Welcome back to Common Sense Ohio! In this episode, Steve Palmer and Norm Murdock dive into the whirlwind of current events, offering their signature blend of historical perspective, common sense, and candid conversation. Kicking things off with reflections on March 11th in history, they discuss the legacy of the Lend-Lease Act and how America’s reluctant involvement in global affairs resonates in today’s headlines.

From there, the conversation pivots to the complexities of presidential war powers, the ongoing tensions with Iran, and the challenging realities of nuclear proliferation. Norm Murdock brings in deep dives on military history, while Steve Palmer unpacks what happens when American leadership faces tough choices on the world stage.

Harper CPA Plus on website

Back on the home front, the hosts don’t hold back as they critique Ohio’s political landscape, including Governor DeWine’s recent State of the State address, the implications of new data centers, and the everyday frustrations of Ohio commuters. As always, they close with a look at the good and the bad in the week—mixing national security, leadership, sacrifice, and a dash of pop culture.

So, whether you’re looking for thoughtful analysis, a dash of history, or just a little honest talk about what’s going on in the Buckeye State and beyond, you’re in the right place. Hit play and get your weekly dose of Common Sense Ohio!

00:00 Passenger Ships as War Targets

06:30 Washington's Commander Guard Origins

14:35 War Powers and Constitutional Debate

20:52 "Questioning Government Power Levers"

21:46 "Elections Shape Power Dynamics"

27:43 Middle East Conflict and Tensions

33:46 Sacrifice and Lost Patriotism

39:05 "Cluelessness and Global Threats"

45:23 "Construction Work and Moral Responsibility"

51:44 Deeper Meaning of Ten Commandments

56:55 Government Overreach and Parenting Critique

01:01:11 "Saluting Modern-Day Heroes"

Recorded at the 511 Studios, in the Brewery District in downtown Columbus, OH.

info@commonsenseohioshow.com

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

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.

A Big Thanks to our sponsor, Harper Plus Accounting. They provide more than just basic transactions, offering expert business consultation as well. They go beyond the basics, providing comprehensive advice on saving, planning, and optimizing taxes.

Copyright 2026 Common Sense Ohio

All right, it is that time again for your weekly dose of Common Sense. Maybe not quite— we missed a show or two, but that's okay. We're back. Common Sense Ohio. You can check us out at commonsenseohioshow.com for all the backlogs. You can shoot us questions there, leave us comments. You can even invite yourself to be on the show if you dare to contend with Norm. I'm easy.

Anyway, we're brought to you by Harper Plus Accounting. I'm thinking a lot about Glenn Harper over at Harper Plus these days. We're Why? Because it's tax season. And if you've got a concern about your taxes, I just— You better. I just talked to somebody who had not filed tax returns ever. And it was a mess. But you know what I did? I just said, you got to call Harper Plus.

Absolutely.

And he'll take good care of you. And they are. They are taking good— there's always a solution. You may not like the solution, but there's always a solution. Anyway, HarperPlus accounting. Our accountant could be yours. As it turns out, he's working on our stuff right now. Let's jump right into it.

This day in history, as we do, this is March 11th, the year— I mean, look, we're almost through the first quarter. It's nuts. I feel like Christmas was yesterday.

Yeah. Yeah. It's— time is flying. And it's every day in this country is a cornucopia of crazy stuff, things that in my lifetime, you know, if just 4 or 5 of these things happened in a year, it would be amazing. But we seem to have epic changes in events in this country on a weekly basis. It's truly amazing that the kinds of programs, the kinds of initiatives, things that are being ceased and things that are being initiated. It's just incredible, the changes. Yep.

And it's hard to keep up.

Yet at the same time, history tends to repeat itself. On March 11th, in 1941, Roosevelt signs into law something called the Lend-Lease Act. And what does that have to do with modern history? Well, look, just read all about it. Extra, extra. We had a neutrality position. Does this sound familiar? Isolation America. We're not going to intervene in any more wars. We lost our doughboys over in World War I and we didn't like that.

And what are we going over there for anyway? It's not our business. After all, we're Americans and we don't need any of that nonsense. And about half the— maybe more than half the country believed that. The other half said, no, we need to get over there. And, you know, Hitler's taking over the world over there and we should intervene. And Roosevelt sort of said, no, we're not going to intervene. But he was really intervening. Eventually, we had this sort of cash and carry policy where they would pay for it, we would give it to them.

Then we created Lend-Lease, which basically ends the Neutrality Acts of the '30s, 1935. Now we're going to start actively— I mean, this is really telling the world, by the way, that we are involved.

Right. We embargoed steel and oil to Japan. You know, we were the arsenal of democracy for England.

Yeah.

And yeah, no question. I mean, once you start doing that, the Hitler's wolfpacks decided that our cargo ships were legitimate war targets and Merchant Marine only recently were given veteran status by the VA. And it's really, really— they— we were in combat well before Pearl Harbor. Yeah, it just really was not acknowledged.

Right. We were sending our boys down to Burma, right? Or the Flying Tigers are going down there. We are sending our pilots over the Battle of Britain to, to participate.

Absolutely.

But it shows you when you look, when you say— I don't It's fascinating to me when we look back at something like Pearl Harbor, December 7th. So what, about 6 months, 7 months after Lend-Lease? It's not in a vacuum, guys.

No.

No. So like you said, we created an embargo for Japan. We now are actively supplying without cash and carry. In other words, we're giving stuff to the enemies of Japan and Germany and Italy. And it was only that sort of lit the fuse. And it was only a matter of time. And like you said, the wolf pack started to attack because they said, well, look, if you're going to supply our enemies, we're going to blow you up.

Right. And in a lot of ways, that was the story in World War I of the Lusitania.

Yeah, right.

You know, it, it's just recently in recent years because of like the Woods Hole, you know, submersibles that have been able to examine some of these old wrecks. They found that there indeed was gunpowder and military stores aboard the Lusitania.

Is that right? I didn't know that.

