Shownotes
The show opens with a heartfelt and thought-provoking discussion about the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s recent assassination, exploring the dangers of divisive language, the legacy of free speech icons, and the importance of patience and fairness during high-profile criminal investigations.
From there, Brett and Norm shift gears to analyze escalating tensions between Russia and NATO—including the dangerous provocations at Eastern European borders and the real risk these actions pose to global stability. The hosts reflect on the cost, consequences, and possible internal solutions to Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine, pondering whether true change must come from within Russia itself.
Back at home, they turn their sights to Columbus and Ohio’s own hot-button issues: the controversial new “entertainment tax” in the Short North, the seemingly never-ending proposals for passenger rail expansion, and staggering school truancy rates. The hosts also spotlight stories with a very human touch, including the tragic local case of gun safety, the shutdown of the Hot Chicken Takeover restaurant chain that hired the recently incarcerated, and a moving tribute to forgiveness from Charlie Kirk’s widow.
Add in a spirited debate about free speech, government overreach, and the role of comedy in political discourse, and you’ve got an episode packed with clear-eyed analysis, passionate opinions, and plenty of common sense.
00:00 Power of Free Speech and Legacies
06:12 Legacy and Impact of Martyrdom
11:26 "Right to Vigorous Legal Defense"
17:54 Putin's Aggressive Actions Post-Summit
23:55 Yeltsin's Defiance in Red Square
27:04 Partisan Comedy Critique
32:52 Free Speech Double Standards
42:45 Columbus Implements Extra Tax Zone
44:21 Downtown Dining Tax Concerns
54:34 Ohio Transit Projects Proposal
55:48 Ohio Railway Project Skepticism
01:05:56 Child Safety and Gun Storage
01:07:26 Franchise Offers Second Chances
01:12:29 Journey of Forgiveness
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.
Recorded at the 511 Studios, in the Brewery District in downtown Columbus, OH.
info@commonsenseohioshow.com
Copyright 2025 Common Sense Ohio
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcripts
Welcome back to Common Sense Ohio. God, it's the end of September already.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, man.
Brett Johnson [:Wow. This is flying by. Norman's back from doing his thing and Steve is out doing his thing on Brett. And yeah, we, we are still reeling from, you know, post Charlie Kirk murder. Lots of stuff that happened, um, during, you know, uh, Norm's exit of the show or his non appearance on the show. He's busy in this, but we definitely wanted to have, you know, Norm be able to voice his look at what has transpired. I mean, obviously a lot of things have happened since you've been gone. And at the same time, you know, the memorial service, more investigation, more details have come out on who this young man was that that, you know, basically murdered Charlie Kirk.
Brett Johnson [:But I want to give you the floor in regards to, you know, saying your piece. You know, I think it's. I think it's healthy, you know, to talk about it. That's what we do here.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. So my particular take on Charlie Kirk is I had, you know, some disagreements with what he said, but probably 95% agreement. I'm not in favor of using military terms to describe our social conflict amongst the American people. Charlie and many other conservatives use language like war. We're having a moral war, or a war for values, or were at war with the other side, things like that. And he would sometimes talk about meeting liberals who do things like stuff, pallet boxes or whatever tricks during the election. And he would say things like, well, if they're going to do it, we should do it too. And that came from the emotional side of him.
Norm Murdock [:And that would be about the 5% that I stylistically disagree with. And so he was speaking metaphorically. He was speaking sometimes off the cuff. And I'm mainly talking about his radio show, so I didn't read much of his. I didn't go to his college debates, but just like Steven Crowder and other people who have done those kind of, you know, tent things on campus where, you know, prove me wrong kind of thing, put up a little sign and say, you know, show me I'm wrong. I think those are terrific vehicles, especially on a college campus, and those kinds of interchanges in a, in a hall or out on the quad or wherever on a college campus, kind of blow up the idea of a safe space. And I think that's appropriate. I don't think colleges should have, you know, debate free areas except during class itself, unless the professor says, hey, let's have a debate.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:And then it's.
Brett Johnson [:That's the focus of the Class. Exactly. Sure.
Norm Murdock [:Then that's fine. You know, like, okay, let's go ahead and debate, you know, some point of history, or let's debate whether James Joyce, you know, something about his book. And we don't think that somebody says, oh, no, that wasn't the theme of his book or whatever. But I think on a college campus, at least as. As it was when I attended college, people were debating great things, huge issues, giant, gigantic social actions, things like the Vietnam War, things like the draft, things like Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, things like Gerald Ford's pardon of draft dodgers. You know, I mean, on campus, people debated very serious issues. Things like Kent State, what happened? And I traveled to Kent State, and we had a very incredible debate, incredible presentation by some of the survivors and witnesses of that event. And people were allowed to ask questions and posit different theories, and they would be discussed.
Norm Murdock [:And some were proven to be wrong, and some were proven to be good possibilities. And this is the way we all learn. It's the way that really our country is founded on the free exchange of information. After all, our Bill of Rights starts with the First Amendment, and it guarantees the right of free speech. And Charlie Kirk certainly is an icon of free speech, just like Malcolm X would. Would be, just like Martin Luther King would be. And of course, both of those men were also assassinated. And it just goes to show you that the pen or speech is mightier than the sword, because long after Malcolm X was killed, long after Martin Luther King was killed and JFK and Abraham Lincoln and Charlie Kirk, it will be shown that their works, their memories, the iconic beliefs that they stood up for, because after all, Lincoln and King and Malcolm X weren't perfect either, and no human being is.
Norm Murdock [:But the main things that they stood for will live on and have lived on well past their lifetimes and are almost, if you view them as martyrs, as many of us do, certainly Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King and now Charlie Kirk and many, many other examples can be viewed as martyrs. And those ideas will live on. I think it's telling Brett that in the aftermath of that assassination two weeks ago, Turning Point claims, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, but an incredible figure of 18,000 requests have been made on their 1-800-line, or however you get a hold of them, to start chapters in high schools and colleges, 18,000 requests. And so that event that they had in State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday, many of us watched all or some of that. And I would say it was, as Trump indicated, President Trump that it felt like a revival tent meeting, more of a religious kind of event than anything else. So I would just say that in the aftermath of this, where things being written on the bullet casings and the accused assassins emails and his phone calls and things between himself and his, and his romantic interest and his family and his followers on Facebook, all of that stuff, I hope people will allow the authorities in Utah, who are mainly doing the investigation with some FBI support, because it is a state crime, it's a murder in the state of Utah, and the state of Utah has primary jurisdiction. There may be some federal crime charge later on, but seems to me it might be sort of duplicative. If Utah has a death penalty and if he's found guilty after a fair and free trial to have committed this murder and he gets a death penalty, I guess I don't know what the federal prosecution, you know, like what purpose it would serve, but it may happen.
