The final J.D. Vance/Tim Ryan debate - racist accusations, and are debates worth anyone's time?

17-year-old girl shot in Short North/Columbus Ohio is the fourth teen slain in Columbus in less than a weekWhy is the death toll for teenagers so high? Have we now "handcuffed" our police so they can't be on the streets to help prevent shootings?

Another teenager story. New Miami high school coach pleads guilty to sexual contact charges with a student.

Customers receive help with grocery costs at conservative-backed ‘inflation' event. Did GOP buy votes?

Another Columbus-named area in Columbus, OH to be renamed. Christopher Columbus Park in Italian Village appears headed for a name change to Warren Park.

4 masked and armed teenagers were allowed to enter school in Cleveland.

A salute to Judge Henry Shaw. In 1968, he began serving the citizens of Delaware County as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. From 1970-1976, he was the county's Prosecuting Attorney, and he took office as a Judge of the Common Pleas Court, General Division, in 1976. He served 27 years in this capacity until his retirement in 2003, making him the longest-serving General Division Common Pleas Judge in Delaware County history.

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 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.

Copyright 2024 Common Sense Ohio

Steve: Alright, here we are. It is October 19. I guess we can start calling it close, uh, to Halloween. So we're in the harvest moon phase of the year. Uh, and we are back with another common sense Ohio slash lawyer talk roundtable episode. Why do I say slash? Well, because, uh, for those who have tuned in and it looks from the numbers like millions of those across the globe have tuned in, then you know that we are making a transition here at the show. We are creating Common Sense Ohio, a brand new show founded, uh, on the old show, founded on the uh, Lawyer Talk Roundtable series and ideas to take uh, what's going on in Ohio as a launching pad to discuss the broader topics that we were discussing. Anyway, at the roundtable, we're just going to be a little more, uh, surgical, uh, about it and a little more calculated about it, a little more organized about it, so we can bring the kind of content, the kind of philosophical debate, the kind of political debate, the kind of common, um, sense debate that, uh, you've come to enjoy out of the roundtable. And that doesn't mean that my Lawyer Talks show is going to go by the way of the dodo, as my grandmother used to say. Uh, it's still there, the Q and A's are still piling up. I'm just busy, man. I promise I'll get to them. But, uh, yes, the Q and A's coming, the breakdowns are coming. I got a big plan, uh, for next summer, uh, and I'll just give you a little, uh, hint. I might be going rogue. I'll tell you what that means later, but it does think mobile. But anyway, uh, we are here at Commonsense, Ohio, down at the Channel Five One One, studio C at Channel Five One One at the round table we got Norm and Brett, the founding, uh, co members of Common Sense Ohio, and uh, what's going on with Common Sense? What common sense can be employed to discuss Ohio today. Nor is over there writing, uh, furiously, but I think right out of the shoot there was a big debate last night. We had JD. Vance, uh, taking it on last night. Norman, did you watch the debate?

Norm: I did.

Brett: Terrible.

Norm: Um, I hate people casting aspersions, especially about implying somebody, uh, is racist. It's just the lowest, sleaziest thing you can do, i, uh, think in politics, other than, well, I don't know if there's anything lower, actually, um, terrible. I remember one time when my dad was, uh, campaigning for US. Congress and he was a defense attorney like you, Steve. Uh, I'm, uh, sorry for him. Yeah, he had some rather unsavory clients. Isn't it amazing that when you're a criminal defense attorney, occasionally your clients aren't, uh, the most standup, uh, kinds of, uh, people. But under our constitutional system, they're entitled to a vigorous defense. That's how we make sure only guilty people go to the hookah. At any rate, in that debate, my father's opponent accused my father of perhaps partaking in the illegal activities of his client to try to smear him, when actually, of course, he was just an attorney defending an unsavory client. So these debates where, uh, you try to dirty up your opponent instead of talking about the issues that the people really care about, uh, that's what drives me crazy about it. And, of course, the moderators, a lot of times, fall into the junk food kinds of questions. What do you think about I call it disparagingly the BLTQ, uh, coalition, which isn't a coalition, of course. It's just a way to talk down to people and if they ask them about questions, complete, irrelevancies things that people like to rail about on social media, but have nothing at all to do with governing the country. And so that happened last night. Uh, tim Ryan implied that JD. Vance, um, is aligned with people who think that there is some kind of cabal amongst, uh, Jewish financiers internationally, uh, tied together Jewish financiers who are deliberately trying to ruin America by allowing, um, untold millions of migrants to, uh, illegally enter the country. And the idea is to destroy the middle class and the bilderberg society or whoever is going to then take over. It's just ridiculous that people think anything like that. Now, do we have unfettered illegal immigration? Yes, we do. Is it because of does, uh, JD. Vance, or anybody with any common sense think that there's an international Jewish cabal? And of course, the implication is that you're a Nazi or a Hitler right. Or something. And of course he doesn't think that. Of course, I don't think nobody thinks that that's rational that has any kind of tether to reality. But that's what Tim Ryan was trying to paint j. D. Vance as some kind of bigot, as somebody doesn't like brown people. And surprise, JD. Vance is married to a brown person, and Nor Murdoch's a brown person. And brown people are all over our society, and it has nothing to do with anything.

Steve: Uh, but, Norm, you're successful, and Abbey, so you can't be one of those.

Norm: Yeah, JD's wife went to Yale with him. So what? None of it. And rightfully JD. Was incensed. What's good that a lot of politicians won't do? And this is where he gave a master's class to other Republicans on how to deal with something like this, is he got angry. He showed real emotion. He didn't lose it, but he showed that this isn't a debate society, like a point counterpoint kind of thing, and be real cool and be a little Mitch Romney about it or just ultra smooth about it. No, he acted rightfully indignant, and he should have.

