Shownotes
Cincinnati’s Jazz Festival Turns Chaotic
What should’ve been a night filled with sweet jazz rhythms downtown turned into a scene straight out of a wrestling ring. After the festival and a Reds game, racial tensions escalated to violence, leaving five people charged (so far). Brett and Norm dissect what happened, why accountability matters—no matter your background—and the risks of letting “mob mentality” run the show.
- Big Takeaway: No excuses for violence. Whether fueled by alcohol or viral Twitter videos, everyone’s responsible for their actions. And Cincinnati needs to keep its law enforcement game strong at big civic events.
Intel in Ohio: Big Promises, Big Problems
Norm gives us the inside scoop on the Intel factory project in Licking County. Are we building a “white elephant” in our own backyard? Turns out, the much-hyped chip plant might be obsolete before it even opens—thanks to tech moving at warp speed and some sketchy contract details no one wants to audit. Taxpayers, you should be asking: Where’s our money really going?
When Media Spins, Do We Really Get the Facts?
From how local press handled the Cincinnati incident to the larger issue of social media “wildfires,” Brett and Norm question how the narrative is being shaped. Why not let the dust settle and get clarity instead of rushing to judgement—or using tragedy for political points?
Is Law Enforcement Getting Left Behind?
Major public events with just two officers on the job? Civic safety needs attention. The show hosts challenge city officials: Step up or risk turning Cincinnati into the next hollowed-out city center.
Quick Hits: Uber’s Policy Shakeup, NPR/PBS, Ohio Sales Tax Holiday & More!
- Uber: Is letting customers choose a female driver discrimination, safety, or a little of both? Brett and Norm dig into the slippery slope.
- Ohio Sales Tax Holiday: August 1–14. School supplies, clothes, electronics, even pet food (maybe a wedding dress?)—all tax-free!
- NPR & PBS Funding: No more government support? Brett thinks it’s an opportunity for them to innovate and thrive with community backing.
Weekly Winners & Losers
- Loser: Senator Josh Hawley and the idea of $600 tariff rebates for all—wouldn’t that money be better spent on paying down national debt?
- Winner: Sharon Osbourne, honoring Ozzy with the ultimate parade in Birmingham—a fitting, “wild” sendoff.
Get Involved!
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And if you liked (or didn’t like) what you heard, don’t keep it to yourself—share Common Sense Ohio with your friends, coworkers, and arch-rivals.
A Big Thanks to our sponsor, Harper Plus Accounting. They provide more than just basic transactions, offering expert business consultation as well. They go beyond the basics, providing comprehensive advice on saving, planning, and optimizing taxes.
Moments
00:00 Violence and Accountability Across Races
09:47 Mob Mentality and Its Dangers
13:30 "Criticism of City Violence Response"
16:41 Cincinnati's Racial History and Tensions
22:07 Intel Factory in Ohio Obsolete
31:35 Ohio Contract Debacle Exposed
36:58 Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Russia Hoax Memos
39:48 "Political Influence in FBI Operations"
45:24 GOP Opposition Limited Trump's Agenda
55:22 Immutable Characteristics and Discrimination Debate
59:45 Criticism of Hawley's Tariff Proposal
01:01:53 Future Economic Crisis Warning
01:08:25 Business Strategy and Tax Planning
Recorded at the 511 Studios, in the Brewery District in downtown Columbus, OH.
info@commonsenseohioshow.com
Copyright 2025 Common Sense Ohio
Stephen Palmer is the Managing Partner for the law firm, Palmer Legal Defense. He has specialized almost exclusively in criminal defense for over 26 years. Steve is also a partner in Criminal Defense Consultants, a firm focused wholly on helping criminal defense attorneys design winning strategies for their clients.
Norm Murdock is an automobile racing driver and owner of a high-performance and restoration car parts company. He earned undergraduate degrees in literature and journalism and graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1985. He worked in the IT industry for two years before launching a career in government relations in Columbus, Ohio. Norm has assisted clients in the Transportation, Education, Healthcare, and Public Infrastructure sectors.
Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy®, is an award-winning podcast consultant and small business owner for nearly 10 years, leaving a long career in radio. He is passionate about helping small businesses tell their story through podcasts, and he believes podcasting is a great opportunity for different voices to speak and be heard.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Transcripts
Well, look at you. You made it back for another episode of Common Sense Ohio. It is the end of July and we're corn sweating it up.
Norm Murdock [:Unreal.
Brett Johnson [:Apparently it's a thing because enough news outlets make it so that it is. So anyway, if you haven't heard anything about corn sweat, check it out, Google it up. I'm not going to go into it. I don't know if it makes a difference or not in regards to our weather, but apparently it's a thing that when the news is slow, we talk about something sweating corn in Ohio. So do remember to. I know we always talk about this at the end of the podcast, but remember to share, like, disagree, agree with what we've got going on. Seriously, if you like what you heard today, share it along. If you don't share it along and say, these guys are idiots or that, hey, they're the best thing since sliced bread.
Norm Murdock [:Whatever.
Brett Johnson [:We just love the feedback, if nothing else. We also always have typically an open chair. So if you think you can would say you got the chops to be on the show. Yeah, come on. And let's talk about a specific subject that we maybe haven't covered or haven't covered well enough. We'd love to hear from you. All that contact information is in the podcast show notes. But, y', all, how's making the news? Not necessarily in a great way.
Brett Johnson [:We're gonna cover that. Yeah. As most of you probably heard, a little bit of a shuffle, jazz shuffle going on in Cincinnati, where a little bit of racial tension turns into fisticuffs.
Norm Murdock [:Well, yeah, so we could call it a jazz festival Smackdown. Smackdown. Yeah. I mean, so they have charged five people so far. Not releasing the names, at least as of the last time I checked, but they might be out there now. So the police have charged five of the people involved in this melee that occurred downtown following a Reds game and the jazz festival in Cincinnati. And it appears to be basically Caucasian people that I guess one guy challenged somebody else, a black guy, white guy, challenged a black guy to some kind of a fight. Words were exchanged and it looked like it was going to dissolve and nothing was going to happen.