Norm Murdock [:At any rate, I would ask people, and I'm doing this myself, to not jump to any kind of conclusion until the investigation is finished. And why do I say that? Because just yesterday, Trump's would be assassin Ryan Ruth, who was being prosecuted in Florida for his attempted assassination of Trump at the golf course down there, Mar a Lago, that that evidence was communicated to a, a jury of his peers. They found him guilty on all five counts. And that is an open trial. All the evidence is there for all of us to see. And it will be the same in this case in Utah. And I hope people don't accuse whole communities of other people of this crime. It was committed, so far as we know, not a conspiracy at this point, but by a single individual.
Norm Murdock [:And let the FBI, let the state of Utah conclude their investigation. Let them bring. He has been charged in by some crimes already of some crimes. Let that happen, let the evidence roll out at trial, and then we'll all see what his exact motives were, what his belief system was, if that's relevant, and let the process work. And I say that as somebody who does believe in the death penalty and not everybody on this show does, and that's okay. We debated that here, too.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, that's.
Norm Murdock [:Those are my thoughts at this point.
Brett Johnson [:No, I agree. Yet Steven mentioned too, that he was really impressed with what the DA had stayed at the very beginning of. You know, it's going to be a slow process and very detailed process because they don't want to have to. They don't want this to not come to its end where it should come to. You know, do do it do it right, do it slowly, get it done and everybody should be happy.
Norm Murdock [:Right?
Brett Johnson [:There's not going to be an overturning because they messed up a step and the guy goes free if he, you know, truly guilty. So no, I, I think we just had to be patient and, and not push the process. It's going to happen and it's going to happen correctly. Allow it to happen, let's put it that way.
Norm Murdock [:And our, our good friend Steve, who could not be here today because he's practicing his profession, profession, would say, and, and I'll say it for all three of us, that our Constitution calls for a vigorous defense even for the people who appear to be, you know, case cold, case closed, proven, you know, in our minds that they're guilty, even with seemingly irrefutable video evidence or, you know, whatever, what, whatever other kind of evidence is presented. And we think, oh, it's obvious, you know, that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln because he jumped from the balcony, landed on this stage and said basically down with tyrants in Latin and then made off and escaped. So, you know, we would still say, if we're accurate journalists and we're responsibly representing the Constitution, that he is an alleged assassin until proven guilty. And that's the way it goes. That's our system. And so, yes, sometimes very detestable people accused of rape, murder, child molestation, whatever it might be, are entitled to a vigorous defense. And why? So that when the punishment comes down on their head, we are all satisfied that they received a fair trial. And that's the point.
Norm Murdock [:So no trial was given to Charlie Kirk. He was just killed. But our society is better than that. We give his would be assassin all the benefits of the Constitution. And that's what makes us. Right. And that's what makes him. Right, wrong.
Brett Johnson [:Right. Then the system will work. We just have to give it time. That's right. It will work. It will work for sure. Yeah, exactly. You know, on a, a national scale, Russia continues to kind of I, I with, with NATO nations.
Brett Johnson [:I, I don't know what's, it's unbelievable. I don't know what's in their head. What, what are they thinking?
Norm Murdock [:It's unbelievable. These, these incursions by drones and, and MiG31 aircraft into countries like Estonia, Poland. I mean, you know, it was the USSR that carved Poland in half with Hitler and the non Aggression Treaty between the USSR and Hitler and they took half of Poland during World War II, meaning the Russian army, the U.S. the former Soviet Union, the USSR. So when you fly jets or drones over Polish people today. Well, there's still people alive, you know, who saw that movie one other time in their lives. And this is super dangerous stuff. This is, this is really dancing on the, the head of an, of a pin here.
Norm Murdock [:And there's not a lot of room on the head of a pin to dance. Right. And you know, Article 5 of NATO's charter says an attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all members of NATO. Now, is an incursion into the airspace of another country an attack? Okay, it could be an accident, putatively, it could be a. Testing some kind of radar and to just see what NATO nations do in response. Well, what NATO did, right, was dispatch fighter jets of its own to chase Russian planes back across the border. And we saw what happened in Turkey several years ago. Turkey's a member of NATO where Turkey shot down a Russian jet fighter that had gone into Turkish airspace.
Norm Murdock [:And you know, think of what that could have triggered had the Russians decided, oh, wait a minute, we dispute that you shot our plane down in Russian airspace. And we get into a dispute about where the incident really happened. And before you know it, somebody's pushing nuclear buttons. This is not good. This is really dumb of Vladimir Putin. This is super dangerous stuff to be testing NATO's answer to this and to put NATO pilots up in the air armed, ready to reply in kind to any kind of Russian incursion. Super dangerous, super irresponsible, especially when there's a hot war between Ukraine and Russia at this time. And, and we're looking at a possible expansion of that.
Norm Murdock [:Not good.
Brett Johnson [:No, it's not. Well, exactly. Your example, that's what ran in my mind too, is like, oh, is he just kind of pushing, poking the bear, kind of see how far it can go? As well as, you know, we now do know. I mean, drones are kind of the go to for any engagement. So you don't know what those drones are. They, they may not be necessarily be spy drones. They could be armed, ready to blow up 100%, you know, so it's not just playing around here. It's, it's that, okay, these got to take drones seriously.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, yeah.
Brett Johnson [:So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out and, and you know, what kind of response or what, what else are they going to be trying to do? Is this it? Is it? You know, that's all. They're done playing, trying to figure that, you know, in regards to, you know, pushing the envelope or is he gonna start putting drones in other spaces he's not supposed to be going, you know, just, just to see the reaction. I, I Hispanic. Almost like he's trying to pull in and trying to start another world war.
Norm Murdock [:Almost. His behavior has been incredibly, you know, tone deaf and reckless.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And just what was it a month ago, basically, all the heads of state from Western Europe from flew into D.C. and had a convocation to decide what the next steps were going to be in trying to settle the Ukraine Russian war. And what did Putin do the next day after he got home from meeting with Trump in Alaska? And then the Western nations having this big meeting before that on how Trump would negotiate. The very next day when he got home, he did one of the largest drone attacks that Russia has done in this war on the city of Kyiv. Right. And killed a bunch of innocent civilians. They weren't even military targets. And you just wonder, this guy is not sincere.
Norm Murdock [:I mean, clearly. And then, you know, yesterday, Zelensky and Trump had an excellent meeting of the minds. And Trump said all kinds of high praise for the people of Ukraine and the resistance. And I am sensing that the administration is, you know, they gave him a good six months after Trump came into office to work something out, and I think he's done. He talked yesterday about lowering the boom. Very serious, like debanking Russia from the World bank system. Very serious kinds of things that will further shut down their economy. And then how Putin reacts to that, I mean, he may view that as an act of war.