Yeah. So, you know, it doesn't surprise me. Yeah. You know, and that was probably, you know, considered a secret, you know, something that we could not know for 100 years or whatever. But, you know, the Germans were making the case that, hey, you know, if you're going to put war materiel on a on a passenger ship, you're putting us in a— you know, it's kind of like the Iranian Republican Guard or the IRGC putting, you know, launchers next to a madrasa school. And then we're not supposed to bomb that launcher because there's a school next to it. Well, you know, if you're bringing artillery shells and and gunpowder and things like that to the enemy of another country and you put passengers on board the ship. Yeah, you're daring.

Yeah, you're daring the other side.

It's— and I think that is instructed and informed how the United— how lots of folks, countries around the world have done stuff like this afterward. You know, we don't— we learned our lesson there. It's like, and or have we? I don't know. Yeah, by supplying Israel, uh, arms and everything else throughout the— for the last 30 years or 40 years. Uh, now we're, we're more actively involved. Like, what's better? Yeah, doing it behind the scenes or just saying, look, here we are?

Yeah.

Uh, and I'm sure we got that and lots, lots more to talk about. Norm, kick us off.

Well, uh, something else in history we talked a little bit about, uh, you know, since this is the 250th anniversary year of the, uh, US, um,, this day, March 11th, uh, Washington, George Washington, created, in, in reaction to an assassination plot that was uncovered, his own, uh, commander-in-chief guard unit. And, um, altogether 330 men served up until it was disbanded in 1783 after the war had ended. Um, but, um, He discovered during the siege of Boston that there was actually an assassination plot involving some of his own staff in the Continental Army who were promptly tried and hung. But it alerted him to— and this is interesting because it kind of shows up in our Constitution on the requirements of being president and other officers in the government. That for his commander-in-chief's guard unit, no foreigners were allowed to serve. You had to be a natural-born American in order to be— in order to protect, kind of like the Secret Service back then is what it was, to protect the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, which is kind of interesting. So at any rate, yeah, I think we should talk obviously about Epic Fury, the operation that's ongoing. We're in week number 2 of the, um, of the war, and it is a war, and no sense in dancing around that word, uh, in, um, in Iran, uh, conducted by— at this point, some of the Gulf nations are nibbling, uh, they're, they're reacting to, uh, some of the, um, drones and missiles that have been lobbed into their countries.

And of course, the Israeli Defense Forces and the United States. And at this point, we have completely stripped the, the power structure in Iran and we're down to the ayatollah's oldest son, I guess. Yeah. As, as the nominated person. But he has He has wisely snuck it, not, not stuck his head above ground. So he is, he's playing whack-a-mole with the U.S. military and hiding himself because I'm sure, you know, his life isn't worth a plug nickel. If they can locate him, he's gone.

Yeah. You know, he is said to be worse than, than the ayatollah that we took out. And people are saying, hey, hey, Trump, you know, you're— you don't have this figured out and you don't have a plan. Well, I don't know about that. It took us 10 years to go get Osama bin Laden. It took us 50 seconds to get the Ayatollah. Well, so it seems to me— it seems like they have a plan.

And Trump, love him or hate him, and it seems like that is the—

that is the divide.

That is the dividing line, right? I'm sort of in the middle. I mean, I look at him like I look at anybody else. I evaluate what he's doing and what he says and try to figure it all out. And I think Trump has this— I think he has shown a pattern here, particularly in world affairs. He's not going to tell them. So he makes these— he drops these comments like, we're going to have boots on the ground. And, you know, what's he supposed to say? Look, Iran, we're never going to put boots on the ground over there. We're not going to do that.

We're not going to do this.

Right.

And then he gets criticized for saying we're going to put boots on the ground. But what's he supposed to do?

I mean, it's a psyops. He's messing with them. And, and, and he can't, you know, there's no other way to do it than to also say things that are a little contradictory to the American people with these throwaway comments.

And the media does not— I, I can't say the media doesn't understand that. Yeah, but they are going to use it anyway, right, to attack him, right? And, you know, look, I, I think at the end of the day, I, I, it's, it's feels to me like the people not supporting this are not supporting Trump. So, and you have to sort of divide what— all right, if somebody else were doing it, would they be behind it? If Obama were doing this, would they have been behind it? Almost certainly, right? Um, or if Biden were behind this, they'd call him a hero for being a, uh, you know, a guy with a little bit of backbone standing up to Iran. Yeah, it's just— but since Trump's doing it, people hate it. And I get it. I mean, we've all learned about the Trump Derangement Syndrome at this point. Right? Um, we've all suffered from it at one point or another, maybe.

And what really illustrates that, Steve, is the, uh, this inane debate over the 1973 War Powers Act that Congress passed largely, um, you know, in Nixon's face. I mean, that's— it was basically because Kennedy, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, nobody declared a formal war against the North Vietnamese. Correct.

Okay.

Yeah. So we're in Vietnam, we have this, you know, 20-year war going, uh, is smoldering, and now it's a, a hot war for the last, uh, whatever, 10 years at that point in Vietnam in 1973. And obviously there's riots in the streets, there's draft dodging, there's people burning draft cards. You know, ROTC buildings are getting arsoned, etc. So the culture is on fire and Congress is well aware of that and just decides to start pushing back on the idea of the U.S. being involved in Vietnam. Yeah.

So, and they— the Congress essentially overrode, I believe, Nixon's veto on that. Yes.

Yeah. And a lot of scholars, you know, constitutional scholars like Hillary and Obama and Pelosi and Schumer have over the years said that the War Powers Act does not restrict the hand of the president and that it's probably unconstitutional because you can't, you can't change and amend the Constitution by act of Congress. There's, there's a process for amending the Constitution. And if you want to rein in the commander-in-chief of the Army under Article II of the Constitution, there's a way to amend the Constitution, but it isn't by passing a law.