Steve: Well, there's a couple of things that made me, uh, a couple of things you said that gave me some thoughts. I remember probably my sophomore year in college. I don't know if it be sophomores and freshman anymore, but my sophomore year in college, uh, I took a class, and I eventually almost got my philosophy minor, but I didn't quite get there. I don't know what I probably fell short like everything else, but, uh, I did have a class in logic. And I took a class, um, as a sort of a precursor to philosophy. And later on, I took Latin and some other classics and read a bunch of that stuff. And the value of that just pays off over and over and over again. Because what you're describing here is something I learned early in my education. It's called a logical fallacy. And one of the logical fallacies, there's a whole host of them, but one of the top ones that people today, perhaps more than ever, make and commit is an ad hominem attack. The idea that we're going to attack the character of the person rather than their argument or their position. And therefore, uh, they would say nothing else that they do or say, or the reasoning behind the argument is inherently flawed. And this is really be the, um, dark secret behind this wokeism. Because if you have said something or done something or been a bad person at one point in your life, then these people would conclude, therefore, that anything you say now is meritless. And that's just not true. And I saw Trump deal with this all the time. Trump could say something that made perfect sense, but nobody would ever do it or believe it, or give him any credit for it, because he was Trump and they hated him. And the perfect example, and I didn't agree with Trump on this necessarily, was the vaccination program Trump rolled out. It was under Trump's watch that all this happened. And I don't think that's necessarily a great thing. I never have. But the people on the left were saying, even Kamala Harris said I'll never get the vaccine. I think she said it on stage, I'm not going to get it, because Trump created it. Um, and later on, when she took power, when Biden took power, you had to get it or you'd get arrested. That might be a little extreme, but it was close. Um, the point is that they attack the man, not the logic. And when you do that, it's called an ad hominem attack. It's a character assassination. I dealt with it recently in a legal brief I wrote, where the prosecutor on the other side basically accused me of intentionally misleading the court by misdating facts, which was total, unadulterated nonsense. And I handled it, Norm, the way JD would have handled it. I said, Listen, this is nonsense. It's barely worthy of a reply. But since it's related to the argument I'm trying to make, then I think we need to reply. And the argument I made in response, and this is what JD should and could, and probably will do is that, look, you don't have an answer to my logic here, so you've got to resort to an ad hominem attack. You have to attack me as a person, because you know that you're wrong and you don't have an answer to the things I'm saying. So you're resorting to this sort of, um, red herring character assassination. Red herring being another logical policy, meaning you take one example out of the many and use that as the basis, uh, for attacking my position. So at one time in my entire career, I've said something that doesn't make sense, then you're saying everything else I say doesn't make sense. Right. Uh, it's a red herring argument. That's sort of what, uh, Tim Ryan did to Vance. And I agree. Vance was appropriately upset. He was appropriately incensed by it, but under control at the same time. Um, and, you know, maybe he maybe the Republican Party and maybe both political parties could take a cue from Trump on this is that, um, one thing Trump did that none of his predecessors ever did is if somebody called Moracus, he'd come right back over the top. Right. Or somebody said, you don't care about women, he'd come right back over the top. He wouldn't go cower in the corner at the threat or the fear of being labeled. So we've said, down here, we are uncancellable, because I really don't care. I really don't care. Uh, I'm going to try to speak the truth the best I can down here. We're going to try to employ common sense the best we can down here, and we're going to try to get people the best content. And you know what? If we make a mistake, we'll own it.

Brett: Yeah, exactly. Well, it's funny we should have rolled tape on this, but I threw a bomb in here, what, a few weeks ago, talking about the validity of debates, and we should have recorded, because we talked for 45 minutes about this. Both you and Norm are both on different sides of this, depending on where and what. I think this is a good example of the softball odd hominem stuff that's all this debate could do. Is that so? Again, it did not push the agenda, did not push the conversation. All it was softball this, softball that had nothing to do with anything.

Norm: Right. You're a racist. No, I'm not. You're a racist. No, I'm not. No, you're a racist. No, I'm not. No.

Brett: Elementary play school.

Norm: Exactly.

Brett: The playground.

Norm: Right. Talk.

Steve: Yes. Uh huh.

Brett: Uh, so are you back at you look in the mirror? Yeah.

Norm: At one point, Tim Ryan said, oh, I think I'm really getting to this guy. And he said it with his gleeful look on his face. He looked at the audience like, hey, I'm really getting to this guy, because JD. Reacted emotionally. It's like, wow, what a child. I really don't want you to be senator. If you take such pleasure in amping somebody else up by upsetting them through, uh, a disparaging comment. Like, you really got to them. That's something you do, maybe a fraternity, when you're hazing somebody.

Steve: Yeah.

Norm: What the hell is that got to.

Steve: Do with the Senate debate advance in his situation? Look, I say he was in sensing, um, he was appropriately, uh, put off by it. But I always say this in a courtroom when I'm making an argument. If somebody sees me upset and I made this mistake recently in a trial, even after doing this for 27 years, if somebody sees me emotional, if somebody sees me upset in a courtroom, it better be because I want to put on because I did it on purpose. I didn't lose control. I didn't just let my emotions run amok. And one, uh, commentator, guy named Mackleheny, on evidence he used to write for the American Bar Association, he said, never let mongo out of the bag. Mango being like your inner emotional anger come out because usually you lose a little bit of control that way, and it goes too far. And rarely is it compelling when somebody gets angry and starts shouting. Really? When you had Ryan saying, uh huh, I got to him. What he didn't realize is that he's not winning that debate by saying stuff like that, but, uh, he sort of caught up in that moment, in the emotion of it, saying, now I got him. Uh, uh, and he's making the point that Vance was trying to make a response like, all you have is this. This is BS. This is like, why don't you address the issues instead of this nonsense? Right? And the other thing I like to do in those types of arguments is, like, what are you really trying to say here? Are you calling me a racist? Is that what you're really trying to do? Because I don't know of any example you can point to in my entire life where I have been a racist, where I've acted with a racist attitude or done anything, uh, truly racist. So why don't we just get to the heart of what you're trying to accuse me of doing? And then I should ask you, Mr. Ryan, why would you go there instead of talking about this issue, which really matters, right? Because you have no evidence that I'm a racist. And fine, call me. Go out there and spew your nonsense. But at least here today, on this stage, let's talk about this.

Steve: The other thing, we should probably just staying on the debate for a second. Um, you had Ryan talking about, uh, basically what you have is two things. You had on the Van side I'll start there. If on the Vance side, you can almost feel like he's trying to distance himself a little bit from the Trump effect that Trump was his backer. And you had Ryan accusing him of kissing Trump's backside. And then on the other side, you had Ryan, you have Vance accusing Ryan of sort of saying, look, um, all you've ever done is go along with the establishment. Uh, you voted 100% in favor of all this far left, uh, agenda. And now here you are saying that you don't really support it. And, you know, on both sides, politicians not to get to, um, yes, to get a little biblical about it, politicians should maybe reference, uh, the good book a time or two and do what they say and not, uh, say things that they're not doing. You know, judge people based on their words, uh, or on their actions instead of their words. And, you know, I think it's really easy, it's almost cherry picking, but in a good way. Bands can just sit back and say, look, Ryan, you can spew this nonsense in your hometown and say that you support what all these people believe because all these people left your party when all the craziness happened. All these the working class, uh, of this country the middle class left because they didn't want this agenda. And you can act like you're not part of that agenda, that you're taking it on, that you're a new type of Democrat, which is really like a traditional type of Democrat, but you voted for this policy every single time. And he's like, well, nah, uh, because I took on Pelosi is, whatever. Well, you lost, and now you voted for the policy every single time. Right? Um, and then on the van side, he had a little bit of this. He had to take some hits here, too, because, you know, he said some stuff about Trump, and he's gotten on the Trump train. And I think Vance's best argument to that is, look, Trump supported me, and I supported a lot of what Trump proposed. Uh, and there's other things about Trump. I didn't like it. He needs to be honest about that, because I think he is, I think.