Norm Murdock [:We don't know. Like, how do you handle this guy short of going to war is a question.
Brett Johnson [:And you hope that the Russian population see it for what it's worth and do some uprising. I don't know. It maybe has to come from internal. We have some help there. I've not heard anything to that effect, but there isn't much news that comes out of Russia to know what's going on.
Norm Murdock [:Well, in the past, the Russian army in the past has deposed Russian premiers. Now, that was in the Soviet Union. Right, right. Like Khrushchev was brought down by internal military and Politburo, people who disagreed with his handling of the Cuban Missile crisis, for example.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And so it's not unheard of for a military hunter, so to speak, a temporary coup of the civilian authority in, in the, the Soviet Union now Russia to have occurred. And I, I really hope it does happen. I, I know I'd love to see two or three admirals, a couple generals and their staff walk into Putin's office with pistols drawn and say, sir, time is up. You're going to get us all killed.
Brett Johnson [:Right. And like you haven't already. What is that? What's the number of Russian soldiers that have been killed?
Norm Murdock [:So something like a million. It's they estimate.
Brett Johnson [:That's a, that's a stupid number.
Norm Murdock [:It's a huge number in a country of I think 170 million people. So I mean, one out of every 170 people in Russia has died fighting Ukraine.
Brett Johnson [:I mean, and gained absolutely nothing. And what are they really gaining in the long run? To a certain degree, other than pride, possibly.
Norm Murdock [:And I'm not even sure the people in Russia like.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:So much of Ukraine is ethnic Russian that those are their brothers and sisters.
Brett Johnson [:Kind of a civil war. North, south, kind of feel, you know, you're kind of killing your own. That's kin.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:To a certain degree, you know.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:Two or three times removed. But yeah, there's a close familial relationship between those two countries. The civilians. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Just a huge mess.
Brett Johnson [:Hope to God by the end of the year this thing gets figured out.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:It's got to be done because, you know, Ukraine is in a mess to rebuild. I can't even imagine, you know, just the photos that we see in the film, in the video that we see what it's going to take to rebuild Ukraine.
Norm Murdock [:It's crazy that some of the targets like Putin has, Putin has dropped bombs on active nuclear power plants in the Ukraine. Right. So just imagine that like if you blew the containment cell open, think of all of the radiation poisoning that would come out of these active nuclear power plants. I mean, it just makes senseless.
Brett Johnson [:That is scorched earth. That is scorched earth, basically, because you can't, even if they were to win the country, it's worthless. That area that he just bombed, if it were to that end and the.
Norm Murdock [:Cloud would probably somewhat fly over Russia.
Brett Johnson [:Probably.
Norm Murdock [:So, like the whole thing is, it's, it's like a madman. He's just, he's flailing.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And it, it, it seems like we're dealing with an irrational person.
Brett Johnson [:I, I, I, it's like Sodom Hussein. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:It's, it's almost like he's whacked out on that level.
Brett Johnson [:Right, right, exactly. That. I tried this. It's like he has this list of 20 things to try and he's down to number 18 or 19 is like, we got to be done with this. Something done. And I, I don't mean it as a knee jerk thing. It's, it's just if we have things in play, actions in play that can, can get this to stop. Let's start really pushing those economically or, or if it's a, an uprising per se, that support it.
Brett Johnson [:Right, so it stops. Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:Right. Yeah. You know, kind of like when they arrested Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin got up on the tank and turned the tanks around in Red Square and said, you're not going to fire on the civilian population. Come on, you're a Russian soldier in the Russian army and you're not going to turn your guns on the Russian people. You need to disobey your orders. And then Yeltsin became prime minister or premier whatever to replace Gorbachev and Gorbachev was freed. So there's an example where the Russian people rose up against the powers that be and were able to push back. And I think, Brett, the best solution would be if it came internally.
Norm Murdock [:And that's. Yeah, you know, that's going to be hard because we have a KGB guy running Russia right now and he has systematically killed off the dissenting population. So where, where those people will come from, I'm thinking it's going to have to be military people who look basically at the survival of their own military branches.
Brett Johnson [:That's what's at stake and understand the mechanism of how to, you know, just in a heartbeat it stops.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:You know, they know that. They know the inner workings versus out a non military.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:Civilian not knowing how it really works. It. You're right. It probably that's going to be the most efficient and it's.
Norm Murdock [:They're the only ones with guns.
Brett Johnson [:It's. It's literally turning the guns the other direction. Yeah. Turning them away from the Ukraine, you know.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:In that, that feel to it. Yeah, yeah. Coming back home. If you were a Jimmy Kimmel fan, you got him back. If you're not a Jimmy Kimmel fan, you got him back. Interesting. You know, play over a week's time of. And a lot of different layers to it.
Brett Johnson [:I mean there was a focus of the economics of his show, it was the focus of his statements on the show that got him suspended for a week or so. But an interesting play all the way around. I don't know who necessarily are the winners or losers to this, but it's, it's kind of come back ground full circle. He's back. Not necessarily on all stations, but he is again a show host.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:I don't know.
Norm Murdock [:Well, you know, I, I don't think the guy's that funny. You know, when they had the man show with Adam Carolla, that was a super funny show. It was totally immature. It was, it was totally, you know, sophomore and, you know, frat boy humor. And, you know, on that show, Jimmy, you know, he wore black face in a couple skits. He talked constantly about women as objects. And that was kind of the point of the show was bad taste. And certainly him and Adam Carolla exercised that to the full extent.
Norm Murdock [:And it was, you know, at moments, kind of funny. And then he, he, he got on TV and he was okay the first season or two, but then, I don't know, to me, he and Colbert in particular, those two, and there's others, that John guy from England or whatever, he's. Wherever he's from, those guys just weren't funny. I mean, it was just like, to me, it was like an hour of they're just raging against Trump. And even during the four years Trump was gone, Kimmel would just go on like his Trump jokes every night. And so to me, now, I'm just viewing this as a network executive, right? To me, why would you, if you're running a network unlike, say, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson days, right, where you have, if you're going to have political humor, it's both sides, right? Jay Leno, both sides, like, you know, make fun of Jimmy Carter, make fun of Gerald Ford, make fun of Nixon, make fun of Reagan, make fun of, you know, Obama, et cetera, et cetera. Just, just, you know, it's a free for all and just have fun on both sides. Instead, these guys would go on and on and on like it was a partisan comedy show.
Norm Murdock [:And so I would say, as a network executive, why are we pissing off half of our customer base? I would, I just don't understand that. And so I would say two things. As a business decision. Bob Iger and Disney, they can do whatever the heck they want to do. It's your company, you run it. You decide if you want to turn it into or continue to operate it as a DNC comedy platform or as a platform for making statements about policy. And you want to attack Trump every night, that's okay. Free speech, As I said before, First Amendment, I would say, number two, the FCC chairman should not have made any kind of comments whatsoever about ABC's executive decision to pull this guy, even for two or three days.