That's correct. And my good friend Derek DeBross said phenomenal firearms attorney and somewhat of a— he always says, look, the Constitution came with an instruction book, right? You can change it. All you have to do is go change it. And I urge everybody to do it that way instead of going to the U.S. Supreme Court and trying to get them to be activists instead of Supreme Court judges. And then you always get the final— you always get the answer response. Yeah, but they're not doing it. Like, yeah, because you can't— or yeah, but they can't— we can't get it changed because not everybody agrees.

That's the point. That's the point.

That's the point. It's not easy to change.

So I did a little research, Steve. I went to the Library of Congress online, and there's a congressional report, a historical summary of all of the uses in foreign countries by American armed forces in the last 250 years.

Okay.

All right. And it's over 400 times we have deployed the Navy, the Army, or the Air Force, or all of them or some of them SEALS, you know, Green Berets, whatever, from the beginning of this country up to the present day, over 400 times. And only on 11 of those occasions has Congress formally declared war. So, you know, if, if you, if you boil it down, it's like 1 or 2% of the time we use our military in a foreign theater, do we declare formal war via the Congress?

Well, it's an interesting— so it really brings up an interesting historical perspective because look, when we wrote the Constitution, wars didn't happen the way they happen now. Um, you know, we did— we couldn't just deploy jets on an aircraft carrier to go bomb somebody. You— I mean, it would take a lot of time and effort to actually go engage in a war with somebody, right? And So it made sense to have Congress say, we have to have a declaration of war. And then emerges the War Power Act, which I get it had other reasons, but I think everybody realized that it was sort of saying what, it was giving the executive branch enough authority to do what Trump did here, frankly, if you follow the act, but still trying to maintain the war declaration provisions of the Constitution. And ironically, you've got, Like you said, all the presidents have said this is unconstitutional because it impinges our powers as commander-in-chief. But really, I think it's unconstitutional because it changes the fact that it gives the president the power to declare war, essentially. So whatever it is, nobody's ever challenged it. I don't think the Supreme Court's ever—

Well, if you read Article 1 about the powers of Congress, they do have the power to declare war. But there's nothing in Article 1 about the powers of Congress about that being exclusive.

That's right.

To the Congress. It says Congress has the power to declare war, and that's all it says. It doesn't say only Congress can engage the United States in war, or only Congress can deploy troops.

Nor does it define war. You know, that's why it gives Congress— Korea was a conflict. Yeah. Vietnam was a conflict.

And in essence, the way I read that is you could have the commander-in-chief saying, no, I don't want to go to war. No, I don't. I do. I know I don't consider that an act against our country that merits us going to war. And you could see Congress perhaps saying, well, we see it differently. Yeah. And we declare war.

And that's an interesting notion. What happens if Congress declares war but the president, as the commander-in-chief, will not abide by that?

It could happen. It could happen. So it's, it's, it's technically possible that— I mean, that would be amazing if that ever happened, but it is possible.

It is possible.

And so at any rate, over 400 instances. And I guess the one that people really talk about a lot was when Thomas Jefferson deployed, if you will, the only analogy we can have is, you know, the corvettes on the high seas. He sent ships to engage the Barbary pirates. And at that point, it was, you know, Libya was Tripoli, and we actually had Marines on the ground under Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas Jefferson knew a few things about our Constitution, didn't he? I mean, he helped write the damn thing. So, you know, if, if, if only Congress could declare war and only Congress could engage American troops overseas, well, then you would think Jefferson, of any president, would would have a grasp of that. Clearly he felt differently. Clearly he thought differently and concluded he had the constitutional power to do that and sent us into a war in the Middle East against Muslims, which the Barbary pirates certainly were.

I have a little bit different take on this. I think Jefferson probably didn't care if he had the power to do it. He was going to do it anyway. And this is like the behind the scenes, what everybody knows but nobody says. If the country's generally going to agree, then the presidents can do it without any problem and nobody's going to care. But if about half the people disagree, there's going to be a fight.

And there was no CNN back then.

There was no CNN back then, although there was huge conflict between Adams and Jefferson. Anyway, it's worth studying. So at any rate, that is that. What else is—

And that really, as you say, the reason I bring up the War Powers Act is because your earlier comments, Steve, about the TDS. And if there is, luckily we have Schumer, Pelosi, Clinton, Obama, we have these people on tape and it's as if they don't realize that they, in previous iterations of themselves, have said, for example, that under Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, you know, during the whole Benghazi thing, we bombed, we bombed Libya. For 7 months under Obama.

Well, this is great.

We're 2 weeks into this, but the Democrats had no problem under the War Powers Act of 1970 with Obama spending 7 months bombing Libya.

Well, this is great because I was going to save this for the things I like at the end, but I'm going to just— I'm going to let you go.

It didn't matter then, but suddenly it matters.

Bill Maher. Bill Maher is coming around slowly but surely, and he had Adam Schiff on the show, and he quoted He was talking about the war in Iran, and Bill Maher quoted this quote, something like, "The president has the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national interest." And he asked Schiff if that was okay. And Schiff's like, "No, it's not okay. No, no, no, no, no." And he goes, "Well, that's interesting because that's what Obama said about Libya." And Schiff Now, to his credit, Schiff, Shifty Schiff shifted and he starts talking about Syria. He goes, yeah. And he goes, well, Obama didn't go into Syria. And I don't know if I didn't watch the whole clip of Bill Maher went out and it's like, hold on a second. I didn't ask you about Syria.

Yeah, we're talking about Libya.

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, it's as if they don't realize that, that something like electromagnetic tape exists and we actually have them. In prior situations which are wholly analogous to this, where it, it like it didn't matter to them then.

And this is why— so anybody who's watched me here or listened to me here and watched or listened to me on my other lawyer talk, I always ask this question: what is the lever of power we are giving to the government, and are we comfortable with whoever gets their hands on that lever using it for their own ends? And this is why I don't like things like the War Powers Act or whatever it is, because usually what happens— I hate to say it, but it's usually the Democrats who pass stuff like this because they think the standard rhetoric is, if I only had enough power, I could solve things like global warming. If I only had enough power, I could solve things like existential racism. If I only had enough power, I could fix the economy and we could, we could help equalize wealth throughout the world. Just give me enough power to do it. Right. So then they pass some act or they make some resolution or they try to grab some power. And Obama famously said, I can do this with my pen. And he started signing executive orders and elections have consequences.

