Shownotes
In this episode, the team delves into the complex situation in Gaza. We explore the possibility of military operations similar to those in Fallujah and question whether Israel would engage in genocide themselves. We highlight the significance of the ongoing Hamas resistance and a pro-Hamas event planned at The Ohio State University. It's a conversation that challenges our understanding of the conflicts in the region.
We explore the current state of affairs in American politics. From the recent election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House to the need for unity within the Republican party, we unpack the strategies and approaches being taken to address critical issues. We discuss the challenges of gaining political control, the danger of uninformed voters, and the essential role of the legislative process in shaping our nation's laws.
And an overview of Ohio's Issue 1 and Issue 2.
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.
info@commonsenseohioshow.com
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 2024 Common Sense Ohio
Transcripts
Alright. It is 10/20 no. 10/13/23. So if you add 10 and 13, it becomes 23. So those who like numbers, this is a good one. So 10, 13, 23. Common Sensen Ohio. We are back.
Steve Palmer [:I am back anyway after a little hiatus, bringing you common sense, your weekly dose of it anyway, I can't help you out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but you can go listen to the backlog of episodes and you, there's probably enough there now where you could do that if you haven't listened to them all or maybe relisten to them. Why not? You can get your dose of Common Sense on Monday through Thursday. But on Fridays, that's when it comes fresh and new. If you wanna check out the old episodes, by the way, common at centohioshow.com, and we now have a sponsor brought to you by Harper Plus CPA. So I'll give you my basic 32nd speed on Harper Plus in PA, it's not just your transactional guy. It's not the H and R Block set up at the strip mall. It's not where you go drop off your stuff and expect to just regurgitated tax return. Now that's okay.
Steve Palmer [:There are there is a need for that. But if you're running a business, a small business, a larger business, medium sized business, something with the complexities that those of those who don't do it don't understand. It's not because you don't you don't understand because you're you're dumb or you're you're ignorant may maybe ignorant in the true sense of word. Until you've gone through running a business and all the accounting debacles that can, bite you in the backside, all the potential upsides and downsides of not knowing and not planning and not working with somebody like Harper Plus, then you don't understand the value. Now I have lots of friends who use Harper Plus for their own personal individual returns. They're good for that too, but they really shine when it comes to the business planning, I had my planning meeting at the end of Q3, and I'm right on target as it turns out. I can I I won't get stung in December for my whatever you have to do, you have to be close to last year? So I won't get stung. I've I've estimated enough, and I won't get stung in April because I've withheld enough to cover my income.
Steve Palmer [:And, when, you know, when you have a business like mine, that's a variable income, so I don't always know what I'm gonna make, I can go up and down and sideways, and, I'm always right on target. Thanks to Harper Plus. So without further ado, we'll get at the show. Norm, what you got cooking?
Norm Murdock [:Well, it is Friday 13th.
Steve Palmer [:Oh, I def didn't even put that together. So 10/13/23, Friday 13th, on top of all of it.
Norm Murdock [: hat Hamas, It's killed over a: Steve Palmer [:Hold on. So Yeah. This is a pro Hamas day?
Norm Murdock [:Yes. As announced by Hamas, this is a worldwide day to, to celebrate or Or to align yourself, if you're so inclined, with the murder of and the beheading of babies and Raping of women and, you know, all the other goals, the the beautiful goals of Hamas, you know, who who ranks right down there with ISIS now in terms of their tactics. I I you know, I understand, you know, Obviously, people's right to speak and to to to march and to, assemble. And so, You know, this program, I think I can confidently say that my my fellow presenters here Would not want to impinge on the right of those people at Ohio State that wanna protest and and wanna celebrate the death of other people The we have we have a a first amendment right. But
Steve Palmer [:You have a right to do it. Yeah. You absolutely have a right. As long as you're doing it correctly, you know, you you can't just go take over the street if you get if you're permitted correctly and you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, then, you know, they have every right to do it. I will end. Like the Klan? Sadly, I mean, ironically, I would go to court to defend it. Sure. I I I would go to court to defend it.