Norm Murdock [:It just is not the FCC's role, in my opinion, to discuss the content other than something like straight up pornography, something like that. But otherwise on broadcast tv, not your business, to discuss what people think is funny or what the Comedy is or whatever. That's not a government process and it shouldn't be. And he shouldn't have even gotten into the subject. I would have advised him not to say anything and just decide things like mergers acquisitions.
Brett Johnson [:And you know, the part.
Norm Murdock [:Of stay in your lane.
Brett Johnson [:Right. The part of the renewal process is he does that group does not come out and dictate because somebody said something that the license is not going to be renewed. Or you know, we can do it the easy way, we can do it the hard way. Okay, that scenario. That's not the way this plays out. What plays out is we citizens who don't like something that's being said file with the FCC and when it's time for those stations to be renewed or it could be action prior, could be if it's a heinous. That license take is taken away. That's how it works.
Brett Johnson [:Our voices say what comes off or on or a license is not renewed. Now that is kind of watered down anymore just because we have a tremendous amount of streaming and you know, it has not, it's non licensed. So really you're not kicking any voice to the curb. They can just find another channel to say what they want to say. This is not the 1970s and 80s, once we had the Internet play in and also, you know, satellite tv, that sort of thing. There are diversions of where this, you know, this voice can be. But I totally agree that with, you know, over 35 years in broadcast radio, prior to me moving into, you know, podcast consulting. It bothered me, him coming out and saying it's like that is not where the FCC needs to be playing.
Brett Johnson [:That is not your sandbox, that is not your role and you needed to not be on that show. I mean, that was the sole purpose of being on that show, was to say that, bottom line, you knew that that question was going to be asked the fcc. The head of the FCC does not do talk shows unless there is something to be talked about. Because it's pretty much a boring commission. They, you know, it's regulations. It, it's a very boring commission role, quite frankly. But it's, it's not on the aggressive. It's usually on the other end of it of taking care of problems when they arise.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, I would, I would just say on the, this is a, this is a, an adjunct point. So having criticized the head of the FCC for weighing in even with. He shouldn't have said anything. And even if you want to view his comment in the most charitable way, right where he could say, well, by hard way I meant xyz, not abc. Whatever. He just shouldn't have said anything. But an adjunct point is, and this is the part that I find pretty incredible over at on the traditional legacy media is they seem incredibly curious and incredibly, you know, let's, let's run to the ramparts over what the FCC guy said. And that's fine.
Norm Murdock [:That's totally fine. But where were they when government sponsored and government paid for actual censorship and de platforming was happening under the prior administration? Where were the calls for people like Dr. McCulloch, you know, Dr. Makary, people like, you know, Glenn Beck or even the detestable Alex Jones? Where were the calls for their free speech to be respected? And instead the FBI under Biden with our tax dollars paying for the FBI going to Silicon Valley and threatening them with Article 230, we're going to pull that protection from you unless you deplatform and de content things on YouTube and Wikipedia and Google results. And frankly, it has happened to this show, it happened under Biden, and it still happens to this show now and then with Google, where we are shadow banned because some of our content right here on Common Sense Ohio does not comport to what Google thinks is acceptable. Now, Google's a private company. They can run that company any way they want. Okay, but, but where is the concern, if you're concerned about what ABC is deciding as a private company vis a vis Jimmy Kimmel, where is the same concern about what other private companies have done to throttle and stick a cork in our views? Meaning not necessarily everybody here at the table, but some of us and some of the other people during the prior administration when actual tax dollars were used to shut people down.
Norm Murdock [:So I would just say to Stephanopoulos and the people on these Sunday shows, hey guys, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to be a free speecher, which is what I am, right, I will come to the defense of Jimmy Kimmel like Ted Cruz did, like Rand Paul did, and say ABC has a right to make these decisions, but the government does not. And I would say the same thing about deplatforming people and threatening YouTube and Google to take content down that the other administration and the other party disagree with.
Brett Johnson [:Well, once you start fair is fair, right? When you start labeling and taking away those rights, you all of a sudden create this forbidden fruit that they become even more popular to a certain degree and you run it underground or whatever.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:So it doesn't serve its purpose. Purpose. They Did. And I think a good example is when, you know, records, CDs at the time and albums had to be started to be labeled with an E, right through Tipper Gore's push to, to label albums that had swear words in it or content that would, you know, a, a, a young adult should not, should, should be what parents should be aware of and young adults probably shouldn't. Well, it made those albums even more popular. Now you still see ease on things and you don't even see it. You don't even see the E. I see it occasionally because I notice like, oh, there's a swear wor in that song.
Brett Johnson [:I didn't know that, you know, sort of thing. Well, even more so it doesn't do anything. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Even more than that, I'd love to blame, you know, the Democratic Party for that, but I, I can't. What Tipper Gore did was bipartisan. She had as much, she had as much support on, on from Republicans as she did from Democrats. And, and, and listen, I understand her point. I just don't think any laws were called for. For example, when you talk about assassinating police officers on an NWA album, right? And, and it's more than just cuss words, right? They were talking about raping women, they were talking about assassinating police officers, they were talking about doing violence, et cetera, you know, gang violence on those albums. Now, a, they got the right to do it. Just like the Ku Klux Klan has the right to march around, say they hate Jews and blacks.
Norm Murdock [:And just like Jews and blacks, if they want, can march around and say they, they hate the Ku Klux Klan. You know, as Ted Cruz has said accurately, hate speech is protected speech because nobody, there is no consistent definition of what hate is. That's the problem. Who gets to decide what hate is, right? If I want to criticize the Pope of the Catholic Church, some people would say, well, any criticism of the Pope is hate speech. Well, it's, it certainly is not hate speech to criticize the Pope, but you can see where some people would make that conclusion. Other people would say, oh, if you criticize Benjamin Netanyahu in his prosecution of Hamas, then you must hate Israel and you must hate all Jewish people. Well, that's likewise ridiculous.
Brett Johnson [:Ridiculous.
Norm Murdock [:So you don't get to define hate. And so we just, in this country, short of violence, and short of like creating a predicate to violence, like yelling fire in a crowded theater, right, where it's, where it's calculated to result in violence, short of that, people should be allowed to say whatever Kind of sick, ugly, horrible, despotic thing that they want to say. Because as Brett just pointed out, that gets it out in the open and then the rest of us can condemn that. The rest of us can say, well, when you say that you hate Jews and blacks, you are a frickin idiot. You are the worst kind of human being. And we get to condemn that. But if you make them bottle that up, it becomes attractive to a certain uneducated, isolated group of people. And that's how the skinhead movement got started in Germany because they suppressed any talk of the Third Reich and Hitler.