Norm Murdock [:And then they squared off and I guess the white guy slapped, lightly slapped. It is said, I haven't seen the video of this slap, the black guy. And then all hell broke loose. He ends up the white guy on the ground and basically there's people going wild on him once he's on the ground kicking, doing the power slams, and all of this while his head's on the Concrete. And regardless of what we think about, you know, the races and the coverage and all that as a criminal incident, you know, you can't hit other people, period. You can't touch other people without their permission. And you could call somebody a cracker or the N word or whatever racial epithet you want. That does not give you the excuse.
Norm Murdock [:No matter what your race, white or black or green or purple, you don't have the right to hit people because somebody called you a name, okay? And if you're drunk and it's three in the morning, as this is said to have been 2:3 in the morning, none of that matters. Whether you're inebriated or whether your parents were mean to you when you were a little kid, or whatever excuse they want to give, you know, the shooter in New York or the rioters in Cincinnati, none of that matters. You're not allowed to hit other people. You're not allowed to take their life. You're not allowed to present any danger to them physically. So the police have charged at least five people and they say that they're continuing the investigation. I would not be surprised if the guy, if this is true, if the white guy slapped the black guy, I think the white guy's gonna get charged, right? And I think the black folks that jumped in and went overboard and possibly could have killed this guy when he's down on the pavement, I think they're gonna get charged if they can identify them. And certainly the guy who sucker punched the single mom who was trying to break up the fight ends up with blood coming out of her mouth and she's unconscious.
Norm Murdock [:I think him and the ladies and the other people that are said to have knocked her out and then started pounding on her, if those facts are correct, they're gonna get charged. So I think cooler heads have to prevail. It's a shame that Cincinnati, which is on the cusp of. I heard the FOP guy in Cincinnati describe Cincinnati and Hamilton county as right on the teetering, you know, right on the precipice of going either to a full woke city where the judges, he said half the judges are not putting people in jail for violent crimes or letting them off. And the other judges are still doing the traditional sentencing. And he said basically, in his opinion, white or black, green or purple, doesn't matter the color. His point of view is that it's a lack of enforcement of the law and equal application and that there have to be consequences for violence. And I couldn't agree more with that.
Norm Murdock [:I think when you have A city, whether it's Seattle or Portland or these other cities where there have been riots and, you know, buildings burned down and people beaten and cops shot even, and then they get a very light sentence or they're not even charged because we make excuses for them. I think that leads to more violence. There has to be a consequence.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, I agree. And also, I know there was comments made about even just the participation level of everybody recording it on their phone and whooping it up and such. I think there has to be some consequences to that as well, too, because it kind of built up the fury around it to make it theatrical when it comes down to it. So, yeah, there are some issues that need to be definitely addressed. And sadly, it always seems to be this tipping point that things start to get changed. Maybe this is the tipping point that it finally is there's an awareness of there's a problem of working the law the way it's supposed to be worked. I don't necessarily agree with bigger names around the country making comments on this without letting the dust settle. It's just like we don't know what happened yet fully.
Brett Johnson [:I don't know how you can make a comment on anything without knowing the full story. We did a good job right here. We state the facts, we know what's going on, but there's still a lot to be coming out of it. And it's just like, come out with a solution rather than just say it's a problem. You know, it's lawlessness. I mean, I think a big fell swoop of. I don't really appreciate. And I get why JD Vance wants to say some stuff in regards to how a few cities in Ohio has some law problems, but it's that, yeah, I didn't appreciate the black eye for Columbus.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, Columbus has some problems, but Cincinnati has problems. But I don't know, it's just that. Let's let the dust settle and figure this out first before you have to make a comment within X amount of hours of an incident.
Norm Murdock [:To a certain degree, I think the one thing that some of the people have been talking about, like I think Bernie Marino and Jason Whitlock and other national players, the one thing that I think they're right about is the mob mentality. When you get people jacked up on alcohol or whatever, they're smoking or whatever, and you get a mob going and people start acting in a mob. I mean, you know, that's how lynchings occur. That's how buildings get burned down. That's how university offices get occupied. You get people doing things in a mob that they individually would not do.
Brett Johnson [:Well, it's proven with the January 6th, tons of interviews. A ton of people came in and they had. They got energized by the mob.
Norm Murdock [:I don't know. That's complicated, too. But, you know, you had police guards letting people into the building, actually waving them through the door. So it's complicated.
Brett Johnson [:It is, it is. No, no, no, no.
Norm Murdock [:But I would point to other mob activities that are a lot, I guess, more easily digested that, you know, you have people say, hey, that guy over there did something to a girl. And a posse goes out, drags a guy out of his house and hangs him in a tree. Or people do things in these demonstrations going down the street and they're thinking, well, I got a mask on, I'm wearing a hoodie and why don't I just throw a rock through this window or start a car on fire? And before you know it, people that would never do that on their own, but because they're surrounded by 100 or a thousand or 50 other people, they feel this anonymous identity that now they're part of a big group and everybody's chanting to go ahead and do it. And before you know it, somebody shot somebody or somebody beat somebody up or whatever. And maybe they would not typically do that as an individual actor. So mobs are very dangerous, regardless of what their politics are. If there's even politics. Sometimes it's just a pure.
Brett Johnson [:It's celebratory. We've seen that after college football games.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, sure.
Brett Johnson [:My gosh.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Burning down a neighborhood up in Chicago because back in the day, you know, Michael Jordan and the guys, you know, won the NBA tournament, so let's burn down the south side of Chicago. It's like crazy.
Brett Johnson [:Crazy.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly. So at any rate, I think some of the calls against the mob mentality are valid. And I think that there is some kind of knee jerk thing going on in some of the media. The Cincinnati Inquirer, for example, the next day didn't really focus on the incident. Their headline was about how news of the incident and opinions about the incident spread like wildfire on Twitter. So their headline was all about Elon Musk and these other people posting on Twitter about their various theories behind this incident. And I thought, wait a minute, this thing happened in your city. Cincinnati Inquirer.
Norm Murdock [:What? Why don't you talk about the police chief and the mayor and about the investigation by the police? You would think that's what they talk about. Instead, they're talking about the political spin. Within 24 hours of the incident they're already, you know, people are taking sides and speculating about the intentions of individual people. And I don't know what is. I guess until people are charged and there's a trial we're not really going to understand what the evidence is and what the motivations are. But it is being investigated, I am told, by the doj, federals, the FBI as a hate crime, meaning the mob going overboard, you know. You know, instead of restraining this guy who slaps somebody and say hey, we're calling 911, police are gonna come because you slapped somebody. Instead of doing that, they got immediate revenge on this guy if these are the facts and could have killed him.
