher smith'ment
back six point thirty seven right now, if you have
kersee the talk station, well, if this sounds like you,
SI fifty five KRSD talk station bran Tooma was reacting
(54:24):
with Christopher's Smith aman reacting to the behind the closed
doors meeting. So, going back to Christopher's point, it is
an obligation of the council rules that they let the
public know what a closed door session is all about,
because we don't get any information from inside the closed
door session. So it is a critically important obligation for counsel.
Chris said, it's so much so that someone could file
a lawsuit for them having violated that because we presume
(54:47):
they were talking about this Hinton settlement, but we don't
know that for sure. Obviously the lid was blown off.
I think much of the chagrantish Cheryl Long and the
Hitting family lawyers that it was released to the public
that they were talking about settlement. We know they were,
but we don't know that that's what happened yesterday.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Christopher.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
With the rule being what it is, and the fact
that they've gone down this road before they bought litigation
under your scenario, they knew was going to happen. So
they subjected the sinsin taxpayer to even more expense because
now we're going to litigate the failure to let us
know what's going on in executive session.
Speaker 8 (55:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (55:21):
Now again I'm going to go back and let me
make this point too, which I think is interesting. When
I served on council, right, I never remember ever going
into executive session. I want to emphasize that to you.
So that last ten year run that I served, I
(55:41):
never remember council going into executive session. Okay, so this
is very unusual for city council to say I'm going
into executive session. It could be that they don't even understand.
Meaning when I served right now currently as one of
seven commissioners for casinos across the state of Ohio, again
(56:04):
we went into executive session. We each of us had
to do a roll call vote. The seven of us,
we all had to sign a document saying we were
going into executive session, and we had to stick to
that agenda item and come out of executive session. When
you're dealing with the government and the people's money, it
(56:25):
just makes logical common sense to think, Number one, you
don't go into executive session lightly. But when you go
into executive session and you close the door, you have
to at least tell the public why you're going into
executive session, the purpose of it. You don't have to
tell us what you said. There are no notes, you
(56:46):
don't have to say what was discussed you know, da
da da da dad between your lawyer, the city manager
and the nine members of council. But you do have
to tell us the agenda.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Well, and you just pointed out a reason why you
needed exactecutive session private conversations, attorney client communications you've got
to have with a larger group of people being represented
by that council. That is not the type of information
that you generally want shared with the general public. You
can't be candid and open with your lawyer if you
know it's going to be widely reported. So that will
be a valid justification. But what of a discussion about settlement?
(57:23):
Is that a worthy executive session declaration? Had they gone
in ahead of time and said we are going into
executive session to discuss the settlement, is that akin to
the attorney client privileged kind of conversation, would it serve
as a justification.
Speaker 9 (57:38):
I don't think so. I mean, the nine members of
council are not being sued. The people who are going
to pay the bill are the tax payers, so they
deserve to know what that bill's going to look like.
You're not going into executive session saying, hey, you're being sued.
You might be deposed here's you know, here's your here's
(58:02):
here's our position. I mean, you're a lawyer. Our only
discussion in that executive session was to discuss the legal
ramifications of those seven members.
Speaker 7 (58:11):
That's it.
Speaker 9 (58:12):
It's a very narrow discussion. And I want to remind
you we all took a vote, we all signed a document,
and we stuck to that agenda item. So I don't
know what this new wave stuff City Hall is doing,
but I'm sharing with you. Just just everybody use your
common sense. The government is supposed to be open. That's
why you have UH rules and law state rules that say, hey,
(58:36):
you can't five members of council can't just go out.
That was the gang of fire. You just can't go
out and start having private meeting that lunch discussing the agenda, right.
It was all about open access to public discussion, right.
So it's it's very important. And I think that if
council did not tell us why they're what their agenda was,
(58:58):
not what they discussed, that is absolutely a problem. Period.
And go back on the fat pattern here. This is
why law enforcement Brian Thomas, when we're dealing with ice,
we've got people across the country who are standing in
front of police vehicles. They're blocking a law enforcement cars
in whether it's ice or whether it's a local police
(59:20):
officer who's being ambushed while sitting in their car eating
lunch in uniform, out of uniform. We're seeing this all
across the United States of America. My point is that
the meat of this is a young man who made
a series of poor decisions gun stolen car, jumping out
(59:42):
of the car, running from an officer, turning towards that officer,
and the officer unfortunately having to make that decision to
fire his weapon and take his life. That's what we're discussing.
How do you think, Brian Thomas, if this council settles
this lawsuit and gives it family money after the father
made the decision the next day to kill a sheriff,
(01:00:06):
how in the world, what kind of message? How do
you think that impacts the morale of every peace officer
in the state of Ohio and across the country.
Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
Well, let me just leave that lay there. I understand
it's more of a rhetorical question, but I'll bring it
right back and just get a quick comment about Alex Trevinsky,
who was cited for defending himself in the beatdown brawl,
And how do you think that makes officers feel when
they don't want to issue a citation because they don't
see any crime committed. And yet we're apparently forced to
bring Christopher back real quick on that one. First, Susette
(01:00:37):
Low's camp for all your mortgage needs. You are the
best possible hands with Susette. You will love working with her.
She's with Christopher smitheman on the phone. Christopher just pivoting
over briefly to the trial of Alex Ttravinsky, who is
the slap guy in the multiple beatdown. He was charged
with disorderly conduct, which carries up to thirty days in
jail on twohundred fifty dollars fine. The other seven people
(01:00:58):
were charged with felonies, including the one who punched Holly
in the face so hard and knocked her out. Unbelievable
that now Alex got a charge against him with this
disorderly conduct in spite of the fact that the officers
on the scene did not believe that charge was motivated
or necessary. There weren't sufficient facts there, and yet ultimately
I believe it was Lieutenant Henny now police Chief Henny
(01:01:19):
ended up issuing the citation to Henny at apparently the
behest of I don't know was it the city manager,
but it wasn't something that any of the members of
law enforcement wanted to do, yet he issued it. Now
he's been caught. Henny has been caught as a defense witness,
as have been the police detectives in Alex Stravinski's trial.
So with yesterday's continuance, because the city prosecutors said one
(01:01:41):
of her witnesses didn't show up, I think that's an
illustration or a suggestion that the case is going to
ultimately be dismissed because if he doesn't show up the
next time, they throw the case out. Maybe that's been
set up to just have that result, because the case
isn't going anywhere, Christopher your response, it's.
Speaker 9 (01:01:58):
Not going anywhere. Clearly his lawyers have said, you know,
and I thought it was the right decision to say,
we're going to trial, like, we're not shopping the case,
we're not trying to settle anything, right, because part of
this is they've got to clear this man's name. I mean,
members of council, the city manager, everybody was out there
(01:02:18):
saying these crazy things about this man and so you know,
his reputation absolutely was impacted, and his ability to get
a job to you know, all of that is going
to going to be on the table. Number One, he's
going to be found not guilty. This case is not
going anywhere. It's dead on a rival. You and I
know that. So the next question is going to be
(01:02:41):
his lawyer's going to turn around and file a lawsuit
against the City of Cincinnati. They're going to win that lawsuit, period,
and the city's going to have to give millions of dollars. Now,
if I am his lawyer and I just saw you
give out eight point one million, I then turn around
and say, oh, you're going to give the in family
millions of dollars? What do you think they're going to
(01:03:03):
have to give this man? See, they're setting this thing up, man.
And then when you look, you look at Chief Washington,
you look at Chief Fiji. Just go down the list
of people that they're going to have to settle with.
And I'm talking about in twenty twenty sixth and twenty
twenty seven, we're talking about an indemnity debt of probably
north of twenty million dollars in litigation. Again, I don't
(01:03:26):
know why they went into executive session yesterday, but they
owe us an explanation of what the agenda item was.
You know, I will make sure I end with that.
You and I shouldn't be speculating why our government went
behind closed doors. We should know why they went behind
closed doors. And so that point right there. I think
(01:03:50):
if we had a healthy media, if we had healthy journalism,
right they would be asking the questions that you and
I are talking about right now. It wouldn't just be
all Council went into executive session, and there's no need
for us to know what our government was talking about
behind closed doors. Somebody would have already asked that question,
and the headline we should have said something like Counsel
(01:04:12):
went into executive session without sharing what the agenda was.
Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
Exclamation point, Christopher Smithman. Always appreciate your thoughts and comments
and insights. We will patiently wait for local news to
find out why exactly they went into executive session. You know,
I guess members of Council are free to at least
give us that little piece of information without violating rules
about what goes on inside executive session.
Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (01:04:36):
So there's a whole bunch of them out there that
can answer the question. Strange the administration wants to continue
this cloak and dagger nonsense. It certainly delegitimizes them. When
you add all these things together, you come up with
an administration that really wants to keep the truth away
from the public.
Speaker 9 (01:04:51):
No question, I can see. I can see Joe Strecker
sitting an email to each member of members of council
as a media person saying, I have one question, what
was your agenda item last night or yesterday afternoon? Why
did you go into executive session? No discussion about your agenda,
but what was the agenda?
Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah, he suspects these things.
Speaker 9 (01:05:13):
Something tells me that there are going to be some
emails going to members of city Council asking them that question.
Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Stead maybe, but according I mean Scott Wortman tried yesterday
after the meeting. They all declined to comment, along with
the city manager, of the city managers spokesperson, the mayor.
No one said anything. We'll see your popcorn out Jay
Chris for Elections have consequences, don't they.
Speaker 9 (01:05:35):
Elections have consequences. Brian Thomas, thank you so much. People
can follow me on x at vote Smitherman, thank you, brother.
Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
Take care of my friend, we'll talk on Monday. Stick
around on top of the other news, Greg Handy's local historian, does.
Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Some comment.
Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
Seven six here peb krc DE Talk station. I hope
you're having a very happy Tuesday. Put a smile on
your face. In this segment, we're gonna hear from Tom's
Alastawski at the bottom of this hour matters political and
we'll get the inside scoop at bright Bart News in
an hour, followed by the Daniel Davis Deep Dive at
a thirty typical Tuesday, but a special guest here in
the fifty five Case Morning Show. Kind of hoping it's
not gonna be the only time he appears here. Greg
hand you may know him because he's the proprietor of
(01:06:17):
the Cincinnati Curiosities blog. Find it where you find your blogs.
Joe's put a link up on my blog page fifty
five cars dot com to get his website. He writes
about a thousand words every week, which he posts on Tuesday,
all about a whole bunch of different topics, like, for example,
most recently, an escaped Oriole brought Cincinnati to distraught women
and national attention. That's his most recent post. Retired from
(01:06:41):
the University of Cincinnati. Is the head of public Relations
Office for employed with the university, he was the editor
of the Western Hills Press May at Rest in Peace.
In addition to the blog, he contributes regularly to Cincinnai Magazine,
presenting entertaining history, chats and bars and saloons. You heard
that correctly, through a program program called stand Up History.
(01:07:01):
Also the author of US Cincinnati Curiosities, which I've got
a copy of in my hand, Healing Powers of the
Whamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazappa's Naked Ride,
and more right, that's why it's called Cincinnati Curiosities. We'll
get a word or two about that. And then Tarbell
Palooza another book that he kindly gave me a copy of.
(01:07:24):
So great stuff. It's all Cincinnati bass and with a
comedic twist. Greg hann good to heavy in studio, always
a pleasure. So even how long, even if this is
stand up comedy that relates to Cincinnati history.
Speaker 10 (01:07:35):
Yeah, you know, the thing is, people in Cincinnati love
the history of this town. Oh yeah, and for good reason.
This town, I keep telling people, is the city that
just keeps on giving every time I find something weird,
I find something weirder. And people are aware of this,
but they are put off by traditional methods of learning.
(01:07:57):
They don't want to get books. They they don't want
to sit down and take classes or be serious. But
they'll go to bars and after a couple of drinks,
you get somebody to stand up and talk about, for instance,
seventeen weird real estate stories in Cincinnati, and they get
(01:08:19):
very appreciative after that second drink.
Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
Oh yeah, we all know that social liver could help
them multiple social situations. Especially at a comedy club. You
got to get that inner voice of reluctance and kind
of shut up and so you can participate. Do you
interact with the audience? I mean, oh yeah, yeah. Do
you engage in the desocratic method?
Speaker 10 (01:08:39):
It's very informal. This really started with in the bars
because of my partner in founding this group, Molly Wellman,
who has owned a variety of watering holes in Cincinnati.
She's well known for that, and she just presents so
so wonderfully and everybody just kind of joins in and
(01:09:03):
so we get a lot of cat calling and h
and uh, you know, and it never gets out of hand.
But it's fun.
Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
Well, I don't want to necessarily presume what I'm what
I'm thinking, but considering the venues are typically bars, although
I know you perform at the Art Museum and the
u SEE Lifelong Learning Institute, and you're doing an event
at Union Terminal as well, you're focusing on bars. I'm
suggesting though, that maybe there's a little bit of blue
humor in this.
Speaker 10 (01:09:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the way the way that we
put it. When people call us and want to book
us for something, they always go, now, how adult is this? Yes,
and our response is usually it's irreverent, not obscene.
Speaker 4 (01:09:49):
I can definitely relate to that, and I'm someone who
definitely appreciates a certain level of irreverence without question. So,
in terms of upcoming events, what are you going on
that we can want my listeners to know about, because
it sounds like something that we're all going to want
to show up at at some point.
Speaker 10 (01:10:06):
Wednesday, January twenty first, we have a monthly residency on
the third Wednesdays of each month at Muse Cafe in Westwood.
That's always a fun occasion. And then the next night, Thursday,
January twenty second, we will be at the museum Center,
(01:10:27):
and that one is in a rather large auditorium, so
we could have as many as two hundred and fifty
people in attendance at that one. That one's got myself,
Molly will be there in Dean Regis, who is technically
an astronomer, but we let him in because astronomy involves
(01:10:47):
the space time continuum and that's close enough to history.
Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
Will he be speaking on matters involving the flux capacitor
in generating one point twenty one gigilettes?
Speaker 10 (01:10:59):
He Dean has done some amazing things, takedowns of astrology
and an explanation of why Galileo's middle finger is preserved
in a museum in Italy, and that sort of thing.
I quite often get into the history of prostitution in Cincinnati, although.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
They mostly over across the river.
Speaker 10 (01:11:25):
No, this is the big misunderstanding that people have their
memories are entirely too short. Between around eighteen seventy five
and the First World War, Cincinnati had a large red
light district in the west end pretty much from Fifth
Street up to Seventh Street, from Central Avenue out to
(01:11:47):
Mound Street. There were as many as seventy houses of
prostitution in this red light district with perhaps six hundred
to seven hundred what we'd call working girls.
Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
And this is the demand was that high.
Speaker 10 (01:12:04):
This was This was the way people thought at the
time is if you did not have this, it wasn't legal.
But if you did not have this accessible out let
for hormonally overcharged men, they were going to be running
(01:12:25):
around the city raping respectable women. And so so that
was the solution was, well, we're going we're going to
endure this stuff, but we're going to shove it off
into the corner here.
Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
So we'll sacrifice Victorian principles in the name of practical reality.
Speaker 8 (01:12:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (01:12:44):
But the thing about Kentucky is, and I addressed this
in a blog post last week, is in the nineteen
twenties we got a totally different city here. Before nineteen twenty,
this was one of the weirdest places on the planet,
and after nineteen twenty it totally changed.
Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Well, is that is a consequence of the Boss Cox
administration exactly.
Speaker 10 (01:13:10):
There were four factors that really led to this. One
was a brand new city government when the Charter Rights
came in, restructured city government brought in the city manager
form of government. The other was prohibition absolutely a major
factor in changing the city because it basically wiped out
(01:13:31):
one of the city's largest industries overnight.
Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
Which apparently was alcohol, but also prostitution, because it might
I parley into is that how the mob and prostitution
and gambling and liquor all ended up in northern Kentucky
because the mobs came in and think it open.
Speaker 10 (01:13:47):
For Cincinnati by nineteen thirty five was known as the
best run city in America, and they got that way
by shoving all the vice that used to be a
money maker for Boss Cox across the river. And so
you really don't see northern Kentucky getting this reputation until
(01:14:08):
after city government changed in Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (01:14:13):
So it's not in my backyard, but as long as
it's close enough that I can get there easily and conveniently,
it's a okay for northern Kentucky. There you go to
get the crime element in. Wow, we're gonna learn about
some of different some additional parallels nineteen twenty six versus well,
twenty twenty six, and sadly, some of the things haven't
really changed since County. You're nineteen twenty six and twenty
(01:14:35):
twenty six, we're going to continue with comedian and historian
Greg Hand station. It's seven eighteen if if you have
Kercit talk stations. See I'm laughing because I'm sitting in
studio with a comedian and historian of unusual Cincinnati related matters.
Greg Hand got a great background doing this stand up
(01:14:56):
comedy related to Cincinnati history, and he's got some assistance
with some of these, like Molly Wellman, for example. He
mentioned Dean Rigez, and I understand Michael Parina is also
going to be helping you out at this stand up
history at Union Terminal event Thursday, the twenty second. Tickets
are available at starts at six pm. Get your tickets.
Just put a lick up the blog page fifty five
krzy dot com. I was laughing because you're always working
(01:15:19):
on news stories. You mentioned doing Cincinnati curiosities. He put
a thousand words out every Thursday or Tuesday on things
of this nature. We're going to be reading about rats
as well as garbage collection.
Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (01:15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (01:15:33):
People remember Cincinnati as poor Kopolis. We love our pigs.
We get the flying pigs all over the place. What
people don't remember about Cincinnati is the city of Cincinnati
did not institute garbage collection, well until after the Civil War.
Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
That's because we had the canal. It's because we had
the pigs. I was gonna say, they throw it in
the canal.
Speaker 10 (01:15:53):
Yeah, you would just you would just throw stuff out
and the pigs. Pigs took care of it. And this
this is remember from eighteen thirty until nineteen ten, Cincinnati
was one of the ten largest cities in the United States.
So after the Civil War we were the sixth largest
city in the United States and had no organized garbage collection.
Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
Holy kh we did have the second police department in
the entire uited of States, so we had to wait
around for garbage collection.
Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:16:22):
You mentioned the whole Boss Cox period, and I think
a lot of my listeners are familiar with the level
of corruption that existed under those old Boss regimes. The
Charter Right Party kicked in in nineteen twenty six and
this led to a period of reform where again led
to the eradication of prostitution and crime, and they sent
it over to Northern Kentucky, who apparently the mob was
(01:16:43):
happy to embrace the change. So cities cleaned up under
the Charter Rights and we enjoyed this very successful respected
historically period of time, we said we were one of
the best governing cities, and everyone said it, what how
long did that period of time last, because it seems
somewhere we went off the rails there.
Speaker 10 (01:17:04):
The Charter Committee and the Charter form of government basically
came in in the early nineteen twenties, and by the
mid thirties it was multiple multiple national publications pointed to
Cincinnati and said this is it. This is the best
governmed city in America. There were some key factors that
(01:17:27):
went into that form of government. One was a form
of voting called proportional representation.
Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Did you hear that? Yes, those words have come up
recently in history.
Speaker 10 (01:17:38):
Which is a little complicated to describe, but basically it
ensured minority voices and so it ensured that council would
be filled with people represented different points of view. In
the nineteen fifties, an alliance of the Democratic Party locally
(01:17:59):
and the Unions locally worked to remove proportional representation and
set the scene for one party government again.
Speaker 4 (01:18:09):
Which means each council members expected to represent every single
of the fifty two neighborhoods in the city, whereas before
I guess there was some sort of jerry mandard or
slight stuff.
Speaker 10 (01:18:19):
No, in proportional representation, it was intentionally city wide, in
each in each in each councilmanic seat. Prior to proportional representation,
city council had more than forty people. We had at
(01:18:39):
that time twenty some odd wards in the city, and
council was made up of two representatives from each ward.
In that arrangement, under Boss Cox, who controlled the Republican
and the Democratic party in the city, the Republicans had
(01:18:59):
something like thirty five out of the forty seats. After
proportional representation came in, Charter rarely had more than five seats.
Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
Oh.
Speaker 10 (01:19:10):
Really, Republicans were consistently represented on council, as were Democrats.
Speaker 4 (01:19:17):
Well, the parallels that you draw between nineteen twenty six
and twenty twenty six. I was laughing about the condition
of the roads back ineteen twenty twenty six. Apparently nothing
has changed there. Also, you mentioned the rapid transit loop,
which we know is the street car today. Is that
the project that was being built, the subway system that
never did get built. What's the backstory on that one.
Speaker 10 (01:19:39):
So the Charter Committee came in with this new form
of government totally on the message of we are going
to disassemble what's left of the Cox machine. And one
of the elements of the Cox machine that was still
in place was the rapid transit loop that we referred
(01:20:03):
to as the Cincinnati Subway. And so suddenly out of
City Hall came these reports that said, oh, this was
poorly designed, it couldn't possibly be used, it's cost overrun
going through the roof. All of this was totally made up.
It was fake news.
Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
It was an.
Speaker 10 (01:20:24):
Attempt by the Charter government to accuse the Cox government
of creating this boondoggle that could never be completed, and
so they shut it down. And if they had allowed
it to go forward, in fact, it was designed very
well and it was under budget, or not under budget,
(01:20:47):
but on budget.
Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
Wow, the parallels have you drawn. I'm thinking, like, well,
evil Orange Man did that, So we're not going to
do it, even though on paper and curly it looks
like it really will work. Think of some propaganda says
it's connected with Boss Cox, who we all collectively agree
is evil Erico. Anything he's responsible for is in and
of itself evil, So just let's forget it.
Speaker 10 (01:21:08):
It's one of the lessons of history is that the
flavor of politics changes, but it's always with us.
Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
Greg hann great conversation, man, what are you doing the
nineteen twenty six twenty versus twenty twenty six presentation?
Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Is it is that upcoming?
Speaker 10 (01:21:23):
Oh I it takes a while. A thousand words translates
into about a seven minute presentation. And most of our
most of our sets at our shows are in the
twenty to twenty five minutes. Oh so it's snippet and
so and so i've i've When I get a topic
like that, I have to get a little more to
(01:21:45):
fill in my slot.
Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
Sure, and well, you will find him and them around town.
Since they Curiosity's blogged, you gotta follow it. Jo just
Strucker's put a link up if you five carecy dot com.
Whereas I would say Peter Bronson covers more perhaps well
known or more less comedic, elements of what happens there
throughout his Cincinnati history. You're finding the really crazy stuff
(01:22:08):
and I'll encourage my listeners. Joe put a link up
to Cincinnati Curiosity's your book again, Healing Powers of the
Whamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazeppa's naked
Ride and more. Sounds bizarre, and I'm sure we're gonna
find the bizarre, but it's historically true. Greg Han, real
pleasure having you in here, man, and maybe we can
(01:22:29):
do this again.
Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Thank you. I'd love to keep up the fun.
Speaker 4 (01:22:32):
We all need fun these days, and I appreciate your
using history as a vehicle to get us all smiling.
Seven twenty six. Right now, if you have KRC the
talk station, real quick words, my friends, the fast and
pro best roofer zarraun carc the talk station.
Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
It is Tuesday, in a happy one too. After the
top of the.
Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Air news, we're gonna hear the inside scoop John Carney
from Bright Bart News. We've had him on a bunch
of time, be talking about the price of gas and
oil which is dropped dramatically and.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
The booming economy. Is it booming?
Speaker 4 (01:22:58):
We'll see what John has to say about that. An
hour from now, Daniel Davis a deep dive with the
latest from Iran, Venezuela and Russia bombing another Ukrainian city
the other day. Without further ado, Welcome back to the
fifty five Casey Morning Show. You can find him online
at the web page We the People Convention dot Org.
Tom Zawastowski, good to have you back on the show.
Speaker 7 (01:23:16):
Good morning, Bryan. Happy Tuesday, Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
And what is going on in so far as state issues.
I've been talking to some state politicians the other day.