Norm Murdock [:So that made it attractive to young German men and young British men also. And the whole skinhead phenomenon started back in the 80s. And that's why. Because you suppressed an open debate about Nazism. And that was a mistake.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, it is. And, and I think back to your point, I think you make a really good point that we don't want to hear it because it is disgusting. It is, but it has to be out there. And, and we can choose to listen or we can choose to at least take note of it, but we don't have to repeat it. We don't have to.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:Share it. Yeah. Or you know, that it is just that. I would rather it be out there and let it be. For what it's. For what it's worth. We talk about will hold its own value because it's valueless.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:Honestly, it really is. And it won't go anywhere, but if we push it underground, it will go somewhere. And that's, and that's, that's a hard decision to make. That, that's really hard to do. We don't, that's not our way of, of handling things. We want to kind of get, we don't want our kids to be exposed to it. We don't want to be. Have ourselves exposed to this over and over again.
Brett Johnson [:So we want to show shelf it, we want to put it in a lock box. But that's not the way to do it.
Norm Murdock [:It's not the way to do it. And that's not our system. That's not what America is. And you know, I think again, reflecting back on our earlier conversation about Charlie Kirk, you're not going to kill off an idea by killing off the guy who had the idea. So no, you know, if you, if you think suppressing Mein Kampf, which is what they did in Germany, not letting it be read by college students, not understanding the roots of Nazism and not having that debate in Germany it just created a complete misunderstanding of their own history. And that attractiveness of the forbidden is very strong with young people because they're trying to figure out, well, why do my parents and grandparents not want me to know about this? There must be something really important about it. And then it becomes attractive in a weird sense to an immature mind or to a weak mind. It becomes something that's glamorous even.
Norm Murdock [:And evil can be glamorous.
Brett Johnson [:Oh, for sure.
Norm Murdock [:You know, that's one of the. That's one of the ways that the devil, if you believe in the devil, if you believe in Lucifer, that's one of the ways that he draws people in, is making sin and making evil attractive.
Brett Johnson [:Right? Exactly. Exactly. You brought up this to talk about this, and I saw this as well, too, of we're going to go on to a more of a local feel here, at least in Columbus, Ohio, but I'm sure this idea is not unique. Around the country is an entertainment tax in a portion of Columbus, the Short north, specifically.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, this is the first time it's been done in Ohio. But I could see the Cleveland Flats area doing this. I could see the Cincinnati over the Rhine doing this. And so what we're talking about is the city council created a zone in what is. It's a convention area of Columbus, Ohio, called the Short north, which is where the convention center is. And some of the arenas and stadiums and things downtown, you know, are nearby. And some of the name restaurants, big, you know, named restaurants are in this area. And what they did is they overlaid an extra tax, an extra sales tax on top of food, beverage, parking, you know, anything, any economic activity taking place in that area that the city of Columbus has authority over to provide extra security, to provide amenities, street lighting, you know, beautification projects, other kinds of ways to dress up this party zone for conventioneers to be paid for by anybody, not just conventioneers, but like, you know, local residents of Franklin county that maybe want to go, I don't know, see a hockey game and.
Norm Murdock [:And have a steak dinner at one of these restaurants downtown before or after the game or have a few drinks, they will be paying this extra tax. And what a lot of citizens are asking is, well, wait a minute now, we already pay an income tax and property taxes for residents that live in the city of Columbus in Franklin County. And so we already are paying for a police department, and we're already paying for Waterworks, and we're already paying our electric bill and et cetera, et cetera. And so why, you know, like why when I go downtown and buy a steak dinner at. In this neighborhood, am I paying extra for extra police? Right. You know, like the police should be just there anyway. Right. So.
Norm Murdock [:I don't know, Brett, I think it may backfire.
Brett Johnson [:I think it probably will because again, it's, it's born on the back of retail and restaurants, they're the ones are going to have to collect it. Yes, and explain it and explain it. And I'm sure the rent down there is not cheap for anybody to be through there anyway, so just another layer. And we just absorbed another tax increase here this year for, you know, when you buy anything, you. It's now up to six and three quarters or something. I don't know what stupid number it is.
Norm Murdock [:It is different in every county, but it's going up, you know, but so.
Brett Johnson [:You know, and I understand they're trying to make it equal for everything that goes on. I get that. Okay. It's not a bed tax when you're, when you're at a hotel or it's not specifically driven against the convention center where it, you know, they're going to have to absorb it. But a lot of the income comes from that though too. So really maybe it should be borne on convention ears and conventions coming in. And again, that's not a great selling point to have a convention here. I get that.
Norm Murdock [:No, but Dayton is just 45 minutes away.
Brett Johnson [:A lot of, you know, a lot of the crime.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:That comes from. I'm talking, you know, human trafficking comes from that. The, the convention center itself because of what it bring. Not the type of people. I don't mean that. But, but it's that, that, that transient person that comes in for. That may not be the greatest term to call them, but, but I'm meaning is they're here for five days and then they're gone.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:And they. That attracts human trafficking for certain things. I mean, there's a piece that maybe we're weighing too much on this on us Franklin county residents, Columbus residents. And it's one of those. Maybe it should be more born on the convention center of those attending somehow a little bit because we're. I, it just. I think businesses are going to go out of business. I mean, I.
Brett Johnson [:Restaurants are already running on very narrow.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:In making money, basically.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:It's hard to get workers, hard to get anybody employed down there. I mean though, those restaurant styles are a little bit higher end, so I think you get the professional waiters and waitresses there probably. So that, that's a little bit different. But at the same time, I, it, it, it's. It's an odd, odd timing where it's like you're. To your point, Norm. We have the police force. Why are we paying extra? We, Are we paying for a private security company to come in? No, it's.
Brett Johnson [:It's the police. So why aren't we doing the job we're supposed to be doing? Getting horses out there, getting, you know, getting a ton of presence of just walking, which is in Columbus, literally on High street, just get cops walking the beat.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, it's inexplicable to, to me, in some ways it seems like. It seems like it's a slick vehicle to fleece people, and I think it's going to backfire. And I'll give. At least with local residents, and I'll give an example. When Columbus City center, which was a downtown mall, now gone. There's just grass there where it used to be. But it was successful early on because guess what? The parking was free. And so the nice suburban ladies who made up the bulk of the retail shoppers in that mall, you know, we're talking Jacobson's, we're talking Lazarus, we're talking Macy's.
Norm Murdock [:You know, they were all there, all the big players, Sears and Roebuck. I mean, it was a gorgeous mall. When that opened, that was that. That rivaled any mall I've ever been in. It was really a beautiful mall. And one of the ways you attract people is by giving them a financial incentive, not a disincentive, to come downtown. Because what you're talking about is for the local population, which largely doesn't live downtown, there is a short north neighborhood where people do live. And of course, there's German Village on the south side of downtown, and those are relatively close to this entertainment district.