Norm Murdock [:I mean you sucker punch people or you kick them on the ground and certainly stomp on their head. I mean you're talking brain injury stuff that could have happened and maybe did happen. So I don't know. But I think some of the criticisms are valid about how the mayor, the mayor didn't say anything for a day and the police chief, to Brett's point indicated she indicated that they only received, out of that whole crowd they received 1911 call, which is crazy. You know, people are on their phones taping this stuff but nobody's calling 911 but one individual and thank God they did. But I think the police chief has some things to answer to. For example, it is said, and I believe that their preliminary story is out there that downtown following a Reds game in a jazz festival, there were two Cincinnati policemen or women on duty in downtown Cincinnati. I don't know how you have these big civic events in a major city downtown and you have the budget is so tight, you only have two officers on duty.
Norm Murdock [:So I've been to a lot of like our fireworks show here in Columbus. There's a cop on every block. I mean I don't get it. So they have a Reds game, they have a Cincinnati Jazz festival. And you would think the police would be on bicycles in cars, you know, circulating. And it is said there were two police officers on duty representing the city, not, you know, hire a cops. Right.
Brett Johnson [:So is the jazz festival in Cincinnati, is that a Cincinnati event or is that a prize private event?
Norm Murdock [:No, that's a civic event.
Brett Johnson [:Civic event.
Norm Murdock [:So every year they have that.
Brett Johnson [:Okay, I wasn't sure who runs that and such. So you would think on top of that, if it's a civic event, honestly they have the budget to put dollars into cops pockets to be down there for OT or Whatever.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, I mean, it's really ridiculous.
Brett Johnson [:Hopefully that's wrong. But at the same time, obviously there's a problem.
Norm Murdock [:There's a problem. I mean, the idea is to have a strong presence to prevent these kinds of incidents and to intervene should they occur.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and even for the attendees that are out of town to feel safe, if there's a problem, they know they can hail down a cop. I'm not talking about a problem of somebody coming up and trying to hit you or something like that. Maybe you're not feeling well, whatever the case might be, you just feel that at least there's problems, presence there, that if something goes on, they're within a minute away and you feel safe within this event. I don't think that's asking too much, quite frankly, as an outsider coming in or even if you're a resident of Cincinnati, if you want to feel safe in your own city.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, there were riots in the over the Rhine area of Cincinnati following the George Floyd incident. Like a lot of cities had riots and it destroyed a lot of inner city businesses. And of course, that happened, I don't know, 10 years ago or whenever the hell that happened. So Cincinnati has had some real racial tensions. And there have been a lot of racially diverse people on council. And as mayor of Cincinnati and as police and head of the fire department and all the different offices, there is the Underground Railroad Museum right there on the banks of the river in Cincinnati. And in fact, when I was a little kid growing up there, one of our Boy Scout adventures was to go visit some of the physical sites along the river where largely it was anti slavery white folks receiving across the river from Kentucky, former slaves or slaves running away from the farms and plantations where they were working on working where they were enslaved in the south and coming across the Ohio river from Kentucky to freedom. And so to me, the big overwhelming story in Cincinnati was one of pride that this was a city where black and white folks got along well historically.
Norm Murdock [:And I've always had that opinion. I have several friends involved in politics of both races and other races. The current mayor of Cincinnati is an Asian American. And so it's a beautiful story of opportunity, diversity, great music, boxers, veterans of all the wars that the US has been engaged in. Lots of heroes in Cincinnati of all races and backgrounds. And to see the city become divided and to see it amped up through the media is very, very worrisome and disappointing to me personally. And I think a lot of people in Cincinnati feel the same way. And so what is going on in My opinion is gonna be a further hollowing out like has happened in Cleveland, like has happened in many cities like Chicago, where you have essentially a donut hole in the center of the city against all of the efforts of urban renewal to get people to move downtown.
Norm Murdock [:We got this going on in Columbus, where the short north people have millions invested in a lot of these properties. Beautiful condos, houses that have been rehabbed, and the crime is way up. And the police feel so underappreciated and so afraid of them going to prison if they intervene that they are basically waiting until all the shooting stops and then they go in and write up a report instead of actually responding to an active crime scene. They're kind of doing the blue flu number. And I think a lot of it is because we the people are not backing the police like we should. And we don't have a law and order mentality. And that's not a black problem, and it's not a white problem. That is a people problem.
Norm Murdock [:That is us failing to demand of our public servants that they enforce the law evenly and without prejudice against anybody who breaks the law.
Brett Johnson [:So.
Norm Murdock [:So I agree.
Brett Johnson [:I agree. Yeah. Hopefully we'll hear more details. It's always that. I guess I look at it differently now working with you and Steve now over the last couple of years. Like, okay, what transpired before the tape was rolling on the phones? And hopefully we get a better story. Although we do know a little bit, of course, that it was instigated by the Caucasian gentleman. But at the same time, okay, it's always interesting to hear more and more that ramped up to get a better picture of what's going on.
Brett Johnson [:But this is in your backyard. And sadly, it's a story that just doesn't seem to be positive. It keeps going backwards. Intel, we've talked about this quite a bit on this show, about its guarded history of how it even popped up in our backyard. And now years and years behind on development, whether by choice or by money, who knows what's going on? But you've got a little bit more about this story now still developing and what's going on with this intel development in New Albany area.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, so, you know, Intel's in the middle of this gigantic factory that they're building in Licking county and some of the annexation of that land into New Albany, the city of New Albany. Not all of it, but a bunch of it. And it turns out that AI chip making is happening so fast and the technology is emerging so quickly that this factory is designed to build a Certain type of chip that is already largely said to be obsolete. And so intel is now focusing on other factories that can build this latest super chip for AI. And this brand new plant hasn't even opened, it's not fully built, is already said to be excess to needs that it produces, that it's designed to produce a chip. And for what? I'm no expert, but apparently the factory cannot be easily reconfigured to produce this new type of AI chip. And they talk about level 14 and level 8 chips and all of this gibberish to me, but all I know is the CEO of Intel says, well, we have other factories that we need to prioritize over. This, this particular factory in Ohio that we're just, you know, now building is gonna be producing the wrong kind of chips for the marketplace.