Steve Palmer [:Me too.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:But they are misguided in a in a most egregious way. I mean, I I I saw some of this going on. I guess Harvard had a bunch of stew student groups Yep.
Norm Murdock [:30 of them.
Steve Palmer [:That, all came out and signed this letter. Yep. And you did you read the footnote to that, though? The some of the employers, even Wall Street employers, even and even some of the people who are sort of socialist and heading in that direction with whom I would disagree on almost everything have said, look, we are renouncing this in every way, shape, or form, and you idiots that sign this document, guess what? We're contacting potential employers and putting them on a list. So they they are they shared the names with or or, like, they're they're urging potential employers. Like, these people will go to Harvard and and write their ticket on Wall Street or do whatever. They they are on I I doubt it will ever happen, but, presumably, they're on a blacklist now for purposes of,
Norm Murdock [:But nobody knows how to blacklist like the left. I mean, they're really good.
Brett Johnson [:They're really good.
Norm Murdock [:They're really good at it.
Steve Palmer [:And and Wall Street, who knows about the big time employers? I don't know what they'll really do. I think at Randall take the talent, but it says something about you. If you're if you're on board with this and and guess what? The financial industry, there's plenty of Jewish people in that industry. And, you know, you can't there's no apologetics for this. I was I spent a lot of time talking Yeah. In, on I was on a trip recently. I spent a lot of time talking. We'd walk in the mornings when it's still dark.
Steve Palmer [:And, with my buddy who was out there, my my, partner in that business, and we came up with this. Like, there is no apologetics for this. There's nothing you can do to justify this. No. You even if you sympathize with whatever cause they think that they have
Brett Johnson [:That that's what I was kinda thinking. It has to be the blinders of, okay, you it you're selectively backing this up because, okay, they're they're they don't like their their conditions they're in in the Gaza Strip. But there's a whole lot more to it though.
Steve Palmer [:Right. Even if they don't like their conditions, they're responsible for their conditions. That's that's first and foremost. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But assuming that that's a legitimate argument, if you don't go house to house and kill babies and cut their heads off.
Brett Johnson [:Right. Right?
Steve Palmer [:And, you know, you don't do that. And and maybe the best way to describe this, like, imagine if somebody some like, there was a group of, renegades going house to house in your Dublin, Ohio neighborhood breaking in, and you're in your safe room because you were smart enough to build a safe room. So in order to get you out of the safe room, they burn your house down, and, then you come out and they pick you off. And if you're not in your safe room, they just come in and slaughter you. House to house to house to house to house. Now come up with some justification for that. Any any whatsoever.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. None.
Steve Palmer [:It it just none. And and not even the most atrocious wars that we've had I didn't do our World War 2. In fact, today we'll do that here in a minute, but, like, in World War 2, they would have to there was some house to house fighting. Vietnam, there was house to house fighting. And every now and then there'd be, like, civilians killed in that, and it was, like, renounced immediately. Even our own government will renounce it, and it still happened because that's the kind of stuff that happens during war. But this was intentional. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Like, we're gonna target those people, and I saw some of the videos. You know, there's some groups out there that are playing and by the way, the videos they're playing are not ones that that the Israeli civilians took, they are released by these jackasses themselves to as braggadocio for what they've done. Yeah. And there there was 1 video I saw where there was this guy who was clearly gut shot in a like, it looked like an apartment building. And, they had, what appeared to be a garden home as this guy was riding in paint, and they were taking the garden hoe and cutting his head off with it. So, I mean, literally, they were standing behind like, the guys on the ground, and they were just they were just like this
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Until his head came off. It's I mean, it is it it I it it was so brutal. I couldn't even watch some of this stuff.
Norm Murdock [:No. There
Steve Palmer [:was a woman getting in a car bound and handcuffed, arms behind, and her whole backside, the seat of her pants, all bloody. And I looked at it for a second, and I was like, holy crap.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:She's been anally raped. She's been vaginally raped, and this is this is the blood that came from it, I mean, it is it is so abhorrent. I mean, I I We
Norm Murdock [:were talking before the show, Steve, Brett and I, about, a father who when told his daughter had been killed at that party, the outdoor music festival, Rather than being taken prisoner and he gave his thanks to God that she was just
Steve Palmer [:Killed. Just killed and not
Norm Murdock [:Because and because, like, this woman, the video that you just described, he didn't want his daughter To to go through that and then be killed anyway.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Endure the torture of rape Yeah. And and mutilation.