He told John McCain, yeah, elections have consequences. I can do it with my pen. And interestingly, in his first term when he didn't have Congress or when he, when he realized he didn't have Congress and he couldn't get anything done, his whole position shifted because before that he would say, I can't do that. The president doesn't have the power. And then there was a sort of the equivalent of a stitch in time. So, look, the point here is that If you enact a law that creates a lever of power for the person you like who happens to be in office, understand that the next person is going to use that same lever. And that's happened famously in all sorts of arenas, not the least of which is Mitch McConnell saying, "Be careful what you do here because it'll come back to bite you." And it did. Famously with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump's final appointment of, I think it was Amy Coney Barrett, right?

Yeah. You know, so just talking about war in general. So both Steve's family and my family have active duty military in them. And I'm not tap dancing on this table here. I'm not happy we're at war. I don't think people who necessarily supported us being in things like World War II or Korea or Vietnam. I don't think they were up on the kitchen table tap dancing and happy either, you know. Was this necessary? Well, I think, I think it's, I think it's time to be a little rational, okay, and, and think clearly and forget about Trump for, you know, set that aside and just let's talk about what the negotiators were being told by the Iranians As recently as 2 weeks ago, they said, we have the unalienable right to have nuclear weapons if we so choose as our country.

You know, we, we, we do not, we do not have to give up our nuclear ambitions. We offered them free nuclear fuel, level enriched uranium so that they could have reactors and produce electricity. If that's— if they were going to have a peaceful nuclear program, they were offered free uranium to do that by— we would give it to them so they wouldn't even have to purify it. They wouldn't have to have all of these, you know, centrifuges and, and they could give up their military. And they said, no, we have the right. And in fact, right now we have enough 60% purified uranium to make 11 bombs if we want to proceed. We— but we have enough to make 11 right now. And the conclusion was from the negotiators is that Iran was intractable, that they were, in spite of the, you know, the operation back in 2025 where we took out the the nuclear sites, that they were intent on rebuilding that.

And they had right now— and we can't find it yet, but right now they have around 1,000 pounds of pure, purified uranium, and they intended to use it and make it into nuclear weapons. And the conclusion at the Pentagon, not by politicians, but at the Pentagon, was that they were within a few weeks of having enough to either do a dirty bomb or do one that was a fission bomb. And that they were— and they've said many times, one nuclear weapon could take out Israel and we intend to do that. How many times do they have to say that in the last 47 years before Netanyahu and whatever president, whether it's Obama, Clinton, Trump, before the US president and the president of Israel conclude they really do mean it?

Well, and it's not just—

How many times do they say it before we believe that they mean it?

And it's not just that. It's more than just if they have nukes, they'll use them. It is that if they have nukes, they could use them. And that changes the power dynamic of the world.

Absolutely.

It really does.

Because in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, right? All of them will say, well, we need nukes now. That's right. And they certainly have the money to do it.

It changes the power structure of the world in a very significant way. That is not good.

Not good for freedom. Yeah. I mean, look at India and Pakistan, both of whom have nuclear programs. And you just think, man, there's a hair trigger right there. Yeah. They're in. And, you know, India being so populous, if nuclear weapons were ever used against India, you would lose a significant portion of the world's population. That it would be a human— would be the onslaught, would be unimaginable.

And doesn't it— I mean, look what it's changed in— if to shift this over to talk about Ukraine, I mean, it changes how we have to negotiate with Putin because they have nukes. You know, we can't just, you know, we can't just say stop the damn war—

and Ukraine gave theirs up as part of breaking up the Soviet Union. That was one of the terms, is that, okay, you want to go on your own, we get all our nukes back, and they're all coming to Russia.

You don't get to retain those. It changes the power structure, even if unused. And it's not— so you can say that Iran will never use them. They just want them because we have them, blah, blah, blah.

It's all bluster, and you don't believe it.

—then why not take that chance? Yeah, right. And even if you don't, like, what stops them from doing more to Israel or doing more to anybody in that region? Because then we can't just say we're going to come stop it, because now we have to say we're going to come stop it. What if they shoot a nuke at us or at somebody else?

And that changes the safety of the world. Well, and they're really out of control. I don't think people understand this. This distinction between the two groups of Muslims that hate each other. You know, there was the extended war between Iran and Iraq where they lost a whole generation of young men, both countries, you know, and that went on while the rest of the world just watched it, you know, go down. And the thing is about that is the The number of missiles fired at Israel is about 1/10 the amount of missiles that Iran has shot at, for example, the United Arab Emirates. Over 1,000 missiles have been shot at them, their fellow Muslim, you know, neighbor there in the Gulf. They've shot over 1,000 missiles at them and right around 1/10 of that amount to to Israel.

And everybody's like, well, they really hate the Israelis. Well, I don't know about that, you know. I don't know that that's the only hatred that exists. Like Steve says, you are adding to this powder keg another dynamic if one of these Middle Eastern countries gets a nuclear program and then the others don't have it. They're going to want to do the mutually assured destruction theorem that the US and the Soviet Union had. They're going to say, okay, if you wipe out us, we'll wipe you out. So then we'll have this standoff with each other. But I'm not sure that works if you think it's your duty under Allah, right, to kill the infidels, to kill the Shiite, or kill the other faction because they're not the right kind of Muslims.

Or whatever your theory is that these clerics who run Iran have in their head. I don't know that the rest of the country wants, rest of the world needs to be held hostage to this and possibly have a nuclear Armageddon over a religious dispute. Yeah, it's crazy. And yet, you know, we've had a series of presidents since 1979, starting with Jimmy Carter, when all of this went down with the Shah, you know, losing power, the revolution in Iran taking over and it becoming a theocratic state run by the radical, you know, mullahs. And every president has said that this— they can't have nukes. Oh, no, no way. They can't have nukes. We finally get a president who's going to take action when we're right at the tripwire.