I had Zach Reins on who Americans Prosperities endors. Sounds
like a good guy. Viv Ramaswami. Is there anything going
on in as far as property tax relief? That seems
one thing that's looming large in the state of Ohio
(01:23:40):
because it may be that the elected officials are going
to have to deal with a train wreck, which would
be us voting on whether we want to eliminate property
taxes in the state via a constitutional amendment through a
ballot initiative. I don't think they want that to have
to happen. I think they should get ahead of it
ahead of time, because that's going to be a catastrophe
if they have to unfold the wreckage of taking away
(01:24:00):
property taxes with the flick of a switch.
Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
Anything going on in that level, Tom, Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
There's a lot going on, you know. I think that
the the grassroots effort, you know, to put that amendment
on the ballot you know, they have to collect four
hundred and fifteen thousand signatures and that's a really hard job.
But it has had the fact of, you know, as
they say, forcing the legislature to focus maybe on the issue.
(01:24:26):
And so there there is still more, you know, legislation
that's been talked about in the House and the Senate.
But you know, I think there's no doubt that something
has to be done.
Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
Right.
Speaker 7 (01:24:38):
You can't just punt. You can't say, well, you can't
repeal all of it, so don't do anything. We have
to do something. And I'm in conversation with you know,
the vay Pramaswami on this issue. I'm talking to other
people in the Republican Party and saying, guys, we've got
to get serious, and we've got to get serious fast.
(01:24:58):
So I expect you're going to see some proposals coming
up from a lot of directions to address this issue.
And unless, you know, as you said, you know, this
idea of almost blowing everything up, you repealing everything all
at once, I don't think we can do that. So
you're going to see some sort of compromise, a more
rational I guess you would say, a way of reducing
(01:25:20):
property taxes. But also remember it's not just about the
property taxes. What caused the property tax to get out
of control, it's local government and state government just growing uncontrollably.
I mean, the other part of the property tax issue
is that by reducing the amount of money coming into
(01:25:42):
these state agencies, you can force them to reform. And
what I mean by reform, well, I mean that you
get them to start looking at the money they're spending
and spend it wiser and give us more.
Speaker 3 (01:25:56):
For their dollar.
Speaker 7 (01:25:57):
I heard your interview with Charlie about what's going on
in Cincinnati, and that's the perfect example. We've got government
you can't function.
Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
Well.
Speaker 4 (01:26:09):
You set a mouthful there and I just say, I'm
just sort of going, yeah, there in lies the problem.
I think we're all well aware of that and the
other component of this, And you know, I talked about
this with.
Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
Just the other day.
Speaker 4 (01:26:20):
On the whole, the school funding has been ruled unconstitutional
for the past couple of decades. That is an issue
that's inextricably interp intertwined with property taxes. They haven't done
anything by way of changing that, So sending the money
out to the students seems to be a way of
perhaps bringing about this level of efficiency and competition that
the public schools really desperately need, because there's a lot
(01:26:44):
of competition with the public schools already, with charter schools
popping up and you know Christian Chrishnill's Academy for example,
or the Sin Sant Classical Academy, great education opportunities for
students who feel and parents who feel underserved by public schools.
Speaker 7 (01:26:59):
Well, you know, I think this is the real issue
in America today. I mean, we're supposed to be a
capitalist society. We've gotten all the growth in our country.
Why are we different than the rest of the world.
Was because we apply free market principles of competition and
things like that. And yet if you look at our
(01:27:19):
society from a government standpoint, it's all communists. When it's
the healthcare system, the education system, you know, our institutions,
it's not about competition, it's about eliminating competition, and you
get you know what we've got, You've got pork performance
and no accountability. So all of this has to do
(01:27:40):
with reforming government, and particularly in the coming age of AI,
where a lot of the stuff that is now you
know an excuse, Well that you know, they didn't have
the day that they didn't know how to do this,
They couldn't figure it out. That's all ending real soon,
like starting this year, and we've got to start to
implement that in all our government agencies, from healthcare to
(01:28:05):
schools and things of that nature, and just your local government,
like using the railroad. You need a flicking city.
Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
Boiling it down to its simple as terms. Tom's Awastoski
will continue, get a word or two on your perception
of V. Dag Ramaswamy selection for Lieutenant Governor Rob McCauley,
and also the Ohio Minnesota Somali daycare fraud link. Tom's Awastowski.
And then we're gonna hear from Steve Gooden late edition
of the program to talk about Christopher's suggestion that a
lawsuit should be filed because city council did not explain
(01:28:35):
to us the reason they went into executive session the
other day.
Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
Is that a possible suit.
Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
We'll find out from Steve after we talk with Tom
and the next segment stick around at seven thirty six.
Right now, let me make about care CD talk station
find on my line. We either People Convention dot Org.
Tom's Awastowski returns of the morning show talk about matters
involving state real quick here. I had Ramaswami on the
other day and I asked him about his selection of
Rob McCauley's lieutenant governor for his running mate. He said,
they're consistent eyed I and all the positions Dvek has
(01:29:01):
been running on. But also that because Rob has been
around for a while in politics, he understands what we
basically boiled down to, the sausage making process of getting
legislation passed and through. What's your reaction to Rob as
the lieutenant governor as a running mate? Any pop plus
minuses what's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Tom?
Speaker 7 (01:29:23):
Well, you know I always look at this, you know,
from the grassroots standpoint, and we've been, you know, going
through this process for sixteen years and and you know
our concern, and I think a lot of your listeners
concerned is is the veke Fromaswami going to be captured
by the Columbus cartel?
Speaker 3 (01:29:39):
Right?
Speaker 7 (01:29:39):
What are the signs of that? And when he picked
Rob from a field of five people, all of whom
had state office positions and things like that, my problem
was I didn't know Rob. I never die, which is
pretty amazing. Blank, because you know, you and I talked
pretty much everybody in this state all the time, and
(01:30:02):
so I was concerned. You know, he's a Senate president,
and you're thinking, Okay, is this guy you know part
of the cartel? Is he associates affiliated with the wine
and with Kasik and all those guys, and and but
I think the day was very honest about the fact
he's an outsider, and he's got a very inspirational agenda,
(01:30:25):
an aspirational agenda for Ohio, and he's going to need
to get through the legislature. So it makes total sense
that he would try to pick someone right Rob to
do that. Not to their credit, I had never met Rob,
but the they must have told him to call me,
because the day after he was announced, Rob called me
(01:30:46):
and we had a two hour conversation. And you can imagine,
you know, my conversations are never just you know, simple.
I mean, we went at it. We went at a
big time. I wanted to know, who is this guy?
Is he on board with the kind of reforms that
that they is going to push? And I'm convinced he is.
I'm convinced that he's open to the kind of things
(01:31:09):
that we're talking about with property tax reform and reform
of government. I think he gets the fact. Remember he
did come out of the business. Yes, he hasn't just
been a government his whole life. So I think that's
a good sign. I can assure our Glassrooms people that
this is a good choice because they have a really
strong relationship. And as you know, that's that's probably the
(01:31:31):
most important thing. You can't have anybody like Mike Pence
stabbing in the back when you're Trump. You need somebody
you can trust.
Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
Isn't that the truth?
Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
Real quick here, I knew stayed ordered a key. Faber
announced last week that they have a new opportunity for
us to rat out fraud, waste and abuse in government.
Your reaction to whether or not that is a strong
enough response to what has been revealed in Minnesota in
Minneapolis as well as maybe even here in Ohio with
regard to the abuse of public funds.
Speaker 7 (01:32:02):
So you know, I know all of us are curious,
and there's a lot of noise going on, particularly if
you're online. You know, Mehika Cook is out there investigating.
There's some pretty good you know, citizen journalists who are
digging and finding some things okay, but like take for instance,
that you know, one of the first things that came
(01:32:23):
out about Ohio was those forty daycares that all you
know were made legal in the one day they all
in June or twenty twenty four to go on. Well,
I heard Keith talk about that, and they did investigate it,
and what they found out was that was not true.
They didn't all style on that day and get done.
(01:32:44):
That was some sort of a problem with the computer
system that just put them all in that date, and
that those are all they're legitimate. He did look at that.
So I want our numbers and people out there from
you know, in Olive, Ohio, to know that Keith Faber
and Bob Spragg and those guys they are looking into this.
(01:33:05):
And while there is a lot of smoke, I so
far have not seen fire, meaning you know, billions of
dollars like in Minnesota that have been stolen. There are
millions of dollars, and I think Keith may have talked
about a few of those things, but so far I
haven't seen this kind of you know, the systemic corruption
(01:33:25):
like you saw in Minnesota. So that's my viewpoint at
this stage.
Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
Tom's Alastowski we the People Convention dot or hopefully it
stays that way, and hopefully we have been slightly ahead
of the curve and that would give my listeners and
of course the residents of the state of Ohio a
lot of comfort. Tom, keep up the great work. I'm
pleased that you were referred to Rob McAuley by VV
Gramaswamy suggesting to my listeners, Tom, you're a man that
needs to be consulted with because he's got a lot
(01:33:52):
of influence. We either People Convention dot Org. Tom, you
and I will talk again real soon. I wish you
the best of health and happiness for the next week
until we hear from each other. I hear from you again,
I'll record to the next time. Thanks very much. As always,
Steve Gooden, our legal expert. Did they violate rules that
are worthy.
Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Of a talk station?
Speaker 4 (01:34:12):
Seven forty nine I think about PERCV talk station Happy
Tuesday inside Scoop with bry Barton and his plus the
Daniel Davis Deep Dive in the next hour and Dusty
Rhodes on how property taxes work and Ken school Zoo's
and first responders survive without them Without further ado, though,
God bless you Welcome back to the FIRFTY five KRC
Morning show. In matters involving legal questions, not good to
(01:34:32):
rely on me anymore. It's been a while since actively
practice law. Steve Gooden, though with the outstanding law firm,
Reporter Wright joins the program to explain these matters formal counselmen.
He is Steve Gooden. They went into executive session yesterday
to talk about we think maybe the settlement of this lawsuit,
the Hinton family lawsuit, which hasn't been filed, but to
(01:34:53):
talk about settlement. Cheryl Long, it was revealed, was in
settlement discussions with the Hinton family. Their son, eighteen year
old was killed by a police officer because while he
was in a stolen car fleeing police and then he
turned around with a gun point in an officer and
ended up losing his life. They think that is a
settlement worthy now. Christopher Smithen was on the program this
morning saying, if you go into executive council, you must
(01:35:15):
let the public know the subject matter, not the substance
of what goes on in there, but at least the
subject matter before going into executive council, and said someone
should file a lawsuit because they.
Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Didn't do that.
Speaker 4 (01:35:26):
Steve Gooden, legal expert, is that a justiciabal controversy?
Speaker 8 (01:35:33):
You know what sure is? I did take a look
at the agenda. Brian, First, good morning, and second Smitherman
is is typically the case is correct and under a
Higle law, there are only two reasons you can go
into executive session. One is to discuss potential litigation, which
is apparently what happened here. And number two, you can
go in to discuss a personnel matter, particularly a sensitive
(01:35:56):
personnel matter regarding someone who may have to be fired
or what have you. I mean, those are reasons you're
allowed as a public official to go in and talk
with your legal counsel and your city manager off the record,
as it were. There's an attorney client privilege that attaches,
so that in and of itself isn't illegal. That is
just that's a place where state law prompts the local law.
(01:36:19):
But that said, there's two big things about executive session legally.
Number one, you have to state which category it is
that you're talking about. Yesterday's agenda did not do that.
We know because of all the various leaks at city
Hall that they were talking about a potential hitting settlement,
but they didn't acknowledge that publicly. That's number one. Number two,
(01:36:41):
you can't vote on the settlement or actually vote on
anything during executive session. The ultimate decisions have to be
made out in a public forum. So for instance, this
eight point one million dollar travesty of a settlement they
gave to the George Floyd protesters earlier this month. I mean,
they did have to actually go into regular session to
(01:37:03):
vote on that. We presume they had had prior executive
sessions about it.
Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
We didn't know.
Speaker 8 (01:37:08):
They're not doing a very good job of putting out
there that the executive sessions, you know, what the subject
matter of them are. But I mean that's really where
this is. I mean, they really should be telling people
at least the general subject matter of what's going on here.
It's a horrible look, but I guess good thing for
(01:37:29):
the taxpayers. City hall leagues like a sieve and always has.
Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 4 (01:37:34):
And thankfully we have outlets that let us know actually
what's going on behind the scenes, because they apparently are
talking and coming out of the closed door session the
executive session. No single city council member of these spokespeople
for the city manager or the city manager or the
mayor set a peep. They just refused comment to the
enquire and other local reporters on what they what they do.
They could have said, we were talking about a potential settlement.
(01:37:56):
They're allowed to say what the subject matter is. They
just couldn't talk about what specifically happened in the meeting, right, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (01:38:02):
That's exactly right. I mean, look, I mean, like I said,
there's only to mine. I mean, look, and I've been
advising the municipalities on and off for twenty five years. Uh,
there's really only two reasons why you have an executive session,
and you're really supposed to put that at least in
the record, if not on the agenda. You know, I
actually pulled the paper agenda off the Cities upside. It
(01:38:23):
just says executive you know session pursuant to Ohio Biased
Code Section blah blah blah. That's all it says. So,
you know, particularly if they're considering doing something this sensitive,
this unpopular, I mean, just to be very clear, what
apparently is being contemplated here, you know, is you know,
a settlement with this Hinton family where the father is
(01:38:45):
currently facing trial for murdering a sheriff's deputy, a totally
innocent sheriff's deputy, uh purportedly because he watched the video
of his son being shot by police Cincinnati police and
goes off and does this like this horrific crime. So
I think one of the big issues is we don't
really have a law in Ohio, as some states do,
(01:39:06):
that would ban the father from getting some of the proceeds. Now,
in all likelihood, he's going to be in jail the
rest of his life. But I think it will be
major Hartburn even if this was a band shooting of
the of the young Hinton kid, which every indication I've
heard is that it is not. The prosecutor's office declined
to prosecute the police officer, the city has taken no action.
(01:39:28):
I have not watched the video, but I am told
that you can see that the young man had a
gun and was fleeing from a stolen car, classic circumstances
and which use of force would typically be justified by
a police officer. Why they would be trying to settle
that in the first instance is a big question mark.
And then a huge question mark is how and why
would they be looking at giving money to a family
(01:39:51):
where the father has all but admitted to murdering a
police officer. So I mean it's politically sensitive situation times ten.
Speaker 4 (01:40:01):
Well, since this idea that there was a settlement going
on behind the scenes came out of the blue, question
I had the other day, and I've been told, yes,
the city solicitor does she have the authority to settle
the I mean, the city solicitor apparently has the authority
to settle lawsuits. They don't need council's approval. City solicitor
works for the city manager. Does that mean that if
the city manager and the solicitor decide they're going to
write a check for X amount of the hitting family,
(01:40:21):
that the council really has no control over that.
Speaker 8 (01:40:26):
Well, it depends on the circumstances on that one, Brian.
I mean, I recall under the city's current administrative code,
the city manager can settle smaller lawsuits, but I can't
remember what the exact monetary cutoff is. The council must
approve a lawsuit, certainly anything in the seven figures, which
(01:40:46):
is typically what happens in a wrongful scenario. So there
are some smaller suits that the city solicitor and the
city manager can settle, but nothing like this. If you're
going to actually move bigger amounts of money, council has
to approve it. Well, they're allowed to, I mean, they
routinely settle small thunder bender cases with city vehicles and
(01:41:11):
things of that nature. But the big things they have
to get approval, all right, And.
Speaker 4 (01:41:15):
I know, right of time, Joe, But I got to
ask this one question. The Bell's been wrong. They went
into executive council saison without mentioning why they were doing it.
If that is an actionable offense, what's the legal recourse?
What's the remedy for that? Because the Bell's been wrong,
they had the meeting.
Speaker 8 (01:41:31):
Yeah, you're right, I mean, I mean typically what someone
would do would be a taxpayer with fileolytical, a taxpayer
lawsuit saying that they feel that their rights have been violated,
and you try to get into the common Police court
locally and see if you could convince a judge to
award some sort of damages to that taxpayer as a
deterrent to these guys. You know, My concern is that
(01:41:54):
that really they don't seem to be all that interested
in being deterred and they don't really seem to be
paying any political price right now the way the city
voters are responding. So we you file a lawsuit, but
what good would do I really don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:42:09):
Maybe just to make a point a judgment suitable for framing.
That's why we have legal expert Steve Goodin from the
law firm Reporter Right to help us out with these matters. Steve,
thank you so much for going to join the program
late in the game. And you're always welcome here, and
you know we're going to be calling you anytime we
need sound legal advice and explanation.
Speaker 8 (01:42:25):
Hey, anytime, Barne, you guys take care.
Speaker 4 (01:42:27):
Happy New Year, my friend, Happy New Year. Five to
seventy or seven fifty seventy five K City the talk station.
I'm going to hear the Inside Scoop with John Carney
telling us simpically. We get what we call the inside
Scoop with bright Bart News and as I always start
the program segment Brightbart dot com. It's worth a bookmark.
Read what they have to say each and every day.
Br E I T B a art dot com. Solid
reporting quite often is reporting on things before anybody else
(01:42:50):
reports on it, and sometimes the only source of information
that is actually true. John Carney knows all about that.
He's written for bite Bart for a long time. We've
had him on many times before. Welcome back to the program,
John Carney. It's always a pleasure to have and you
want to appreciate what you and the team at Breitbart
do each and every day.
Speaker 11 (01:43:08):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (01:43:10):
Am I staring at a at a good news on
the topic lest I mean, what price of gas and oil?
Donald Trump just tweeted the other day about forty three
states having gas under three dollars per gallon. Before we
started talking, I just went over to gas buddy my
personal zip code gas about between two oh nine and
two forty two in the city proper the zip code
(01:43:31):
for the city of Cincinnati two seventy nine, and then
I just randomly chose Middletown, which is, you know, between
here and Dayton two dollars and thirty three cents.
Speaker 8 (01:43:39):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
I haven't seen prices like that for many, many years.
That is an outstanding development and immediate relief in terms
of the inflationary pressures we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
John, your take, Yeah.
Speaker 11 (01:43:49):
That's absolutely right. I drove the other day just to
a local gas station and I hadn't been the I
hadn't been driving for a you know, must have been
a week or two since I last filled up my car,
and it was down to two forty nine. And I thought, Okay,
this is an amazing development because we have, as you said,
(01:44:12):
it mechanically actually forces down inflation in large part because
the gasoline is and oil fuel energy in general is
a large part of the entire inflation index. But also
everything we touch has petroleum in it, and so and
(01:44:32):
or is shipped with gasoline, so you have you know,
whether it's food coming on trucks, whether it is the
you know, plastics that we're buying everything. I was on
Larry Tudlow's television show the other day and he was
pointing out that his glasses are made of petroleum. So
cheap oil, cheap gasoline is a way of getting everything
(01:44:55):
less expensive than our lives.
Speaker 4 (01:44:56):
Yeah, and one can only help. But also maybe perhaps
presu zom on some level that the price that we
passed along the consumer. I think many manufacturers and providers
of goods are looking for ways to provide some price
relief and if they're going to save some money in
terms of what they're paying to ship goods and serve
or to ship the goods. I would think that's an
easy way for them to pass along a little bit
(01:45:18):
of savings to the American customer, right, And.
Speaker 11 (01:45:21):
It's not just out of the goodness of their heart.
Of course, Target wants to compete with Walmart, so when
Walmart's costs go down, they can lower the cost and
then they they try to lower their prices when their
costs go down to beat Target, Target has to do
the same thing. So the competitive economy means that you
do get these costs start to come down. And I
(01:45:47):
also just think it will help people psychologically. Gasoline is
one of those prices that we all see very frequently,
even when we're not necessarily filling. Normal prices you only
see when you're buying something. Prices of furniture you rarely
see because how often you even buy a piece of furniture.
Groceries you see more often, but only when you're at
(01:46:08):
the grocery store. Gasoline you see all the time because
of the minute you pass a gas station, they advertise
what the price is, and so I think it adds
a lot of sale ins for people, and people understand
that they're not spending as much on the pump. It
puts a little more money in their pockets to buy
other things, and I think that'll be make people feel
some relief from some of this burden left over from
(01:46:30):
the Biden administration of very high inflation that a lot
of us are still dealing with.
Speaker 4 (01:46:34):
Well, and I guess there's a compounding factor. You know,
you would think more oil, more oil, more oil, the
price will continue to go down. But there's a point
at which a barrel of oil doesn't really generate sufficient
revenue for the oil companies. I've heard domestic oil production
companies need about fifty dollars a barrel. I think part
of that has to do with the added costs of
extracting oil and natural gas from shale, But there is
(01:46:57):
a point of limited return. Now we've got alleged lead
this Venezuela and oil that's going to be coming online.
I'm not sure how much that's going to impact. And
there are, of course a lot of logistical hurdles we
have to deal with before that oil is going to
start flowing, including oil companies agreement to go back to
areas where they used to be able to drill and
keep their profits until after the communist government socialist government
comes in and nationalizes their resources. Can we get them
(01:47:20):
to go back in And ultimately is that going to
be a good thing for the oil companies considering it
probably will bring the price of oil down.
Speaker 11 (01:47:27):
John, Yeah, so a couple of things. One, the price
of US oil. I've often heard the fifty dollars quoted. Yeah,
that's not necessarily fixed. We can bring down the cost
of production of US energy and oil, in particular by
one allowing some of these pipelines to get built, allowing
(01:47:52):
not necessarily even less regulation, but more confident regulation. Look,
the Biden administration didn't want it to be easy, and
the Obama administration before that did not want it to
be easy or cheap to extract oil out of the ground.
They actually wanted to drive up the price because that
would drive down the relative price of things like solar
(01:48:14):
and wind. So they had been engaged in a campaign
of making it more expensive to get oil out of
the ground. So, yes, fifty dollars is the break even now,
but it can come lower and once we get the
regulation of it correct. As for Venezuela, I don't think
we I think exon mobil has been very hesitant about
(01:48:36):
going in. I understand that you got burned once the
comedy season stuff. You're worried. But smaller guys actually are.
Speaker 8 (01:48:44):
We are eager.
Speaker 11 (01:48:46):
They want to go in. They say, look, we think
this time will be safer. We know we have the
back of the US President, so we think this is
an investible opportunity. And is it risk free. No, but
you know a lot of these they call them wild
catter oil drillers. They're not going for the risk pre things.
(01:49:07):
These guys want to take risks because that's where you
make money.
Speaker 4 (01:49:10):
Well, I have always been convinced that taking plant food
out of the atmosphere is dangerous for plants. It is
not a pollutant carbon dioxide. It keeps the world green
and going. We all learned about that in elementary score.
At least we used to this whole idea that they
wanted to. I mean, the predicate, remember Barack Obama, price
of gas will necessarily go up. It was an artificial
(01:49:31):
price increase. Take away the opportunity to drill easily. Throw
in regulatory hurdles insurmountable. They are you're going to force
people to go over to and you said that would
make solar and wind appear more affordable only because gas
a lien had been artificially increased in price. So you're
competing with an artificially increased price product that we all
want and need and can't do without because most of
(01:49:53):
us have intertal combustion engines. You're going to replace it
with solar panels and windmills that only come with the
only way those can even manage themselves financially is with
government subsidies, taxpayer dollars. The whole thing built on what
I would argue the house of cards that seems to
be falling apart in front of our very eyes, that
we are somehow destroying the planet by allowing carbon dioxide
(01:50:16):
to naturally exist and not try to extract it or
not put it into the environment and environment in the
first place.
Speaker 11 (01:50:22):
So that's absolutely right, and you've got the really perverted
part of the policy. They're absolutely correct, and it was intentional.
You can read the environmentalists, this is what they say
they wanted to do. You subsidize the energy they like,
you tax the energy or regulate the energy they don't like.