Norm Murdock [:And you know, oops, you know, it's kind of like building a factory to make horse, you know, make buggy whips and covered wagons. And here's Henry Ford coming out with a car. And it would be like the Conestoga Wagon Company saying, oh, well, thanks jobs, Ohio. You gave us tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in various concessions and direct grants. And guess what? We may never open this plant. We're slowing down construction and it's very murky about what that building will ever, if it is ever going to be used by Intel. They have since sold their interest in that project to a consortium of which they're still part of. But now there's other owners of this project besides intel.
Norm Murdock [:And it seems to me that they are slowly backing out of it as a corporation and their full commitment to Ohio of 2,500 new jobs and 800,000 new people moving to Licking county and all of the sales job that was done on the Ohio taxpayers that our attorney general says we cannot claw back the money for because the contract with intel was written so poorly, or maybe deliberately so that the funds could never be clawed back should they fail to follow through on their commitment. Makes me upset as a taxpayer and it should, it should make other people upset because there's a blight out there on this former agricultural land. All these roads and service lines and big ugly, you know, utility towers and all of this stuff. You cannot imagine the traffic jam of cement trucks and gravel trucks that are rolling through this little tiny community of Johnstown in western Licking county right now. Even with this project slowing down. It's just unbelievable. And they're causing accidents and ruining roads and, you know, the schools are in flux. Should we build new Schools for all these expected new people coming, yes or no.
Norm Murdock [:It's hard to pop up a new grade school overnight or to cancel a new grade school that's half, maybe that's half built or half funded. So things are a mess. And I lay a lot of this at the feet of Jobs Ohio, which is super secretive. And we don't know all of the ins and outs because they're not able to be audited by the state of Ohio. We actually don't know a lot about the financial dealings of how intel was lured to Ohio and what we as Ohio taxpayers exactly gave away. Because Jobs Ohio runs the liquor concession in Ohio and that's how it's funded. And then there's no audit about how they spend. It's outrageous.
Brett Johnson [:It is. I think an Ohio gubernatorial candidate needs to latch onto this.
Norm Murdock [:You're listening to Vivek. Hey, Mr. Vivek. And whoever your Democratic opponent is, you should be latching onto this issue because.
Brett Johnson [:If intel goes tits up, it's a.
Norm Murdock [:White elephant that the taxpayers are being stolen.
Brett Johnson [:That could be a turning point that opens the doors to find out what is Jobs Ohio's contracts, whatever it looks like. How is this thing being run? Because if nothing else, I think that'd make a great standing point. At least it holds some feet to the fire. That. What kind of contract did we write here? That this thing is now 10 years behind schedule. How could intel as. Again, I don't pretend to understand how intel is run or these large corporations building buildings that have to change basically overnight when technology changes or advances and such. Okay.
Brett Johnson [:Intel's been in this a while. You think that they would know, but they can modify their other plants, their other facilities. So why can't you do that here? Build something to modify. I mean, build a shell? Again, I don't pretend to understand this.
Norm Murdock [:Me neither.
Brett Johnson [:But it's that. But there's not an industry in the world that stays static, especially technology. That stuff changes fast. So what were you building out there? What are you building out there that can't be changed within a time scale to keep it going? Or was it just one thing you were going to build, you took the money and. And you're going to run.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:And we don't know because we don't see the contract.
Norm Murdock [:And the thing is that Jobs Ohio, as we covered in a previous show, has now granted an amount that's double what they gave intel to Anduril, which is a defense contractor that's going to move in to the central Ohio area, allegedly right and we don't know what that contract says. And it's not able to be audited either. Because Jobs Ohio was set up deliberately to conceal from public scrutiny what they're doing to bring in supposedly, you know, like their name implies, Jobs Ohio, to bring in jobs for Ohioans to take good paying jobs. That's the thesis behind Jobs Ohio. But why the lack of transparency? It is said to be the only development agency in the country of its kind where it was deliberately set up to bypass the media, bypass public scrutiny, and bypass a public audit, which is unheard of. And yet that's what we have. And it's like the people in Ohio, we're the dummies. We're the people who can't handle reality.
Norm Murdock [:So they're gonna hide it from us because if we knew the truth, we'd be outraged. Well, if they think we would be outraged, then it seems to me that's a case for transparency if there ever was one.
Brett Johnson [:Right. And I think I understand some of the reasoning that they want to commit, retain a competitive edge when they're fighting other states or other cities, whatever the case might be. But once the deal is done, we should be able to see what that.
Norm Murdock [:Deal was during negotiations, if you got to keep it confidential at that point. But eventually, at some point, and I don't mean 100 years from now, I mean, like, you know, after the while, the ink is drying, we should know the deal.
Brett Johnson [:Yes. And, you know, so, you know, as we've always talked about, what stays in the dark, pretty much, it stays in the dark, but you're making bad deals because of it. We have to have some accountability, like, okay, you can negotiate in private, but we want to know what's going on after it's all said and done to hold you accountable. It's like, that was a bad deal, that's a bad deal.
Norm Murdock [:Right? When you have, when you have the Attorney General of Ohio say that he's looked at the contract and there's no way to claw back money from a bad actor or an incompetent actor or whatever kind of actor you want to say intel is, if they do not follow through on their commitment and the Attorney General of Ohio says there is nothing he can do because of how the contract was written, that's a problem right there. So who did write the contract? Who is responsible for the fact that Ohio citizens have this white elephant out there in the middle of a farm field? And the people who sold their land, a lot of them had inside knowledge. The skids were Greased ahead of time. And New Albany basically was able to annex this by just rubber, like one hearing. Okay, we approve the annexation. Rubber stamp it through. All of this happened in a 1, 2, 3, quick succession of events that the public really had no ability to make any public comments, to object to anything, or to sit down and study the proposal before it was approved. It was all, bam, bam, bam, it's done.
Norm Murdock [:And then the citizens of Ohio read about it in the newspaper as a done deal. Well, that's not right. And what it's done to little old ladies and old men that are out there in their homes on fixed incomes having to sell their property because they can't pay their property taxes because the valuations doubled or tripled. Well, now if the building never gets finished and there's just this ugly shell going to sit out there for the next 30, 40 years, it was all for nothing. And these people got shoved out of their homes and everybody's valuation on their property went double or triple. And they're paying enormous amounts of property taxes now that they weren't paying before. It is truly a tragedy if that's how this is gonna wind up.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And the people had no say. And their elected officials, many of which, and this can be documented, you know, it's not a secret which families owned what farmland and which families had political connections and sometimes even relatives as trustees or commissioners or city council people. And there was a lot of foreknowledge by certain people that made millions and millions and millions of dollars selling land for intel. And they're gone. They're in Florida or the Bahamas or they bought land cheaply elsewhere in Ohio and continued their farming operations. And none of that's right either.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, I would think this whole situation's gonna make a few people nervous. I would think Houston's gotta be a little bit nervous about this because it sticks to him like glue.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, he was up to his weight, him and DeWine.