They're just about to have nukes. They've told our negotiators they have enough for 11 warheads. And I, you know, like, I don't care if Hillary was president, I would be supporting this action. And people are like, well, my gas went up from $2.99 to $3.49. Well, folks, I got news for you. If you have a 20-gallon gas tank, okay, and you're now paying $0.50 more, right, for a gallon of gas, that's $10. We're getting rid of a nuclear contagion, right, of somebody who could melt you and your children into a puddle. We're getting rid of that threat over $10 a week in gas.

Well, look, I mean, let's— I mean, people need to calm down.

Let's break this down.

People need to calm down a little bit. Because this is America. Always been America from the outset. I mean, even in the Revolutionary War, before that started, most Americans weren't behind it. And then until it's in their backyard, then they get behind it. And then you get to the War of 1812, famously. No, I mean, same kind of thing. And then you get to World War I.

We didn't want anything to do with it. And until it's— until you have to— until Lusitania happens, right? World War II, the Lend-Lease Act changed our neutral— or we weren't going to get involved. Then Slowly we got involved. And then all of a sudden it's almost like Roosevelt knew this and was daring Japan or daring Germany or daring somebody to do something about it so we could enter the war and just get this nonsense out of the way. And there is that theory. And, and it just is. But this is America. And I think we have to at least recognize that norm is our culture.

It's like, look, I've always sort of thought of it this way. We're this— and Japan famously said we've woken the silent giant or whatever it is, but we are, you know, we don't care. Yamamoto said that. All we want to do is just enjoy our freedom and have cheap stuff.

And, and, but the culture, Steve— so I hear you, I hear you, and I agree with you. We have this big isolationist streak in our culture because we're protected on both sides by these—

well, it's more than that. We came here for that. We came here to say we don't want any of your nonsense. We just want to be free. We want to worship the God we want, and we're gonna— we want our God. We just want to do these things. We want everybody to leave us alone, we'll leave everybody else alone. And then we struggle with this dichotomy that if we don't protect the world, nobody else will, and then the bad guys will take over.

Well, and also, but, but where I'm going, I guess, yes, you're—

I'm not, I'm not arguing. No, no, I'm pointing out sort of the, the theory behind it.

Yes. And I— and that is American, uh, that, that whole concept. Um, I was kind of going in a different direction with my thoughts, Steve, and what I was thinking of is our willingness as a culture, as an American culture, to sacrifice. So during World War II, the arsenal of democracy, we, we, we required of our citizens that they couldn't buy meat, for example, on, on any day. They couldn't just go into a butcher shop and buy meat. There were certain days that you could buy gas, you could buy meat, you could only get tires. War rationing. There was rationing.

And Americans rolled up their sleeves. Rosie the Riveter and, you know, guys went down to the recruiting station and signed up to go to war to defend their country. And there was a sense that we would sacrifice for all of these freedoms Steve just mentioned, the freedom to be left the hell alone, to farm, to start our businesses, to be a retailer, to be a manufacturer. And to be isolated from the world's craziness, that we would defend ourselves. Okay. And we would, we would help those who are trying to defend themselves from tyrants like Tojo, like Hitler and Mussolini. And so I get that. But where is that streak in our culture today? And this is, this is what I regret, that people are moaning.

I mean, I, All I can see on cable television is people moaning about the gas went up to $3.49 from $2.99 and what a huge burden it is for them to pay $10 more a week for gasoline.

I mean, this is a temporary problem too.

I mean, I mean, okay, so the barrel, a price of a barrel of oil spiked at $120. It's now back down to $80 a barrel. And I'm like, Even Bloomberg, who hates Trump, is like, people need to calm down.

Well, but it's, it's the same thing. Look, we weren't— there's no way that you would have gotten America's head around war rationing until after Pearl Harbor. That's right. And it takes a lot to get America to stand up on its hind legs and say, get off my cloud. But once it happens, it's an overwhelming response. And I think Vietnam, we didn't have it. I don't think Korea, we had it. Like all these sort of proxy things.

We didn't have it. And it's no different.

We don't have it.

After 9/11, George Bush—

at 9/11, we had it.

Well, for a very, very short period of time.

But, but even his reaction was after 9/11 was he didn't ask Congress to declare war, number one. And he also told Americans to go ahead and keep living the life that you're used to. He didn't really call on us to sacrifice. And I kind of regret that. In a way. I kind of like— it was like, okay, because of the shoe bomber, you got to take your shoes off at the airport. And that was the big, huge sacrifice. We got to take our belts and our shoes off, okay, at the airport.

And that, that was the big impingement on Americans after 9/11. And I'm like, you know, it should have been more than that. It shouldn't just have been, you know, Steve's family and my family and Southern boys in particular going off to war, right, to defend this country. For just a brief moment, Steve is absolutely correct. For about the first 6 months, Democrats, Republicans, New Yorkers and Alabamians, right, we were all on the same page. But then it quickly dissolved because I don't think there was any shared sacrifice.

And now it's come full circle. It's come full circle. Come full circle. America was at fault. That's why we were bad. We're bad. That's why they had to bomb us, right? You know, it's like if we weren't such horrible people and a horrible culture and a horrible country in the West is blah blah blah and white supremacist blah blah blah blah blah. Here we go.

It's all nonsense.

It's all nonsense. It's all nonsense. This is the freest country in the world. It is the freest country that's ever been in the world. And understand that if you let that go, you will lose it forever.