And so you are basically visibly forcing people to bot
(01:50:49):
to seek out alternatives because you've driven the price of
gas so high, and you've artificially driven the price of
non fossil fuels much lower. And that was actually But
the problem is you can't get enough energy to run
modern society with windmills and solar panels. It's not going
to happen. We don't actually even have the technology for
(01:51:10):
a lot of the Look where I live up in
the northeast coast of the United States, if you try
to run everything on solar, you would be in a
lot You just wouldn't have energy for six months.
Speaker 8 (01:51:25):
Of the year.
Speaker 11 (01:51:25):
We're you know, we're in cloud covered New England here.
This is not you can't run solar all over the country.
Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
No, of course not.
Speaker 4 (01:51:34):
And of course, with artificial intelligence demands increasing the load
on the grid, I mean exponentially, we can't satisfy the
needs of AI, and so much so that I think
the one development that's coming out of all this that's
going to be great for America generally speaking, is that
we're no longer turning our backs on the concept of
small modular reactors or nuclear production. Generally speaking, an abundance
(01:51:56):
of power and oh look, it's been carbon free the
whole time, and yet the environment analysts fought nuclear tooth
and nail much in the same way they fight anything
that involves fossil fuel. It's all insane. But the demand
of business and industry and these evil multi billionaires with
their AI companies, seems to be trumping this religion that
we all have been following blindly.
Speaker 11 (01:52:18):
It's actually been a great development, not intentional, but this
is the way things have worked out that for a
long time we actually had a bunch of these tech
companies that believed that because they themselves weren't using much energy,
that they were willing to get behind a lot of
these horrible climate change policies that drove up the price
(01:52:40):
of energy.
Speaker 7 (01:52:41):
Now that we have the new.
Speaker 11 (01:52:43):
Technology and the money that's going into things like AI
that it is actually energy intensive rather than than not,
you're actually getting Silicon Valley and the new technologists to
support energy abundance rather than oppose it. That's a very
positive and frankly unexpected development. I didn't see that coming,
(01:53:04):
and it's terrific because it means that basically we're recruiting
a bunch of pretty wealthy people to be on the
side of ordinary Americans when it comes to energy, and
that's terrific.
Speaker 4 (01:53:17):
Well, they have to advocate that for their own survival. Finally,
the chickens as home to ruse for these you know,
multi billionaires who are so blindly following leftists and funding
every leftist cause out in the world. Oh, whoops. I
guess our situations changed. So we're going to change our
minds and maybe that'll help again convert people over to
the right side of thinking, which is, no carbon dioxide
(01:53:37):
isn't bad. It's plant food, all right. Is the economy
getting better?
Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
Are we? Are we booming? Are we not?
Speaker 4 (01:53:43):
I suppose it depends on where you read an article.
Everybody with an opinion has a different outlook on it.
It's like subjectivities under the equation. Shouldn't this be a
sort of a concrete thing. I guess it just depends
on which sector of the economy you're looking at. John Carney.
Speaker 11 (01:53:57):
So right now, the economy is growing very rapidly, and
I think it's important that people see this. That we
grew at a three point eight percent in the second quarter,
of four point one in the third, and we might
be growing as fast as even faster than that in
the fourth quarter. That gave us a lot of momentum
(01:54:19):
going into this year. That's really good. The unemployment rate
has fallen, which is the opposite of what a lot
of people thought it was going to do. They thought
it was going to keep going up. So this is
all good news. And inflation has come in quite Look
in just a couple of minutes we'll get some more
inflation numbers.
Speaker 9 (01:54:37):
This is what we want.
Speaker 11 (01:54:38):
We want non inflationary growth. And by the way, wages
are rising faster than the rate of inflation, which means
that people have more purchasing power. The things we all
need to survive in this world are becoming more affordable
because we're getting the amount we get paid is going
up faster than the prices. That's terrific and it's something
that hasn't happened in a long time. Are dangers, Look,
(01:55:01):
interest rates are still pretty high. That could still cause
one of the things interest rates do eventually is slow
down hiring. So there are dangers still in the economy.
Will never not you not have risks to the economy.
But the economy is doing well right now, and I
think the legacy media is trying to blind us like this,
(01:55:23):
But we are doing well well.
Speaker 4 (01:55:26):
Three things that Democrats seem to have going into the
November election. You got healthcare and the subsidies, you got inflation,
and of course I suppose in the immigration situation, what
side are you on getting rid of these evil people
in the United States or letting everybody just stay here
without any intervention.
Speaker 1 (01:55:44):
So that's it.
Speaker 4 (01:55:45):
Hopefully the economy kicks in in full earnest before November,
taking the wind out of the democrats sales.
Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
On that one.
Speaker 4 (01:55:50):
We know that John Carney from Breitbart's going to be
reporting on all of it. Breitbart dot com is ory
you find John and the crew. John, thank you so
much for joining me on the program this morning. It's
always a pleasure having you on and for my listeners
and me. Keep up the great work over at bright Bart.
Speaker 11 (01:56:05):
Thanks so much and looking forward to being on again.
Speaker 4 (01:56:08):
Looking forward to it already, my friend, have a great week.
It's eight twenty here fifty five KRC The Talk Station.
The Daniel Davis Deep Dive coming up. I hope you
can stick around.
Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
W KRC, Cincinnati, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (01:56:20):
Ingram, fifty five KRC, The Talk Station.
Speaker 4 (01:56:24):
Hey, twenty eight here fifty five KRC, The Talk Station,
it's Tuesday. It's that time a week regular listeners, No,
it's appointment listening time for the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis joins the program every week,
as he does throughout the week with his podcast, Daniel
Davis Deep Dive talks about matters military, which he clearly
has a whole lot of information about, as we learn
every single week. Welcome back, Daniel Davis. It's always a pleasure, sir.
(01:56:47):
Good to see you did a lot to be here, Brian,
thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
All right, let's start with Iran.
Speaker 4 (01:56:54):
This kind of reminded me of the red line of
the sand Barack Obama mentioned with regard to Syria. It's
use a weapons, you know, blah blah blah, redline of
the stand, do not cross it. And then the line
gets crossed, and then you wait and wait and wait
for something to happen, and nothing really happens. Donald Trump
lately has been making a lot of very strong pronouncements
with regard to the crackdown on protesters in Iran. Most
notably last week, he said on Friday, I made the
(01:57:17):
statement very strongly to the they, the Irani and start
killing people like they have in the past. We will
get involved, will be hitting them very hard where it hurts.
Doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting
them very hard, very hard, where it hurts. Similar pronounces
have been made, but the crackdown continues now. Depending upon
who you believe. Given the fog of war, somewhere between
oh six hundred and two thousand protesters have been killed,
(01:57:39):
lots and lots arrested a multiplier of that, but it continues.
Internet's been shut down, which makes it a little more
difficult for the protesters to organize themselves. But the Trump
response now has been to levy a twenty five percent
tariffyn countries doing business with Iran? Is that the step
after these claims about military involvement and bombs being dropped
(01:58:03):
and least alluding to all of that, is this the
response to the line being crossed? Because of course this
killing continues. Daniel Davis, You know.
Speaker 2 (01:58:12):
I mean I want to back up just a bit
and even look at why was that a redline ever drawn? Period?
Speaker 3 (01:58:18):
What?
Speaker 2 (01:58:19):
Why is it in the interest of America? Why is
it a vital national issues that we should risk our troops,
our planes and go and kill somebody in another country
because there's some protests going on, or there's things happening
in there we don't like, or that their protesters being killed.
Even that's not there's no authorization or justification for that anyway,
(01:58:40):
And so I don't know why we would let that
be a deciding factor if it wasn't our national security
or anything related to the interest of America. So that's
the first question, which has not been answered at all
so far, right, and then the second one is if
you're gonna make a threat and then all of a
sudden there's a basically a truth social post, it's a
twenty five percent. That's I mean, there's there's literally thousands
(01:59:03):
of sanctions already on Iran. This is not no one's
even gonna notice this one. It's not gonna have any
real impact on anything. So I don't really understand.
Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:59:12):
I'll tell you what I'm concerned about. What I fear
is that we just don't have all the assets in
place right now, and that's the only reason you haven't
seen any strikes, because we don't have that much combat
power up there. You may recall that just a few
days before this, we did have a big strike in Sirius,
so that's obviously in the same region, and we do
have some package. I was curious that we used apparently
(01:59:33):
a large strike package against alleged ISIS targets in Syria
when we're already talking about maybe doing something in Iran.
And you don't see this big build up of power
like you did, say before the war in twenty or
the options in twenty twenty four when we helped Israel
against Iran, or in the so called Twelve Day war
in June of last year. So I'm not sure what
(01:59:55):
we can do other than firing, you know, some demonstrative
missile strikes here and there. It's not going to be
really painful, and who knows whether they're going to have
any impact. So this is this is a big.
Speaker 1 (02:00:06):
Puzzle to me.
Speaker 4 (02:00:07):
It is, and I suppose to the former comments, you're
channeling a friend of the show, Senator Ran Paul, who
expresses the same concerns about congressional involvement, declarations of war,
and the larger question, Wait a second, are we going
to be doing this everywhere freedom and democracy or whatever
is in jeopardy or anywhere in the world, whether people
being having the rights violated, and the answer is that
(02:00:28):
that would be literally impossible. So we're picking and choosing.
But also I read an article, and maybe this is
to your point about whether we are ready to engage
in some sort of military operation in Iran. I've heard
that the military, the folks within the military, the generals,
the admirals with whom I guess Donald Trump consults, say
they are not ready to do engage, to engage in
(02:00:48):
this that bombing Iran may suggest a much longer, more
protracted military involvement than we are ready to bite off
at this point. I guess we got our hands full
over in Venezuela with a lot of military resources there.
We certainly have not had the problem when the South
China seed disappear or go anywhere. So we're kind of
spread far and wide. Is that really maybe part of
(02:01:09):
the problem, Daniel Davis.
Speaker 2 (02:01:12):
Well, it's part of many problems. I'll tell you that
the fact that we are spread literally to the four
winds in the seven Seas, and our four structure is
not really that big, and so if you get called
into engagement anywhere, it's going to come close to tapping
you out. And we saw we had fifteen percent of
the Navy and all kinds of other power Marines, air Force, Navy,
(02:01:34):
all down there in the Venezulin area. Well, a lot
of that, most of it is, I understand, is still there,
so you haven't redeployed that anywhere. It takes a long
time to ship things back over into the Middle East, etc.
I think you'd need probably a couple of aircraft carriers
if you're going to do anything meaningful to Iron and
I haven't even heard of the potential deployments of any
that yet. Thankfully, I'm glad because the last thing we
(02:01:55):
need to do is to go back and start another
war with Iran, because Iran has said that this time
that the gloves would come off if you attack us again.
We're going to hit your bases throughout the Middle East.
And I can just tell you from personal experience of
being there, many of these far flung bases that we
have throughout the Middle East have literally no air defense
coverage on a stratega or on a theater level operation,
(02:02:17):
and those missiles from Iran could just rain down and
there's nothing we could do to stop them. They could
cause enormous damage, and we need to be really, really
careful that we don't get into this habit that we
can bomb anyone we want, like Venezuela and nothing will happen. Ever,
because one of these days we're going to buy off
more than we can chew, and all of a sudden,
there could be Americans throughout the Middle East. They are
(02:02:38):
killed for no reason at all. So this is something
we really don't need to do.
Speaker 4 (02:02:43):
So, I would think given the seemingly precarious nature of
the Iranian administration, given the protests, a lot of people
speculating that maybe the regime will be overthrown. Remains to
be seen. But desperate situations result in desperate acts. So,
Daniel Davis, in your military experience, do you think Iran
will make good and launch attacks on our various military
(02:03:05):
resources in the Middle East? Which suggests also that Israel
might get attacked. They've done it before. That means Israel
would get involved in whatever retaliation if they launched one.
Speaker 2 (02:03:15):
That is the threat that it would be the US
and Israel, they said, and not or so they would
have hit both. And I think that the intent is
to say, hey, look, you saw what happened during the
Twelve Day War. Your air defenses in Israel couldn't even
protect you, and it won't protect you this time either,
because we have rebuilt a lot of the capacity that
we lost there and they've continued to make a lot
of these better era ballistic missiles that were so successful
(02:03:38):
last time. And listen, a lot of these protests, too
many people in the West are saying, oh, this is
just all indigenous stuff, It's just natural.
Speaker 3 (02:03:46):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (02:03:48):
There has been long time simmering things. There are domestic issues,
but there is no question that a lot of this
has been fomented from the outside. Mike Pompeo openly admitted
on his ex account that Mossad is in the is
already on the ground there. There has been many other
credible reports that both I six and CIA has been
fomenting things on the ground to try to make it
worse than it was, and a lot of people in
(02:04:10):
Iran are understanding recognize that. The reason why that is
so important to understand is when you're talking about there
is the legitimate possibility for large scale upheavals that could
overturn the regime if you make them. The regime recognized
that they their very existence could be a threat if
they do nothing. Now they have no motivation to restrain
(02:04:32):
themselves if you now add on top of that missile.
So we don't want to put them into back them
into a corner to where it's like use it or
lose it, because they may use it. I'm just telling
you our defenses will not stop most of these things,
and we will suffer casualties if we put them in
a no win situation.
Speaker 4 (02:04:49):
Well, you know, interesting the global outside influence pot stirring
that's made that's led to some of these protests, we
might want to look a little bit inwardly about that
same concept happening here in the United States of America.
Good because we have a lot of protesters here who
many analysts and researchers have suggested are being stirred by
outside nefarious forces. You just simply don't like the United States.
Speaker 2 (02:05:11):
Yeah, you know, what's good for the goose is good
for the gander kind of thing, and we don't like that.
We you don't talk about how bad it is, and
we try to expose it whenever that does happen. And
we've been doing it for decades, I mean, oh yeah,
a long time. And you know, and sometimes those chickens
can come home to roost. And this is part of
the reason why I'm adamantly against that. I actually believe
(02:05:34):
in self determination of people in Iran want to change
their former government. That is their right prerogative. They take
all the risks and the potential rewards for whatever they
do on their own. We don't need to stir the
thing up or do anything because our national security is
not at risk no matter who runs Iran. They are
a weak country militarily and they don't threaten us at all,
(02:05:55):
so we don't need to use any force. Whatever they
do is on their own. But when we do that, Brian,
it then invites it to come back home. And I
fear that we may find that tour sha grin one day.
Speaker 4 (02:06:05):
Well, it's interesting quote silver Parallel that I'm gonna quickly
draw here the anti Iranian sentiment, and I agree with
your principles about we don't need to be going around
telling anybody else how to live their lives. Period, and
point taken. The anti Iranian propaganda's built into the equation.
We remember the overthrow of the shot, we remember the
taking of the hostages, remember Iran threatening to blow everybody
(02:06:27):
up with a nuclear weapon. We think it's a dangerous
thing to get a nuclear weapon, on and on. This
has been going on for decades, so there's this general
animosity toward Iran, which makes something like this military strike
seem more palatable, Like, yeah, this sounds analogous to Vladimir Putin. Yeah,
he was affiliated with the Soviet Union. A lot of
people my age, you know, I'm sixty, I remember the
Cold War. I hated the Soviet Union as much as
(02:06:48):
the next guy. So sort of that animosity is baked
into the cake, which is I think a lot of
the reason why people are so against the Russian invasion
in Ukraine again to the security interests of the United States.
Ukraine doesn't really hose any this war is ongoing. I
see that Russia recently bombed to the Ukrainian city which
with reportedly one of those hypersonic missiles. Is that accurate,
(02:07:09):
because seems to me that Russia still keeps moving forward
and capture more Land.
Speaker 2 (02:07:14):
Daniel, Yes, it is, It is absolutely accurate. I was
reading some of those reports this very morning, a lot
of viscandors and other hypersonic missiles, and then another wave
of the Guarante drones, the theater level drones that have
been going across most of them, well not most of them,
but it's large number of them, a large percentage to
get through every time. And it has just continuing to
(02:07:37):
just destroy the ability of Ukraine to have any energy, electricity,
to either to do business or to have military industrial capacity.
It's all just devastating that. And now then they're they're
the mayor of Kiev is literally telling people to leave
the city because they don't have enough power to keep
people from freezing to death.
Speaker 4 (02:07:57):
That tells you a lot right there, It really does.
I want to say war of attrition, but it's one
that the Russians seemed to be winning. Just real quick,
I quick question for we part Coedy Daniel Davis. Did
you ever when this first started, this conflict with Russian
invading Ukraine, did you ever anticipate that it would take
this long, that this war would still be going on
without some clear victory. I would imagine my guests early
(02:08:18):
on would have been the Russians would have rolled right
over Ukraine absent some massive outside force boots on the
ground from the European Union or NATO or whatever. But
they keep moving forward, and it's been going on for
a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:08:30):
Well, The problem with the Russians is that, and with
that scenario is that they did not intend to do that.
They did not intend to roll over and take over
the country because they knew that. I mean, they'd been
watching a year civil war going on before then, they'd
been watching NATO build up the Ukraine military, so they
knew that they were capable and fairly large, and so
they went in with a relatively small force. It was
(02:08:52):
a demonstration force. This canard that Russia thought they were
going to win in three days was nonsense. They never
said that. They never intended that. They didn't have the
force to it. They intended to compel a negotiated settlement,
which they nearly got in Istanbul two months into the war.
But then when they didn't get that, they didn't have
a plan B resourced, and that's when they said, oh crap.
(02:09:13):
And so it took them a year and a half
to get back up to the point to where they're
at now, where they can fight and win a war
of attrition. That's where they're at now.
Speaker 9 (02:09:20):
And so.
Speaker 2 (02:09:22):
That no, to answer your question, I didn't expect this.
Russia didn't expect this. I did not expect that this
would go on this long I thought we'd have a
negotiated settlement a long time ago, because that was in
the best interests of Europe, Ukraine and the United States. Unfortunately,
that's not what we did, and now then we have
a much stronger Russia on the NATO Eastern flank than
we had before, and we're gonna have to deal with
(02:09:44):
that for a long time to come.
Speaker 4 (02:09:45):
Every Tuesday, beginning at a thirty, the Daniel Davis Deep
Dive with our guest and friend, retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis.
Finding them where you find your podcast, Daniel Davis Deep Dive,
It'll be on my blog page fifty five Carosey dot com. Sir,
you have a great week. We'll do this again next Tuesday.
Look forward to it, Brian, see then take care, sir.
Eight forty two Dusty Road at seventy five right lane
(02:10:06):
block Chuck Ingram fifty five KR and see the talk station, Hey,
forty six fifty five KRC detalk station sharing some Joe
Strekker high comedy over the break, he said Fox nineteen.
He was the report of waking up at five o'clock
or earlier is harmful to your health, suggesting that maybe
Joe and I need to make a worker's compensation claim.
(02:10:27):
We'll think about it, Joe. Any workers comployers out there
that want to help Joe, please feel free to give
them a call. In the meantime, without further ado, welcome
back to the Morning Show. Dusty Rhoads, former Hamilton County auditor,
came up with a had a conversation yesterday with Senate
candidate from the seventh district here in the state of Ohio,
Zach Haynes, who talked about property tax relief. We certainly
(02:10:48):
need it, and many people can't afford to pay their
property taxes, especially when they jump thirty plus percent overnight.
Dusty Rhoads, a lot of ideas floating around out there.
I know the budget from the state of Ohio. The
elect officials said, here are some property tax relief items,
and our governor line item vetoed them. We are facing
a potential ballot initiative which would eliminate, by way of
(02:11:10):
constitutional amendment in Ohio, the collection of property taxes, which
sounds interesting, get your popcorn out type of event, Dusty,
but it's going to be really complicated if that happens.
Where are we, Dusty Rhoads. Is there any relief out
there that's possible in what would happen if we just
got rid of it? Dusty, welcome back. Happy new year,
(02:11:30):
by the.
Speaker 6 (02:11:30):
Way, Happy new year, Brian. Good to be whether it's interesting.
The first thing I want to note is there were
a bunch of property tax issues on the ballot in
November in Hamilton County, and you know how many of
them passed?
Speaker 1 (02:11:48):
It was all but like one, weren't there all of them?
Speaker 6 (02:11:52):
All of them?
Speaker 4 (02:11:53):
I thought maybe, okay, I thought maybe one of the
local school levies got shot down.
Speaker 6 (02:11:57):
No, they all passed. And so that indicates to me
that this property tax issue is not the big issue
we thought it was. I mean, don't you think there'd
be an outpouring of votes against property taxes?
Speaker 1 (02:12:16):
Well? Dost he?
Speaker 4 (02:12:17):
Don't ask me what I think about the most recent election,
since only one out of four registered voters in the
city anyway bothered to show up. I think that's just
the problem of low information voters and off your election,
and people who just are not politically paying attention, and
many people who like for example, apartment renters, who don't
really think that property tax impacts them.
Speaker 6 (02:12:36):
Yeah, yeah, they don't realize that it's built into their
rental payment. But the problem is the twenty mil floor,
and I think they've passed something that limits that a little.
That's the device that the school's got to avoid the
rollback of the taxes. When values go up, every other
(02:13:02):
tax rolled back so that the police department and fire
departments and mental health levey and didn't get more than
the voters approved money wise, and if that was in
effect for the schools, Texas wouldn't have jumped that much.
Speaker 1 (02:13:22):
Well the other thing, Oh, go ahead and finish your thought.
Speaker 6 (02:13:25):
Well, Well, the thing is there is a conspiracy of
silence in the Columbus news people to not talk about it.
I've asked Tom said Us, the guy who writes for
the Inquirer, five times. Welly, I didn't write about the
twenty mil floor, and he won't answer me. I've asked
(02:13:48):
the two reporters in Columbus for Gannette and they won't
answer either.
Speaker 1 (02:13:54):
Maybe they don't get it.
Speaker 9 (02:13:56):
Well I don't.
Speaker 6 (02:13:58):
It's simple look at it. Maybe it's hard to believe though,
the twenty mili floor and the exemption for the schools
which in the district's qualified, and that's eight or nine.
Here every district in Butler County qualified taxes went up
(02:14:20):
a lot without a vote of the people, and that's
the twenty mil floor Cambit.
Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
Well, Dusty Rhodes.
Speaker 4 (02:14:29):
How about I know it's been discussed, it's not me
coming up with the concept, but how about an adjustment
for inflation in terms of property tax increases as opposed
to market valuation. I mean, you go through something like
COVID where everybody and his brother is out buying up
all the real estate. You now have institutional investors which
have been around since we had the housing crash back
(02:14:49):
in the mid two thousands. They're buying up property. They
have a lot more money. Of course, it drives the
prices of real estate supplying demands. Runningto a problem the
additional twenty million immigrants over the past several years. That
creates a bit of a house and shortage. So if
there's not enough houses to go around, the prices necessarily increase,
and that is going to cause the property taxes to increase,
maybe thirty percent, depending upon the market. But how about
(02:15:10):
something that suggested solely on the basis of the amount
of inflation. It would take some of the sting out
of these radical fluctuations, wouldn't it right?
Speaker 6 (02:15:19):
And real estate doesn't track inflation. It jumps a lot
and it declines a lot, and it doesn't track inflation.
So if you take that out of the equation, that
would be something that they could do. But I like
the fact that the schools and the townships and everybody
(02:15:40):
had to go to the voters every three or four
years and ask for money and justify the request, and
most cases had passed because they made the case. But
now they're exempted by this twenty Mili four nonsense. And
the legislatures tried to rein that in and I think
(02:16:02):
that bill passed that ties it to inflation. But the
problem is with doing away with the property tax completely.
These people are well meaning, but they're doomed. They're wasting
their time. And remember in the eighties when the income
tax went in and they put it on the ballot
(02:16:23):
and you would do away with the income tax, and
they lost. And the income tax is still there and
the property tax. All they need to say against it
is will shut down your fire department?
Speaker 1 (02:16:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (02:16:39):
No, God, that's it.