Brett Johnson [:DeWine's kind of done. I mean, once he's, you know, he serves his term, he's done.
Norm Murdock [:He's a lame duck, he's a lame.
Brett Johnson [:D. But Houston's got a future and housted along with any additional, as I mentioned, gubernatorial candidates. They need jump on this. I mean, Hustead could be a hero out of this, versus looking pretty stupid.
Norm Murdock [:He was out there.
Brett Johnson [:He's got the power now to get it done.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, he was out there with a silver plated shovel with president Biden when they broke ground for the facility. He was happy to take the Bow, you know, and Governor DeWine was out there, and, you know, this is not a Republican versus Democrat issue. All their hands are dirty. This is something where it was a bipartisan effort, you know, to get all the applause and, you know, get all the recognition that there's gonna be, you know, tens of thousands of construction jobs and then 2,500 permanent jobs in that factory. Hey, man, we were sold a bill of goods, very possibly, and we should know all the details and let the chips fall where they may. No pun intended.
Brett Johnson [:Right, Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:There you go.
Brett Johnson [:All the way around.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly. We're going to follow this story very closely. I can tell you that.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and like I mentioned, too, I bring Houston into this, that he, you know, it's not just an Ohio thing. This is a national situation, so he can now stick his fingers into it and maybe make the needle move. So, you know, on a larger scale, we really focus on Ohio. We typically hit some national news, and Russiagate's coming back, you know, in regards to what we thought was kind of a. I don't know. I don't mean done. But now talk of, was it a hoax?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:You know, what's going on here? That's new. Notes and memos have been floating around going, who is involved with this? Was it really happening? So, yeah, you got some details on that? What's going on?
Norm Murdock [:Well, the Director of National Intelligence, or the dni, former presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Tulsi Gabbard, who was famously in those debates with Hillary Clinton and other candidates, she is now the DNI in the Trump administration. And she has surfaced memos, one of which there were only five copies of in existence. And there was one that they were able to do dredge out of the records. And then the chief of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, and Pam Bondi, the Attorney General at doj, the head of the FBI, Cash Patel, all of these people are saying that they have memos, that they have sent criminal referrals to lawyers at the DOJ to consider filing criminal charges against people like James Clapper and John Brennan, who may have perjured themselves in testimony before the House and the Senate committees looking into this. Russia allegations that the entire claim that Trump was working with Putin to steal the 2016 election was a hoax. And, you know, we've known for a long time that the Hillary Clinton campaign hired Christopher Steele to write this very inventive report, and it's filled with all kinds of colorful stories about what Donald Trump supposedly did in hotel rooms in Russia and all this other stuff. And it turned out that Robert Mueller did a three year investigation as a special prosecutor, and he reported back to the nation back in, I think it was 2019 or 2020, that none of the Steele report was true, that there was nothing there to the Russia hoax. And so people have been demanding some kind of consequences for people who cooked this story up, because it did consume about three years of the Trump administration.
Norm Murdock [:People, you know, if you remember late night comedy during this period, you know, you had Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and all the people that used to do comedy were instead doing news reports that Trump was definitely going to get impeached and he was going to go to prison and this and that and the other thing, and it was all bullshit. And so who did this? It'd be one thing if Hillary cooked up oppo research and did a dirty campaign trick, but to find out that people in office like James Comey headed the FBI and Clapper and Brennan, and now they're saying President Obama himself was at the top rejecting reports by the FBI that there was no truth to the memo. And he would say, I'm not satisfied with that. Go back. I want you to make a different conclusion. Well, that's in essence directing the FBI to be political. I mean, there's no other way to read that memo. When they come back and say, sir, we've looked into this and it's just not true, well, then I want other people to look into it and I want a different conclusion.
Norm Murdock [:That's a smoking gun. And apparently those kinds of memos are what's at stake here. And President Obama has said his hands are clean and he's probably not gonna get charged even if any of this is validated, because he's a sitting president. And basically you cannot charge a president, as we know from the Trump Supreme Court decision, a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime for actions that he or she may have done while president. They can certainly be impeached. And if you recall, they did impeach Trump after he left office. It was the craziest thing in the world. And so.
Norm Murdock [:And that was January 6th based. Right. And Supreme Court Justice John Roberts didn't even bother showing up because it was a bogus impeachment. So I guess the House could do another political impeachment of Obama even though he's out of office. But short of that.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and, you know, but presidents are concerned about their legacy. So, I mean, I could see where.
Norm Murdock [:It doesn't look good.
Brett Johnson [:It doesn't. You know, presidents want to be remembered. We tend to Have a short term memory on the bad things, remember the good stuff about the presidents. And no president wants to be remembered for something bad. So, you know, if nothing else, his legacy is tarnished whether it sticks or not or if anybody loves or, you know, it is what it is.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:But, but yeah, it's, it's an interesting development on who will take the sword. How many is going to be taking the sword.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. And kind of like Ollie north did.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, right.
Norm Murdock [:You know, just he fell on the sword and kind of protected President Reagan on the Iran Contra thing. And to this day we're not really sure if President Reagan knew of it or not because there were people protecting him. And the same way to a certain extent with Richard Nixon. You had Gordon Liddy and John Mitchell doing a lot of dirty stuff with the Cuban plumber operation in the Watergate Hotel. Right. Robbing the Democratic headquarters of documents and spying on them. And people say to this day that Nixon got involved in the COVID up but that he did not know about the direction to break into the DNC offices. And so there's always going to be this fuzziness about what did the President know and when did he know it and all that.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah, well. And you make this comment about the fuzziness piece of this. I think we all can have our suspicions and maybe agree there's probably some tampering of the election of some point of manipulation of social media by foreign interests.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, for sure, for sure. And I don't think anybody debates that. Russia.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:Russia definitely interfered via social media. So did China. Right. No question.