Norm: That'S how he is. Well, Vance is metamorphizing before our very eyes. And I knew this would happen. It's not really a criticism of him. He came in freshfaced, uh, successful author, pretty young attorney, caught up in, uh, uh, the big finance world with, uh, his clients, as, you know, an investor. Um, and I kind of, you know so he's a neophyte. JD. Vance has never been dog catcher.

Brett: Uh, he's second time on stage, right?

Norm: Yeah, he's never been never been in office. Early during the primary, he said some things to set himself apart from professional politicians, I'll put it that way. Or, uh, your traditional institutional establishment politicians. On the Republican side, for example, he said on abortion, no exceptions, including rape and incest. He has now modified that. And in the debates, he was very clear that he now thinks there ought to be an exception for, uh, rape and incest. So he has what's Obama's term? Oh, he's evolved. I've watched that, I've noted it. JD. He's metamorphizing a little bit. He's also, in both debates, he has mentioned Rob Portman's endorsement at least eight times. And obviously, what he's trying to do is appeal to the middle. He's trying to because Rob Portman is obviously a rhino. He is, he's a rhino. And he voted for a lot of the progressive, uh, uh, agenda. He was amongst the five or six Republicans that would go over and help Chuck Schumer create a, uh, majority to pass various legislative items. And he's been part of that group of Republicans that is very disappointing, uh, to conservatives like myself. So JD. In order to appeal to those voters, however, has noted several times that Rob Portman has endorsed him. And obviously, he's been told by pollsters that there's a certain following, there's a certain group of people, if you will, suburban mothers that don't want to hear this ultra conservative kind of philosophy. They like the more, um, massaged, more mild, more easier to listen to, softer, kind of, uh, middle of the road, Republican kind of politician. So in the debates, JD. Has done some of that. He has kind of, uh, changed his message a little bit. But that's classic. Richard Nixon always said, in the primary, you run to the right. In the general election, you run to the middle. That's classic. And JD. Is following the playbook, because, after all, if he is going to exercise power as a conservative, he's got to get elected, right? He's got to get elected.

Brett: No matter what politician, left or right, you've got to get elected.

Steve: You got to get elected. So this is sort of another I don't call it fallacy, but it's another interesting concept. It ends just by the means. Do you become a flipper? Uh, because somewhere there's dishonesty, right, at some point.

Norm: But if you say you've changed your.

Steve: Mind yeah, but that's probably dishonest.

Norm: Not necessarily because you're publicly saying that. You're saying, I've reviewed this issue, and upon further thought, I now think this, that's okay, that's true. Well, he said it out loud, but is it true?

Steve: And I'm not calling him a liar.

Norm: Uh, why would you so if you're backed by Ohio Right to Life and you're backed by the entire movement, the pro life movement, why would you now say unless you truly believe it?

Steve: Because you've already got those people. Uh, this is what upset me about.

Norm: Trump already had his well, no, the election hasn't happened yet. So actually, you don't have those people. Uh, you are now saying, what are.

Steve: They going to vote for somebody's favorite abortion?

Norm: Well, exactly. But you're also tempering your position. You're not being as absolutist as you were before. And I'm, um, merely pointing out that his position has evolved.

Steve: It has evolved.

Norm: And whether that's a I don't think that's dishonest. I think he's honestly saying that how.

Steve: Can you you're saying, what's the motivation? Yeah, I'm saying for Nixon reasons, it's evolved. All right. So when I was over here, I was going to say when I was running the primary, I was going to say no exceptions, not even for rape and incest. And I realized then, and my commentators are telling me that once I got that, once I got through that hurdle, now I can back my foot off the gas pedal on that one a little bit, and I'm going to push over to the middle here where I know most of the people are going to favor abortion and rape and incest scenarios. So I'm just convenient for, like, the Mormon.

Norm: I got you. But now you're talking about motivation to change his opinion. The honest thing is he did change his opinion, and he so stated what would have been dishonest, right. Would have been for him, for example, this legislation, um, that's pending that Biden wants to put through, um, to, uh, codify Roe v. Wade. What would be dishonest is if JD. Didn't tell us that he changed his position and would later vote for some kind of bill that would allow an exception for rape and incest. He has told us before the election, before people voted, for sure enough. That's what I'm saying.

Steve: That is honest dishonest.

Norm: Well, I don't know if it's dishonest.

Steve: It might be disingenuous to say I changed my mind out of logic and reason. Well, Steve, at least he has said he has changed his mind and now states his position.

Norm: Well, you're a better man than me if you can figure out, uh, people's intentions and motives.

Steve: I said, I'm not accusing a liar, but it looks awful fishy.

Norm: Nixon I don't know that it is fishy. I think what it looks like to me is he probably talked to a lot of women, a lot of moms, a lot of rape victims, and perhaps realized that it could be realized that.

Brett: Perhaps let's hope he did that's.

Steve: Right. Like I said, I'm not telling him a liar when I use the word Nixon. I'm using your analogy. Like Nixon says, run to the right and then run to the session. Nixon and I mean, it's fishy in the sense that if it is true that he has had legitimate conversations, he has legitimate, uh, discussions with those who have changed his mind out of common sense, logic, and experience and reason, then so be it. And I agree with you 100% that unlike somebody who would be what I would call a liar, at least we know his position up front before you cast your vote. Exactly.

Norm: Um, that's all I'm saying.

Steve: And Biden did the opposite of this. I'm Mr. Nice Guy. Mr. Senator road. Mr. Uh, unite the country. Then he comes in with a far left agenda the likes of which we have never seen, and he does it with a pen. And he doesn't even do it with the legislative branch. He did with executive orders. Right. And everybody's like, wait a minute. He was supposed to be non controversial. And here we got this lunatic, um, issuing all sorts of edicts. Yeah, it came out of left field. We didn't run on that.

Norm: Yeah, we're on the same page.

Steve: Exactly.