Speaker 4 (02:16:41):
The ad campaign is going to be overwhelming. You know
your schools are going to save the fire department. The
parks are going to get shut down. It's yeah, And
there's not going to be any moneyed organized effort to
support rolling back property taxes right right going back to
the schools, and this comes up all the time, and
again it came up with the other day with us
and a candidate, Zach Haynes. Twenty years ago or maybe
(02:17:03):
even more, the Ohio State Supreme Court ruled that the
current funding of schools is unconstitutional. And here we are,
twenty plus years later, we're doing it the same way.
I guess the Supreme Court pronouncements don't matter in the
state of Ohio.
Speaker 6 (02:17:15):
What the state isn't doing enough. And Bart West, who
was on the Who Kills school Board and a former
police chief in Green Township, points out that West Virginia
even and the surrounding states are paying five thousand or
more a student and Ohio is paying about three thousand.
(02:17:36):
So they're underfunding and putting the burden on the property
tax payer. And that was caseis trick too. He did
the same thing. He put the burden on the local
governments by cutting the local government fund. And the state
is the most efficient tax selector with the income tax,
which is fair according to how much you make, and
(02:18:00):
they've been whittling that down and throwing the burden on
local governments and it's the problem. Property tax problem is
the result.
Speaker 4 (02:18:12):
Dusty Roads. If more honor for Hamilton County. It's great
having you on, Dusty. I hope you are doing well
and your family's doing well. It's a pleasure to having
you on the program. We can talk again when these
matters come up, and I know you're always willing to
discuss it with my listeners and me. Happy New Year
to you, sir. Thanks for spending some time with my
listeners with me today, Dusty.
Speaker 6 (02:18:29):
Happy new Year to you, Brian and all the best
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (02:18:33):
Hey, just fyi, we're going to be at ronz Rous
on the West Side for the next listener launch fourth
of February. That's first Wednesday, February. I know you come
every once in a while. I'm just extending an infin
invitation with no pressure to show up. But it's always
great when you show up the listener lunch, my friend,
I'll be there.
Speaker 1 (02:18:48):
Take care, Dusty Roads. That'll be uh Rods
Five O five fifty five KRC the talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
The two series some six.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hopefully will a vacation, no idea, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Thanks for summing it up for the world there tally
appreciate it. Thank you Joe Checker for the SoundBite and
producing the program of lining up great guests today. Brian
Thomas right here, glad to be and always uh interested
in welcome phone calls here in the fifty five KRSE
Morning Show. Somebody you want to talk about like the
deafening silence from since a council members an executive session yesterday,
Feel free five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifty five hundred,
(00:54):
eight hundred and eighty two to three talk Pound five
fifty on at and t fum. Of course, going to
get to that topic today, especially since Christopher Smithmen returns
at six thirty to assess wonder what happened behind closed
doors yesterday. Charlie Luken precedes Christopher. Charlie's going to join
the program at six so five, former mayor of the
City of Cincinnati and of course former board member on
the Railroad board who really pushed for the sale of
(01:15):
the railroad, says there's a lot of money coming in
a whole lot more than they anticipated. Sitting on eighty
five million or so dollars, why have they only spent
five percent of it? Charlie critical He came out speaking
with The Inquirer, and there was an article posted upon
that or about that about his well dismay over the
lack of money flowing out and actually getting projects started.
(01:37):
The city, for its part, claims that the money has
been allocated, it't just hasn't been spent. So I talked
to Charlie after the show yesterday recorded that and we'll
run that interview at six zh five again, followed by
Christopher Smithman at six thirty. Greg Hand Greg Han, he's
the local historian. Interesting guy, proprietor of the Cincinnati Curiosities blog,
(01:58):
retired from the UC as the head of public Relations office.
Prior to that, he was editor of the Washington Western
Hills Press. West said, in addition to the blog, he
contributes regularly to Cincinnati Magazine and presents entertaining history chats
in bars through a program called Stand Up History. Also
author of the Cincinnti Curiosities published by the History Press.
(02:20):
We've got a lot of parallels to apparently draw between
Cincinnati in twenty twenty six and nineteen twenty six, How
on the how do you link those two up? Well,
apparently that was the year that we had a massive
change in government, moving away from the Boss Cox era.
The obviously political machine that Boss Cox was had a
reform party elected. I thought it was kind of funny
(02:42):
get this quote, nineteen nineteen twenty six, the highways of
the city were in a deplorable condition. This is at
the start of the new wave of political control in
the city. The highways of the city were in a
deplorable condition and cried allowed for repairs. Lack of care
and funds to repair such conditions had not been forthcoming
(03:04):
management and the allotment of funds for specific repairs needed
readjusting before order could come out of chaotic conditions. Yeah, said,
it's a slight parallel what's going on. I also mentioned
the streetcar in the public transportation system, So apparently there
is a lot to compare between the city then and now.
So Greg is going to take on that in the studio.
Should be funny and informative. Got a couple of events
(03:27):
coming up we'll talk about with Greg as well. The
return out of Tom Zawastowski. We heard from him last
week and hear from him this week. We the People
Convention dot orgs's website. We got some state topics to
talk about Ohio and Minnesota. Smalley Daycare fraud link. Youet
a lot of fraud out there and sadly enough, on
that note, frightening amounts. On Sunday, judgry Segary Scott Assent
(03:52):
revealed the bad information for fraud, waste and abuse totals
three hundred to six hundred billion dollars a year based
on Government Accountability Office the mints of fraud losses, which
equal about ten percent of the federal budget. GAO figures,
it's up to six hundred billion dollars a year lost
(04:13):
to fraud, waste and abuse. So we can get rid
of this fraud wasted abuse. We can finance a safer,
sounder the United States without taking on more debt. Yeah,
and to Jay out there, it was last week, I guess.
In the wake of what's going on in Minnesota and
the allegations of comparable fraud wasted abuse in the state
of Ohio, state Aunitor Keith Faber announced a new section
(04:36):
of the auditor's website that allows you members of the
public to report tips about potential fraud involving public benefits.
Favor in his statement last week's we want to make
sure that the public resources that are supposed to be
helping the most valuable among us are not lining up
the pockets of crooks. We welcome anyone with evidence of
crime that involves public funds that contact us. We take
(04:57):
these allegations very seriously, scrutinize any evidence of wrongdoing, hold
people accountable for their actions. Are you a member of
government so you could call Signal ninety nine or report
the shenanigans there, or if it evolves fraud, wasting, abuse,
let Favor know through the website. M Josh Williams, Republican
(05:19):
State rep. Said, it have been multiple reports of fraud
and publicly funded childcare programs. We also have that whole
pesky medicaid the fraud thing going on in the state
of Ohio, so let's try to get on top of that.
At least Favor is aware of it. We've got roped
into the Minnesota allegations and given the Ascent comment that
ten percent of everything's being stolen, I imagine this is
(05:39):
a problem that exists throughout the United States of America.
I know the Trump administration is expanding efforts to investigate
all this. How many federal investigators do we have and
how much fraud, waste and abuses out there? The key
to the problem. We spend too much money in the
federal government, so much so that it's impossible to keep
track of it. If you kept track of it before
it goes out the door. Here's a thought, you have
(06:03):
really tight controls before it goes out the door. You
don't need to recreate an evidentiary chain to show how
what ultimately went out the door ended up lining the
pockets of people who engaged in fraud. Just a thought,
little extra effort upfront saves people a lot of money
down the road. So what do we got there? That's
Tom's alis dawsk He'll also comment on BVIC for governor
(06:24):
and his running mate. For those who didn't listen, yesterday,
vive Ramaswamy joined the fifty five Case Mornings show. You
can find that podcast at fifty five care Sea dot com.
Inside Scoop it is Tuesday. Get the Inside Scoop at
Bright Barton News every Tuesday at eight oh five. The
return today at John Carney, we talked about the price
of gas and oil. Is the economy booming? Rhetorical question?
(06:46):
According to a tweet by Trump yesterday, welcome to reality.
Gas price continue to plumb a nationwide. Now forty three
US dates feature average gas prices under three dollars a gallon. Huh, Well,
that's good news, isn't it. There are a few states
that don't have low gas prices, and yes, all but
(07:09):
one is run by Democrats Alaska, I guess and oh
I'm sorry too. Alaska and Nevada are the only ones
run by Republican governor. The balance of the high gas
price states California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
So that topic with John Carney again eight h five,
followed by the Daniel Davis Deep dive, get the latest
from the Iran situation Venezuela and apparently Russia Baum Ukraine
the other day with what was described as a hypersonic weapon.
And then finally, Dusty Roads returns former Ammon County Auto
Dusty Roads, how do property taxes work? And Cann's schools,
(07:47):
zoos and first responders survive without them? M you know,
it's an interesting reality. We got this big year for
the election. A lot of people concerned about property taxes.
Talked to Zach Haynes the other day running for Senate
among other candidates, what do you do about property taxes?
(08:09):
Something needs to be done, and it's got to be
done this year because you remember, there's that ballot initiative
out there which is seeking to, you know, by virtue
of a constitutional amendment outlaw the collection of property taxes
in the state. And I know you know that I
always end up chuckling behind my comments when I say
that out loud because of the Charlie foxtrot that's going
to result if property taxes are eliminated by virtue of
(08:31):
a ballot initiative. Columbus is not prepared to deal with
that challenge. We've got all this time, you know, kind
of going back to the Republicans in Congress not doing
anything to provide a better alternative to Obamacare for the
last several years. Then we run up to this deadline
where subsidies are going to be extended, COVID era subsidies,
(08:51):
making the Democrats very happy, but they need to take
the whim out of the sales of the Democrats what
seems to be only argument as we approach November, which
is the increasing cost of all Obamacare, brought about by
of course, the cost of medical care generally speaking. Now,
the Republicans could have just attacked that over the past
several years, come up with some good ideas that we
could all embrace. Maybe the problem go away. But no,
(09:12):
a lot of wheel spinning going on. So it's a constant.
It's a common phenomenon that spreads across, of course, federal
government and state government. Heel dragging. So property tax is
a huge issue as we move into November. What's Dusty
say about it? Dusty joins the program at eight forty
five to talk about the course tomorrow. Jack Addan and
Judg Jennen of Politano five worn three, seven four nine fifty,
(09:34):
five hundred, eight hundred and eight to two three talk
found five fifty on at and T phones. Yeah, what
did they talk about yesterday? Oh my god, behind closed
doors yesterday went to executive Council. They didn't have to
go to executive session the since a council members. This
of course regarding the Hinton family proposed settlement which broke
over the week, and of course the topic of conversation
last week with Ken Cober signaled ninety nine and of
(09:57):
course widely reported in the Enchoirir. We even had some
comments from councilman Jeff Cameronon and Seth Walsh, like, what
in the hell are you talking about? There's a settlement
discussion going on. I'm appalled and I'm shocked to find
gambling going on in here. No lawsuit filed by the
Hitton family. Why would they be discussing settlement? Apparently it's
been going on since last year. A court of the
Hinton family attorney mister Fannin, who said they've been discussing
(10:21):
stuff since last summer, so what do they.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Do about it?
Speaker 4 (10:26):
They met behind closed doors a couple of hours worth.
What was discussed Scott Wartman's quote from the inquire what
was discussed in a more than two hour long executive
session since any council members wouldn't say, filing past reporters
and refusing to talk h Of course we heard from
(10:52):
the comments last week's city manager to share along said
that they haven't reached a settlement agreement. Family attorney seem
to be outraged over the suggestion that some million dollars
settlement was being discussed. That's news to me. That would
be really a He would be really excited if that
was actually the figures being discussed. Maybe it's something less
than a million dollars, which is the only thing he
(11:13):
hung us out on in an effort to deflate that
this is actually going on, Ken Cober, FOP President, Why
would you do this in executive session? Does the public
not have the right to know how their tax dollars
being spent? Great rhetorical question there, Ken, Yes, we do.
Spokeswoman for the city manager, what do you think? She said?
(11:36):
Decline comment. City manager hasn't released any information beyond the
statement regarding the negotiations with the Hitting family, which isn't basically, yeah,
we're in negotiations, but we're not telling you anything. Why
no comment? Why can't we know? Do they want to
put the seal on the deal and get everything squared
(11:57):
away before you and I get any information?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Is that fair? Is that right?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
And?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
For what I learned the other day, sounds to me
like the city solicitor reporting of the city manager. Solicitors
got the power and authority to settle these matters on
their own. So council apparently not even going to get
a word in terms of whether they approve of it
or not. Will any of them go on record keep
(12:28):
your popcorn out? Odds are No. Five seventeen Right now,
I fifty five k see de talk station Feelford to
give me a call me right back after these brief.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Words WKRC censor.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
She always plans on and hopes to, as does our
dog Liam, to take the dog out in the morning,
because she gets up early and we'll take the dog
to the park. And she's got a degree cut off.
If it's colder than then she will not go out.
And guess what nineteen degrees is colder than. Poor Liam
can always tell what he hasn't gone out. When I
(13:05):
get home in the morning, he's got a lot more
spring at his step. I come home when he's spent
out for the morning run, he's curled up into all
sound asleep anyway. Five one, three, seven, four, nine fifty
five eighty eight two three talk is Trump's bluff been
called in so far as Iran is concerned. And now
this past Friday, after he met with the oil executives,
he was talking about the Iranian leadership and threatening him
not to kill a protest or, saying I made a
(13:26):
statement that very very strongly that if they start killing
people like they have in the past, we will get involved.
We will be hitting them very hard and where it hurts.
And that doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it
means hitting them very very hard where it hurts. There
have been similar comments about that. I tell the Iranian leaders,
you better not start shooting, because we'll start shooting too.
And that's another statement later that he made. So we've
(13:48):
had these and now we're up to maybe six hundred
deaths widely reported somewhere between six hundred and two thousand,
depending on who you're listening to. That's the death toll
against the Iranian protesters. The Iranians said there's starting to
put a lid and crack down on them. I'm not
quite sure. They cut off the internet access, which makes
getting information out of iron extraordinarily difficult. But what of
(14:10):
this military action extremely complicated, you know, you could look
into give a serious potential for escalating into a full
blown conflict. They are a much larger nation, better equipped militarily,
I guess than say something like Venezuela. They've threatened to
shoot at military bases in the Middle East, if we
launch an attack. They've threatened Israel, of course they have.
(14:32):
So it looks like we're getting ready to get in
a shooting a shooting war. If Trump makes good on
his yet, we are going to react and respond militarily.
A lot of questions been swirling around that, like, for example,
Ran Paul, who's against the idea of this, saying, listen,
we can't support and ensure freedom every country around the world.
But he asked this rhetorical question, how do you drop
a bomb in the middle of a crowd or a
(14:52):
protest and protect the people there. Yeah, militarily speaking, it
could compound matters. So Trump just yet yesterday decided he
was going to slap a twenty five percent tariff on
any country doing business with Iran, kind of sending some
warning signals because that would include China, compounding and complicating
(15:13):
international matters. So further endeavoring to undermine Iranian's economy, which
is the reason that people are protesting in the streets.
Regime change in this particular case, if it comes about,
is going to be a consequence of their currency being
well watered it down to the point of valuelessness. Of course,
the tariffs that have already been placed in the country,
are causing some serious economic challenges for them, and the
(15:35):
people are obviously upset about it, even burning down mosques.
But insofar as tarifts are concerned, Trump said the obvious
the other day talking about the Supreme Court, which is
reviewing whether or not he has the power to impose
reciprocal tariffs on these various countries, saying, if the Supreme
Court rules against the United States of America on this
(15:56):
national security of bonanza, we are screwed. All caps, We're screwed,
saying the actual numbers we would have to pay back
if for any reason the Supreme Court would rule against
the United States of America on tariffs would be many
hundreds of billions of dollars. And that doesn't include the
amount of payback that countries and companies would require for
(16:18):
the investments they're planning on building plants, factories, equipment for
the purposes of being able to avoid payment of the tariffs. Now,
that's one decent point he made. Now say what you
want about the tariffs legal illegal. He used them to
encourage investment in the United States of America, and with
really good result. We've got foreign countries promising billions and
billions of investments. Why to get out of the tariffs.
(16:40):
That's a negotiated resolution, and I would say a fairly
positive one. If we're going to get billions of investment
from foreign countries, that's jobs and investment in the United
States of America, which in yours, of course, stating the
obvious to our financial benefit, pull the tariffs. You've pulled
the negotiated agreement. That would undo a lot of enthusiasm
(17:01):
and a lot of positivity that has been brought about
as a consequence of the tariff. So kind of sitting
on the edge here waiting for the Supreme Court. But
you know you cannot deny again, going back to whether
or not they're legal. If they are deemed illegal, it
is going to be outrageous to undo it, crazy, outrageous.
Five twenty six fifty five kr C the talk station.
(17:23):
Feel free to call out local stories coming up and.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I'll be right back fifty five KRC.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
The fun called post ce.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Monday, thirty two degrees right now here at fifty five
kr CEED Talk Station Happy Tuesday five on three seven
four nine fifty five hundred eight hy two three talk
goes Ton five fifty on at and T phones fifty
five kr see dot cow mentioned Senate candidates for the
seventh seat seventh district here in Ohio. Zach Haynes joined
the program yesterday. You can find that podcast fifty five
(17:52):
car se dot com Monday Monday with Brian James on
thinking about your retirement in the new year. VvE ak
Ramaswami for Ohio Governor and the Smooth Event Episode one
twenty Settlement negotiations and public accountability, which we will talk
about him today coming up at six thirty after the
closed door session from Sincee City Council with none of
the Council's, the city manager, aftab Purvle, or anyone uttering
(18:14):
a syllable about what happened during that meeting involving the
Henny Settlement or the Hinton settlement negotiations over the phone.
See what Tom's got this morning, Tom, Happy Tuesday, Thanks
for calling.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Hey, good morning, and start off with some congratulations. My
granddaughter had her first child last night, so I am
now officially a great grandfather.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Graduation and that's a milestone. I'm still waiting for news
that I'm going to be a grandfather.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, You're going to love it.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I know I'm going to I know, I'm yeah, it'll
give me something to do in retirement.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yeah, I've always said if I've always said, if I
knew how much drains ungrain edds were, I would have
had them first. So but it just doesn't work out
that way.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
So you know that kids are like boats. You know,
the best boat is your friend's boat because you get
to use it, but then you don't have to take
care of it the expense of it. Grandchildren, that's best
babies to have around, you know.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Here take them back.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
Oh yeah, I'm just here for fun. And and you know,
the dynamic. I was talking to my mother in law
the other day about the dynamic of you know, when
you're when you're the parent, you're paring and young children
and you got grandparents around. There's always that pension and
you know, keep in mind, these are my kids, not yours,
(19:40):
you know, and you know, and and there's always that
back and forth stuff. And then now I get to
I get to experience it from the other side that
I'm the grandparent and I've got to reassure I I
got we got one of our kids and his wife
and their little daughter living with us. So anyway, So
it's it's definitely, it's definitely awesome worth whatever trouble we
(20:01):
have to go through. Grant kids are great so and
kids are great too. Anyway, just real quick, you're talking
about accountability, and we keep bringing this up and talking
about this as the elections come up. We need to
be looking for people who are, like you said, not
only willing to put accountability measures in to begin with,
(20:22):
but are willing to put their foot down and say no,
you cross the line and something has to be done
about it. I don't think if you've grouped all those
people together, I don't think go find a Democrat in
the bunch of them. So as always, folks don't vote Democrat.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Have a great day, Brian, you too, Tom, and congratulations
again five.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Two to three talk.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yes, the case got continued again the trial for Alexander Travinsky,
the slap guy in the Major beatdown last July. The
viral video which captured him issuing a slap but doesn't
didn't fail. The original video didn't show everything that led
up to it. Yesterday, since a City Press Jennifer Bishop
asked for a continuance, the second one for the case.
(21:03):
The first one asked for by Trevinsky, because they added
two witnesses to the list, and I guess that kind
of kicked the trial back a little bit. But this
time the witness described as a key witness not present,
didn't show up a trial, claiming he feared for his safety.
Prosecutor Bishop said misinformation in the media portrayed the witness
as an FBI informant. Going back to last month the
(21:23):
trial was supposed to start, Travinsky's lawyer, Douglas Brandon said
the FBI and informant was included on a witness list.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Brandon later said he never claimed the man in question
was an informant, only that it appears and informant was
present at the brawl, and that the prosecution wouldn't reveal
the identity of the informant. So yesterday Judge Dante Johnson
granted the continuous till on January twelfth, saying it was
the last one, so if the witness doesn't show up
and the next one, they're going to dismiss the case. Apparently,
(21:52):
Brandon said his client wants to trial. Travinsky charged with
get a load of this, How much effort and how
many prosecutor how much proscatorial expense when into this and
ask yourself this question, is anybody other than this white
guy who was involved in the brawl with multiple black people?
Some say it's a racially charged incident. I suppose that's
going to come out in trial. He'd been charged with
disorderly conduct, which carries the sentence of up to thirty
(22:14):
days in jail on a two undred and fifty dollars fine.
Now the revolving jar of door of Hamilton County Justice.
Anybody else think that a disorderly conduct charge with a
twhudred and fifty dollars fine would would see the light
of day in trial.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Now, you may recall right.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
After the incident, the local black leaders were calling for
Travinsky and any other white people involved in to face
similar charges as the defendants who've been charged that are black.
They face felony charges giving the horrific beatdown they issued.
Most notably, recall the video of Holly getting punched in
the face and Cole cocked down and knocked out. Police
(22:55):
union since I polase union claiming the charges against Stravinsky
unwarned and prompted by police motivated orders from the city,
we heard this swirling around at the time, they didn't
want to issue a citation. The officers on the scene,
there was no crime that head that had been committed,
and ultimately it was assumed or it suggested that interim
police Chief Henny was told I believe he was lieutenant
at the time, told to issue a citation. That's why
(23:18):
he's going to be testifying for the defense at the trial,
mister Travinsky, along with the detectives, they are defense witnesses
in this. If you wonder why the waitis didn't show up,
it may be more that the case is falling apart
and they've got nothing that we can say. They're there,
and since it's collapsing, it's better that the witness doesn't
(23:41):
show up and they can say, well, the witness didn't
show up. Ergo, we can't move forward with trial lacking
sufficient sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's just a thought.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Five point thirty six with the five KRC the talk
station oklway stack a stupid coming up or or calls
de talk station, thank you, Chuck. It's five forty on
a Tuesday. Unless you factor in the two and a
half hour delay, we've got here. In which case, what
(24:13):
what time is it after the delay?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Joe? Is it like six fifteen or something?
Speaker 4 (24:21):
It's next to Wednesday of the delay, So if I
hit the dumb button, it's not gonna come back. Okay,
lose the entire weeks worth of programming. Oh anyway, Fortunately
I only had to use that one time personally for
my career twentieth year in radio one time.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Anyway.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Over the local stories are rather stacked of stupid. The Phoenix,
Arizona for this one, got a Way Mo self driving car.
Dave Hatter said he never in a self driving car,
or at least one of those autonomous taxis a lot
of good reasons for that. I'm with Dave on that.
Waimo's self driving car is seen going down to Phoenix
light rail tracks this week, forcing a passioner to flee
(24:58):
the vehicle before it continued along the tracks near an
oncoming train. What video taking my bystander shows the moment
of the self driving car stops on the tracks just
before an oncoming light rail approaches. Passenger runs out of
the vehicle before the car continues. What he going down
the tracks near another train? Andrew Maynard the emergency transformative
(25:23):
technology professor at Arizona State University had this to say,
I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It
obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a
difficult place.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Oh so.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Cars now have a sense of awareness in need of
empathy and sympathy said, while these situations are rare, they
do happen. Thank you Maynard for acknowledging that this is
exactly one of those edge cases we call them something
unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than
a person. Famos described as equipped with twenty nine camera
(26:00):
So the root systems updated weekly. Yet in the area
where the incident happened, there was construction. The light rail
was added to the spot within the last year, which
Professor Maynard said could have contributed to the rail track
to detour, saying, I think WEYMO has no idea exactly.
(26:20):
My car's map system hasn't been updated since I bought it.
It's a twenty twenty one and you know it's German.