Norm Murdock [:There's a brewery district also. So at any rate, the bulk of the people who would come back downtown for a game or for dinner would be people, say, in Upper Arlington or Dublin or Worthington or Grove City or Groveport or whatever, they've gone home for the day, or they live out there and work out there. And then they make a decision, hey, honey, should we go downtown and do the gallery hop and. And, you know, and have a big Chinese dinner right there in our favorite restaurant on the, on the short north strip. Yes. No. And if, and if it. The perception is, well, if we go down there, we're going to get fleeced, the answer is going to be no.
Norm Murdock [:And I think this is. I think this is bad. This is bad pr. It's a bad strategy.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. It's an interesting strategy for sure. Where we have already talked about and we've had, you know, experts in here, the police talking about, we can fix this problem. We just have to have more people on the street. It's not necessarily a money fix. It's just reallocating or, you know, just doing, doing it a little bit differently. Just tweaking it here or there because, and I get it, Short north does not want to, you know, continue this reputation that it's dangerous to be down there.
Brett Johnson [:Right. That's a hard one to wear off.
Norm Murdock [:And that's. That is what killed City Center.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:And that.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:You know, there was a shooting.
Brett Johnson [:Well, it killed Northland Mall.
Norm Murdock [:It killed Northland.
Brett Johnson [:That seems to be the death knoll of malls is when you start to get gang activity. Just, you know, being a rough area, just rough area that no one wants to visit. You know, the city of Whitehall, which is on the east side of Columbus, is still downplaying them being in the news weekly of some kind of shooting. But they have clawed themselves out of that. That, but it's that still people will not go there because of the rep. It's in their heads. And since it's conscious and I get Short north does not want that to be in, in people's heads for long and to fix things. But making it expensive to go down there, that's not going to help either, though.
Brett Johnson [:No, I, I, again, I, this is outside looking in, but it just seems like a disincentive, like you said. It's like, why would I want to pay a little bit more, especially when I live here. It does seem to be more of a convention area where you kind of don't want to go because it's so busy anyway, parking and such. So, I mean, and it's great for that. I'm glad we have that area for conventions because that's, that's a huge influx of money for First Columbus to have a convention center, to have those conventions come in. Oh, my gosh. It's a huge boon for us to have those in sporting events that goes on there. You know, whether it's in the convention center, like ncaa, women's basketball, the Arnold, the Arnold, whatever, might be fantastic.
Brett Johnson [:I'm glad we have that. But why are we having that problem on our backs? It, it just doesn't seem to be, that doesn't seem to make sense.
Norm Murdock [:I would, I would say to city management, look, look within your own policies and, and change your Policies, many of which, as Brett just indicated, are not really tied to extra money, but tied to how you police and where you allocate the police resources instead of maybe doing things like traffic, which I understand brings in money. Right. When you do a speeding ticket or a seatbelt. I get that. But maybe more urgently is protecting our neighborhoods and maybe maybe assign the police more to that. And I'm no expert on policing, but there might be some things, and there ought to be some things that come way before you start larding more taxes on people who are already disinclined to come downtown. And now you just made it less attractive.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, so exactly now. And you had found the story about a state investigation. I don't know if I've heard anything about this. PR investigation. State investigation, what kind? Estate investigation.
Norm Murdock [:Into.
Brett Johnson [:Into. I don't know. You brought it up earlier.
Norm Murdock [:Well, yeah, a couple of things.
Brett Johnson [:Okay.
Norm Murdock [:A couple of things.
Brett Johnson [:I may have stated it.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, well, yeah, that's. Okay. So a couple of state items. The we have around the state of Ohio. Every state has these called regional planning commissions. And most almost every geographical area of every state has some sort of commission that receives grant monies from both the state and the federal government from like the Department of Transportation, et cetera. And sometimes they write grant requests, frankly, let's be honest, just for operational money. You know, like they're going to investigate something like a tram or, you know, some kind of subway or something that they're pretty sure is not going to get funded.
Norm Murdock [:But let's do a study because we can maybe get a couple million bucks in the house, hire a couple of college kids and some professors, and then, you know, make a little money for the planning commission. So what is going on in Ohio? People have never let this go. At one point, there was a public private partnership being proposed for something called the 3C railway, and it was going to connect Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. There's currently a proposal of something that basically looks like an X, and it would be the three Cs going from Southwest to northeast, and then there would be something like an X that would connect Toledo and say, Lima with say, Parkersburg, West Virginia or something, so that you get basically service from the northwest down to the southeast part of the state.
Brett Johnson [:So at any rate, does that X cross in Columbus?
Norm Murdock [:Yes.
Brett Johnson [:Okay. Okay. Okay.
Norm Murdock [:And so.
Brett Johnson [:So we're going to benefit from that if it were to happen. Okay. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:That's just one of the proposed maps. Okay. It's not final.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:So the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission which would cover the central 10 or 12 counties of Ohio. They did a question answer discussion amongst the insiders this past week about a putative railway, public railway project. And they're not calling it a bullet train or anything. And I just, you know, I think it's a stillborn thing, especially under this administration, given the federal monies and state monies that have been spent in places like California where they have the train to nowhere that basically runs from like Merced to, to Modesto. And they've built, I don't know, a few dozen miles of this thing and basically nobody can ride it. It ends in the middle of space with just, you know, like a cut off overhead. And so I think something around $2 billion has been spent on that and nothing like it's never going to reach fruition in our lifetime. And there doesn't seem to be in Ohio a demand for that.
Norm Murdock [:So they're studying it. I guess I would just, I don't know, I'm very skeptical that, that they believe it would ever happen. And it seems to me like a make work thing and getting people excited about. Because they, they, you know, trains have their own built in advocacy groups and it gets them very excited. They think we're going to have a maglev system where the train floats magnetically above rails or some other kind of Japanese or French bullet train technology. It's just not going to happen. There aren't that many Bengals fans that want to go to Cleveland or vice versa on a Sunday to make the economics of this make any sense.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, I think it would be interesting for sure. I, I don't. Economically though, I don't think so either. I mean, for us, we are so car driven here in, in Ohio that for, for me to, if it were, if it existed, it would definitely have to cut off the time from point. From point A to point B. Yeah. And I don't know what that is. So let's say, you know, for us to go to Columbus, to Cleveland, basically over two hours.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Okay.
Norm Murdock [:Roughly.