Norm: I talked a little bit about, uh, violence here in Columbus. That, uh, is very troubling. Um, over the weekend, I almost stopped and pulled over and had a cry. I heard this story on local radio and then researched it online a little bit. A, uh, girl in the Short North, 17 years old, is shot in a park, gets in her car, drives herself to the hospital, and then succumbs that dies from the gunshot. When I thought to myself, OK, I need to figure this out. Why is a child getting shot? Ah. How often does this happen? What's going on? I heard it was 114th homicide in Columbus, Ohio, this year. So far. The year is far from over.

Brett: Right. With the holidays coming up, we got.

Norm: A ways to go. Yeah. So 17 year old girl. I get online, I duck. Duck, go Google, uh, whatever search engine you folks out there can do this yourself and just put in some search terms. Columbus, Ohio, 17. Ah year old girl fatally shot. And up comes story after story after story about other 17 and 15 and 16 year old girls. I think just on the first page. I have it on my computer here. Just on the first page. Three stories about three different girls killed in Ohio. Killed in Columbus. Ohio. In what sound to be like sound to me to be gang. Uh. Or.

Brett: Um.

Steve: Youth.

Norm: Uh. Group. Uh. Kinds of scenarios where they're hanging out or they're with a boyfriend or they're with a gang or doing something in a park or a shopping mall and a gun goes off and a girl gets killed. And I'm thinking to myself, what in the sam hell is going on? Where it becomes a routine story. I mean, 114, right? That means every roughly three days, we have somebody killed in Columbus, Ohio, with a knife, a gun, some kind of intentional, uh, even leaving out opioids, which you could argue that's an intentional, uh, homicide, you know, feeding somebody drugs that you know are going to kill them. But violent homicides, there's just some kind of sickness in our society now where this is like, uh, the tiny little area of the short north where you got people living in million dollar condos now, right down on the sidewalk in front of their buildings, this girl gets shot and drives herself to hospital. What the hell is going on?

Steve: I have seen Facebook video posts of people hanging out on high street at the restaurants and bars, nice restaurants and bars, and you hear that in the background, people getting shot. I mean, it is insane.

Norm: It's insane.

Steve: And it was what Mike Ditch, I think, said this, and it stuck with me forever. Like, uh, you endure what you tolerate, and to some extent, that's what's going on.

Norm: I agree. We are putting up with this, and I hope our police chief, I hope the mayor, who has a latex spine, but I hope he finds his spine. I hope the mayor and the police chief decide, enough is enough. It'll have to go farther. I want to know why a career criminal, uh, who contributed to his own death and, no, a cop shouldn't have put his knee on his neck. He was trained wrong or whatever. Uh, but it's never been proven say.

Steve: He did it on purpose. Take a second.

Norm: Say he did it on purpose. But it was never proven there was any racial animus, uh, by the diverse group of black, Asian, female, and white cops who allegedly led to George Floyd's death. Why did we go through this big, huge exegesis all over the world? What a word. Well, I remember I remember watching a Formula one race in Bahrain in the. Middle east. And you saw Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and all these Formula One stars taking a knee for George Floyd.

Steve: What a bunch of nonsense.

Norm: And then the, um, NBA, the NFL, on and on. What about the 17 year old girl whose name I'm not going to use because she was a minor? But where are all the ministers and where are all the civic leaders? Where's the march for this girl? You have got to be shitting me.

Steve: Let's talk about another logical fallacy since we were on it. It's called a non sequitur. This does not follow. It doesn't follow. One doesn't follow from the other. It's illogical. And the non sequitur here is all right, so George, uh, Floyd died, and maybe even like I said, let's just give it to him on purpose. Shelvin killed him on purpose. And let's just give it one step further. Shaven kill him on purpose because he was a racist asshole. Let's give them all that. It's still a non sequitur. Say we need to defund the police across the world. One doesn't lead to the other. It's a lunacy because it won't solve the problem. It will make the problem worse. And this is the backlash that's coming right now. As a result, the police, the good cops have left the force. The ones that remained are they standing in their car. They're gun shy. They're going to go after the shooting, not before, because they don't want to be accused of anything. This, uh, is like, I'd rather do nothing than do something and screw up. And by definition, when you take the second approach there, you're screwing up anyway. But they're not going to get caught for it. And they're never going to be accused of not abusing somebody or of not arresting somebody. The accusations are going to come when they arrest somebody and there's an accusation that they shouldn't have, or it went too far. I was letting stuff happen.

Norm: I was just in the Short North this weekend for a wedding reception, actually, and, uh, parked in the public lot. Walked down the sidewalk. I didn't see a single police officer on the sidewalk. Nobody patrolling. I don't know what's going on, but it's, uh, like the citizens have been abandoned. And I'm not upset with the regular police, uh, officer, but something in management, something at City Hall is really wrong here. And the fact that these officers now are in fear of themselves going to prison, of being bankrupted, of having to hire their own legal counsel, of not having the backing of, um, the city behind them, the city infrastructure, they're going to have the FPO, uh, FOP, but they're not going to have the city prosecutor and the system behind them anymore. All right? I can understand why they would just report to the scene of a crime after it's happened.

Steve: Now, here's the thing. That's ridiculous. This isn't the first time I've, uh, espoused this opinion. I'm not going to call it wisdom yet, but for 15 years, I went into courtrooms challenging searches and seizures, police conduct, um, uh, things. So if a police stops a car and they made up the reason that they stopped the car and then searched the car. And they made up the reason why they searched the car and found evidence of drugs. We would file something called a motion to suppress. Where we would challenge the search as violative in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the rule or the remedy for that. Going back to a case called Wong Sun.

Brett: Which.

Steve: Uh. Was.

Brett: Uh.

Steve: You get suppression. You throw it out so the prosecutor can't use the illegally seized evidence as a consequence of the unlawful search. For 15 years, I was going into courtrooms filing motions to suppress challenging searches. And I had judges both sides of the aisle, and frankly, around here, uh, just as many Democrats, if not more Democrat judges, not that really matters in the judicial realm, but, um, who would say, not only am I not going to throw this evidence out, counselor, how dare you accuse a police officer of any misconduct? How dare you suggest that this police officer might be lying? How dare you? How dare you? How dare you? And guess what happens? You tolerate or you endure what you tolerate. And they tolerated bad police work. They tolerated, uh, unlawful searches and seizures. So bad cops, even good cops, could get away with things. And then you have the natural backlash of that. You have it goes too far. Because left unfettered on both sides of this debate, uh, it doesn't work. So when everybody was saying, burn down every police department, defund every cop, get rid of them all, start putting social workers or brown shirts out there, I was like, you freaking morons. All you have to do is enforce the rules that we have. That's all you have to do. We have laws, we have rules, we have the Fourth Amendment. Just when the police do something they shouldn't, sting them for it.