So if I have to pay for the map upgrade,
I don't know. I have to get a second mortgage
on my house. Yeah, it has no idea like the
rerouting into like route thirty two where they did all
that road construction. Yeah, my car has no club anyway,
(26:41):
I think let's see ices. I think WAYMO is a
challenge because no matter what they do with their system,
there are always going to be unexpected circumstances where they
have to learn from them.
Speaker 7 (26:50):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
In other words, your car has to get hit by
a train, and WEYMO will learn from that and then
make sure nobody else gets hit by a train. Maynard
professors said these cars in many circumstances are safer than
human drivers because they don't have distractions like human drivers does. Yeah,
they don't take drugs either. But light rail operation staff
(27:13):
responded to the scene. WAIMA was contacted to minimi service
impacts northbound southbound trains exchange passengers before resubversing direction to
continue service. That from the Valley metros Bergs person. Fortunately
no one harmed and no significant delays came from that. Yeah,
coming to street car near you, Joe.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yesterday.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
We keep installing speed bumps. I don't know if you
saw it. I think it was in Detroit. They had
video on local news from an incident, But was it Boston? Yeah,
that was the one. You saw it? Some idiot going
seventy miles an hour down a residential street that had
speed bumps. But it hits a speed bump and of
course just loses all control over the vehicle. It ends
(27:57):
up doing just tons of property damage. A guy got
even it was thrown out of the car, got out
of the car and he stood there looking at the
state of disbelief. Yeah, all right, and then he pulled
his pants up, of course, because his pants got pulled
that as a consequence of the of the of the
stupidity he engaged in. But yeah, you can put the
speed bumps in. That doesn't believe, That doesn't mean, as
(28:18):
the professor pointed out, that the drivers are going to
be safe. Five fifty Speaking of drivers, it's five fifty
here fifty five K see talk station Tuesday. After the
(28:40):
top of the iron is Charlie lucan former mayor and
a Southern Railway board member. He's not on the board anymore,
but he was an advocate for so on the railroad.
He's not an advocate for how the money is well
not being spent. Says they've insufficiently spent the money, only
five percent of the total money collected. Why is that
Charlie looking after the top of the iron is Christopher
Smithman is going to chine in on the behind the
(29:03):
closed doors Rodney Hinton's settlement discussion. They had an executive council,
which means we don't know anything, and of course, with
the council members refusing to speak with media, we don't
know anything. City manager share along not re speaking with media,
nor would her spokesperson. We don't know anything. Why don't
we know anything? So we'll get a smith event. Chapter
two coming up with six thirty lots of guests following
(29:25):
that as well five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifty five,
eight hundred eight two to three talk gay scratching my
head over that this is even a thing or a story.
Trust me, I'm a parent. My son happens to be
thirty one years old. But yes, a long long time ago,
when he was a tiny todd he did collect Pokemon cards,
much to my chagrin. I don't understand it. I never did.
(29:48):
Over forty thousand dollars where the Pokemon cards stolen from
the Mogu Games This and Everett Washington. The owner Michael Duran,
reported that the thief used an axe to smash the
window and take off with all these trading cards, which
the article describes as valuable. I suppose beauty is in
the eye of the beholder value. Thank you Joe us
(30:12):
reading my mind on that one. That's why I started
off by acknowledging that, yes, my son at one point
collected Pokemon cards. That's exactly how I felt about them
at the time. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Security footage captured the subject stealing the items, and why
are you doing that?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Well, here's the reason, Because somewhere in the world someone
has valued a single card at over four thousand dollars
one one piece of plastic.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
They are You're right, they are cardboard. You know, you
should get in touch with our friend of the Sinsinni
type in print museum to see if they could actually
duplicate these cards, create fake ones.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Paper breaking is one of several incidents apparently this guy's
store has experienced. Popular store it is. He said, We've
been broken into four times, We've been arm robbed once,
multiple snatching grabs worth thousands of dollars worth of product.
Frustrated at the lack of accountability for the committing crimes.
He also pointed out that all the local businesses in
(31:20):
the area are considering leaving, that this is no Homish county,
he said, I mean, there is a reason why businesses
are moving out of snow Hoomish County, Washington. Just I'm
here every day and now it feels like I'm targeted.
So mister Duran also considering rolling up the carpet after his.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Lease is up.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
I don't want to, but at some point this town
becomes very non business friendly. Yeah, when crime runs amok?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
All right?
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Not familiar with the group, Joe, you're a fan of
Australian rock duo Bootleg Rascal. You got all of them,
don't you? Every one of the eight tracks? Anyway, they
apparently started their Reasons tour Brisbane, Australia celebrations apparently described
as taking a turn. What a marriage proposal didn't go
(32:12):
quite as plan video shared by the band. This is
like the kiss cam video, which the band described as
p d a gone wrong. Man scene standing on stage
with a microphone addressing the crowd. My partner and I
came to watch Bootleg Rascal about two three years ago,
he said. Then he called out Jamie where are you?
(32:35):
Can you come up on stage? Quickly crowd began cheering
and clapping. The woman showed up out from the crowd,
stepped up on stage and speaking to the woman, the
man told her quote, we saw Bootleg Rascal about two
years ago. I thought, you know, they're our favorite band,
and I thought today, why not? Maybe today is the time.
(32:56):
Then got down on one knee. I know you know
what's coming. Ron didn't get the reaction he was hoping for.
The woman scene shaking her head, grabbing his hand before
trying to pull him back up to stand. The man
could be heard repeating no, no, before she ran off
the stage. He stayed kneeling until a person dressed in
(33:21):
a Scooby Doo costume ran up and helped the man
get to his feet. No answer or explanation as to
why someone at this concert was wearing a Scooby Doo costume,
and as you might imagine, the social media commentary on
that one is rather comical, including some of the comments
(33:43):
from the band. Yeah, get a handle on where you
are in your relationship. If you've talked about marriage and
this is like a foregun conclusion, then yeah, maybe go
ahead and do it. In public if you think that's right,
as long as that possibility of embarrassment, though, isn't there
five and five fifty five kr CE DE Talk Station
Charlie Lucan, former mayor and former Southern Railway Board member,
(34:07):
on why the hell isn't the city spending the railway
money that got coming in a lot of it to
Christopher Smithman at six point thirty on the executive session
from Sinceney City Council where we learned absolutely nothing that's
coming up.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I hope you can stick around.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Today's tough headlines coming up at.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
The top it Hey, it's Brian Thomas. Pleased to welcome
former mayor of the City of Cincinnati and former member
of the Cincinni Southern Railway Board who did advocate for
the sale the one point six billion dollars sale the
railroad previously owned by the city. That money put into
a interest generating fund to produce more money than we
were getting annually through the lease deal. And apparently that's
worked out. We had a good investment year last year.
(34:42):
But Charlie Lucan, you were interviewed by the Cincinnati Inquirer
several days ago and you expressed some disappointment that the
railway money which has apparently come in, but that only
five percent of what's.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Come in has been spent.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Your reaction to this and what's your take on why
it hasn't been spent, Charlie.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Well, first, two years ago, Brian, we promised the voters
that we were going to do this, and when we
did it, if we generated the money we expected, which
we have, and then some that we would get to
work on streets, bridges, playgrounds, et cetera. And so it passed.
The money's there. There's one point almost one point nine
(35:22):
billion now in that fun Two years later and yeah.
Speaker 8 (35:27):
It's up.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
It's up two hundred and fifty eight million dollars. So uh,
and that's after paying the city there fifty seven million
dollar allot meant last year. So yeah, we promised. It's
getting bottlenecked at the City's inexcusable. And I finally I'm
not on the board anymore. I resigned after we passed it.
(35:51):
I still think it was a good idea to pass it.
I'd rather have the city in the board's hands for this,
for the benefit of the taxpayers than in the railroads.
But right now we're not getting much done with.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Well, that seems obvious.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
And as the reporting points out, and you pointed out
four point five million spent out of the eighty five
million in railway money that apparently is available, that's the
interest that was generated off of it. But Molly Lair,
who is the city manager spokesperson, said, well, fifty one
million of the railroad money in this fiscal year has
been allocated toward road projects in various stages of planning
(36:27):
and developments, as well as a million more railroad dollars
allocated toward other infrastructure. It seems to me she's drowing
a distinction between allocation and spending.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
So that's right, that's Washington speak. Yes, all that is
you can allocate things all day, you can plan things
all day, but it doesn't get it doesn't get the
shovels in.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
The ground right now, Which leads me to a burning question.
I think I'm not the only one that has who
selects the projects. We were all told that this money
could only be spent on existing infrastructure. I mean, we're
behind four hundred or so road mile repairs. We all
can name a ton of projects. You alluded to a
few at your opening statements on the interview here of
(37:11):
what needs to be done. So we all know what
infrastructure is. But any of these projects have they been scrutinized?
Do we know what this the allocated money is going toward.
Has anyone done a review and thoughtful analysis of whether
it falls in the category of existing infrastructure? Because we
were all expecting the Shenanigans to come out of the
city council like they build a second leg of the
(37:32):
street car, which I would argue isn't existing. So where
are we on this and do we know what I
would too?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I would argue that, and we had that conversation. But
there is a list, it has been studied, this list theoretically,
when we passed it, we were toward I was told
that all these projects were quote shovel ready and I
looked at them and they are all the things that
you would think are basic to a city, playgrounds, regis streets,
(38:00):
et cetera. I mean, there's there's a list of five
hundred million dollars plus and growing, and unfortunately the money
hasn't gotten there. So we have not benefited as a
city much at this point from the passage of the
railroad issue.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
Well, can I ask you a direct question. Does the
the Cincinni Police Department and stuff? We're down a couple
of hundred officers. The problem is obviously known, and at
least I've finally been acknowledged by AFTAB provol and some
of the other members accounts. We do have a crime problem,
but we can't get anybody to take the police positions.
Can the railroad money, because since a have to have
(38:41):
Parvole is talking about increasing the income tax for the
purposes of public safety, can the railroad money be properly
allocated to help support the police department made by raises
or something. Isn't it an existing infrastructure?
Speaker 5 (38:53):
No?
Speaker 3 (38:54):
What the what the railroad money can be used for
is to alleviate some of the stress stress on the
safety budget by let's say, remodeling District two or buying
new police cars, or buying new computers or new weaponry
or whatever it might be that is existing infrastructure. But
(39:14):
in terms of paying salaries, this was all put in
a guard rail by my old friend Bill Siitez in
Ohio and the Ohio legislature before this whole thing passed,
So it's pretty strict and you can't pay salaries out
of it, which I have to think is a is
(39:34):
a good thing, because lord knows what they would spend
it on if.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
You could, yeah, iris contracts or something on this.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Brian, Brian, I want to emphasize this is this is
not brain surgery. This is pretty basic running a city stuff.
And when you ask why there's no money getting out there,
and the answer is because it takes a while to
contract or because we are doing compliance, that's unacceptable. I
(40:06):
agree that is just that is just government jargon. That
means nothing. It means we can't do it. And you
have to at some point question the basic competence of
the people that are that are in charge and supposed
to be able to do this well.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Greasing the skids, get the money out into the world
where it's going to do the most good. If they've
identified that as a problem, sounds to me like that
an easy thing to fix in front of them.
Speaker 8 (40:33):
That's right, it's fairly easy.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
And I would this this probably will never happen, but
I would recommend that they get somebody from business or
a few people and they create some kind of an
extra outside city hall group that's going to take this
list and that's going to work this list through with
(40:57):
the money that's already there, and I think we might
make some progress because I just think it's this is
one of those things where it's sitting on this guy's
desk for a while and this woman's desk for a while,
and it never goes anywhere.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
We need the outside sector and their knowledge and experience
to fix the problems with the city government because the
city government doesn't know how to get the money out
into the world where it needs to where.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It can help us. That's interesting, Charlie Luke, And it
really is.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Well that's what I think. I mean. You know, I
created the three CDC, and that's was created primarily because
the city did not know how to do economic development.
So now it's given to people outside to do what
was the business of the city. And I know that
sounds like, well, why do we have the.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Government at all?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
But I think that's the answer here.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Well, it's also it forces us to go into another
discussion and we don't need to do engage in a
lengthy ones sir, about the work that non government organizations do.
They get the money because they're allegedly in a better
position to fix the need that they're being given money
to fix. And yet we find out quite often that
money is used for political purposes, is not properly spent,
or there is no oversight to see that those NGOs
(42:10):
are doing what they promised to do with the taxpayer
money allocation, right.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
I mean, I get that, but I you know, going
back to the three CDC example, if you get the
right folks who are in it for the right reasons,
and I think they're out there, I think I think
you can make a big difference. But we're just going
in circles. And as I say, I campaigned for this,
(42:37):
you probably recall it there. You will recall there where
a lot of people are against it, and I get that,
but those of us that campaigned for it are starting
to look pretty bad.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Well, and you do have a reputation to protect, and
it's a solid reputation, Charlie Lukan, You've done well by
the city, and I know you have all the right motivations,
but this does look bad. The optics are terrible. Where
is the money, Charlie Lucan, he said he'd bring it
to us. It's there, and it's turned out to be
better than we originally thought. The problem seems to be
with the ones that are responsible for it. I guess
it takes really the right folks to choose the right
(43:11):
outside folks to make sure the work gets done. Maybe
that leads us to where our problem is my subjective opinion,
Charlie Lucan, keep up the great work and keep speaking
out loud about this. I know that we will all
benefit ultimately once they get this money out into the world.
And I know that was your goal and talking to
the enquire about it. And it's been a pleasure to
have you speak with my listeners of me today. It's
really great.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Brian see the talk.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
Station at six twenty here at fifty five Kerr see
the talk station five point three seven eight hundred eight
two three talk on five fifty on AT and T phones.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Interesting analysis, Charlie Lucan, just speaking truth to power, saying
it like it is. Look sounds to me like you
can boil this down to absolute incompetence or bureaucracy. People
that don't know where to spend the money. Necessarily, they're
sitting on eighty some odd million dollars, only five percent
of that has actually been spent on existing infrastructure projects.
(44:07):
And you seem to be comfortable that this money is
only going to existing infrastructure, which was the limitation. So yeah,
you can get the police stuff, but you can't use
to pay salaries. And of course I appreciate the concerns
that would be raised if you could use this railroad
money for salaries, going back to the idle common about
Irish Rowley. But we need outside people that know what
(44:27):
they're doing. Is that a veiled shot at since the
city council for a suggestion that they don't know what
they're doing? Or can we just just walk away collectively
and objectively agreeing that maybe they don't. You need the
right folks with the right motivations. Referring to this outside
(44:48):
entity that he thinks should be quality should be you know,
business individuals who have an understanding of infrastructure projects, how
to get them done and accomplished, to get the money
out into the world where you and I might benefit
from it. The operative ord and that statement might because
do we have any idea which projects the money has
been allocated to. I suppose we can track where the
(45:08):
five percent has been spent, Probably not on a road
in your neighborhood, maybe speed bumps in your neighborhood. But
what about the projects that you know they have been
approved this fifty one some odd million dollars. Do we
have any idea on that? And I'm just asking out
loud because I don't know that they have any open
(45:29):
meetings for people to offer suggestions about where this money
should be prioritized. Since a council can't get the money spent,
if they're having struggles getting contracts in place or getting approvals,
maybe they need to look inwardly and figure out why
it's so damn hard to get a project to prove
and listen to everybody who's tried to get a project
(45:50):
approved in the city of Cincinnati walking into a bureaucratic nightmare.
Back to my friend the late Elmer Hensler from Queen
City Sausage. He just merely wanted to expand his plant.
That's all he wanted to do. Expand it, make it bigger,
create more jobs. It's an industrial area of the city already.
It's not like they were planning on doing a housing
project there. He had the space, he owned it. It
(46:12):
took him years and years because of the bureaucratic red
tape to expand a facility that was going to do
nothing but benefit the City of Cincinnati by greater tax revenue.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Why but he's just.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
One that I know of in a long, long, long
line of people who are screaming and yelling about wanting
to do development in any given neighborhood to the benefit
of the neighborhood and stop by Cincinni City Council or
the bureaucratic Mexicos on behind the scenes, asked Corey Bowman.
He described many times here in the Morning Show when
he was running from mayor about the struggles in his
neighborhood in the West End. West End really could use
(46:45):
an infusion of development. There are developers out there apparently
that want to do that, but they're blocked. I don't
know by what the city's view of what the future
is going to look like in its mind as opposed
to what the residents of any neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
One.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
Yeah, there's that impediment. So I guess all in all,
for those who didn't think that the interest generated would
meet what we were making by way of lease payment
or when we were negotiating this, because the lease deal
is up which led to the sale of the railroad,
how much we could have negotiated by way of an
increase in annual lease payments. At least when you have
(47:22):
a good market year like last year, the interest generated
is significant, and I would argue does exceed what we
would have what we might have been able to wrestle
out of the railroad by way of an ongoing lease arrangement.
That said, the money apparently isn't doing any good for
the city of Cincinnati. Unbelievable. Yet, we do need competent
(47:45):
people who know what they're doing, and elections do have consequences.
Six twenty five, If you've have KC detalk station, Christopher
Smitheman returns has a reaction to the closed door session
yesterday with a very happy one to you. Comping up
off the top of the our news, we'll hear from
Greg Hand. He's a local historian and comedian. Similarities between
(48:07):
twenty County or since in twenty twenty six and nineteen
twenty six, Tom's Awastowski fast Forward one hour got a
variety of state topics to talk about with him, the Ohio, Minnesota,
Somali daycare fraud link, et cetera. In the meantime, Welcome Back,
Volume two, we're making this a habit. Christopher Smith and
former virus mayor of the City of Cincinnati with the
Smither event. Christopher, your reaction to council, Yes, going into
(48:28):
executive session and note not speaking a word to the press,
not a single council member, the city manager, the city
manager spokesperson, the mayor. Nothing. We have no idea what happened, Christopher.
Welcome back, my friend. It's always great having you on.
Speaker 9 (48:43):
Hey, thank you so much. It's everything that's wrong with government.
Brian Thomas, you know, of one to go into executive
session and not tell the public the agenda of the
executive session. Yeah, that's right, that's a good session. You're
supposed to say, this is the reason we're going into
executive session, and our discussion is very narrow. I mean,
(49:05):
you tell the public the agenda because you don't want to.
You don't want to say, we're going into executive session
and we're going to be talking about all of these
other things. Right, so to go and just deal with
that issue. But the public should have been informed prior
to the executive session, and there should have been a
roll call vote of all non members of council of
what the agenda was. It's all secrecy, and it's all
(49:26):
intentional for our city government to conceal their discussions with
the settlement talks with the Hinton family.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
Well, Christopher, you know, based on what you said, they
could have been talking about something completely different. We've all
been operating under the presumption that the closed door meeting
was in as a consequence of the revelations that there
were settlement discussions going on behind the scenes between the
city manager and the Hinting attorneys. Either of those sides
denied discussions were ongoing. I think they just most argued
(49:56):
with the characterization in the media. But that's what the
predicate wast well as presumably that's what they went in
there for. But we really don't even know that, do we.
Speaker 9 (50:05):
We don't. If I were a lawyer, I would be
filing a lawsuit against the City of Cincinnati today asking
for the agenda. What was the agenda of the executive session.
You don't have to tell me what you discussed, there
are no notes, but you at least have to tell
the public what the agenda was. You can't just go
(50:28):
into secrecy as a government, close the doors and not
tell the taxpayers, who are, by the way, the ones
who are on the hook to pay the bill. What
you're talking about. But this is the secrecy of this mayor,
this manager, and this council, and elections have consequences. My
heart goes out to every law enforcement officer that's out
(50:50):
there because I wanted to share, which I know you covered, Brian,
is this is the case last year where the young
man had a gun and a stolen car running from
an officer. He was African American, the officer involved was white.
That young man turned with a weapon and unfortunately that
(51:14):
officer had to take his life for fear of his
own life. We've had the prosecutor clear him. They have
much economy prosecutor clear him. Obviously, we have the Cincinnati
Police Department clear him. The bottom line was, my heart
goes out to any loss of life. But the officer
(51:34):
made a split second decisions, which is what they have
to do every single day. The hitting family, the father
then decided the next day he was going to take
his vehicle and run over a sheriff. A sheriff who
has nothing to do with the Cincinnati Police Department. He's
out there, he had adopted a couple of children. He's
(51:57):
out there, had retired doing traffic at a at a
UC graduation and the father ran him over. This council
went into executive session most likely to discuss a settlement
to the family because their child was shot who had
(52:18):
a gun in a stolen car running from an officer.
And that is what is so sad about all of this.
If I were a taxpayer, if I were a lawyer,
I would be filing a lawsuit today demanding what the
agenda was of that executive session.
Speaker 4 (52:34):
And so to be clear on this, and let me
leave no question mark to go into executive session, there
is a rule an obligation for counsel to let the
public know the subject matter of the executive session, and
that did not happen yesterday before.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
They went in.
Speaker 9 (52:50):
That's that's my understanding.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Well, you were a former vice Manati.
Speaker 9 (52:55):
Oh no, that's the truth. Oh no, that's the truth.
But the question is if no one can calls you
on it. That's why lawsuits after the attorney, because people
do things that are illegal and they get away with it.
The question is will counsel in a transparent way communicate
with the public why they went into executive session. So
(53:16):
for example, for example, I sit as one commissioner appointed
by the governor over the casinos for the state of Ohio. Okay,
we went into executive session approximately two months ago. All right,
roll call vote of all seven commissioners and an agenda
item of what we were going to discuss. We were
(53:38):
being sued in our capacity as commissioners, and we communicated
we're going into executive sessions so our lawyer can brief
fund right on that litigation. That's why we went into
executive session. And guess what when we went into executive session,
we only discussed that agenda item and then came out
(54:00):
of executive session and brought the public back in.
Speaker 4 (54:03):
That's the way it's you do, That's the way it's
supposed to work. And knowing full well that that's the
way it's supposed to work, why did the city take
us down this road which might lead to even more
litigation and more legal expenses. Let's pause when Christopher smith'ment
back six point thirty seven right now, if you have
kersee the talk station, well, if this sounds like you,
SI fifty five KRSD talk station bran Tooma was reacting
(54:24):
with Christopher's Smith aman reacting to the behind the closed
doors meeting. So, going back to Christopher's point, it is
an obligation of the council rules that they let the
public know what a closed door session is all about,
because we don't get any information from inside the closed
door session. So it is a critically important obligation for counsel.
Chris said, it's so much so that someone could file
a lawsuit for them having violated that because we presume
(54:47):
they were talking about this Hinton settlement, but we don't
know that for sure. Obviously the lid was blown off.
I think much of the chagrantish Cheryl Long and the
Hitting family lawyers that it was released to the public
that they were talking about settlement. We know they were,
but we don't know that that's what happened yesterday.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Christopher.
Speaker 4 (55:03):
With the rule being what it is, and the fact
that they've gone down this road before they bought litigation
under your scenario, they knew was going to happen. So
they subjected the sinsin taxpayer to even more expense because
now we're going to litigate the failure to let us
know what's going on in executive session.
Speaker 8 (55:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (55:21):
Now again I'm going to go back and let me
make this point too, which I think is interesting. When
I served on council, right, I never remember ever going
into executive session. I want to emphasize that to you.
So that last ten year run that I served, I
(55:41):
never remember council going into executive session. Okay, so this
is very unusual for city council to say I'm going
into executive session. It could be that they don't even understand.
Meaning when I served right now currently as one of
seven commissioners for casinos across the state of Ohio, again
(56:04):
we went into executive session. We each of us had
to do a roll call vote. The seven of us,
we all had to sign a document saying we were
going into executive session, and we had to stick to
that agenda item and come out of executive session. When
you're dealing with the government and the people's money, it
(56:25):
just makes logical common sense to think, Number one, you
don't go into executive session lightly. But when you go
into executive session and you close the door, you have
to at least tell the public why you're going into
executive session, the purpose of it. You don't have to
tell us what you said. There are no notes, you
(56:46):
don't have to say what was discussed you know, da
da da da dad between your lawyer, the city manager
and the nine members of council. But you do have
to tell us the agenda.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Well, and you just pointed out a reason why you
needed exactecutive session private conversations, attorney client communications you've got
to have with a larger group of people being represented
by that council. That is not the type of information
that you generally want shared with the general public. You
can't be candid and open with your lawyer if you
know it's going to be widely reported. So that will
be a valid justification. But what of a discussion about settlement?