Brett Johnson [:Roughly.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:I don't know. Is the point. Is that pain point? Okay. If I can get there in an hour, I don't know. Then once I get there, how do I go where I need to go? Go go where I need to go.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:Okay.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:I know this would be all answered with this. I get that. Because then all of a sudden you get these hubs built up at point A to point B and they take care of you to get going. But it's that mindset again. I'm older I, you know, then. And then a 20 year old that maybe is like, this is exciting. I would love it. I don't have a car.
Brett Johnson [:I would love to go to Cleveland more often. I'd love to go. Since I'm, or even I would jump on this, I would do it. And they, they have a different lifestyle. Again, it's not an old versus young. I didn't mean to position it that way, but it's that once you have your years in, of independence, of driving, you kind of, you like it, you know, but, but I'm open to, I think it's an interesting idea. But, but it's like, but, but you got, you know, again, it's a lot of money to investigate what it is that maybe probably isn't really going to happen. We've been kicking this around forever.
Norm Murdock [:Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing.
Brett Johnson [:Oh my gosh.
Norm Murdock [:There were passenger rail services between all these cities in Columbus, including small towns. There was. So, you know, just to give an example, out in Licking county for Granville and Alexandria and Johnstown, these little tiny, you know, towns of say, you know, go back 100 years and say, you know, 500 families, you know, maybe lived in each of those three towns. You know, a hundred years ago. They had light rail, they had trolley service on rails from these cities into Columbus a hundred years ago. And as Brett just mentioned, the automobile. Right. So trains put Ohio's canal system out of business.
Norm Murdock [:Okay. The automobile and later on buses put train service out of business in Ohio. Why? Because when you get to your destination, if you're a salesperson or if you have kids at daycare or vacationing, or you want to pick up a few sticks of lumber at Home Depot or Lowe's, you need your own vehicle. Right. And so it's just for multiple reasons, not to mention privacy, maybe talking business or talking to your spouse on your phone while you're driving. Not up to your ear, but hands free, for God's sakes. Right. And.
Norm Murdock [:Or listening to your favorite music. Music at any decibel level you choose.
Brett Johnson [:So true.
Norm Murdock [:You know, I mean, there are a lot of reasons why people want their privacy. And if, if this made sense, if there was enough demand for it would.
Brett Johnson [:Have been here already. You're right.
Norm Murdock [:Amtrak. Well, not Amtrak because that's public, but you know, CNO or, or Baltimore and Ohio or, you know, some private Warren Buffett who owns all these trains would jump in with both feet and say, oh, there's an untapped market here. Yeah, but guess what? They're not.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, it's not enough. Now the one. While we were talking about this, I was thinking about this. Okay, so why, why doesn't. And I understand why they're trying to connect the three C's in Ohio. We're going to deep dive into this a little bit deep here for this. But it's easy to go up 71 if you're familiar with Ohio. So.
Brett Johnson [:But it's. But let's take the reverse. That's why. But they want to build it along 71 because you have that corridor so you can build a train along there or whatever. Electro train, whatever. Okay, so let's talk about a city that is hard to get to. It's not the straight line. Chicago.
Brett Johnson [:If you build something to Chicago that might make some, make some sense. Maybe, maybe. You know, because not that I, I don't know if we have a ton of business between Columbus and Chicago, but.
Norm Murdock [:I would bet, I bet we do.
Brett Johnson [:But it's not a straight line to Chicago.
Norm Murdock [:Not at all.
Brett Johnson [:If you could do now that would be a hundred years in the making for all the rights and the, you know, to get, get a straight line there. But, but Chicago makes sense if you think about it, you know, or even if it's a Cleveland to Chicago kind of feel to. It may not be a straight line, but if you're saving now that point, if it takes six hours probably I don't know how long it takes Columbus to Chicago, but if you shave off three hours of a six hour drive, well it would. That's doable. That's doable.
Norm Murdock [:There is a proposed i73 between Chicago, basically Toledo, which would connect you to i80, i90 which takes you right to Chicago.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:So i73 has been proposed and it would go basically from Toledo, Detroit area all the way down to Myrtle beach and that. And because there is no good way to get there.
Brett Johnson [:That's true.
Norm Murdock [:From Columbus.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:You know, there is not a diagonal highway that gets you into north or South Carolina really easily because of the Appalachian Mountains chopping everything.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah.
Norm Murdock [:There's a highway being proposed and it's been proposed also for about 40 years.
Brett Johnson [:That's the thing we want this immediately is like folks, it's not going to be in our lifetimes. It just is not. I mean it takes decades for this stuff. But it may be the future. Who knows. But yeah, you know, at this point in time it's one of those why do we keep throwing money at that, at that idea where maybe there's different ideas and it could be talked about, I don't know. But it's one of those Chicago. That makes sense.
Norm Murdock [:Want to, want to do a couple of quick. Yeah, yeah. If you'll permit.
Brett Johnson [:Do it.
Norm Murdock [:The Columbus Dispatch came out today with an article. The Ohio Department of Education says 1 in 4 Ohio children in primary or secondary school are truant. And they define truancy as if you miss 10% of school days, they consider you to be chronically absent. That is truant. And they're trying to figure out why, what to do about it, et cetera. But I think hanging that out there, the exact number was 25.1% of Ohio's school children fall in that category, which is cataclysmic. I mean, for the future of the workforce here in Ohio.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah. Well I can give you an. I can give you a resolution of that. You hold the parents accountable.
Norm Murdock [:Well, there.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry, parents. But that just kind of, kind of your obligation to get your kids to school.
Norm Murdock [:But that just begs again, how do you do that?
Brett Johnson [:I know, I know. And that's going to be economical, right? It's going to be. You're going to be fine. So you know. I know. And it's it that opens up a cold can of worms.
Norm Murdock [:I get it. Which we, which I think is fodder for discussion.
Brett Johnson [:I think.
Norm Murdock [:So we'll get into.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Maybe, maybe bring in somebody from the department education. A couple other things. In Canal Winchester, there was a three year old who fatally shot himself with a boyfriend's gun of the mother. And just, you know, I just want. The only reason I bring that up is so I live, I live with no minor children in my house. So there are no minor children. All of my guns are under lock and key, including from myself. Okay.
Norm Murdock [:Because I'm concerned about a child visiting my house. Right. My relatives or neighbor kid. And you know, kids are clever. And this kid found this gun stuffed between a mattress and a wall. The mother says she put it there so that he would not find it, but he did find it. And so they need to go into a safe or a lockbox that only the parents and only the adults in the house have the code for. And I just, you know, because obviously the mother obviously thought what she did was enough and now she's charged with involuntary manslaughter of her three year old.
Norm Murdock [:So just throwing that out there, that's a lesson for all of us. And a third thing. And then I'm done with local news. But there was a franchise that had Started to spread in central Ohio and elsewhere called Hot Chicken Takeover. And these restaurants were staffed by recently released ex cons as their first job after being released from prison. And as you can imagine, having a felony on your head, on your resume, almost always will lead to a turndown like you're trying to get a job. And these are the people who we really do not want to have be recidivist and go back into prison. We want them to succeed.