Norm: Throw the evidence. Look what the outcome is for our youth. So you have this child, 17 year old child, shot and killed in a park because the police are basically being told to stand down. You have people like Kyle Rittenhouse, how I believe he was 17 at the time those incidents took place. You have him out there with a long rifle, patrolling the streets during a riot to try to safeguard a private property with the agreement of the private property, uh, owner who basically had an unpaid contract with Kyle Rittenhouse to watch after his parking lot where his, uh, dealership was, instead of the police doing that job. This is what happens. Our children are being victimized by our what did you call it, Steve? Our acceptance. You get what you accept.

Steve: You endure what you tolerate.

Norm: That's right. We are tolerating this. And who is paying the price, not me and you, largely because we have the common sense to stay out of a park late at night. But a 17 year old child who may live down in that neighborhood may not have anywhere else to go, and may not have the common sense to know she shouldn't be in that park at dark, and she's paying the price.

Steve: Look at the law of unintended consequences. So we think that we're going to allow a riot in Columbus, because that's what it was. This wasn't an organized, uh, march where they had applied for permits, whatever. They shut down High Street, took over private businesses. By saying took over, I mean, you couldn't get in and out of your own business. I was down here, and they were running around South High Street, and I was contemplating, do I board up my windows in my building, or do I not? Um, and the city allowed it. And guess what happens as a result of that? People get hurt. It's like people get run over inadvertently. People are out there when they shouldn't be and get arrested for doing something that was marginal anyway because the police are on edge.

Brett: Right. And then you have people that are infiltrating it for the wrong reason, and.

Steve: Then you have people taking advantage of taking advantage of the situation, intentionally baiting the police or intentionally baiting the rioters.

Brett: Either way or for camera work or just that they were paid to do it. I saw Congress people and women down there in front of cameras getting accidentally shoved by police. It was like, what are you doing down there?

Steve: Why are you down there in the first place?

Brett: Right.

Steve: Yeah. It's like I used to debate with somebody about date, uh, rape. It was like, all right, well, I don't condone date rape ever, of course. But we still have to take some precautions in our lives.

Brett: Right.

Steve: Like, put yourself in a spot where you're drunk late at night doing things. It's like, if I go walk around on the side of the highway at night, I'm more apt to get run over by damn car. It doesn't mean that the person who hit me is innocent. It doesn't mean that I'm guilty.

Norm: Stay out of bad situations.

Norm: For the hazing incident at the university, uh, was it Ohio University?

Steve: Bowling Green.

Norm: Bowling Green, where there was a guy drank a fifth and, uh, died of alcohol.

Steve: It's risky behavior. And look, you could say, well, kitchen Bill, do this. Uh, it's like it's risky behavior. So when you engage in risky behavior, bad things happen. Back to this point, like the city tolerated this nonsense. And because they tolerated it, all these other consequences occurred. Stuff that you never even imagined.

Norm: Well, in the law, Steve, in common law, there's this thing called precedent, okay? And the corrosive part about tolerating, uh, civil disobedience, violent, not peaceful civil disobedience. Violent civil disobedience. So if I go carry a sign and I don't have a permit, and I'm out on the State House lawn, and I, you know, and I carry a sign that says, the world is ending tomorrow, right? And I'm marching around, the State Patrol escorts me the hell off the lawn because I don't have a permit, okay? That's nonviolent. Uh uh, we're talking about violent civil disobedience. And when you tolerate that, the corrosive aspect is it creates a precedent. It creates the idea in those young people are in. The violence will be tolerated. It says, hey, we're going to stand here with our arms folded and our tear gas, uh, canisters nondeployed while we watch you throw a brick through the window of a downtown store and run in there and ransack it, because it's going to look like the man is coming after some kind of, um, oppressed class of people. We don't want that visual on TV, so we're not going to enforce the law. And that becomes corrosive. And now you've got people smashing windows and doing whatever they want in places like Los Angeles that have actually changed their laws or, uh, changed their prosecutorial standards that, uh, unless a crime is worth a certain set amount of money, they will not prosecute those cases.

Steve: Well, a couple of things there. First, this, uh, is coming from somebody who has fought police. And by fight, I mean legitimately in the system of justice.

Norm: On the other side, we all saw SERPENTO. Yeah, there's bad cops.

Steve: I got it not just bad cops. I fought good police work. When they have my client dead, uh, to rights, I go into court.

Norm: That's your job.

Steve: And I battle. That's your job. That's my perspective.

Norm: That's right. I am not beyond a reasonable doubt, correct.

Steve: And I'm not suggesting for a second that I think this is a pro, that I'm taking a pro police stance. I'm not taking an anti police stance. I'm taking a justice, common sense stance.

Norm: A pro civilization stance.

Steve: Right. It is nonsense to say that all police are bad, just as it is nonsense to say that all police are good. What we have, until ten minutes ago in this country, what we had was a system that sort of worked. You had a system where the bad cops with bad police work would be called on it, where there would be a consequence for that bad police work. We let that go in the name of law and order, whatever it was. And, um, I think it was more like fops and money and things. But we, uh, let that go. I fought through that, and I watched these cops get away with stuff, and they're not bad people, right? They're getting away with what they can get away with, and they think they can always come up with a reason to justify it. Look, we're taking bad guys off the street, fine. But then the bad ones slip through the cracks. The really bad cops slip through the cracks. And if you don't address the bad ones, then guess what? They're going to take over just in the opposite way. We're seeing it now. Sure. Uh, on the other side of it now, we can't tolerate bad guys running around the street killing people. We can't do it. And you can't do it in the name of George Floyd or anybody else. It's just not right. Unless something happens, and I think it will. I think there is a backlash that is coming, and I think it's coming really hard. I think it's coming this way.

Brett: It'll be the businesses of Short North. It'll be a business pushback going, mayor, get something done because you're costing me money now. Right? People are not coming to this area to this area because of the shooting.

Steve: It's no longer just rhetoric. It's actually in their back. It's in their business.

Brett: It's in their business. It's economical push, and it always comes down to money. It does, really.

Steve: Ultimately, it does. I've said this before that I could tolerate not that's not the right word. You could have an entire police force full of racist, admitted, card carrying clan members, and if you enforce the damn rules, it wouldn't make any difference. Now, that's a little bit of an overstatement, but I'm trying to make a point is that you can be a racist police officer and still be, uh, still be kept in check if the courts and the system enforced the rules that were in place. It's not preferable. I'm not arguing for that. So people are going to like, you can easily cut this out and say, I'm a horrible, rotten person supporting race. Scott I'm not. The point is that the system has things, uh, in place, like the exclusionary rule, like the Fourth Amendment, like the, uh, Civil Rights Act. It was built section 19 three. It was designed to address those problems exactly. And you didn't need to fire every single cop and defund every single police force to deal with it. All you have to do is just put in place or, uh, enforce what's already been put in place and instead what they did. I think there's people with a higher agenda. And back to your point, Norm, about property crimes out in California. It's like you just have to wonder, how is it that we, as a governmental body out there anyway, would permit theft of somebody else's property?