Brett Johnson [:And sadly we have to stick it to somebody locally in the government such. But this stuff's happening and it's almost a shiny object over here looking at. But it's like the real stuff's happening here and we're not taking care of it.
Norm Murdock [:Well, I mean, there were Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the New York Times and Washington Post and cnn. You know, people got Emmys and Pulitzers for supposedly being so brave and being so accurate reporting on the Russiagate thing as if Trump really did it. So people are getting, they were being spoon fed information by people who wanted to tarnish and to slow down the actions of the Trump administration once he was in office. The idea was to take away his political support. And you know, if you take people like Paul Ryan, who was the speaker of the House, he did not work with Trump. Now he was a fellow Republican. And when Trump was trying, whether you liked Obamacare or not, that's not the point. The point is Trump had An agenda to either modify or repeal Obamacare.
Norm Murdock [:And he probably would have gotten that done because at the time, the Republicans had the House and the Senate, and yet Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan would not work with him because they were convinced he was guilty because of the media, that somehow he had something to do with Putin, which is incredibly ridiculous. But on its face, but because of the scandal accusations, Trump did not get a lot of what he wanted to get done in his first term. Remember, he wanted to build the wall. And what he did was divert Defense Department funds to build the wall instead of getting it funded as a civilian project. That was Defense Department money that built that steel wall in the sections where it was done. So lots of fancy accounting had to be done because he couldn't do it straight up, even with members of his own party.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:So you could say Hillary and Obama succeeded. You know, if the goal was to stymie the Trump presidency term, number one, they did a great job. They did a three year delay tactic on him that really slowed him down.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and now you want. Now if you put the pieces together, you kind of realize, okay, now you know why Trump is putting gas on fire.
Norm Murdock [:Absolutely.
Brett Johnson [:And just like I'm getting.
Norm Murdock [:Because you gotta get stuff done.
Brett Johnson [:He probably, you know, and he. Historically, you take a look at this, you know, you've got two, first two of the four years you're there that the votes are in your favor.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Things will change in two years. It traditionally has because of the midterms. Always does. Always. It doesn't.
Norm Murdock [:I think you've got to go back almost 100 years.
Brett Johnson [:It just does.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:So it's no wonder every day something is coming out of his office or his mouth, pushing something or saying this, diverting, whatever you want to do. It's mind boggling.
Norm Murdock [:It is mind boggling.
Brett Johnson [:It is.
Norm Murdock [:It's gushing out of the White House like a fire hose.
Brett Johnson [:Big time.
Norm Murdock [:And whether you agree with it or not, it is remarkable the amount of activity that they have done in only six months so far.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Well, I mean, I mean, to agree or disagree, I'm just talking about the policy changes and the initiatives that have come out of the Trump White House is staggering. It's remarkable, you know, and you can almost point to almost anything, whether it's a tariffs, whether it's the border, whether it is going after illegals and deporting them, whatever topic you want to talk about, the big beautiful bill, you know, et cetera, et cetera, it's just an unbelievable fire hose of initiatives. Some of which seem to be super popular, and others, I'm sure, are very controversial to a lot of people. And that's our system. Let's debate that and let's hash it out. But, yeah, I think Brett's right on target. He got burned in his first term, and he's like, hey, man, I'm.
Brett Johnson [:It's a second term mentality.
Norm Murdock [:I'm gonna flood this out.
Brett Johnson [:Definitely. I mean, everybody. Every president that has second term term knows like, okay, this is it. I have nothing to lose, because I don't have to be. I'm not going to be reelected. I've been reelected, so let's just do it.
Norm Murdock [:He's the quarterback, and he sent the other 10 players down the field pretty much.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. And he's throwing nine footballs into somebody. He's throwing nine footballs at once, too. Every. Everybody out there, you know you want to throw. Exactly. Oh, my gosh.
Norm Murdock [:And you can't say he's paranoid because it happened. So there's not a lot of goodwill in D.C. between the Democrats and the Republicans. And I think a lot of this is attributable to malicious actions that occurred against Trump in his first term. Whether or not you agree with his policies isn't the point. It's like, should the organs of government be turned against somebody during a political campaign or even while they're in office? And this is where, you know, it kind of confirms people's attributions that there's a swamp in D.C. a permanent class of bureaucrats that will protect the infrastructure at all costs, thinking these elected people come and go, but I stay in my job for 25 or 30 years, and. And I'm the guy who calls the shots.
Norm Murdock [:And they're four or five layers down in the bureaucracy. And, you know, look at him. He keeps getting the approval by the Supreme Court to fire almost everybody at the Department of Education, for example, or people at the EPA or what have you. And that's his way of getting rid of the swamp, is closing down some of these agencies. And again, I'm not asking you to like that, but the motivation for how he's doing it and why he's doing it might go back to his first term.
Brett Johnson [:It might be.
Norm Murdock [:And if people had handled him a little differently, I'm convinced he would have worked with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. I'm absolutely convinced of it. That Trump at his. If you got rid of all the things that happened to him and really got down to Donald Trump when he first came into office, he was just a populist. He was not a conservative Republican. But because he made some off color comments during the campaign that got rebroadcast and he became this target for everything that people wanted to say was wrong with the Republican Party. They loaded up all of the machinery against him. And I think if Nancy and Chuck had worked with Trump, there would have been gun control.
Norm Murdock [:I'm positive of it. Because Trump was no pro second amendment guy. There would have been a lot of different things would have happened than what has happened.
Brett Johnson [:That's interesting, the hindsight of it. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Because he really, you know, he really wasn't. He was no, you know, he was no Ted Cruz and he was no Rand Paul or no Mike Lee, no, you know, Marco Rubio. He was none of those things. And those are all like rock rib conservative people that were running for president and Trump beat all those people. And it wasn't with, you know, I'm gonna cut your taxes and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do. And it was basically because he was popular and kind of the way Jesse Ventura got elected governor in Minnesota or Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, it was name recognition and basically people saying, let's try something different than a traditional Republican or a traditional Democrat. Let's elect a celebrity. And that's really what Trump was.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:It's amazing that New York hasn't really done that as well, knowing as many celebrities has come out of, you know, those New York. Because they're media hubs.