Norm Murdock [:We want them to earn the American dream and to experience it. And it was kind of a miracle to go to one of these restaurants. I really like them and, and I went there specifically to, you know, do business with this franchise under the philosophy. And you could talk to the, the staff there, the cashier, the cooks, the people busing tables, and you just say, hey, not to be nosy. If you're willing to talk about it, can you tell me, are you one of the people recently come out of prison and this is your job? And to a person, they say how much they loved working there. They were drug tested every week as part of their employment. They were not fired if they, they were not immediately fired if they tested positive. They were then put into a rebound program by the employer.
Norm Murdock [:And so the local guy and the husband, wife team, I think, started this, were bought out by private equity. And it was the private equity company, I think about a year later now, said it's unsustainable and they closed it down, which is a real shame.
Brett Johnson [:It is a shame. Yeah. I mean, it seems to be the MO for private equities. They just squeeze the money out of it until it, until it just dies. So hopefully somebody sees that model, hopefully the, the, the, the previous owners can, can model this and showcase how to do this with other industries. That would be nice. I, hopefully they're going out there teaching how this can be done and actually make money. You know, I mean, obviously you own a restaurant and you're doing this, you want to make money.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Because you got to pay your employees and you want to be able to live too. And all the while you're doing something really great.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. This was a fabulous idea and I regret to see it gone. And, and I would just reach out, you know, here on the electronic airwaves to other employees. You know, whether you're landscaping or a restaurant or you're a roofer or whatever kind of manual labor kind of company you are, or maybe something you can train people to do in a, in a office environment. You know, it is in inmates after all that I'M told, do a lot of our airline reservations, which is pretty wild to think about. So there is a prison industry. It's when they get out. Right.
Norm Murdock [:That's when they really need help.
Brett Johnson [:Right, exactly, exactly, exactly. And please think about that. And as Steve would say, a majority of them are probably just good people that made a mistake. They made a mistake and they're still good hearted and they, they, they, they want to turn their lives around. Yeah, yeah. They screwed up. So, you know, that sort of thing. Some good, some bads.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, I am. I'm going to throw away my loser of the week because I want to end on a really positive note. I know, I know Brett and Steve would both like this and I don't know if. Did you see the speech given at the Charlie Kirk Memorial by his widow Erica?
Brett Johnson [:A little bit of it. I didn't watch most of it.
Norm Murdock [:No, that's okay. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't a test. I mean it was five hours, folks. It was a hell of a show.
Brett Johnson [:That was. Yeah. And more. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:She did something which, I mean that to me this was the high point, if you will, morally of the memorial service. So she just lost her husband at the time of her speech 11 days prior. Okay. And she said after building up to this that her husband would want this and that her Lord and savior Jesus did this when he was dying on the cross. Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do. So he's talking about the people who had put, had decreed he had to die on the crucifix. Right. She said in her remarks through a wall of tears that I forgive the young man who assassinated her husband Charlie.
Norm Murdock [:So I. Look, I don't know, I, I'm a, I'm a fallen person. I don't have that in me. But I'm going to try to be more like that. I will aspire to having such forgiveness in my heart and just say what a incredible example, what an over the top example of true Christianity that she has displayed and it continues to display in calling for. And she's not saying he shouldn't be tried and punished, but she is saying that she forgives him.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:Which is unbelievable.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Especially 11 days after that that, you know, that that's, that's some, definitely some soul searching to. And, and she's realizing too that helps her move on to the next stuff that needs to happen in her life as well too because. Yeah. I mean my father was Washington killed in an auto accident. It took me a couple of Years to really forgive that woman that, you know, it was not intentional, but, you know, obviously there's pain there. So it takes, I would suggest, you know, any pain, any forgiving you have to do respect the journey. It may not be 11, you know, the week after, it may be years, but at least allow yourself to, to let it happen because it is unburdening when you do.
Brett Johnson [:It just is. It is. But boy, allow the process to happen. I mean, I think it's really good to. And I love your point, Norman. It was, I think, reiterated a lot as well too. Is forgiven doesn't necessarily mean that that forgives. It allows them to not be punished.
Brett Johnson [:That's totally different. It's totally. The forgiven stuff is for you, for you. Usually the recipient doesn't care, maybe never has, never hears. It's more for you and then let the process happen of whatever happens outside of it. So. No, I totally agree. That's pretty amazing that she can, I, I, I hope that, that, that, that helps her, you know, get where she needs to be.
Brett Johnson [:The next step, the next step and really focus on, on, on their family.
Norm Murdock [:And like I've said many times on the show, and I, and I do mean this in a, in a moral way, I do love everybody. And she said that in her speech that love is always the answer. It's always the answer. Hate is never the answer. Love is always the answer to conflict. And if you can sit down and deal with your enemies knowing in your heart that you love them as other human beings, even if you're at war with them. Right. That there is a path forward if you can recognize the humanity in other people, despite the level of agitation, upset and even war between you.
Norm Murdock [:Because after all, who does the peace treaties, people that are at war with each other do peace treaties. We don't do peace treaties with, say, France. We do peace treaties with, you know, Japan and Germany after World War II. Right. So that is the nature of healing, is it is between people that you have great conflict with, not people you agree with. That takes almost no effort.
Brett Johnson [:Right, exactly. Exactly. And realize too, and we'll end the show with this as well too, is that, you know, if you're giving that grace to that person across the table, they're giving you the same. So that's, that's kind of a gift as well too, knowing. Okay, you're accepting me as a, as.
Norm Murdock [:A human, or at least you're calling them to do that.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:If. And if they can't or won't. Okay, okay, you tried.
Brett Johnson [:You tried. You tried. I mean, you know, we've been trying to exemplify that here at the round table at Common Sense Ohio for, you know, years now that just. We disagree on some things, but it's okay. We're here for discussion, to bring up different things, and we learn from each other, so allow that to happen.
Norm Murdock [:After Jesus said, lord God, forgive them, for they know not what they do. It wasn't like the Pharisees all came out of the, out of the temple and said, gee whiz, thanks for forgiving us, and we're really sorry about this. Take him down off that cross. Let's heal him up. No, that's not what happened.
Brett Johnson [:No, no.
Norm Murdock [:You know, so, you know, it doesn't always. You're not always going to get a loving response. You do it anyway. Yeah, that's the hard part.
Brett Johnson [:Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, hopefully that left you with a. A good feeling and, and, and marching forward. What to think about today. Exactly. So thanks for joining us.
Brett Johnson [:We'll be back next week. Probably three of us, let's hope. If not, you'll have two for Common Sense Ohio. Have a good week.