Brett: That's in essence what they're saying, you can have it.

Steve: Right. The government is going to let other people take your property. What they're doing is eliminating individual property rights and it's Carl March right across the board. Yes, I made that leap. I did, because that's what Mark said is get rid of individual property rights. Our country, our western system was built the feudal system was built on property.

Norm: Right. Well, it is a values judgment. You are discounting the value of one person, uh, in favor of another person.

Steve: And then they're doing the same thing with rent control.

Norm: Um, uh, if I can, uh, transition along these same lines to another Ohio story involving another 17 year old victim, and again, it's a young female. Um, and this kind of sexualization of, uh, our children is another issue. And I think it's one of the reasons why we're seeing so many young moms run for political office all across the country right now, is CRT sexualization of children. Uh, any number of largely educational and social issues have driven a lot of mothers to, uh, run for office. The governor, for example, the, uh, candidate for the governorship in Arizona, um, the candidate for, um, a, uh, US. Senate, uh, I think in, um was it Maryland or Connecticut? As another young mom, it's quite a thing, and it's one of the untold stories all across the country. So, in New Miami High, uh, school here in Ohio, a 17 year old softball player was victimized by her coach. 31 year old high, um, school teacher coach, um, um, and there's been a spate of these recently where, uh, increasingly it seems that girls are being and young boys, too, are being drawn into, um, sexual scenarios, uh, with, uh, adults. We're seeing, for example, there's kind of a drag show thing these days where parents, um, are being encouraged in various what used to be normal civic organizations are hosting drag dances where they bring in men dressed as women, drag queens, and they put on a show for children. And you're just wondering what could be the positive purpose of that. Uh, when I was little, maybe they bring in a guy dressed as Santa Claus or somebody dressed as a clown.

Steve: Or at least have a puppet show every year.

Norm: I was watching this one where there were young girls in attendance being sexualized by this dancer, uh, who kept repeating the P word, uh, for vagina, you know, just kept singing this song. And you saw these mothers with their children, like, smiling and laughing about how funny it was. And I'm just like, to me, what's going on in our society, every bit.

Steve: Of offensive as the remark Trump made about grabbing the girl's vagina. Right. This is even more offensive because our.

Norm: Own mothers taking them to these shows.

Steve: I'm befuddled I saw the school board meeting, it was in Ohio. But it's along the lines with using again, logically speaking and jumping off, you're using.

Norm: So who's surprised when a coach tries to sexualize her softball?

Steve: Of course.

Norm: Right.

Steve: Right.

Norm: I mean, our whole society is going down the drain.

Steve: You endure what you tolerate the line of the day. But there was this one, this woman, she was showing this clip of this trans guy with, like, a skirt halfway up his backside and showing his you wouldn't tolerate that under any circumstance for a grade school kid. I wouldn't even watch it.

Norm: And Steve, this is something see, this is what's weirding me out, right? And I think this is why, uh, Tulsi Gabbard left the Democratic Party. This used to be the kind of thing protecting children that both parties were 100% square on. Like, you could not find a Democrat who 30 years ago, you could not find one that said, you know what? It's okay to bring in half naked men gyrating around using vulgar language in front of preteen children.

Steve: Who thinks that's?

Norm: Okay? Who thinks that's what kind of a.

Steve: Weirdo what if it's not? What if it's not a man? What if it's a woman? I don't care if it's heterosexual. I don't care if it's transsexual. I don't care if it's gay sexual, straight sexual. I don't want my kid at school doing, uh, it, and I certainly don't want my tax dollars paying for it. It's insanity, right? It's utter insanity.

Norm: I think they're going to be served up a surprise in the election. I saw a new citizen, a Hispanic woman, uh, at a Texas school board meeting, just, uh, freaking out over the subject about, um, the sexualization in, um, the syllabus in the books and in the coursework for her grade school child at some school in Texas, and she was handing it to the school board. It's not your job to teach about birds and bees to a high school student is one thing to a little kid. It's not your job to talk about, uh, other lifestyles, being legitimate or being okay for a two or a second or third grader. That's not your job. Let us parents teach my kid history in math, reading, writing, arithmetic, irony.

Brett: Having problems with already.

Steve: Yeah.

Norm: Let us deal with the moral issues at home.

Steve: Yeah, I agree.

Norm: Uh, this is a Hispanic, which I am m sure the dees thought, oh, well, let's let tons of those folks across the border because they're all they're automatic Democrat voters. I don't think so. I don't think so.

Brett: Yes, a couple of things I noted, and, um, I'm going to call this I don't know if I'm going to call it the right way or not because I'm trying to read into this what's going on, but last weekend I think the GOP is buying boats in Columbus. Okay, they do tell. Last weekend customers receive help with grocery costs at conservative backed inflation event. So Hispanic nonprofit group supported by an organization tied to deep pocketed David and Charles Koch had an event last weekend. Saturday afternoon, the final day of Hispanic Latino Heritage Month. The Ohio chapter of the library initiative pass out gift cards of uh, $52.93 to families at Toro meet to market in Northland.

Steve: So in Northland, you show up and you get a gift card of $50. Yeah. I should have gone I know.

Brett: You had to be the first 118. You only had $10,000 handout I got you. So we're talking we're in a window here that you have absentee ballots.

Norm: But, uh, what's the tie into voting, though? How does that tie in?

Brett: We are in a voting period right now. Yeah. Absentee ballots available at your hand. You can go vote right now.

Steve: I.

Norm: Agree. I'm just trying to understand no, the.

Steve: Cobra's are giving money away to Hispanics. How are Hispanics and I'm not saying you're wrong, but how are Hispanics saying therefore I'm going to vote Republican?

Brett: Because they got $52.93 to help them and their politicking they're a mile away from voting.

Steve: Uh, were Republicans there?

Norm: Yeah.

Brett: So it's a political initiative.

Steve: Yeah, but the Libra initiative but who is the candidate?

Brett: That would be no candidate, just for.

Steve: The party, I guess. How do they know that that's a Republican thing and that means they should go vote for Republicans?

Brett: Because they just again, maybe I'm looking at it wrong.