And this theocracy, this, this, this caliphate that we are putting down, I mean, do American women know how Iranian women are treated or Iranian homosexuals, how they're treated? It's really crazy. Any concept of what it would be like for this world to be dominated by a caliphate where— look what's happening in England. We are most— our closest ally at this time is not really helping us. Why is that? Why is Starmer— why is Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of England, why is he not helping the United States and Israel put down this Muslim caliphate disease in Iran that has these nukes. It is because England has been, has been Islamized. It— there is a significant population that he is concerned about triggering within the, within the United Kingdom. They don't have secure borders. You could just enter the United Kingdom.

You could just go there. You could just get off a ship or an airplane and you're in. You're in. It's not as if it's like Mexico was under Biden. They've totally lost control of their culture. And he is so fearful of the reaction of his Muslim population. You know, the mayor of London is a Muslim. Sadiq Khan completely hates the United States, says it all the time.

And he's the mayor of London. And this is what's going on in England. If that were to happen worldwide, I don't— all these people that are demonstrating, you know, like in Columbia University or, you know, Wall Street or whatever, they carry around these signs and they're all funded, you know, by these socialist billionaires like Soros. And you're like, do these useful idiots not know what would happen to them? They would be the first people put up against the wall and shot, you know, because they are the women's rights, if you will, radicals. They're the ones that want women to be able to get abortion on demand and homosexuals and trans people to be out in to have, to be able— their lifestyle should be celebrated. Those things get you thrown off buildings in Tehran. But, but the cluelessness of the American population is, is what's killing me. And it's, it's what— we're not having an honest conversation about what we're trying to prevent and why this is a response to a prior act of war against us.

How many Marine barracks, how many embassies have to be bombed by Iranian agents or their proxies? How many American soldiers need to be blown up, you know, when we're abandoning Afghanistan by Iranian proxies? You know, how many IEDs, How many legs have to be taken off before we understand they've declared war on us for 47 years and it's just now that we're reacting to it?

Yeah. And look, you use the term useful idiots, which is the perfect term because if you go back, I just did a little history search. There was a great purge in Russia and the useful idiots, this is back in the '30s, and the useful idiots would go over to Russia and say, It's sort of— remember when Sean Penn did this? I've been over there and, you know, everything is okay. We don't need to be here, guys. Everything is fine. But these useful idiots would go over there and report back, no famine, Ukrainians aren't dying. Stalin's, you know, he's right on top. Everything's hunky-dory.

No worries. And then, you know, if you take it to its extreme, they're the useful idiots are usually the first people that die. Great movie called Reds. Reds.

Yeah, Reds. And it's about the— it's about the real life journalist Jack Reed, who, by the way, has his little cube on Red Square. That's where his ashes are, right? Right there near Lenin.

So there was a more recent movie a couple of years ago about— it might have been a journalist that goes over and sort of documents what's really going on. Yes. Yeah. So it's, it's fascinating history and it's repeating itself. It's repeating, repeating itself. People are sympathizing with these brutal cultures and dictators who are killing people. Like even in Iran, how many people, how many of the protesters got killed? They say upwards of 30,000. 30,000 people got killed.

I mean, imagine that. And there's people saying, don't worry. Yeah, it's all good over there. We just, it's because we're so bad that they're killing these people. It's lunacy.

So it is true. Is true. Useful idiots need to wake up. Well, turning to Ohio a little bit. Governor DeWine yesterday gave his final— thank God, that's my— I'm sorry, that's my op-ed for today. But he gave his final State of the State speech and he patted himself on the back, very Trumpian-like. And I guess that's what a State of the State or a State of the Union is all about, is, I mean, you're not going to get up there and recite all the things you did wrong. But that's what I'm here for.

And that's great. So, yeah, DeWine didn't talk about the rampant, out-of-control, illegal, you know, alien problem in Ohio, or even the ones that were let in under temporary status that, that have upset many communities. He didn't talk about data centers, which are the plague on the, on the horizon here in Ohio. Over 200 of them. And, you know, all Trump can do at the federal level is get this weak pledge from big tech that, oh, we'll help pay for the electrical bills. Hey, we need a lot more than that. But anyway, DeWine didn't really talk about the high property taxes in Ohio and doing some relief on that because he vetoed all that. He didn't really talk about the terrible state of education in Ohio.

Lots of problems here in Ohio, and he really didn't address any of those. He talked instead about how, how much development he's brought to Ohio. And if you go out into my part of Ohio or other places where these data centers and chip factories are planned, people are not real thrilled about the development because what do you get? You get workers coming in from Texas and Mississippi and and, you know, wherever, Mexico, and they're, and they're building these structures and then they're going to go home. It's not Ohioans building these structures. Well, it's—

there, there's a more sinister hidden problem that I was not aware of, and I think you brought it to my attention. It's like, and it's obvious yet not discussed. It's great for Johnstown, they say, bring in Intel, bring in all these people, bring in all this, and guess what? My, my property is now worth a million, it was worth $100,000. Right. Well, the problem is there's a property tax that goes along with that. And you get mom and pop who've lived on that little plot of 5 or 10 acres their entire— now they can't pay the property taxes. They're, they're in effect evicted. And, you know, the other side would say, well, great, they can sell their house and be millionaires.

Where are they going?

Where are they going? Where are they going to go?

So 75 years old. And you can make an argument both— you can make the argument, I guess, that it's good for advancement. But you can't make that argument without at least acknowledging the other side, that it may not be good for certain people. And then somewhere you've got to figure out a way to square those, those problems. Yeah.

In these data centers, the other thing is after the jobs, you know, great for the construction workers, you know, and like, and like I reminded a few construction workers, you know, there were good old German and Polish construction workers who built Dachau and Theresienstadt too. So, you know, you know, Just because you're a construction worker, you don't get to check your morality at the doorstep. You've got to also think about what you're working on. And if you think it's just fine to go in and take virgin land and, you know, clock in and clock out and check your brain at the door and go get a beer at night and not think about what you're doing to the environment and what you're doing to people's lives, then you're not fully connected as a moral person to what you're involved in. And that's very convenient. There's been a lot of great books, a lot of literature about common people who allowed things like the Holocaust to happen. And this in a way is, of course, is not analogous to the Holocaust, but it is analogous to people not taking responsibility for their own actions and just saying, Well, hey, I'm a plumber. I'm going to go out there and plumb whatever, and I get paid.