(57:23):
Is that a worthy executive session declaration? Had they gone
in ahead of time and said we are going into
executive session to discuss the settlement, is that akin to
the attorney client privileged kind of conversation, would it serve
as a justification.
Speaker 9 (57:38):
I don't think so. I mean, the nine members of
council are not being sued. The people who are going
to pay the bill are the tax payers, so they
deserve to know what that bill's going to look like.
You're not going into executive session saying, hey, you're being sued.
You might be deposed here's you know, here's your here's
(58:02):
here's our position. I mean, you're a lawyer. Our only
discussion in that executive session was to discuss the legal
ramifications of those seven members.
Speaker 7 (58:11):
That's it.
Speaker 9 (58:12):
It's a very narrow discussion. And I want to remind
you we all took a vote, we all signed a document,
and we stuck to that agenda item. So I don't
know what this new wave stuff City Hall is doing,
but I'm sharing with you. Just just everybody use your
common sense. The government is supposed to be open. That's
why you have UH rules and law state rules that say, hey,
(58:36):
you can't five members of council can't just go out.
That was the gang of fire. You just can't go
out and start having private meeting that lunch discussing the agenda, right.
It was all about open access to public discussion, right.
So it's it's very important. And I think that if
council did not tell us why they're what their agenda was,
(58:58):
not what they discussed, that is absolutely a problem. Period.
And go back on the fat pattern here. This is
why law enforcement Brian Thomas, when we're dealing with ice,
we've got people across the country who are standing in
front of police vehicles. They're blocking a law enforcement cars
in whether it's ice or whether it's a local police
(59:20):
officer who's being ambushed while sitting in their car eating
lunch in uniform, out of uniform. We're seeing this all
across the United States of America. My point is that
the meat of this is a young man who made
a series of poor decisions gun stolen car, jumping out
(59:42):
of the car, running from an officer, turning towards that officer,
and the officer unfortunately having to make that decision to
fire his weapon and take his life. That's what we're discussing.
How do you think, Brian Thomas, if this council settles
this lawsuit and gives it family money after the father
made the decision the next day to kill a sheriff,
(01:00:06):
how in the world, what kind of message? How do
you think that impacts the morale of every peace officer
in the state of Ohio and across the country.
Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
Well, let me just leave that lay there. I understand
it's more of a rhetorical question, but I'll bring it
right back and just get a quick comment about Alex Trevinsky,
who was cited for defending himself in the beatdown brawl,
And how do you think that makes officers feel when
they don't want to issue a citation because they don't
see any crime committed. And yet we're apparently forced to
bring Christopher back real quick on that one. First, Susette
(01:00:37):
Low's camp for all your mortgage needs. You are the
best possible hands with Susette. You will love working with her.
She's with Christopher smitheman on the phone. Christopher just pivoting
over briefly to the trial of Alex Ttravinsky, who is
the slap guy in the multiple beatdown. He was charged
with disorderly conduct, which carries up to thirty days in
jail on twohundred fifty dollars fine. The other seven people
(01:00:58):
were charged with felonies, including the one who punched Holly
in the face so hard and knocked her out. Unbelievable
that now Alex got a charge against him with this
disorderly conduct in spite of the fact that the officers
on the scene did not believe that charge was motivated
or necessary. There weren't sufficient facts there, and yet ultimately
I believe it was Lieutenant Henny now police Chief Henny
(01:01:19):
ended up issuing the citation to Henny at apparently the
behest of I don't know was it the city manager,
but it wasn't something that any of the members of
law enforcement wanted to do, yet he issued it. Now
he's been caught. Henny has been caught as a defense witness,
as have been the police detectives in Alex Stravinski's trial.
So with yesterday's continuance, because the city prosecutors said one
(01:01:41):
of her witnesses didn't show up, I think that's an
illustration or a suggestion that the case is going to
ultimately be dismissed because if he doesn't show up the
next time, they throw the case out. Maybe that's been
set up to just have that result, because the case
isn't going anywhere, Christopher your response, it's.
Speaker 9 (01:01:58):
Not going anywhere. Clearly his lawyers have said, you know,
and I thought it was the right decision to say,
we're going to trial, like, we're not shopping the case,
we're not trying to settle anything, right, because part of
this is they've got to clear this man's name. I mean,
members of council, the city manager, everybody was out there
(01:02:18):
saying these crazy things about this man and so you know,
his reputation absolutely was impacted, and his ability to get
a job to you know, all of that is going
to going to be on the table. Number One, he's
going to be found not guilty. This case is not
going anywhere. It's dead on a rival. You and I
know that. So the next question is going to be
(01:02:41):
his lawyer's going to turn around and file a lawsuit
against the City of Cincinnati. They're going to win that lawsuit, period,
and the city's going to have to give millions of dollars. Now,
if I am his lawyer and I just saw you
give out eight point one million, I then turn around
and say, oh, you're going to give the in family
millions of dollars? What do you think they're going to
(01:03:03):
have to give this man? See, they're setting this thing up, man.
And then when you look, you look at Chief Washington,
you look at Chief Fiji. Just go down the list
of people that they're going to have to settle with.
And I'm talking about in twenty twenty sixth and twenty
twenty seven, we're talking about an indemnity debt of probably
north of twenty million dollars in litigation. Again, I don't
(01:03:26):
know why they went into executive session yesterday, but they
owe us an explanation of what the agenda item was.
You know, I will make sure I end with that.
You and I shouldn't be speculating why our government went
behind closed doors. We should know why they went behind
closed doors. And so that point right there. I think
(01:03:50):
if we had a healthy media, if we had healthy journalism,
right they would be asking the questions that you and
I are talking about right now. It wouldn't just be
all Council went into executive session, and there's no need
for us to know what our government was talking about
behind closed doors. Somebody would have already asked that question,
and the headline we should have said something like Counsel
(01:04:12):
went into executive session without sharing what the agenda was.
Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
Exclamation point, Christopher Smithman. Always appreciate your thoughts and comments
and insights. We will patiently wait for local news to
find out why exactly they went into executive session. You know,
I guess members of Council are free to at least
give us that little piece of information without violating rules
about what goes on inside executive session.
Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (01:04:36):
So there's a whole bunch of them out there that
can answer the question. Strange the administration wants to continue
this cloak and dagger nonsense. It certainly delegitimizes them. When
you add all these things together, you come up with
an administration that really wants to keep the truth away
from the public.
Speaker 9 (01:04:51):
No question, I can see. I can see Joe Strecker
sitting an email to each member of members of council
as a media person saying, I have one question, what
was your agenda item last night or yesterday afternoon? Why
did you go into executive session? No discussion about your agenda,
but what was the agenda?
Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah, he suspects these things.
Speaker 9 (01:05:13):
Something tells me that there are going to be some
emails going to members of city Council asking them that question.
Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Stead maybe, but according I mean Scott Wortman tried yesterday
after the meeting. They all declined to comment, along with
the city manager, of the city managers spokesperson, the mayor.
No one said anything. We'll see your popcorn out Jay
Chris for Elections have consequences, don't they.
Speaker 9 (01:05:35):
Elections have consequences. Brian Thomas, thank you so much. People
can follow me on x at vote Smitherman, thank you, brother.
Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
Take care of my friend, we'll talk on Monday. Stick
around on top of the other news, Greg Handy's local historian, does.
Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Some comment.
Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
Seven six here peb krc DE Talk station. I hope
you're having a very happy Tuesday. Put a smile on
your face. In this segment, we're gonna hear from Tom's
Alastawski at the bottom of this hour matters political and
we'll get the inside scoop at bright Bart News in
an hour, followed by the Daniel Davis Deep Dive at
a thirty typical Tuesday, but a special guest here in
the fifty five Case Morning Show. Kind of hoping it's
not gonna be the only time he appears here. Greg
hand you may know him because he's the proprietor of
(01:06:17):
the Cincinnati Curiosities blog. Find it where you find your blogs.
Joe's put a link up on my blog page fifty
five cars dot com to get his website. He writes
about a thousand words every week, which he posts on Tuesday,
all about a whole bunch of different topics, like, for example,
most recently, an escaped Oriole brought Cincinnati to distraught women
and national attention. That's his most recent post. Retired from
(01:06:41):
the University of Cincinnati. Is the head of public Relations
Office for employed with the university, he was the editor
of the Western Hills Press May at Rest in Peace.
In addition to the blog, he contributes regularly to Cincinnai Magazine,
presenting entertaining history, chats and bars and saloons. You heard
that correctly, through a program program called stand Up History.
(01:07:01):
Also the author of US Cincinnati Curiosities, which I've got
a copy of in my hand, Healing Powers of the
Whamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazappa's Naked Ride,
and more right, that's why it's called Cincinnati Curiosities. We'll
get a word or two about that. And then Tarbell
Palooza another book that he kindly gave me a copy of.
(01:07:24):
So great stuff. It's all Cincinnati bass and with a
comedic twist. Greg hann good to heavy in studio, always
a pleasure. So even how long, even if this is
stand up comedy that relates to Cincinnati history.
Speaker 10 (01:07:35):
Yeah, you know, the thing is, people in Cincinnati love
the history of this town. Oh yeah, and for good reason.
This town, I keep telling people, is the city that
just keeps on giving every time I find something weird,
I find something weirder. And people are aware of this,
but they are put off by traditional methods of learning.
(01:07:57):
They don't want to get books. They they don't want
to sit down and take classes or be serious. But
they'll go to bars and after a couple of drinks,
you get somebody to stand up and talk about, for instance,
seventeen weird real estate stories in Cincinnati, and they get
(01:08:19):
very appreciative after that second drink.
Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
Oh yeah, we all know that social liver could help
them multiple social situations. Especially at a comedy club. You
got to get that inner voice of reluctance and kind
of shut up and so you can participate. Do you
interact with the audience? I mean, oh yeah, yeah. Do
you engage in the desocratic method?
Speaker 10 (01:08:39):
It's very informal. This really started with in the bars
because of my partner in founding this group, Molly Wellman,
who has owned a variety of watering holes in Cincinnati.
She's well known for that, and she just presents so
so wonderfully and everybody just kind of joins in and
(01:09:03):
so we get a lot of cat calling and h
and uh, you know, and it never gets out of hand.
But it's fun.
Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
Well, I don't want to necessarily presume what I'm what
I'm thinking, but considering the venues are typically bars, although
I know you perform at the Art Museum and the
u SEE Lifelong Learning Institute, and you're doing an event
at Union Terminal as well, you're focusing on bars. I'm
suggesting though, that maybe there's a little bit of blue
humor in this.
Speaker 10 (01:09:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the way the way that we
put it. When people call us and want to book
us for something, they always go, now, how adult is this? Yes,
and our response is usually it's irreverent, not obscene.
Speaker 4 (01:09:49):
I can definitely relate to that, and I'm someone who
definitely appreciates a certain level of irreverence without question. So,
in terms of upcoming events, what are you going on
that we can want my listeners to know about, because
it sounds like something that we're all going to want
to show up at at some point.
Speaker 10 (01:10:06):
Wednesday, January twenty first, we have a monthly residency on
the third Wednesdays of each month at Muse Cafe in Westwood.
That's always a fun occasion. And then the next night, Thursday,
January twenty second, we will be at the museum Center,
(01:10:27):
and that one is in a rather large auditorium, so
we could have as many as two hundred and fifty
people in attendance at that one. That one's got myself,
Molly will be there in Dean Regis, who is technically
an astronomer, but we let him in because astronomy involves
(01:10:47):
the space time continuum and that's close enough to history.
Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
Will he be speaking on matters involving the flux capacitor
in generating one point twenty one gigilettes?
Speaker 10 (01:10:59):
He Dean has done some amazing things, takedowns of astrology
and an explanation of why Galileo's middle finger is preserved
in a museum in Italy, and that sort of thing.
I quite often get into the history of prostitution in Cincinnati, although.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
They mostly over across the river.
Speaker 10 (01:11:25):
No, this is the big misunderstanding that people have their
memories are entirely too short. Between around eighteen seventy five
and the First World War, Cincinnati had a large red
light district in the west end pretty much from Fifth
Street up to Seventh Street, from Central Avenue out to
(01:11:47):
Mound Street. There were as many as seventy houses of
prostitution in this red light district with perhaps six hundred
to seven hundred what we'd call working girls.
Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
And this is the demand was that high.
Speaker 10 (01:12:04):
This was This was the way people thought at the
time is if you did not have this, it wasn't legal.
But if you did not have this accessible out let
for hormonally overcharged men, they were going to be running
(01:12:25):
around the city raping respectable women. And so so that
was the solution was, well, we're going we're going to
endure this stuff, but we're going to shove it off
into the corner here.
Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
So we'll sacrifice Victorian principles in the name of practical reality.
Speaker 8 (01:12:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (01:12:44):
But the thing about Kentucky is, and I addressed this
in a blog post last week, is in the nineteen
twenties we got a totally different city here. Before nineteen twenty,
this was one of the weirdest places on the planet,
and after nineteen twenty it totally changed.
Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
Well, is that is a consequence of the Boss Cox
administration exactly.
Speaker 10 (01:13:10):
There were four factors that really led to this. One
was a brand new city government when the Charter Rights
came in, restructured city government brought in the city manager
form of government. The other was prohibition absolutely a major
factor in changing the city because it basically wiped out
(01:13:31):
one of the city's largest industries overnight.
Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
Which apparently was alcohol, but also prostitution, because it might
I parley into is that how the mob and prostitution
and gambling and liquor all ended up in northern Kentucky
because the mobs came in and think it open.
Speaker 10 (01:13:47):
For Cincinnati by nineteen thirty five was known as the
best run city in America, and they got that way
by shoving all the vice that used to be a
money maker for Boss Cox across the river. And so
you really don't see northern Kentucky getting this reputation until
(01:14:08):
after city government changed in Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (01:14:13):
So it's not in my backyard, but as long as
it's close enough that I can get there easily and conveniently,
it's a okay for northern Kentucky. There you go to
get the crime element in. Wow, we're gonna learn about
some of different some additional parallels nineteen twenty six versus well,
twenty twenty six, and sadly, some of the things haven't
really changed since County. You're nineteen twenty six and twenty
(01:14:35):
twenty six, we're going to continue with comedian and historian
Greg Hand station. It's seven eighteen if if you have
Kercit talk stations. See I'm laughing because I'm sitting in
studio with a comedian and historian of unusual Cincinnati related matters.
Greg Hand got a great background doing this stand up
(01:14:56):
comedy related to Cincinnati history, and he's got some assistance
with some of these, like Molly Wellman, for example. He
mentioned Dean Rigez, and I understand Michael Parina is also
going to be helping you out at this stand up
history at Union Terminal event Thursday, the twenty second. Tickets
are available at starts at six pm. Get your tickets.
Just put a lick up the blog page fifty five
krzy dot com. I was laughing because you're always working
(01:15:19):
on news stories. You mentioned doing Cincinnati curiosities. He put
a thousand words out every Thursday or Tuesday on things
of this nature. We're going to be reading about rats
as well as garbage collection.
Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (01:15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 10 (01:15:33):
People remember Cincinnati as poor Kopolis. We love our pigs.
We get the flying pigs all over the place. What
people don't remember about Cincinnati is the city of Cincinnati
did not institute garbage collection, well until after the Civil War.
Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
That's because we had the canal. It's because we had
the pigs. I was gonna say, they throw it in
the canal.
Speaker 10 (01:15:53):
Yeah, you would just you would just throw stuff out
and the pigs. Pigs took care of it. And this
this is remember from eighteen thirty until nineteen ten, Cincinnati
was one of the ten largest cities in the United States.
So after the Civil War we were the sixth largest
city in the United States and had no organized garbage collection.
Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
Holy kh we did have the second police department in
the entire uited of States, so we had to wait
around for garbage collection.
Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:16:22):
You mentioned the whole Boss Cox period, and I think
a lot of my listeners are familiar with the level
of corruption that existed under those old Boss regimes. The
Charter Right Party kicked in in nineteen twenty six and
this led to a period of reform where again led
to the eradication of prostitution and crime, and they sent
it over to Northern Kentucky, who apparently the mob was
(01:16:43):
happy to embrace the change. So cities cleaned up under
the Charter Rights and we enjoyed this very successful respected
historically period of time, we said we were one of
the best governing cities, and everyone said it, what how
long did that period of time last, because it seems
somewhere we went off the rails there.
Speaker 10 (01:17:04):
The Charter Committee and the Charter form of government basically
came in in the early nineteen twenties, and by the
mid thirties it was multiple multiple national publications pointed to
Cincinnati and said this is it. This is the best
governmed city in America. There were some key factors that
(01:17:27):
went into that form of government. One was a form
of voting called proportional representation.
Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Did you hear that? Yes, those words have come up
recently in history.
Speaker 10 (01:17:38):
Which is a little complicated to describe, but basically it
ensured minority voices and so it ensured that council would
be filled with people represented different points of view. In
the nineteen fifties, an alliance of the Democratic Party locally
(01:17:59):
and the Unions locally worked to remove proportional representation and
set the scene for one party government again.
Speaker 4 (01:18:09):
Which means each council members expected to represent every single
of the fifty two neighborhoods in the city, whereas before
I guess there was some sort of jerry mandard or
slight stuff.
Speaker 10 (01:18:19):
No, in proportional representation, it was intentionally city wide, in
each in each in each councilmanic seat. Prior to proportional representation,
city council had more than forty people. We had at
(01:18:39):
that time twenty some odd wards in the city, and
council was made up of two representatives from each ward.
In that arrangement, under Boss Cox, who controlled the Republican
and the Democratic party in the city, the Republicans had
(01:18:59):
something like thirty five out of the forty seats. After
proportional representation came in, Charter rarely had more than five seats.
Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
Oh.
Speaker 10 (01:19:10):
Really, Republicans were consistently represented on council, as were Democrats.
Speaker 4 (01:19:17):
Well, the parallels that you draw between nineteen twenty six
and twenty twenty six. I was laughing about the condition
of the roads back ineteen twenty twenty six. Apparently nothing
has changed there. Also, you mentioned the rapid transit loop,
which we know is the street car today. Is that
the project that was being built, the subway system that
never did get built. What's the backstory on that one.
Speaker 10 (01:19:39):
So the Charter Committee came in with this new form
of government totally on the message of we are going
to disassemble what's left of the Cox machine. And one
of the elements of the Cox machine that was still
in place was the rapid transit loop that we referred
(01:20:03):
to as the Cincinnati Subway. And so suddenly out of
City Hall came these reports that said, oh, this was
poorly designed, it couldn't possibly be used, it's cost overrun
going through the roof. All of this was totally made up.
It was fake news.
Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
It was an.
Speaker 10 (01:20:24):
Attempt by the Charter government to accuse the Cox government
of creating this boondoggle that could never be completed, and
so they shut it down. And if they had allowed
it to go forward, in fact, it was designed very
well and it was under budget, or not under budget,
(01:20:47):
but on budget.
Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
Wow, the parallels have you drawn. I'm thinking, like, well,
evil Orange Man did that, So we're not going to
do it, even though on paper and curly it looks
like it really will work. Think of some propaganda says
it's connected with Boss Cox, who we all collectively agree
is evil Erico. Anything he's responsible for is in and
of itself evil, So just let's forget it.
Speaker 10 (01:21:08):
It's one of the lessons of history is that the
flavor of politics changes, but it's always with us.
Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
Greg hann great conversation, man, what are you doing the
nineteen twenty six twenty versus twenty twenty six presentation?
Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Is it is that upcoming?
Speaker 10 (01:21:23):
Oh I it takes a while. A thousand words translates
into about a seven minute presentation. And most of our
most of our sets at our shows are in the
twenty to twenty five minutes. Oh so it's snippet and
so and so i've i've When I get a topic
like that, I have to get a little more to
(01:21:45):
fill in my slot.
Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
Sure, and well, you will find him and them around town.
Since they Curiosity's blogged, you gotta follow it. Jo just
Strucker's put a link up if you five carecy dot com.
Whereas I would say Peter Bronson covers more perhaps well
known or more less comedic, elements of what happens there
throughout his Cincinnati history. You're finding the really crazy stuff
(01:22:08):
and I'll encourage my listeners. Joe put a link up
to Cincinnati Curiosity's your book again, Healing Powers of the
Whamsley Madstone, Nocturnal Exploits of Old Man Dead, Mazeppa's naked
Ride and more. Sounds bizarre, and I'm sure we're gonna
find the bizarre, but it's historically true. Greg Han, real
pleasure having you in here, man, and maybe we can
(01:22:29):
do this again.
Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Thank you. I'd love to keep up the fun.
Speaker 4 (01:22:32):
We all need fun these days, and I appreciate your
using history as a vehicle to get us all smiling.
Seven twenty six. Right now, if you have KRC the
talk station, real quick words, my friends, the fast and
pro best roofer zarraun carc the talk station.
Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
It is Tuesday, in a happy one too. After the
top of the.
Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Air news, we're gonna hear the inside scoop John Carney
from Bright Bart News. We've had him on a bunch
of time, be talking about the price of gas and
oil which is dropped dramatically and.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
The booming economy. Is it booming?
Speaker 4 (01:22:58):
We'll see what John has to say about that. An
hour from now, Daniel Davis a deep dive with the
latest from Iran, Venezuela and Russia bombing another Ukrainian city
the other day. Without further ado, Welcome back to the
fifty five Casey Morning Show. You can find him online
at the web page We the People Convention dot Org.
Tom Zawastowski, good to have you back on the show.
Speaker 7 (01:23:16):
Good morning, Bryan. Happy Tuesday, Cincinnati.
Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
And what is going on in so far as state issues.
I've been talking to some state politicians the other day.
I had Zach Reins on who Americans Prosperities endors. Sounds
like a good guy. Viv Ramaswami. Is there anything going
on in as far as property tax relief? That seems
one thing that's looming large in the state of Ohio
(01:23:40):
because it may be that the elected officials are going
to have to deal with a train wreck, which would
be us voting on whether we want to eliminate property
taxes in the state via a constitutional amendment through a
ballot initiative. I don't think they want that to have
to happen. I think they should get ahead of it
ahead of time, because that's going to be a catastrophe
if they have to unfold the wreckage of taking away
(01:24:00):
property taxes with the flick of a switch.
Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
Anything going on in that level, Tom, Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
There's a lot going on, you know. I think that
the the grassroots effort, you know, to put that amendment
on the ballot you know, they have to collect four
hundred and fifteen thousand signatures and that's a really hard job.
But it has had the fact of, you know, as
they say, forcing the legislature to focus maybe on the issue.
(01:24:26):
And so there there is still more, you know, legislation
that's been talked about in the House and the Senate.
But you know, I think there's no doubt that something
has to be done.
Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
Right.
Speaker 7 (01:24:38):
You can't just punt. You can't say, well, you can't
repeal all of it, so don't do anything. We have
to do something. And I'm in conversation with you know,
the vay Pramaswami on this issue. I'm talking to other
people in the Republican Party and saying, guys, we've got
to get serious, and we've got to get serious fast.
(01:24:58):
So I expect you're going to see some proposals coming
up from a lot of directions to address this issue.
And unless, you know, as you said, you know, this
idea of almost blowing everything up, you repealing everything all
at once, I don't think we can do that. So
you're going to see some sort of compromise, a more
rational I guess you would say, a way of reducing
(01:25:20):
property taxes. But also remember it's not just about the
property taxes. What caused the property tax to get out
of control, it's local government and state government just growing uncontrollably.
I mean, the other part of the property tax issue
is that by reducing the amount of money coming into
(01:25:42):
these state agencies, you can force them to reform. And
what I mean by reform, well, I mean that you
get them to start looking at the money they're spending
and spend it wiser and give us more.