Steve: No, I don't think you are, but I want to connect the dots. I think that's exactly what's going on.

Brett: Is that an initiative backed by Republican money is here giving me a gift card for food.

Norm: Well, you know, the cocaine thank you.

Brett: I appreciate that. Because you guys are yeah, because the initiative behind it was that $52.93 is what it costs in inflation for three days.

Steve: How does that then but it's a Hispanic festival. Right. Presumably, the Hispanic voter then has to connect the dots to say, I'm going to go cast my ballot for a Republican because I got this $52. What's the link?

Norm: That's what I'm missing.

Brett: The link being and that's what I'm missing it because it feels this way, but I'm missing something. Okay, so I go to an event and I know the event planner, uh, or that sort of thing. The group that's holding the event, the Libra initiative is a Republican backed GOP pact. Uh, that's where the money is coming from.

Steve: Well, I think that's one of those.

Brett: Well, thank you for recognizing Republican Party, that, yes, the Democrats are not taking in care of inflation for me.

Steve: But do the voters know or do the potential voters know it's a Republican.

Brett: Backed they may or may not. I don't know. I don't know because I wasn't there. Well, that's what's being talked about.

Steve: Is it that link to it?

Brett: Well, I don't know, but it's all over the news.

Norm: Just because the, uh, Koch brothers have done some conservative things, they've also done some very liberal things. Some of their causes in New York City, uh, uh, which of course are never brought up by the liberals, have been liberal causes. So a lot of people think, in fact, in Republican circles, that the Koch brothers are rhinos, uh, and their class.

Brett: I don't know enough about them.

Norm: I just and the other is tied to that.

Steve: I think you're right.

Norm: Well, I don't know the facts. I want to point out one thing. Not everything done by a putative conservative is necessarily a Republican initiative. So I don't know if this had anything to do with the Republican Party or not. I would need to know the fact I don't know. Well, just because the conservatives did something, I don't know. It's some famous actor if I'm Taylor, uh, Swift, to take somebody on the other side, if I'm Taylor Swift or Madonna, and I'm a liberal, which both of them are, and I hold a similar event and give away $50 gift certificates to Hispanics at a Hispanic festival, okay, they all know I'm a liberal. That doesn't mean that they're being told to vote Democrats.

Steve: So we need the link. Look, I'm not saying there isn't a link. It could be that they were handing out literature that had candidates, um, listed.

Brett: On it, and they could have and they're talking about the cost of living, gas, food, energy, general foods is continually, drastically increasing. Latinos, like all Americans, are feeling the burden, says this woman from the Ohio chapter of Libra Initiative. So obviously, uh, to me, it says they're not going to be saying, and because of this, you should go vote, vote for Biden or any Democrats. Because the Democrats, they're doing a great job, aren't they? It seems to be it's implicit.

Steve: Yes, perhaps, but I think you're right. I think that probably is probably timing. The question is, should we not, uh, what do we think about that? Because, look, the Dems do that a lot. They do stuff like that.

Norm: Oh, for sure.

Steve: They open up the borders.

Brett: I'm just pulling out one question, is.

Steve: When this happens, like, opening up the borders is a good example because I find that to be unlawful. Have an issue from the outset.

Norm: Yeah. Ah, but then there's all kinds of gifts. When you let them in, sure, you.

Brett: Get the gift.

Norm: Packet free, tuition free, hospital free this, free that, and the other thing.

Steve: But let's say that either side is doing this. Do we care that there's private money being passed out in the cause of either the Democrat or Republican agenda a mile away from the voting booth?

Norm: No, I don't care, because there's no way to stop it.

Steve: Number one, I emphasize private money.

Norm: Yeah, that's all I'm talking about, too.

Brett: Uh, so private money is funding people to go pick up pick up ballots.

Norm: Though, and drop them off.

Steve: That's different.

Brett: That's true, too. I'm just trying to put two that.

Norm: Has nothing to do with that analogy.

Steve: But it's good because that is something voter or vote harvesting is lawful in some arenas in some districts, still in some states. So if you're going to vote harvest, I'm going to pay you, Brett, $100. I want you to go collect 50 votes. And if that's not against the law, my argument would be it should be. And then as soon as it is, I think paying you a Go break the law would be a problem. But paying you $100 to go do it in a place where it's not against the law, it's hard for me to say.

Brett: That all true.

Steve: That's a problem. I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. Now, if you're giving people $100 gift cards and saying, look, these lunatic, uh, Democrats have built, um, inflation and created inflation, here's $50 to offset it, it.

Brett: Certainly puts a big spotlight on the situation that we are right now because of a certain party in power. Do we?

Norm: I don't know. I don't care.

Steve: I don't think I do either.

Norm: I don't care.

Steve: What about the Republican Party funding it now? There might be an ethics problem there. They might have their own rules in place.

Brett: Well, that's probably a problem.

Norm: Getting back to our internal memo from Norm about nonprofit activities yeah, I got a problem.

Steve: Anyway, it's a good point. It's an interesting jumping off point for discussion, because the political system is a fertile ground for corruption, and there's all sorts of private money getting thrown around to go advanced conservative causes or liberal causes both ways. And the question is, should we care?

Norm: The Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. Yes.

Brett: Okay.

Norm: Uh, they have ruled that money is speech and that rich people can give all the money that they want to a candidate of their choice. They get rid of that ceiling that we used to have where there was a limit. So, um, if somebody wants to express themselves by buying time on a TV channel, or if they want to go to a festival and hand out $50, I don't see the difference. Yeah.

Steve: Now I'm with you. Unless you can link it to some other unlawful activity that you're paying somebody to engage in, or you're linking it back to a candidate who's not allowed to do this.

Brett: Right. It's true.

Norm: Yeah.

Brett: Exactly. Another Columbus park is going to change his name from Columbus. They're going to hide Columbus name again. There's an Italian village park. Christopher Columbus park. The name is changed.

Steve: Italian village, too.

Brett: Yeah. Now, granted, this park is just two trees, maybe 50ft long. It's a berm.

Steve: Okay.

Brett: Uh, but we're going to squash the name again. We can talk about labor.

Steve: Just look it up.

Brett: No. Another point of just hiding. Why do we want to squash history?

Norm: It's all PC.

Steve: This is a great transition.

Brett: Damn.

Steve: For the Cleveland Indians. I mean, what are they now, the Cleveland Guardians?

Norm: Which is ridiculous.

Steve: Putting up a noble fight, but coming up short. It's like Cleveland always I hate to cast a dispersion on the tribe, but at least with the Browns, they always seem to find a way. To lose. And, um, I was really hoping that we have some redemption against the Yanks, but no such one.