Norm Murdock [:Well, have you heard the, have you heard the chat, Brett, that George Clooney is interested in running for president. So I think this is going to continue.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:You know, I think. And you know, I could see George Clooney being a formidable candidate.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And a good looking guy. He's, he's a little on the younger side. He's, he's not a product of D.C. no. He comes from the middle of the country. Cincinnati, Ohio, by the way.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And you know.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Him against J.D. vance. I don't know, man. You like maybe a curveball is about to happen.
Brett Johnson [:He had not heard that about Clooney and I. Not neither pro or against Clooney. I'd have to hear what he's talking about.
Norm Murdock [:Well, he's not a dumb guy.
Brett Johnson [:No, no, no, he's not.
Norm Murdock [:No. Granted he was strong enough to get Biden taken off the ticket. He wrote, he had that full page ad, if you remember in the New York Times that it was time for the President Biden at the Time to step down and let somebody else run. And they put Kamala up against Trump. That was George Clooney. Pretty powerful guy.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Okay, so we'll see.
Brett Johnson [:This would be interesting. Yeah, exactly. Did you want to do some quick hits?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. So I just want to throw this out there. I saw in the news where Uber, you know, the. If you will, the National Taxi Service, Uber, that Uber, in case you think. I'm talking about the German word that means over, which is what Uber means with an umlaut. Uber announced that they are going to let female customers select where it's possible to match them up with a female Uber driver. So if there is fear of a possible assault or just being hit on or whatever their fears are, which may or may not be legitimate, I mean, I have heard that there have been rapes and assaults and things both against Uber drivers, by the way, and by Uber drivers. So, like, you know, of course, there's good drivers and bad drivers and there's victims and there's, you know, perpetrators.
Norm Murdock [:So I have a couple thoughts about that. So, you know, your gender is an immutable characteristic, even if you have surgery. Right. You know, the American Olympic Committee and the ioc, the International Olympic Committee, have now said that if you were born a man or born a woman, that's what you are for purposes of competition. So things have kind of come full circle on changing your gender. So my point is, if you're born a man and you're an Uber driver and you have jobs and income taken from you because you're a man, that's wrong, right? That's wrong. Like, what's next? Can women say that they're uncomfortable or fear a black driver or a Spanish driver or an Arab driver or, you know, like, how many immutable characteristics can you tell Uber that you're afraid of, you know, that you want a female. Well, maybe I want a white female.
Norm Murdock [:You know, I mean, that's wrong. So just. I'm saying if they're allowed to select race. Excuse me, gender. Well, then, you know, which to me is unconstitutional. I don't think that. I think if you're hiring a CEO, you hire that CEO the best, you know, or hiring the director of advertising or hiring a clerk in the mailroom. You don't say, hey, we're only going to hire male ones or only female ones or only white ones.
Brett Johnson [:I was going to say Uber already has, I think, a rating system system. So.
Norm Murdock [:Wow.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, I forgot that.
Norm Murdock [:That's a great point.
Brett Johnson [:I mean, I think I've not used Uber, but they do. So you just judge on how well they do, how well they drive.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. If a guy's hitting on you ladies. Right. Give him a crappy review.
Brett Johnson [:Right, Exactly. Come on. And Uber's going to start not hiring them back or allowing them to be Uber drivers. You would think after a couple.
Norm Murdock [:That's a great point.
Brett Johnson [:So you would think the rating. The rating's already there to do its job. So, you know, maybe this selection thing won't work. Well, they're also saying there aren't enough female drivers to probably fill this. Fill this out. So this may be kind of a flash in the pan situation, but. Or start cranking up your rating services a little bit better, maybe better questions, I don't know.
Norm Murdock [:There you go, Uber. Brett. Brett just solved your problem.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Honestly, I think denying anybody work on the basis of something that they're born.
Brett Johnson [:As, it's got a little slippery slope to it. I hadn't thought about that aspect. I heard that story and going, okay, that's fair. I get the.
Norm Murdock [:I get the fear.
Brett Johnson [:I get it.
Norm Murdock [:By some people. But sometimes your fear. Right. Is prejudice. I mean, I'm just gonna say it, everybody. It's prejudice against men. You're lumping all men together because you had a bad experience with a man and you wouldn't do that in any other context. I don't know why you get to do it here.
Norm Murdock [:Like, if you're going to hire a carpenter, you're going to cross off the names of all the male carpenters because you had a bad experience with a man. It's kind of irrational, if you ask me. But fear is irrational in many cases, and I get that. But I don't think we. I don't think that we discriminate against other people based on our fears, because that's unfair.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah, it's unfair. Yeah. Right, right. And especially when there's a system in play that should help you weed out and get the best driver for your situation.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, I don't want a Jewish doctor, you know, because of some kind of crazy thing about Jews. That's ridiculous. That's insane. To select people on the base basis of religion or gender or race. I mean, we have constitutional amendments that allegedly would prevent what Uber's doing here, and I think they need to rethink that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my loser.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, let's go.
Norm Murdock [:I'm go with the loser. So I think Republican Senator Josh Hawley is a total loser for this idea. His. So he has submitted legislation. I heard Mike Carey on the Radio Today coming in to do on the show this $600 bill where they're going to take the tariff money that's gushing into the treasury. And rather than reducing our national debt with that money, this proposal would be to give Every American citizen $600 of the tariff money. Hey, guys, pay down the debt. Do something meaningful with this money.
Norm Murdock [:It shouldn't be like a bonus to all the American citizens.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and it also sends the signal that. Oh, so you are saying that tariffs are going to increase prices? Is that what you're saying too? By saying, well, we're going to help you because we know prices are going to increase. Here's a little extra money to help.
Norm Murdock [:Out or yippee, we got extra money. We're going to give it to you.
Brett Johnson [:Stop that. Stop it. Stop it.
Norm Murdock [:Pay down the $37 trillion debt. That's what's going to kill the next generation. Their tax burden is going to be out of this world.
Brett Johnson [:Every time it seems as though there's an opportunity.
Norm Murdock [:It's a political gimmick.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:It's a gimmick. And stop this already.
Brett Johnson [:Stop it. Because it seems as though anytime we get an additional flow of dollars, we're making some money here. And it was targeted to use for this. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Norm Murdock [:I'm going to score points with the electorate.
Brett Johnson [:We have wiggle room on that one. Well, let's put it over here for this. That it was not intended for. Stop this crap.
Norm Murdock [:Right?
Brett Johnson [:Please use it for what it is for and showcase on that, please. You can win elections by just that. You helped reduce the deficit. It's just giving us $600 a piece is a short term win.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, it's.