Speaker 3 (01:25:56):
For their dollar.
Speaker 7 (01:25:57):
I heard your interview with Charlie about what's going on
in Cincinnati, and that's the perfect example. We've got government
you can't function.
Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
Well.
Speaker 4 (01:26:09):
You set a mouthful there and I just say, I'm
just sort of going, yeah, there in lies the problem.
I think we're all well aware of that and the
other component of this, And you know, I talked about
this with.
Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
Just the other day.
Speaker 4 (01:26:20):
On the whole, the school funding has been ruled unconstitutional
for the past couple of decades. That is an issue
that's inextricably interp intertwined with property taxes. They haven't done
anything by way of changing that, So sending the money
out to the students seems to be a way of
perhaps bringing about this level of efficiency and competition that
the public schools really desperately need, because there's a lot
(01:26:44):
of competition with the public schools already, with charter schools
popping up and you know Christian Chrishnill's Academy for example,
or the Sin Sant Classical Academy, great education opportunities for
students who feel and parents who feel underserved by public schools.
Speaker 7 (01:26:59):
Well, you know, I think this is the real issue
in America today. I mean, we're supposed to be a
capitalist society. We've gotten all the growth in our country.
Why are we different than the rest of the world.
Was because we apply free market principles of competition and
things like that. And yet if you look at our
(01:27:19):
society from a government standpoint, it's all communists. When it's
the healthcare system, the education system, you know, our institutions,
it's not about competition, it's about eliminating competition, and you
get you know what we've got, You've got pork performance
and no accountability. So all of this has to do
(01:27:40):
with reforming government, and particularly in the coming age of AI,
where a lot of the stuff that is now you
know an excuse, Well that you know, they didn't have
the day that they didn't know how to do this,
They couldn't figure it out. That's all ending real soon,
like starting this year, and we've got to start to
implement that in all our government agencies, from healthcare to
(01:28:05):
schools and things of that nature, and just your local government,
like using the railroad. You need a flicking city.
Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
Boiling it down to its simple as terms. Tom's Awastoski
will continue, get a word or two on your perception
of V. Dag Ramaswamy selection for Lieutenant Governor Rob McCauley,
and also the Ohio Minnesota Somali daycare fraud link. Tom's Awastowski.
And then we're gonna hear from Steve Gooden late edition
of the program to talk about Christopher's suggestion that a
lawsuit should be filed because city council did not explain
(01:28:35):
to us the reason they went into executive session the
other day.
Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
Is that a possible suit.
Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
We'll find out from Steve after we talk with Tom
and the next segment stick around at seven thirty six.
Right now, let me make about care CD talk station
find on my line. We either People Convention dot Org.
Tom's Awastowski returns of the morning show talk about matters
involving state real quick here. I had Ramaswami on the
other day and I asked him about his selection of
Rob McCauley's lieutenant governor for his running mate. He said,
they're consistent eyed I and all the positions Dvek has
(01:29:01):
been running on. But also that because Rob has been
around for a while in politics, he understands what we
basically boiled down to, the sausage making process of getting
legislation passed and through. What's your reaction to Rob as
the lieutenant governor as a running mate? Any pop plus
minuses what's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Tom?
Speaker 7 (01:29:23):
Well, you know I always look at this, you know,
from the grassroots standpoint, and we've been, you know, going
through this process for sixteen years and and you know
our concern, and I think a lot of your listeners
concerned is is the veke Fromaswami going to be captured
by the Columbus cartel?
Speaker 3 (01:29:39):
Right?
Speaker 7 (01:29:39):
What are the signs of that? And when he picked
Rob from a field of five people, all of whom
had state office positions and things like that, my problem
was I didn't know Rob. I never die, which is
pretty amazing. Blank, because you know, you and I talked
pretty much everybody in this state all the time, and
(01:30:02):
so I was concerned. You know, he's a Senate president,
and you're thinking, Okay, is this guy you know part
of the cartel? Is he associates affiliated with the wine
and with Kasik and all those guys, and and but
I think the day was very honest about the fact
he's an outsider, and he's got a very inspirational agenda,
(01:30:25):
an aspirational agenda for Ohio, and he's going to need
to get through the legislature. So it makes total sense
that he would try to pick someone right Rob to
do that. Not to their credit, I had never met Rob,
but the they must have told him to call me,
because the day after he was announced, Rob called me
(01:30:46):
and we had a two hour conversation. And you can imagine,
you know, my conversations are never just you know, simple.
I mean, we went at it. We went at a
big time. I wanted to know, who is this guy?
Is he on board with the kind of reforms that
that they is going to push? And I'm convinced he is.
I'm convinced that he's open to the kind of things
(01:31:09):
that we're talking about with property tax reform and reform
of government. I think he gets the fact. Remember he
did come out of the business. Yes, he hasn't just
been a government his whole life. So I think that's
a good sign. I can assure our Glassrooms people that
this is a good choice because they have a really
strong relationship. And as you know, that's that's probably the
(01:31:31):
most important thing. You can't have anybody like Mike Pence
stabbing in the back when you're Trump. You need somebody
you can trust.
Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
Isn't that the truth?
Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
Well?
Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
Real quick here, I knew stayed ordered a key. Faber
announced last week that they have a new opportunity for
us to rat out fraud, waste and abuse in government.
Your reaction to whether or not that is a strong
enough response to what has been revealed in Minnesota in
Minneapolis as well as maybe even here in Ohio with
regard to the abuse of public funds.
Speaker 7 (01:32:02):
So you know, I know all of us are curious,
and there's a lot of noise going on, particularly if
you're online. You know, Mehika Cook is out there investigating.
There's some pretty good you know, citizen journalists who are
digging and finding some things okay, but like take for instance,
that you know, one of the first things that came
(01:32:23):
out about Ohio was those forty daycares that all you
know were made legal in the one day they all
in June or twenty twenty four to go on. Well,
I heard Keith talk about that, and they did investigate it,
and what they found out was that was not true.
They didn't all style on that day and get done.
(01:32:44):
That was some sort of a problem with the computer
system that just put them all in that date, and
that those are all they're legitimate. He did look at that.
So I want our numbers and people out there from
you know, in Olive, Ohio, to know that Keith Faber
and Bob Spragg and those guys they are looking into this.
(01:33:05):
And while there is a lot of smoke, I so
far have not seen fire, meaning you know, billions of
dollars like in Minnesota that have been stolen. There are
millions of dollars, and I think Keith may have talked
about a few of those things, but so far I
haven't seen this kind of you know, the systemic corruption
(01:33:25):
like you saw in Minnesota. So that's my viewpoint at
this stage.
Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
Tom's Alastowski we the People Convention dot or hopefully it
stays that way, and hopefully we have been slightly ahead
of the curve and that would give my listeners and
of course the residents of the state of Ohio a
lot of comfort. Tom, keep up the great work. I'm
pleased that you were referred to Rob McAuley by VV
Gramaswamy suggesting to my listeners, Tom, you're a man that
needs to be consulted with because he's got a lot
(01:33:52):
of influence. We either People Convention dot Org. Tom, you
and I will talk again real soon. I wish you
the best of health and happiness for the next week
until we hear from each other. I hear from you again,
I'll record to the next time. Thanks very much. As always,
Steve Gooden, our legal expert. Did they violate rules that
are worthy.
Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Of a talk station?
Speaker 4 (01:34:12):
Seven forty nine I think about PERCV talk station Happy
Tuesday inside Scoop with bry Barton and his plus the
Daniel Davis Deep Dive in the next hour and Dusty
Rhodes on how property taxes work and Ken school Zoo's
and first responders survive without them Without further ado, though,
God bless you Welcome back to the FIRFTY five KRC
Morning show. In matters involving legal questions, not good to
(01:34:32):
rely on me anymore. It's been a while since actively
practice law. Steve Gooden, though with the outstanding law firm,
Reporter Wright joins the program to explain these matters formal counselmen.
He is Steve Gooden. They went into executive session yesterday
to talk about we think maybe the settlement of this lawsuit,
the Hinton family lawsuit, which hasn't been filed, but to
(01:34:53):
talk about settlement. Cheryl Long, it was revealed, was in
settlement discussions with the Hinton family. Their son, eighteen year
old was killed by a police officer because while he
was in a stolen car fleeing police and then he
turned around with a gun point in an officer and
ended up losing his life. They think that is a
settlement worthy now. Christopher Smithen was on the program this
morning saying, if you go into executive council, you must
(01:35:15):
let the public know the subject matter, not the substance
of what goes on in there, but at least the
subject matter before going into executive council, and said someone
should file a lawsuit because they.
Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Didn't do that.
Speaker 4 (01:35:26):
Steve Gooden, legal expert, is that a justiciabal controversy?
Speaker 8 (01:35:33):
You know what sure is? I did take a look
at the agenda. Brian, First, good morning, and second Smitherman
is is typically the case is correct and under a
Higle law, there are only two reasons you can go
into executive session. One is to discuss potential litigation, which
is apparently what happened here. And number two, you can
go in to discuss a personnel matter, particularly a sensitive
(01:35:56):
personnel matter regarding someone who may have to be fired
or what have you. I mean, those are reasons you're
allowed as a public official to go in and talk
with your legal counsel and your city manager off the record,
as it were. There's an attorney client privilege that attaches,
so that in and of itself isn't illegal. That is
just that's a place where state law prompts the local law.
(01:36:19):
But that said, there's two big things about executive session legally.
Number one, you have to state which category it is
that you're talking about. Yesterday's agenda did not do that.
We know because of all the various leaks at city
Hall that they were talking about a potential hitting settlement,
but they didn't acknowledge that publicly. That's number one. Number two,
(01:36:41):
you can't vote on the settlement or actually vote on
anything during executive session. The ultimate decisions have to be
made out in a public forum. So for instance, this
eight point one million dollar travesty of a settlement they
gave to the George Floyd protesters earlier this month. I mean,
they did have to actually go into regular session to
(01:37:03):
vote on that. We presume they had had prior executive
sessions about it.
Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
We didn't know.
Speaker 8 (01:37:08):
They're not doing a very good job of putting out
there that the executive sessions, you know, what the subject
matter of them are. But I mean that's really where
this is. I mean, they really should be telling people
at least the general subject matter of what's going on here.
It's a horrible look, but I guess good thing for
(01:37:29):
the taxpayers. City hall leagues like a sieve and always has.
Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 4 (01:37:34):
And thankfully we have outlets that let us know actually
what's going on behind the scenes, because they apparently are
talking and coming out of the closed door session the
executive session. No single city council member of these spokespeople
for the city manager or the city manager or the
mayor set a peep. They just refused comment to the
enquire and other local reporters on what they what they do.
They could have said, we were talking about a potential settlement.
(01:37:56):
They're allowed to say what the subject matter is. They
just couldn't talk about what specifically happened in the meeting, right, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (01:38:02):
That's exactly right. I mean, look, I mean, like I said,
there's only to mine. I mean, look, and I've been
advising the municipalities on and off for twenty five years. Uh,
there's really only two reasons why you have an executive session,
and you're really supposed to put that at least in
the record, if not on the agenda. You know, I
actually pulled the paper agenda off the Cities upside. It
(01:38:23):
just says executive you know session pursuant to Ohio Biased
Code Section blah blah blah. That's all it says. So,
you know, particularly if they're considering doing something this sensitive,
this unpopular, I mean, just to be very clear, what
apparently is being contemplated here, you know, is you know,
a settlement with this Hinton family where the father is
(01:38:45):
currently facing trial for murdering a sheriff's deputy, a totally
innocent sheriff's deputy, uh purportedly because he watched the video
of his son being shot by police Cincinnati police and
goes off and does this like this horrific crime. So
I think one of the big issues is we don't
really have a law in Ohio, as some states do,
(01:39:06):
that would ban the father from getting some of the proceeds. Now,
in all likelihood, he's going to be in jail the
rest of his life. But I think it will be
major Hartburn even if this was a band shooting of
the of the young Hinton kid, which every indication I've
heard is that it is not. The prosecutor's office declined
to prosecute the police officer, the city has taken no action.
(01:39:28):
I have not watched the video, but I am told
that you can see that the young man had a
gun and was fleeing from a stolen car, classic circumstances
and which use of force would typically be justified by
a police officer. Why they would be trying to settle
that in the first instance is a big question mark.
And then a huge question mark is how and why
would they be looking at giving money to a family
(01:39:51):
where the father has all but admitted to murdering a
police officer. So I mean it's politically sensitive situation times ten.
Speaker 4 (01:40:01):
Well, since this idea that there was a settlement going
on behind the scenes came out of the blue, question
I had the other day, and I've been told, yes,
the city solicitor does she have the authority to settle
the I mean, the city solicitor apparently has the authority
to settle lawsuits. They don't need council's approval. City solicitor
works for the city manager. Does that mean that if
the city manager and the solicitor decide they're going to
write a check for X amount of the hitting family,
(01:40:21):
that the council really has no control over that.
Speaker 8 (01:40:26):
Well, it depends on the circumstances on that one, Brian.
I mean, I recall under the city's current administrative code,
the city manager can settle smaller lawsuits, but I can't
remember what the exact monetary cutoff is. The council must
approve a lawsuit, certainly anything in the seven figures, which
(01:40:46):
is typically what happens in a wrongful scenario. So there
are some smaller suits that the city solicitor and the
city manager can settle, but nothing like this. If you're
going to actually move bigger amounts of money, council has
to approve it. Well, they're allowed to, I mean, they
routinely settle small thunder bender cases with city vehicles and
(01:41:11):
things of that nature. But the big things they have
to get approval, all right, And.
Speaker 4 (01:41:15):
I know, right of time, Joe, But I got to
ask this one question. The Bell's been wrong. They went
into executive council saison without mentioning why they were doing it.
If that is an actionable offense, what's the legal recourse?
What's the remedy for that? Because the Bell's been wrong,
they had the meeting.
Speaker 8 (01:41:31):
Yeah, you're right, I mean, I mean typically what someone
would do would be a taxpayer with fileolytical, a taxpayer
lawsuit saying that they feel that their rights have been violated,
and you try to get into the common Police court
locally and see if you could convince a judge to
award some sort of damages to that taxpayer as a
deterrent to these guys. You know, My concern is that
(01:41:54):
that really they don't seem to be all that interested
in being deterred and they don't really seem to be
paying any political price right now the way the city
voters are responding. So we you file a lawsuit, but
what good would do I really don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:42:09):
Maybe just to make a point a judgment suitable for framing.
That's why we have legal expert Steve Goodin from the
law firm Reporter Right to help us out with these matters. Steve,
thank you so much for going to join the program
late in the game. And you're always welcome here, and
you know we're going to be calling you anytime we
need sound legal advice and explanation.
Speaker 8 (01:42:25):
Hey, anytime, Barne, you guys take care.
Speaker 4 (01:42:27):
Happy New Year, my friend, Happy New Year. Five to
seventy or seven fifty seventy five K City the talk station.
I'm going to hear the Inside Scoop with John Carney
telling us simpically. We get what we call the inside
Scoop with bright Bart News and as I always start
the program segment Brightbart dot com. It's worth a bookmark.
Read what they have to say each and every day.
Br E I T B a art dot com. Solid
reporting quite often is reporting on things before anybody else
(01:42:50):
reports on it, and sometimes the only source of information
that is actually true. John Carney knows all about that.
He's written for bite Bart for a long time. We've
had him on many times before. Welcome back to the program,
John Carney. It's always a pleasure to have and you
want to appreciate what you and the team at Breitbart
do each and every day.
Speaker 11 (01:43:08):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (01:43:10):
Am I staring at a at a good news on
the topic lest I mean, what price of gas and oil?
Donald Trump just tweeted the other day about forty three
states having gas under three dollars per gallon. Before we
started talking, I just went over to gas buddy my
personal zip code gas about between two oh nine and
two forty two in the city proper the zip code
(01:43:31):
for the city of Cincinnati two seventy nine, and then
I just randomly chose Middletown, which is, you know, between
here and Dayton two dollars and thirty three cents.
Speaker 8 (01:43:39):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
I haven't seen prices like that for many, many years.
That is an outstanding development and immediate relief in terms
of the inflationary pressures we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
John, your take, Yeah.
Speaker 11 (01:43:49):
That's absolutely right. I drove the other day just to
a local gas station and I hadn't been the I
hadn't been driving for a you know, must have been
a week or two since I last filled up my car,
and it was down to two forty nine. And I thought, Okay,
this is an amazing development because we have, as you said,
(01:44:12):
it mechanically actually forces down inflation in large part because
the gasoline is and oil fuel energy in general is
a large part of the entire inflation index. But also
everything we touch has petroleum in it, and so and
(01:44:32):
or is shipped with gasoline, so you have you know,
whether it's food coming on trucks, whether it is the
you know, plastics that we're buying everything. I was on
Larry Tudlow's television show the other day and he was
pointing out that his glasses are made of petroleum. So
cheap oil, cheap gasoline is a way of getting everything
(01:44:55):
less expensive than our lives.
Speaker 4 (01:44:56):
Yeah, and one can only help. But also maybe perhaps
presu zom on some level that the price that we
passed along the consumer. I think many manufacturers and providers
of goods are looking for ways to provide some price
relief and if they're going to save some money in
terms of what they're paying to ship goods and serve
or to ship the goods. I would think that's an
easy way for them to pass along a little bit
(01:45:18):
of savings to the American customer, right, And.
Speaker 11 (01:45:21):
It's not just out of the goodness of their heart.
Of course, Target wants to compete with Walmart, so when
Walmart's costs go down, they can lower the cost and
then they they try to lower their prices when their
costs go down to beat Target, Target has to do
the same thing. So the competitive economy means that you
do get these costs start to come down. And I
(01:45:47):
also just think it will help people psychologically. Gasoline is
one of those prices that we all see very frequently,
even when we're not necessarily filling. Normal prices you only
see when you're buying something. Prices of furniture you rarely
see because how often you even buy a piece of furniture.
Groceries you see more often, but only when you're at
(01:46:08):
the grocery store. Gasoline you see all the time because
of the minute you pass a gas station, they advertise
what the price is, and so I think it adds
a lot of sale ins for people, and people understand
that they're not spending as much on the pump. It
puts a little more money in their pockets to buy
other things, and I think that'll be make people feel
some relief from some of this burden left over from
(01:46:30):
the Biden administration of very high inflation that a lot
of us are still dealing with.
Speaker 4 (01:46:34):
Well, and I guess there's a compounding factor. You know,
you would think more oil, more oil, more oil, the
price will continue to go down. But there's a point
at which a barrel of oil doesn't really generate sufficient
revenue for the oil companies. I've heard domestic oil production
companies need about fifty dollars a barrel. I think part
of that has to do with the added costs of
extracting oil and natural gas from shale, But there is
(01:46:57):
a point of limited return. Now we've got alleged lead
this Venezuela and oil that's going to be coming online.
I'm not sure how much that's going to impact. And
there are, of course a lot of logistical hurdles we
have to deal with before that oil is going to
start flowing, including oil companies agreement to go back to
areas where they used to be able to drill and
keep their profits until after the communist government socialist government
comes in and nationalizes their resources. Can we get them
(01:47:20):
to go back in And ultimately is that going to
be a good thing for the oil companies considering it
probably will bring the price of oil down.
Speaker 11 (01:47:27):
John, Yeah, so a couple of things. One, the price
of US oil. I've often heard the fifty dollars quoted. Yeah,
that's not necessarily fixed. We can bring down the cost
of production of US energy and oil, in particular by
one allowing some of these pipelines to get built, allowing
(01:47:52):
not necessarily even less regulation, but more confident regulation. Look,
the Biden administration didn't want it to be easy, and
the Obama administration before that did not want it to
be easy or cheap to extract oil out of the ground.
They actually wanted to drive up the price because that
would drive down the relative price of things like solar
(01:48:14):
and wind. So they had been engaged in a campaign
of making it more expensive to get oil out of
the ground. So, yes, fifty dollars is the break even now,
but it can come lower and once we get the
regulation of it correct. As for Venezuela, I don't think
we I think exon mobil has been very hesitant about
(01:48:36):
going in. I understand that you got burned once the
comedy season stuff. You're worried. But smaller guys actually are.
Speaker 8 (01:48:44):
We are eager.
Speaker 11 (01:48:46):
They want to go in. They say, look, we think
this time will be safer. We know we have the
back of the US President, so we think this is
an investible opportunity. And is it risk free. No, but
you know a lot of these they call them wild
catter oil drillers. They're not going for the risk pre things.
(01:49:07):
These guys want to take risks because that's where you
make money.
Speaker 4 (01:49:10):
Well, I have always been convinced that taking plant food
out of the atmosphere is dangerous for plants. It is
not a pollutant carbon dioxide. It keeps the world green
and going. We all learned about that in elementary score.
At least we used to this whole idea that they
wanted to. I mean, the predicate, remember Barack Obama, price
of gas will necessarily go up. It was an artificial
(01:49:31):
price increase. Take away the opportunity to drill easily. Throw
in regulatory hurdles insurmountable. They are you're going to force
people to go over to and you said that would
make solar and wind appear more affordable only because gas
a lien had been artificially increased in price. So you're
competing with an artificially increased price product that we all
want and need and can't do without because most of
(01:49:53):
us have intertal combustion engines. You're going to replace it
with solar panels and windmills that only come with the
only way those can even manage themselves financially is with
government subsidies, taxpayer dollars. The whole thing built on what
I would argue the house of cards that seems to
be falling apart in front of our very eyes, that
we are somehow destroying the planet by allowing carbon dioxide
(01:50:16):
to naturally exist and not try to extract it or
not put it into the environment and environment in the
first place.
Speaker 11 (01:50:22):
So that's absolutely right, and you've got the really perverted
part of the policy. They're absolutely correct, and it was intentional.
You can read the environmentalists, this is what they say
they wanted to do. You subsidize the energy they like,
you tax the energy or regulate the energy they don't like.
And so you are basically visibly forcing people to bot
(01:50:49):
to seek out alternatives because you've driven the price of
gas so high, and you've artificially driven the price of
non fossil fuels much lower. And that was actually But
the problem is you can't get enough energy to run
modern society with windmills and solar panels. It's not going
to happen. We don't actually even have the technology for
(01:51:10):
a lot of the Look where I live up in
the northeast coast of the United States, if you try
to run everything on solar, you would be in a
lot You just wouldn't have energy for six months.
Speaker 8 (01:51:25):
Of the year.
Speaker 11 (01:51:25):
We're you know, we're in cloud covered New England here.
This is not you can't run solar all over the country.
Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
No, of course not.
Speaker 4 (01:51:34):
And of course, with artificial intelligence demands increasing the load
on the grid, I mean exponentially, we can't satisfy the
needs of AI, and so much so that I think
the one development that's coming out of all this that's
going to be great for America generally speaking, is that
we're no longer turning our backs on the concept of
small modular reactors or nuclear production. Generally speaking, an abundance
(01:51:56):
of power and oh look, it's been carbon free the
whole time, and yet the environment analysts fought nuclear tooth
and nail much in the same way they fight anything
that involves fossil fuel. It's all insane. But the demand
of business and industry and these evil multi billionaires with
their AI companies, seems to be trumping this religion that
we all have been following blindly.
Speaker 11 (01:52:18):
It's actually been a great development, not intentional, but this
is the way things have worked out that for a
long time we actually had a bunch of these tech
companies that believed that because they themselves weren't using much energy,
that they were willing to get behind a lot of
these horrible climate change policies that drove up the price
(01:52:40):
of energy.
Speaker 7 (01:52:41):
Now that we have the new.
Speaker 11 (01:52:43):
Technology and the money that's going into things like AI
that it is actually energy intensive rather than than not,
you're actually getting Silicon Valley and the new technologists to
support energy abundance rather than oppose it. That's a very
positive and frankly unexpected development. I didn't see that coming,
(01:53:04):
and it's terrific because it means that basically we're recruiting
a bunch of pretty wealthy people to be on the
side of ordinary Americans when it comes to energy, and
that's terrific.