Norm Murdock [:The thing about that thought process, a father Being happy his daughter's dead versus being kidnapped.
Brett Johnson [:And and even when we all have our kids ever thinking that you'd have to Ever be in that situation in your life. Like, you're you're Lunacy. To say that. Lunacy.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. I I cannot it it it took me a long time to really get my head around it. And then you see those videos, and you're just like, this is this is the this is the this is insanity. I I I there's absolutely zero justification for on any planet and these students are out there thinking that this is okay, fuck you.
Norm Murdock [:So so World War 2 Forgive my language. Yeah. No. No. It brings out strong emotions. So World War 2 thing, You know, we dropped bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The difference being that the civilian, War production was taking place in civilian homes, and we were at war with a sovereign state. Well And so there was Some justification.
Norm Murdock [:This attack by Hamas, they weren't in a war with Israel. Right? I mean, Israel declared war on them after this, but there there wasn't a war between 2 sovereign states. The Gaza Strip is titularly, controlled by the, by Palestine government, but Hamas has taken over that government, And and they're a client of Iran, so it's really a war between Iran and Israel with proxies In the Gaza Strip. And so what you have and I wrote my blog about this this week. What you have is All of 2,100,000 people in that small area that you know, I am told that's the densest human population on Earth per square mile Even more so than Tokyo or Rio or, you know, pick pick a city, New York City, any anywhere else on Earth, The Gaza Strip, 2,100,000 people. Most of those people, I'm, I'm positive, want peace. They wanna get along. They wanted the 2 state solution that had been negotiated between Arafat and, and Israel, and all of this was signed and, you know, the idea was there is the Palestinian homeland with a Palestinian government And Israel and the Palestinians agreed to all this, and then in comes Hamas and takes over the government.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. And and, look, to anybody who thinks that there's any sort of moral equivalent to dropping the bomb in World War 2 to this Yes. Again, go read some history. Three Right. Right, go read some history because there's a lot more to it. First of all, you know, World War 2 started without you know, there was there was still an understanding that you would not drop bombs on civilian targets. And I think I think it happened by happened by just gross blunder. I think a German plane one time was flying over London, mistakenly drop bombs and it hit their you know?
Norm Murdock [:During the battle of Britain, they they, bomb were targeting. Yeah. That's right.
Steve Palmer [:They were targeting military targets.
Norm Murdock [:And they got in trouble when they got home if Germany.
Steve Palmer [:Even Hitler didn't like it.
Norm Murdock [:No. Those guys were in major shit.
Steve Palmer [:And and it's because they realized that that is a slippery slope. So we took that personally, of of course, and then it ends up in, like, Dresden, and it ends up in That's right. That's right. Some other things. But, you know, when we're gonna drop the bomb on on in Japan you know, Japan is telling us we're gonna fight every civilian to the last man.
Norm Murdock [:Correct.
Steve Palmer [:We and, you know, there was a there was a math equation that had to be done on the number of losses that we projected, and it was I mean, it was it was incredible. And it and and here's We
Norm Murdock [:had just gone through Iwo Jima and Okinawa where, In Okinawa, in particular, the Japanese civilians were so afraid of the marines. They they were jumping off cliffs. Yep. They they believed that to become a US marine, you had to kill your parents.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. They I mean, propaganda was brainwashed. And and here here's the functional difference, so here's the real difference. We today are still debating the morality of that decision. Go watch Oppenheimer. Go see the movie. Sure. And and it's because it
Norm Murdock [:Or reach on Hersey's book
Steve Palmer [:Yes.
Norm Murdock [:Hiroshima.