Brett Johnson [:We have such short term memories.
Norm Murdock [:You're handing out ice cream cones and they're gonna melt and people aren't Gonna remember the 600 bucks. But what they will remember or what the children and grandchildren, your grandchildren and your children, their tax debt is just gonna be absurd. Either that or we're gonna have to do all those Doge cuts that Elon was proposing and eliminate whole chunks of the, you know, the support system, the social safety net. There won't be programs to support little, you know, older people for this and inner city people for that and scholarships, Pell Grants and all this other stuff. It's all gonna go away, you know, because we're either gonna tax people at like 75% of what they earn or just whole chunks like Social Security won't be what it is now. It'll Be half or it'll be a fourth of what people are getting. And then you're gonna have real starvation, you're gonna have real.
Brett Johnson [:Oh, you'll have rioting in the streets.
Norm Murdock [:You're gonna have people getting kicked out of their apartment. It'll be a nightmare. So please spend it to pay down the debt.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:My winner. This will be quick. My winner is Sharon Osborne, who while grieving the loss of her husband Ozzy. Right. She is putting on an Ozzy parade. So like the final Ozfest, I guess you could call it, is this parade through the streets of Birmingham, England that she's paying for, complete with a brass band and Ozzy, you know, Ozzy laying out, you know, as he goes by. And I could just see people throwing black roses and it'll be a spectacle like Lady Di in her procession. So, Sharon, I mean, it's a wild thing you're doing.
Brett Johnson [:It's a fitting goodbye that the fans will love it.
Norm Murdock [:I can almost imagine Ozzy sitting up and going, hey.
Brett Johnson [:It'S good.
Norm Murdock [:Sharon. Sharon. Sharon, this is awesome. Sharon, Sharon, Jack and Kelly, I love you. War pigs. War pigs. Exactly. Exactly.
Brett Johnson [:Well, my loser for the week is really a win, but a loss too. Now I'm going to explain it now. It's a good bad mixture now the funding for PBS and NPR going away and I'm going to spin this in a different realm than most probably are thinking of. Yes, they don't want to spend the money to help support this media. Get it. I understand, I understand your concerns, I understand the problems with that. But I think it's an opportunity for PBS and NPR to really crank up what they do and do even better news coverage. I mean, we're complaining left and right that news coverage is horrible.
Brett Johnson [:Horrible. It's one sided, this out of the other. So I think PBS and NPR have an opportunity to really crank up the what's called a value for value model. So they're run by donations already. They've seen their base go up by 20,000 donations and millions of dollars. That's exactly what it should be done. And once you take the handcuffs of the government off of you to how you operate as a business model, now you can do lots more things. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Be what you want to be.
Brett Johnson [:Be what you want to be. The value for value model is huge. It's that if I see you're worth $100 a month, I'll pay $100 a month and do what you and I have skin in the game on what you're doing.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:They can lead the charge with this and actually be a totally different news model and a programming model than anybody's ever seen. It's an opportunity to get away from the overlord of the government, basically. I mean, they've complained about this forever. It's like now's your chance to really run with it. So again, it's a win loss. I get it. But in the long run, I think NPR and PBS going to be much stronger because of it. And the win for this week.
Brett Johnson [:Hey, Ohio. You're going to enjoy an expanded sales tax holiday starting August 1st through the 14th, especially kids going back to school. That's what it's covering. It's going to cover more than just school supplies. It's tangible Items priced at $500 or less. That includes clothes, electronics, even pet food are tax free.
Norm Murdock [:Aren't a lot of PCs now under 500 bucks?
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:So like you could get a pretty nice laptop or something tax free.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. So take advantage of it. I mean, it was, I think initially when it first started over a weekend. Now they're pushing it for two weeks, August 1st through the 14th in Ohio. Go gangbusters.
Norm Murdock [:Wow.
Brett Johnson [:Save some money. Now that our sales tax have actually crept up in certain areas, boom. Take advantage of it.
Norm Murdock [:I have to express my ignorance. So it's not linked to schools anymore?
Brett Johnson [:No, no, it's.
Norm Murdock [:It could be like a set of tires.
Brett Johnson [:Well, I don't know how far this goes. I think it has to be somewhat school related.
Norm Murdock [:Okay.
Brett Johnson [:So somehow education tag, you know, tag. But clothes, I mean, you got. Including clothes. Electronic. I don't have a pet. Food is tax free. Maybe you're getting married.
Norm Murdock [:That one wedding dress.
Brett Johnson [:I don't know. I don't know what's going on with that one. But, but it, but definitely for who? It's for parents who are feeling the strain. Back to school stuff is expensive. Kids want new things because it's always nice to have a new pair of shoes and some new clothes going back to school. New backpack and stuff. Take advantage of it. And as well as if you're in the donation mindset that you just like, hey, you don't have any kids anymore, but you still want to, you know, help out.
Brett Johnson [:It's a great time to go shop and donate to local charity that give out this stuff too.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, that's a great idea. So like school supplies and then you take them down to the local food pantry.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:And have it distributed to, you know, impoverished families so they can get school supplies that you, you know, notebooks, Pens, calculators. Yeah, just, you know, like drop off 40 or 50 things and let the local food pantry distribute. That's a great backpacks, stuff like that.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, go for it. Go for it.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, that's great.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly. Cool. Good deal. Well, hey, again, as I said at the beginning of the show, you like something you heard on the show, let us know. If you didn't like something you heard on the show, let us know. Let the world know.
Norm Murdock [:Share Glenn, by the way.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, exactly. And thanks to our sponsor Harper, CP plus Glenn doing a fantastic job. Now, you know we've talked about this before too. Really quick hit for him that, you know, if you didn't like what happened at the beginning, beginning of this year in regards to taxes, how your business is run. I mean we're now at the end of July and you're going to start making some moves to help your business do better with this. Especially with the bbb, the big beautiful bill in play. That man and his staff and everybody there at Harper knows exactly what's going once the details are out. They're on it.
Brett Johnson [:They are on it. They've been promoting that. They are on it to help you as a business grow more efficiently and understand what you can or can't do. The guy's IT man and we've got his connection in the show notes. But Harper + CPI, Harper + CPA. Great, great people to work with. Seriously. So now it's time to jump on it and we will be back next week.
Brett Johnson [:Thanks for joining us this week.