Norm: The Ohio Board of Education, by the way, if you remember from our last show, I brought up, uh, a little quick, uh, item that they were going to, uh, look at the, uh, they were going to pass a policy, basically, uh, saying that, you know, only bio girls can compete against bio girls, right? And, um, guess what they did last week, the very day of our show? They tabled that and appointed a committee to look into of course, that is the brave the very principled, um, stand of your, uh, Ohio board, uh, of Education. I'm not surprised. Finally, uh, guys, my last point, I just want to bring this up, and then you guys may have other things, but I thought this was just really crazy. Up in Cleveland, uh, last month, four masked gunmen let me say that again, they weren't COVID masks. They were four teenagers with guns. They all had guns, all four of them. They were all masked. They were outside of a school demanding to be let in. The school called nine one. This is Garrett Morgan High School in Cleveland, Ohio. 285 students inside this building. They called 911. The dispatcher said, and I quote, do not let them in. Keep it locked down, the diz bags. And that's a technical term. I can go into what constitutes a disbag, uh, the disbag assistant principals disregarded the orders of the dispatcher and let the four massed gunmen with guns forest gunmen into the foyer of the school. Let them into the foyer because, and I quote this is a quote from the assistant principal, it was unsafe to be outside because I saw police officers, close quote, therefore, let the four boys into the foyer. Now, thank God he didn't press the second button, which allowed them to go from the foyer into the general school area. The police did show up and arrested three of the gunmen, and they're looking for the fourth. But the same week that we just went through, where I believe what's the name of the school in Florida, they just sent and said, yeah, I got life in prison. Was it parkland?

Brett: Parkland.

Norm: Parkland. So we just went through Uvaldi, Texas.

Steve: School shooting, the biggest security debacle ever, right?

Norm: The police did a terrible job. The, uh, school wasn't sufficiently locked down. Parkland. Another situation. The kid shot out the window, went through the foyer. Of course, Columbine, which started this all off, uh, Connecticut, uh, New forget, uh, the name of the little town there in Connecticut where all this yes, Alex.

Brett: Jones just got stung on the well.

Norm: I don't want to talk about Alex Jones. He's an idiot. Uh, he's as dumb as Joe Rogan. Uh, Joe Rogan says he's dumb, so I agree with Joe. And then the shooting at the school in Chicago. So we've just been through all of these situations over the last decade, some of them just the last week, where school people, personnel, and the police are not on the same page. You've got the God bless the Cleveland police and the Cleveland dispatch system for telling these people the right thing. Do not let them in to keep it locked down. And the school did just the opposite. Right. Because the police are the threat. It was unsafe to be outside because I saw police officers. So the police officers are they're the danger people. They're the people to be worried about. I've got to let these four nice masked gunmen into the foyer to protect them from the police. That is now the mentality of our liberal idiots running the schools. And I'm just going to put it out there, they're liberal idiots. They think the police are the enemy. Instead of the four mass gunmen who are teenagers, like all the teenagers at all the schools I just listed that killed all those innocent children. They're letting them in the foyer.

Steve: Yeah, total.

Norm: They should all be fired.

Steve: They should all be fired and maybe even should be prosecuted.

Norm: But the Cleveland Public School system came out with a statement saying they support those two, uh, assistant principals, of course.

Brett: Full looking statement.

Steve: Wow. Look, uh, we got to wrap it up. But I do want to say one thing. Uh, one of my mentors is a longtime judge up in Delaware County, Henry Shaw. He passed away this week. Uh, Norm, every now and then your dad was a judge. Every now and then you encounter somebody or I have encountered people in my career. Henry Shaw was a huge influence on me. Uh, when I first started practicing law, particularly criminal defense, he gave me court appointed cases up in Delaware County. Um, I cut my teeth up in his courtroom. I learned how to be a lawyer in Henry Shaw's courtroom. He's one of those judges that didn't tolerate a whole lot of nonsense. Every now and then you'd get the wrath. He'd blow up at you because he thought you did something stupid and, uh, he'd come down on you. Sometimes he was right, sometimes he was wrong. He'd blow up on me more than once. But he was also a judge. And on Saturday mornings, as a young lawyer in my twenty s, I would go visit clients up in the jail in Delaware County. And I would knock on, uh, you could still go into the courthouse on Saturday mornings, and I would knock on his door and he'd be at the office and I'd go in and he would give me his wisdom on, uh, whatever. He was a historian of the Civil War. I think he even did some reenactments. I, uh, would talk to him about philosophy, uh, history, uh, when I was working on an old German village house. He was talking about different period pieces that you could put or use as hardware. I mean, really an incredible guy. Uh, he influenced a lot of attorneys here in town and he passed away. It's sort of like the end of an area. He was 84, so he had a good long life. Um, but while I held up, when I heard that when I was driving home the other day or yesterday, and I just wanted to mention it here, uh, there are calling hours and other things happening. It's in the dispatch. You can Google it online, but it's, uh, Friday. So, uh, with that, when you lose a mentor or you lose somebody who is influential on your career, it sort of makes you reflect on your own what you're doing now. We lived up to that kind of standard where you can actually endure however long, 50, 60 year career in law or in whatever profession you are, and emerge from that with the respect of your peers, even those who didn't like you when you were doing it, even those who disagreed when you were doing it. Like, what character does it take to earn that type of respect? I urge everybody to at least consider that thought as we wrap up this edition of Common Sense.

Norm: Well, Steve, just real fast, that man's greatest accomplishment was passing along his care for the law, his respect, and his reverence for the law to the next generation, meaning you. So may, uh, rest in peace, indeed.

Steve: Well, with that, we'll wrap up another common, uh, Sense Ohio. We talked a little bit about the Bible, we talked a little bit about, uh, our mentors, we talked a little bit about, um, dicka fallacies and all sorts of other stuff that you can only get here at the roundtable at Commonsense, Ohio. And what the hell is common sense, Ohio? Well, it's, uh, Common Sense Ohio means that we're going to talk common sense about all sorts of issues, using Ohio as a launching point, because we are right in the middle. So you get that? We are right in the middle. So, big things to come. We hope to drop the new website, the new, uh, ULR. I think I got that right this time. Uh, the new feed, what is it? The RSS. RSS, RSS, the three letters together. CEO, CFO at who knows? Anyway, we're going to drop the website. I anticipated we all participated in the design work. It is awesome. Trust me, you'll love it. New Facebook, new accounts, and all the other social media stuff. I don't even know what exists. So it's all coming. And election, uh, is right around the corner. What better time for common sense? So we're going to wrap up Common Sense Ohio, Right From The Middle, at least until now.