Steve Palmer [:And and and, you know, that that means something to us, I I mean, that should mean something to everybody. It's like even today, all these years later, we are still feeling the sting of the morality of that decision and trying work it through. It's like, was it worth it? Was it not worth it?
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:And it was a tough moral decision at the time. What these assholes did was not they had no trouble with this decision. In fact, God told them to do what they said.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:You know, this is this is the way to do it. We're gonna just go kill civilians. We're gonna kill babies. We're gonna rape their women. We're gonna cut off the heads and mutilate bodies. It's like, this is not the same. No. And to the extent that you think that we didn't have a moral dilemma about dropping the bomb and there wasn't some justification for it, you're sorely mistaken.
Steve Palmer [:And and, you know, these guys had 0 moral qualms about doing what they did, and they would do it again.
Norm Murdock [:And they're hiding behind these you know, the the a large portion of that population. You know? I mean, they're Butcher, baker, and candlestick maker, they're just regular people, you know, who are Palestinian living there, And they are they're in a situation where they're being used as human shields, and the Israelis are not buying the human shield thing. Like, they're saying, well, you know what? If they're launching rockets, from your house, whether you like it or not, Like, whether you invited Hamas to use your attic as a firing base, that's not our fault if we blow up your house and if your family's in the house Get out. They're they're gonna get blown up. The problem is the Palestinians in Gaza Strip can't get out.
Brett Johnson [:They can't get out. There's nowhere to go.
Norm Murdock [:There's nowhere to go. Nobody is Egypt's not taking them. Yeah. Jordan, Syria. This is
Steve Palmer [:and and look. There's a bigger goal here. They don't they don't want peace. They don't. They they don't want a 2 state solution. They don't. They want they're they're look.
Norm Murdock [:I think the common Palestinians, probably the more majority vast majority, I think, do want of
Steve Palmer [:that Oh, no. No. I agree. I'm talking about the people You're talking
Norm Murdock [:about Hamas?
Steve Palmer [:Hamas Yes. Of course. Right. Hezbollah. The like, they they don't.
Norm Murdock [:No. They don't.
Steve Palmer [:And and, you know, there is is, I often say it's like, these people will tell you what they intend to do. Just listen. They're they're telling you.
Brett Johnson [:Hungry.
Steve Palmer [:Like, they're not saying we want a 2 state solution. They say we wanna eradicate every Jew from the planet.
Norm Murdock [:Well, the Iranian, parliament in the aftermath of this attack, did a death to Israel and a death to USA, Chant in their version of Congress.
Steve Palmer [:Their 6,000,000,000 wasn't enough?
Norm Murdock [:Well, apparently
Steve Palmer [:It was actually 10,000,000,000 if you go back to,
Norm Murdock [:like, March. Has not been enforcing the oil embargo, and it was estimated, by One of the oil, experts, the the people who track oil markets, that, Iran has been able to stockpile $70,000,000,000 Via illegal, what should have been enforced against them, oil embargo money over the last, year.
Steve Palmer [:This is, you know And
Norm Murdock [:then 6,000,000,000 more like you said. 1,200,000,000 for 5, you know, each for five, to ransom money for 5 Yeah. US hostages. It's just insane.
Steve Palmer [:It's insane. And and, you know, when the world when when the United States is weak, the evil people take over.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, sure.
Steve Palmer [:You know, this is like, everybody wants utopia in the world, but the world isn't it's all good to go. Happy place.
Norm Murdock [:2 hot wars. I mean, that that we know of. 1 in Europe, now the Middle East, and you gotta be thinking China's thinking, Okay. So the US is sending all this naval armada over there to the Middle East. They've got all this money tied up with Zelensky in Ukraine.
Steve Palmer [:Yep. What a perfect time. A weak military to be I mean, now we've got a underfunded military already.