Well, you know, you could say that when you were building Dachau, too. And I'm just, you know, I would just say to people, if you're out there basically building a catastrophe, you know, on somebody else's land and you just walk away and leave the catastrophe, you do bear some responsibility for what you did. Whether you're a contractor or whether you're the guy, blue-collar guy, you need to think about what you're doing. And, and that's why, you know, Steve is selective about what cases he takes. That's why I was selective about what things I would lobby for. I would not lobby for a pro-abortion organization, even though my stock in trade is lobbying. I wouldn't lobby for just anybody. And I— and if I was a bricklayer, I wouldn't lay bricks for just anybody.

Okay.

Is all I'm saying. Well, I'm not— I'm not going to take all of that on, but there's some stuff I could take on.

Look, I know I get it. I get it. I get what I say is controversial. But also, these data centers are going to employ basically AI, robotics, and very few people. And so the idea that when DeWine crows about all the great development he's brought to Ohio, That big, huge building, you know, on Beach Road down in New Albany now, because now it's part of New Albany. It's not unincorporated Licking County, but it's part of New Albany. That big, huge building that Google or Meta or whoever is building, Microsoft, those buildings are going to employ a couple dozen people. I mean, they're just going to— they're going to sit there and hum all day and all night and use a bunch of water.

And send a bunch of cooling vapor up in the air and, and lower the water table and pollute it. They're allowed to discharge hot water into the creeks. That's going to kill fish and birds and, and whatever. And if people don't care about that, then I would tell DeWine, well, you obviously didn't really bring a lot of jobs to Ohio. You've got an AI robot running the place and, and maybe a security guard or two and a couple of—

You brought work but not jobs. Yeah.

All right.

So look, we got to— let's get to some good and bad, and it's going to be a longer discussion because we're going to take on a couple of things.

Okay. I think my bad yesterday in Ohio. So the bad is ODOT. I mean, I've got this running feud with ODOT. Yesterday they shut down I-270 around Columbus for 6 frickin hours because a dump truck lost a wheel. It— hey, we got to do better than that, ODOT. You need to have, like they do in Chicago or New York City, you need to have hot, ready-to-go intervention deployments of emergency vehicles to tow away wrecks, to deal with injuries, to write reports, and then get them the hell out of the way. Because you can't shut down a main artery like I-270 for 6 hours.

No, that, that, that's a bridge too far. That's crazy.

Yeah, that's nuts.

So that's my bad. Any good?

Oh yeah, good. President Trump, I, I, I— look, it, it— this is a wiffle ball for me. It is about time. I still grieve for those Marines who were blown up at the Beirut airport by, by a truck bomb, right? I still think about those guys. It still matters to me. And that happened in the early '80s. And this is payback, not only for that, but it's to prevent future Marine and Army deaths that we don't have to incur as a country. This is cleaning up something that started with Jimmy Carter and goes on to the present day.

And it was perpetuated by a bunch of weak-kneed, spineless people.

And us, we created this. And if the biggest reaction is, well, we don't know what the endgame is going to be. Well, then you'd never play football. You'd never get married. You'd never buy a house. Because guess what, people? Life is where you don't know the endgame. And if you're not— if you're not willing to play the game of life, get the hell out of here. Let the rest of us who are willing to take chances to make this a better world, let us make the decisions, because apparently you've been pussified.

And you're not willing to take chances.

Well, I think it's more political than it is. Well, there's probably both. That's right. You know, so here's my bad. Have you been following James Talarico? Yes. Oh my God. This guy down in Texas, Democratic— a Presbyterian minister, right? Who is— there's a— look, I took on the project in January, on January 1st of Father Mike Schmitz Bible in a Day, or, uh, Bible in a Year podcast. So anybody who— anybody wants to get through the Bible, look, it's not going to give you the deep dive of a super study, but it's going to get you there, and it'll get you through the Bible in a year.

And you can listen to the podcast. I've been doing that, and I'm on the Old Testament, which I admit is a little difficult to read. Um, and you get through Numbers and you start like, what am I doing anyway? But, um, part of the Old Testament is the Ten Commandments, and it says, thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. And a lot of thinkers I follow, both theologians and academics, sort of have interpreted this. And most of us would say that means you don't swear using the word God. But I think it's deeper than that. I think it means what you don't do is use God as your platform, as your authority to make political moves. And I would criticize both sides for doing this.

Render unto Caesar. As Christ said famously, render it here. What do you think about these taxes? Render here. Give it to Caesar. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Render unto God what is God's. And Tallarico is down there talking about the climate and Christ would support his agenda on climate, talking about abortion. And Christ would say, well, it's not life.

It's only, you know, it might be somebody who could live, but it's not life. And so Christ would say it's okay to kill the baby. I mean, he's— yeah. And it's— it is— I cringe when I hear it. And I don't even think you have to be a religious scholar, even a believer, to cringe when you hear this because it's so transparently fake. Yeah, God's non-binary. God's non-binary.

And God's this and God's that. In every religion, he's called the Father. Right.

It just is. And it's okay. It doesn't matter. Right? It's perfectly— and, you know, God would be— he was asked, who do you feel for? Or who do you have sympathy for? And he was talking about the trans kids who came to— it's like, listen, dude, At least be honest about your platform and don't try to platform it undergirded by the Christian God because it doesn't quite fit. Right.

There's a long tradition there, Steve, of in particular, and like you say, both sides have done this.

Both sides. And look, the other side, shame on you.

You know, exactly. But there's this latest thing, and it really became big under Obama, where non-church people trying to use Christianity as a weapon against conservatives. And look, we're on to that. It doesn't work. If you think that you're going to take the words of Jesus and make it militant to make me feel bad, those are personal messages that Jesus is giving us. He is saying, take your cloak off and give it to a naked man. Take food out of your pantry and give it to a starving man. In contrast, it's not— it's not give Caesar all of your wealth because Stalin says he's then going to give it to starving people.