Speaker 4 (01:53:17):
Well, they have to advocate that for their own survival. Finally,
the chickens as home to ruse for these you know,
multi billionaires who are so blindly following leftists and funding
every leftist cause out in the world. Oh, whoops. I
guess our situations changed. So we're going to change our
minds and maybe that'll help again convert people over to
the right side of thinking, which is, no carbon dioxide
(01:53:37):
isn't bad. It's plant food, all right. Is the economy
getting better?
Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
Are we? Are we booming? Are we not?
Speaker 4 (01:53:43):
I suppose it depends on where you read an article.
Everybody with an opinion has a different outlook on it.
It's like subjectivities under the equation. Shouldn't this be a
sort of a concrete thing. I guess it just depends
on which sector of the economy you're looking at. John Carney.
Speaker 11 (01:53:57):
So right now, the economy is growing very rapidly, and
I think it's important that people see this. That we
grew at a three point eight percent in the second quarter,
of four point one in the third, and we might
be growing as fast as even faster than that in
the fourth quarter. That gave us a lot of momentum
(01:54:19):
going into this year. That's really good. The unemployment rate
has fallen, which is the opposite of what a lot
of people thought it was going to do. They thought
it was going to keep going up. So this is
all good news. And inflation has come in quite Look
in just a couple of minutes we'll get some more
inflation numbers.
Speaker 9 (01:54:37):
This is what we want.
Speaker 11 (01:54:38):
We want non inflationary growth. And by the way, wages
are rising faster than the rate of inflation, which means
that people have more purchasing power. The things we all
need to survive in this world are becoming more affordable
because we're getting the amount we get paid is going
up faster than the prices. That's terrific and it's something
that hasn't happened in a long time. Are dangers, Look,
(01:55:01):
interest rates are still pretty high. That could still cause
one of the things interest rates do eventually is slow
down hiring. So there are dangers still in the economy.
Will never not you not have risks to the economy.
But the economy is doing well right now, and I
think the legacy media is trying to blind us like this,
(01:55:23):
But we are doing well well.
Speaker 4 (01:55:26):
Three things that Democrats seem to have going into the
November election. You got healthcare and the subsidies, you got inflation,
and of course I suppose in the immigration situation, what
side are you on getting rid of these evil people
in the United States or letting everybody just stay here
without any intervention.
Speaker 1 (01:55:44):
So that's it.
Speaker 4 (01:55:45):
Hopefully the economy kicks in in full earnest before November,
taking the wind out of the democrats sales.
Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
On that one.
Speaker 4 (01:55:50):
We know that John Carney from Breitbart's going to be
reporting on all of it. Breitbart dot com is ory
you find John and the crew. John, thank you so
much for joining me on the program this morning. It's
always a pleasure having you on and for my listeners
and me. Keep up the great work over at bright Bart.
Speaker 11 (01:56:05):
Thanks so much and looking forward to being on again.
Speaker 4 (01:56:08):
Looking forward to it already, my friend, have a great week.
It's eight twenty here fifty five KRC The Talk Station.
The Daniel Davis Deep Dive coming up. I hope you
can stick around.
Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
W KRC, Cincinnati, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (01:56:20):
Ingram, fifty five KRC, The Talk Station.
Speaker 4 (01:56:24):
Hey, twenty eight here fifty five KRC, The Talk Station,
it's Tuesday. It's that time a week regular listeners, No,
it's appointment listening time for the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis joins the program every week,
as he does throughout the week with his podcast, Daniel
Davis Deep Dive talks about matters military, which he clearly
has a whole lot of information about, as we learn
every single week. Welcome back, Daniel Davis. It's always a pleasure, sir.
(01:56:47):
Good to see you did a lot to be here, Brian,
thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
All right, let's start with Iran.
Speaker 4 (01:56:54):
This kind of reminded me of the red line of
the sand Barack Obama mentioned with regard to Syria. It's
use a weapons, you know, blah blah blah, redline of
the stand, do not cross it. And then the line
gets crossed, and then you wait and wait and wait
for something to happen, and nothing really happens. Donald Trump
lately has been making a lot of very strong pronouncements
with regard to the crackdown on protesters in Iran. Most
notably last week, he said on Friday, I made the
(01:57:17):
statement very strongly to the they, the Irani and start
killing people like they have in the past. We will
get involved, will be hitting them very hard where it hurts.
Doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting
them very hard, very hard, where it hurts. Similar pronounces
have been made, but the crackdown continues now. Depending upon
who you believe. Given the fog of war, somewhere between
oh six hundred and two thousand protesters have been killed,
(01:57:39):
lots and lots arrested a multiplier of that, but it continues.
Internet's been shut down, which makes it a little more
difficult for the protesters to organize themselves. But the Trump
response now has been to levy a twenty five percent
tariffyn countries doing business with Iran? Is that the step
after these claims about military involvement and bombs being dropped
(01:58:03):
and least alluding to all of that, is this the
response to the line being crossed? Because of course this
killing continues. Daniel Davis, You know.
Speaker 2 (01:58:12):
I mean I want to back up just a bit
and even look at why was that a redline ever drawn? Period?
Speaker 3 (01:58:18):
What?
Speaker 2 (01:58:19):
Why is it in the interest of America? Why is
it a vital national issues that we should risk our troops,
our planes and go and kill somebody in another country
because there's some protests going on, or there's things happening
in there we don't like, or that their protesters being killed.
Even that's not there's no authorization or justification for that anyway,
(01:58:40):
And so I don't know why we would let that
be a deciding factor if it wasn't our national security
or anything related to the interest of America. So that's
the first question, which has not been answered at all
so far, right, and then the second one is if
you're gonna make a threat and then all of a
sudden there's a basically a truth social post, it's a
twenty five percent. That's I mean, there's there's literally thousands
(01:59:03):
of sanctions already on Iran. This is not no one's
even gonna notice this one. It's not gonna have any
real impact on anything. So I don't really understand.
Speaker 3 (01:59:11):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:59:12):
I'll tell you what I'm concerned about. What I fear
is that we just don't have all the assets in
place right now, and that's the only reason you haven't
seen any strikes, because we don't have that much combat
power up there. You may recall that just a few
days before this, we did have a big strike in Sirius,
so that's obviously in the same region, and we do
have some package. I was curious that we used apparently
(01:59:33):
a large strike package against alleged ISIS targets in Syria
when we're already talking about maybe doing something in Iran.
And you don't see this big build up of power
like you did, say before the war in twenty or
the options in twenty twenty four when we helped Israel
against Iran, or in the so called Twelve Day war
in June of last year. So I'm not sure what
(01:59:55):
we can do other than firing, you know, some demonstrative
missile strikes here and there. It's not going to be
really painful, and who knows whether they're going to have
any impact. So this is this is a big.
Speaker 1 (02:00:06):
Puzzle to me.
Speaker 4 (02:00:07):
It is, and I suppose to the former comments, you're
channeling a friend of the show, Senator Ran Paul, who
expresses the same concerns about congressional involvement, declarations of war,
and the larger question, Wait a second, are we going
to be doing this everywhere freedom and democracy or whatever
is in jeopardy or anywhere in the world, whether people
being having the rights violated, and the answer is that
(02:00:28):
that would be literally impossible. So we're picking and choosing.
But also I read an article, and maybe this is
to your point about whether we are ready to engage
in some sort of military operation in Iran. I've heard
that the military, the folks within the military, the generals,
the admirals with whom I guess Donald Trump consults, say
they are not ready to do engage, to engage in
(02:00:48):
this that bombing Iran may suggest a much longer, more
protracted military involvement than we are ready to bite off
at this point. I guess we got our hands full
over in Venezuela with a lot of military resources there.
We certainly have not had the problem when the South
China seed disappear or go anywhere. So we're kind of
spread far and wide. Is that really maybe part of
(02:01:09):
the problem, Daniel Davis.
Speaker 2 (02:01:12):
Well, it's part of many problems. I'll tell you that
the fact that we are spread literally to the four
winds in the seven Seas, and our four structure is
not really that big, and so if you get called
into engagement anywhere, it's going to come close to tapping
you out. And we saw we had fifteen percent of
the Navy and all kinds of other power Marines, air Force, Navy,
(02:01:34):
all down there in the Venezulin area. Well, a lot
of that, most of it is, I understand, is still there,
so you haven't redeployed that anywhere. It takes a long
time to ship things back over into the Middle East, etc.
I think you'd need probably a couple of aircraft carriers
if you're going to do anything meaningful to Iron and
I haven't even heard of the potential deployments of any
that yet. Thankfully, I'm glad because the last thing we
(02:01:55):
need to do is to go back and start another
war with Iran, because Iran has said that this time
that the gloves would come off if you attack us again.
We're going to hit your bases throughout the Middle East.
And I can just tell you from personal experience of
being there, many of these far flung bases that we
have throughout the Middle East have literally no air defense
coverage on a stratega or on a theater level operation,
(02:02:17):
and those missiles from Iran could just rain down and
there's nothing we could do to stop them. They could
cause enormous damage, and we need to be really, really
careful that we don't get into this habit that we
can bomb anyone we want, like Venezuela and nothing will happen. Ever,
because one of these days we're going to buy off
more than we can chew, and all of a sudden,
there could be Americans throughout the Middle East. They are
(02:02:38):
killed for no reason at all. So this is something
we really don't need to do.
Speaker 4 (02:02:43):
So, I would think given the seemingly precarious nature of
the Iranian administration, given the protests, a lot of people
speculating that maybe the regime will be overthrown. Remains to
be seen. But desperate situations result in desperate acts. So,
Daniel Davis, in your military experience, do you think Iran
will make good and launch attacks on our various military
(02:03:05):
resources in the Middle East? Which suggests also that Israel
might get attacked. They've done it before. That means Israel
would get involved in whatever retaliation if they launched one.
Speaker 2 (02:03:15):
That is the threat that it would be the US
and Israel, they said, and not or so they would
have hit both. And I think that the intent is
to say, hey, look, you saw what happened during the
Twelve Day War. Your air defenses in Israel couldn't even
protect you, and it won't protect you this time either,
because we have rebuilt a lot of the capacity that
we lost there and they've continued to make a lot
of these better era ballistic missiles that were so successful
(02:03:38):
last time. And listen, a lot of these protests, too
many people in the West are saying, oh, this is
just all indigenous stuff, It's just natural.
Speaker 3 (02:03:46):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (02:03:48):
There has been long time simmering things. There are domestic issues,
but there is no question that a lot of this
has been fomented from the outside. Mike Pompeo openly admitted
on his ex account that Mossad is in the is
already on the ground there. There has been many other
credible reports that both I six and CIA has been
fomenting things on the ground to try to make it
worse than it was, and a lot of people in
(02:04:10):
Iran are understanding recognize that. The reason why that is
so important to understand is when you're talking about there
is the legitimate possibility for large scale upheavals that could
overturn the regime if you make them. The regime recognized
that they their very existence could be a threat if
they do nothing. Now they have no motivation to restrain
(02:04:32):
themselves if you now add on top of that missile.
So we don't want to put them into back them
into a corner to where it's like use it or
lose it, because they may use it. I'm just telling
you our defenses will not stop most of these things,
and we will suffer casualties if we put them in
a no win situation.
Speaker 4 (02:04:49):
Well, you know, interesting the global outside influence pot stirring
that's made that's led to some of these protests, we
might want to look a little bit inwardly about that
same concept happening here in the United States of America.
Good because we have a lot of protesters here who
many analysts and researchers have suggested are being stirred by
outside nefarious forces. You just simply don't like the United States.
Speaker 2 (02:05:11):
Yeah, you know, what's good for the goose is good
for the gander kind of thing, and we don't like that.
We you don't talk about how bad it is, and
we try to expose it whenever that does happen. And
we've been doing it for decades, I mean, oh yeah,
a long time. And you know, and sometimes those chickens
can come home to roost. And this is part of
the reason why I'm adamantly against that. I actually believe
(02:05:34):
in self determination of people in Iran want to change
their former government. That is their right prerogative. They take
all the risks and the potential rewards for whatever they
do on their own. We don't need to stir the
thing up or do anything because our national security is
not at risk no matter who runs Iran. They are
a weak country militarily and they don't threaten us at all,
(02:05:55):
so we don't need to use any force. Whatever they
do is on their own. But when we do that, Brian,
it then invites it to come back home. And I
fear that we may find that tour sha grin one day.
Speaker 4 (02:06:05):
Well, it's interesting quote silver Parallel that I'm gonna quickly
draw here the anti Iranian sentiment, and I agree with
your principles about we don't need to be going around
telling anybody else how to live their lives. Period, and
point taken. The anti Iranian propaganda's built into the equation.
We remember the overthrow of the shot, we remember the
taking of the hostages, remember Iran threatening to blow everybody
(02:06:27):
up with a nuclear weapon. We think it's a dangerous
thing to get a nuclear weapon, on and on. This
has been going on for decades, so there's this general
animosity toward Iran, which makes something like this military strike
seem more palatable, Like, yeah, this sounds analogous to Vladimir Putin. Yeah,
he was affiliated with the Soviet Union. A lot of
people my age, you know, I'm sixty, I remember the
Cold War. I hated the Soviet Union as much as
(02:06:48):
the next guy. So sort of that animosity is baked
into the cake, which is I think a lot of
the reason why people are so against the Russian invasion
in Ukraine again to the security interests of the United States.
Ukraine doesn't really hose any this war is ongoing. I
see that Russia recently bombed to the Ukrainian city which
with reportedly one of those hypersonic missiles. Is that accurate,
(02:07:09):
because seems to me that Russia still keeps moving forward
and capture more Land.
Speaker 2 (02:07:14):
Daniel, Yes, it is, It is absolutely accurate. I was
reading some of those reports this very morning, a lot
of viscandors and other hypersonic missiles, and then another wave
of the Guarante drones, the theater level drones that have
been going across most of them, well not most of them,
but it's large number of them, a large percentage to
get through every time. And it has just continuing to
(02:07:37):
just destroy the ability of Ukraine to have any energy, electricity,
to either to do business or to have military industrial capacity.
It's all just devastating that. And now then they're they're
the mayor of Kiev is literally telling people to leave
the city because they don't have enough power to keep
people from freezing to death.
Speaker 4 (02:07:57):
That tells you a lot right there, It really does.
I want to say war of attrition, but it's one
that the Russians seemed to be winning. Just real quick,
I quick question for we part Coedy Daniel Davis. Did
you ever when this first started, this conflict with Russian
invading Ukraine, did you ever anticipate that it would take
this long, that this war would still be going on
without some clear victory. I would imagine my guests early
(02:08:18):
on would have been the Russians would have rolled right
over Ukraine absent some massive outside force boots on the
ground from the European Union or NATO or whatever. But
they keep moving forward, and it's been going on for
a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:08:30):
Well, The problem with the Russians is that, and with
that scenario is that they did not intend to do that.
They did not intend to roll over and take over
the country because they knew that. I mean, they'd been
watching a year civil war going on before then, they'd
been watching NATO build up the Ukraine military, so they
knew that they were capable and fairly large, and so
they went in with a relatively small force. It was
(02:08:52):
a demonstration force. This canard that Russia thought they were
going to win in three days was nonsense. They never
said that. They never intended that. They didn't have the
force to it. They intended to compel a negotiated settlement,
which they nearly got in Istanbul two months into the war.
But then when they didn't get that, they didn't have
a plan B resourced, and that's when they said, oh crap.
(02:09:13):
And so it took them a year and a half
to get back up to the point to where they're
at now, where they can fight and win a war
of attrition. That's where they're at now.
Speaker 9 (02:09:20):
And so.
Speaker 2 (02:09:22):
That no, to answer your question, I didn't expect this.
Russia didn't expect this. I did not expect that this
would go on this long I thought we'd have a
negotiated settlement a long time ago, because that was in
the best interests of Europe, Ukraine and the United States. Unfortunately,
that's not what we did, and now then we have
a much stronger Russia on the NATO Eastern flank than
we had before, and we're gonna have to deal with
(02:09:44):
that for a long time to come.
Speaker 4 (02:09:45):
Every Tuesday, beginning at a thirty, the Daniel Davis Deep
Dive with our guest and friend, retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis.
Finding them where you find your podcast, Daniel Davis Deep Dive,
It'll be on my blog page fifty five Carosey dot com. Sir,
you have a great week. We'll do this again next Tuesday.
Look forward to it, Brian, see then take care, sir.
Eight forty two Dusty Road at seventy five right lane
(02:10:06):
block Chuck Ingram fifty five KR and see the talk station, Hey,
forty six fifty five KRC detalk station sharing some Joe
Strekker high comedy over the break, he said Fox nineteen.
He was the report of waking up at five o'clock
or earlier is harmful to your health, suggesting that maybe
Joe and I need to make a worker's compensation claim.
(02:10:27):
We'll think about it, Joe. Any workers comployers out there
that want to help Joe, please feel free to give
them a call. In the meantime, without further ado, welcome
back to the Morning Show. Dusty Rhoads, former Hamilton County auditor,
came up with a had a conversation yesterday with Senate
candidate from the seventh district here in the state of Ohio,
Zach Haynes, who talked about property tax relief. We certainly
(02:10:48):
need it, and many people can't afford to pay their
property taxes, especially when they jump thirty plus percent overnight.
Dusty Rhoads, a lot of ideas floating around out there.
I know the budget from the state of Ohio. The
elect officials said, here are some property tax relief items,
and our governor line item vetoed them. We are facing
a potential ballot initiative which would eliminate, by way of
(02:11:10):
constitutional amendment in Ohio, the collection of property taxes, which
sounds interesting, get your popcorn out type of event, Dusty,
but it's going to be really complicated if that happens.
Where are we, Dusty Rhoads. Is there any relief out
there that's possible in what would happen if we just
got rid of it? Dusty, welcome back. Happy new year,
(02:11:30):
by the.
Speaker 6 (02:11:30):
Way, Happy new year, Brian. Good to be whether it's interesting.
The first thing I want to note is there were
a bunch of property tax issues on the ballot in
November in Hamilton County, and you know how many of
them passed?
Speaker 1 (02:11:48):
It was all but like one, weren't there all of them?
Speaker 6 (02:11:52):
All of them?
Speaker 4 (02:11:53):
I thought maybe, okay, I thought maybe one of the
local school levies got shot down.
Speaker 6 (02:11:57):
No, they all passed. And so that indicates to me
that this property tax issue is not the big issue
we thought it was. I mean, don't you think there'd
be an outpouring of votes against property taxes?
Speaker 1 (02:12:16):
Well? Dost he?
Speaker 4 (02:12:17):
Don't ask me what I think about the most recent election,
since only one out of four registered voters in the
city anyway bothered to show up. I think that's just
the problem of low information voters and off your election,
and people who just are not politically paying attention, and
many people who like for example, apartment renters, who don't
really think that property tax impacts them.
Speaker 6 (02:12:36):
Yeah, yeah, they don't realize that it's built into their
rental payment. But the problem is the twenty mil floor,
and I think they've passed something that limits that a little.
That's the device that the school's got to avoid the
rollback of the taxes. When values go up, every other
(02:13:02):
tax rolled back so that the police department and fire
departments and mental health levey and didn't get more than
the voters approved money wise, and if that was in
effect for the schools, Texas wouldn't have jumped that much.
Speaker 1 (02:13:22):
Well the other thing, Oh, go ahead and finish your thought.
Speaker 6 (02:13:25):
Well, Well, the thing is there is a conspiracy of
silence in the Columbus news people to not talk about it.
I've asked Tom said Us, the guy who writes for
the Inquirer, five times. Welly, I didn't write about the
twenty mil floor, and he won't answer me. I've asked
(02:13:48):
the two reporters in Columbus for Gannette and they won't
answer either.
Speaker 1 (02:13:54):
Maybe they don't get it.
Speaker 9 (02:13:56):
Well I don't.
Speaker 6 (02:13:58):
It's simple look at it. Maybe it's hard to believe though,
the twenty mili floor and the exemption for the schools
which in the district's qualified, and that's eight or nine.
Here every district in Butler County qualified taxes went up
(02:14:20):
a lot without a vote of the people, and that's
the twenty mil floor Cambit.
Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
Well, Dusty Rhodes.
Speaker 4 (02:14:29):
How about I know it's been discussed, it's not me
coming up with the concept, but how about an adjustment
for inflation in terms of property tax increases as opposed
to market valuation. I mean, you go through something like
COVID where everybody and his brother is out buying up
all the real estate. You now have institutional investors which
have been around since we had the housing crash back
(02:14:49):
in the mid two thousands. They're buying up property. They
have a lot more money. Of course, it drives the
prices of real estate supplying demands. Runningto a problem the
additional twenty million immigrants over the past several years. That
creates a bit of a house and shortage. So if
there's not enough houses to go around, the prices necessarily increase,
and that is going to cause the property taxes to increase,
maybe thirty percent, depending upon the market. But how about
(02:15:10):
something that suggested solely on the basis of the amount
of inflation. It would take some of the sting out
of these radical fluctuations, wouldn't it right?
Speaker 6 (02:15:19):
And real estate doesn't track inflation. It jumps a lot
and it declines a lot, and it doesn't track inflation.
So if you take that out of the equation, that
would be something that they could do. But I like
the fact that the schools and the townships and everybody
(02:15:40):
had to go to the voters every three or four
years and ask for money and justify the request, and
most cases had passed because they made the case. But
now they're exempted by this twenty Mili four nonsense. And
the legislatures tried to rein that in and I think
(02:16:02):
that bill passed that ties it to inflation. But the
problem is with doing away with the property tax completely.
These people are well meaning, but they're doomed. They're wasting
their time. And remember in the eighties when the income
tax went in and they put it on the ballot
(02:16:23):
and you would do away with the income tax, and
they lost. And the income tax is still there and
the property tax. All they need to say against it
is will shut down your fire department?
Speaker 1 (02:16:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (02:16:39):
No, God, that's it.
Speaker 4 (02:16:41):
The ad campaign is going to be overwhelming. You know
your schools are going to save the fire department. The
parks are going to get shut down. It's yeah, And
there's not going to be any moneyed organized effort to
support rolling back property taxes right right going back to
the schools, and this comes up all the time, and
again it came up with the other day with us
and a candidate, Zach Haynes. Twenty years ago or maybe
(02:17:03):
even more, the Ohio State Supreme Court ruled that the
current funding of schools is unconstitutional. And here we are,
twenty plus years later, we're doing it the same way.
I guess the Supreme Court pronouncements don't matter in the
state of Ohio.
Speaker 6 (02:17:15):
What the state isn't doing enough. And Bart West, who
was on the Who Kills school Board and a former
police chief in Green Township, points out that West Virginia
even and the surrounding states are paying five thousand or
more a student and Ohio is paying about three thousand.
(02:17:36):
So they're underfunding and putting the burden on the property
tax payer. And that was caseis trick too. He did
the same thing. He put the burden on the local
governments by cutting the local government fund. And the state
is the most efficient tax selector with the income tax,
which is fair according to how much you make, and
(02:18:00):
they've been whittling that down and throwing the burden on
local governments and it's the problem. Property tax problem is
the result.
Speaker 4 (02:18:12):
Dusty Roads. If more honor for Hamilton County. It's great
having you on, Dusty. I hope you are doing well
and your family's doing well. It's a pleasure to having
you on the program. We can talk again when these
matters come up, and I know you're always willing to
discuss it with my listeners and me. Happy New Year
to you, sir. Thanks for spending some time with my
listeners with me today, Dusty.
Speaker 6 (02:18:29):
Happy new Year to you, Brian and all the best
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (02:18:33):
Hey, just fyi, we're going to be at ronz Rous
on the West Side for the next listener launch fourth
of February. That's first Wednesday, February. I know you come
every once in a while. I'm just extending an infin
invitation with no pressure to show up. But it's always
great when you show up the listener lunch, my friend,
I'll be there.
Speaker 1 (02:18:48):
Take care, Dusty Roads. That'll be uh Rods
Brian Thomas News
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