That's not what Jesus said. He's not saying let's enact a government that will take Norm's money and give it to those people.

Right, that's Mom Donny and that's Talarico. But that is not what Jesus said.

That's not what Christ is saying. And Christ is certainly He is certainly not saying elect a government that will do his bidding. He is saying this is your individual— salvation is yours, folks. It's your individual responsibility to live this way and strive to it imperfectly as you go. And I've already said my good— actually, I have two goods. One, Bill Maher, hats off, dude. I mean, that was awesome. That was a crushing blow.

That was awesome. And secondly, I always take my hat off to the Arnold Festival came through Columbus last week. Arnold Schwarzenegger, believe it or not, Columbus hosts the largest bodybuilding and fitness festival in the world, and it happens every March. And back to your DeWine speech, I remember the day that they canceled the Arnold right before COVID Wow. And I looked, I was down here in my podcast studio and I looked at my brethren and I said, this is a huge, huge problem. It wasn't a week later I would have had to shut my office doors The bars were closed, the restaurants were closed, the movie theaters were closed. Life changed as we know it. So those of you who don't remember DeWine's policies on that, I urge you to at least consider that when you're evaluating his tenure in office.

Well, and is the architect of his health— is now running the Department of Health under DeWine. The wacky theories and the wacky policy she is running is Amy Acton is running for governor.

But I don't see— but to her, I'm going to defend her a little bit and you'll see why. Okay. I don't think it was her policies. I, at the time, I remember thinking this was on board. This is just a figurehead. Oh yeah. Doing, doing the wine's bidding because she was decent to look at. She was sort of meek and she was like really caring, sort of the suburban mom.

Oh God. And, you know, I really care about you and I'm a health professional and we're going to shut you down and you can't make any money. And we're going to keep your kids from going to school and we're all going to force this vaccine down your throat. But don't worry, she looks good and she's very delicate about her messaging. I think that's all she was. Now she's running for governor and I think she's got a decent chance of winning, too.

So, well, the, you know, this, this, this is like Steve says, things do bring you full circle. But the mothering by the government, this whole thing has is It is so un-American, right, for a government to tell you, you know, what kind of family to run, you know, like, like what you need to do within the confines of your home. Yeah. You know, that your kids have to have, you know, a certain amount of brainwashing at school. They have to learn about, you know, Al Gore and, you know, his theories about the global climate change, you know, all this stuff that is forced into your kid's mind. And this is this whole mothering culture. And DeWine wrapped his arms around that whole thing. And, you know, it's how we ended up with, you know, 50,000 Haitians in Springfield because, you know, he's going to take care of downtrodden people.

And we're just going to mother them.

We're going to— Yeah, but I think there's always money at the bottom of it. And it's like always money at the bottom.

That's not the purpose of government. I want to strip down government. I want to decide for myself and my own family what our priorities are.

It's scary, Norm. It's scary.

Scary world. I don't have Amy Acton helping me figure it out.

One more, one more thing. You were talking about the Army. We both have family. My son gets on a plane, goes out to Fort Carson. Where his duty station will be. And one of the scariest things we can do as parents is let our kids go do life on their own and not do it for them. So when he gets on the plane and the flight is canceled or this happens or this happens, guess what? They'll figure it out. They'll figure it out.

You have to tackle these little scary incremental problems in order to engage in the big scary problems that are going to come. And for those of you who do this with your kids, you're the good parent.

You're the real parents. Yeah. Don't helicopter in. Yeah.

Let them figure it out. So, and, you know, is it scary that your kids are going off to the Army and joining and doing something new that you don't think is great? I had somebody tell me recently, cringe when I said my son's in— oh, she was just— she cringed. Yeah. And it wasn't the context for me to push back on it because it was in my professional capacity. But I just thought to myself how wrong, how wrong that person was. Yeah. So enter the world, folks. Let your kids enter the world.

Let them suffer to the extent they have to in order to have strength to take on what really matters. And that is where the fulfilling life lies, I promise. Absolutely. You know, not that I have all the wisdom.

No, but But that's what we need to be a lot tougher in our culture. And right now I'm thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, who at the end of the day, you know, World War II parents, right? There's a U.S. postage stamp with the Sullivan brothers on it. It's 5 siblings that died on the same day.

The impetus of Saving Private Ryan.

So that's right. Yeah. And you're like, you know what? A family gave 5 of their sons in one naval engagement, right, to this nation. And we were tougher back then. And Mrs. Sullivan and her husband weren't laying, or they weren't rolling around on the ground, right, talking about how they were victims and all this stuff. Their sons gave their lives for this country. And we were tougher back then.

And we need to honor those kinds of sacrifices And we need to support the Sullivan family and the ones back then and the ones today. We need to take care of those people because they're the ones that are bearing up under the burden. And the rest of our culture needs to get a lot tougher. We need, we need to demand of our government to let us the hell alone. Right. And we'll be there for the, for each other. We will sacrifice for each other and we'll do that on a personal level. Like Steve's son is sacrificing his time and talent.

He could be eating pizza at a college right now, just goofing off like a lot of people his age. And instead, he enlisted in the United States Army. And I salute that. And I salute my family members and anybody else's family where somebody's done that. And that's— those are the heroes of today, are these young men and women. That are, that are standing up for our rights and our lifestyle. And you need to get over the $0.50 more you're paying for a gallon of gas and instead think of Steve's son. Okay? Because that's where the rubber meets the road, not your stupid $10.

Hey, don't buy another coffee at Starbucks or something for the week. That'll make up for the $10. All right.

Well, with that, we're wrapping it up. CommonSenseOhioShow.com, brought to you by Harper Plus, our, our our thoughts and prayers going out to those in debt or suffering in tax season. Uh, your account, our account could be yours. Check us out, commonsenseohioshow.com. Coming at you right from the middle each and every week.