Norm Murdock [:What a great time to take, time
Steve Palmer [:on. Yeah. You bet. So this is like everything has a consequence. Right? And and it's like, when I do when I deal with, high publicity criminal cases. And I I learned a long time ago that the the media is there's a vacuum out there, and it's gonna fill with something. So if we're not supplying information, even if it's just a cookie cutter type, you know, sound bite statement about a case, then the other side will fill that up. Oh, yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Something will fill that up. And the world's gonna fill up with evil if we don't fill it up with our brand of of, freedom. Right? And Yeah. Look. Are we perfect? Far from it. Far from it.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:But if you think that if if the United States is so evil for sort of, having a muscle flexing presence in the world, you are seeing what happens right now when we don't. It's like we're witnessing what happens when we don't. You know, we're not the prettiest muscle man around. No. And our muscles are sometimes flawed, and sometimes we do stupid stuff. And it's not far from perfect, but it's not intentionally evil. No. This is intentionally evil, and there's a difference.
Steve Palmer [:Right? There is no moral equivalent Yeah. To the these these idiots' justification and, and the bomb. You know? There's there's nothing even close.
Norm Murdock [:I mean, look what we did in the aftermath of World War 2 with the Marshall Plan. We we immediately thought about rebuilding the very people We were locked in a a death struggle with the the Nazis and the imperial Japanese. We rebuilt both countries Yes. US taxpayer money after obliterating them.
Steve Palmer [:Maybe to the chagrin of some of the soldiers who were there. You know? Like, why are we doing this? Right. But if we didn't do that, then you have another world war, you know, and
Brett Johnson [:Or another vacuum that something
Norm Murdock [:feels like something's in.
Steve Palmer [:Which is exactly what happened after the Afghan war. Mhmm. And and this is why we have terrorism right now. This I mean, it's like we left that thing in a vacuum. Yeah. We left Vietnam in a vacuum. You know, we leave these places, and you don't you don't you don't backfill it with something, the evil people take over. That's just how it works.
Norm Murdock [:That's how it works.
Steve Palmer [:You know? It's it's just it's it's what happens. And,
Norm Murdock [:It's power politics. It's it's reality, and and people wanna, you know, close their eyes and just, you know, let's The isolationist, let's just take care of this country. And there's a balance between the being the world's cop, right, and just being a moral force in a in a military force for good, and there's a lot to be said for When America's strong, people think twice. I mean, look at little Kim and North Korea Yep. And the way Trump manipulated that guy. It would like, To to the point that Trump was the 1st and only American president to ever visit North Korea because he went over there and probably told that guy eye to eye, hey, man. You don't wanna be shooting missiles over Japan. You don't wanna be going nuke.
Norm Murdock [:You don't wanna be selling this stuff. You gotta end your nuke program. We're gonna sell you all the food grain. You're like, we're gonna turn on all kinds of good stuff for you if you behave, But if you misbehave Right. What did Trump say? Hell hell and fire, I think, was the exact quote. You know? Intimidation works. It it
Steve Palmer [:it sometimes you just have to have a presence.
Norm Murdock [:That's right. Or or remind them remind
Brett Johnson [:them of the consequences of if you do this, it's gonna happen. You remember this.
Norm Murdock [:Right? Credible. It And right now, the US is incredible.
Steve Palmer [:No. Biden has Biden has sent the opposite message. Right. The US is weak. The the US is not only weak. They hate itself.
Norm Murdock [:Come across our border. You can invade our country.
Steve Palmer [:Invade our country.
Norm Murdock [:Just come across
Steve Palmer [:Send your people here.
Norm Murdock [:Sure. You
Steve Palmer [:know, we'll give you we're gonna give
Norm Murdock [:our enemies $10,000,000,000. 81,000 people from countries the the border patrol calls it countries of interest, and what they mean is Countries which have a high incidence of terrorism Yep. 81,000 that we know of, not counting gotaways, have come from those countries, including 200 that were on the terrorism watch list. Yep. I mean Yep. I mean, we're not we're not even serious about our own national security.
Steve Palmer [:No. It's it's it's it's abhorrent what's going on. And until until we reemerge with a a a power presence in the world, this crap will continue. It will continue. And it may continue to be on the point of return. Or by that, I mean, war. Like, we're another world war.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. The failure of diplomacy. You know, diplomacy includes being credible and intimidating and all of that, which I know that sounds really, what, toxic masculinity or something. Like, people will put that down like, oh, America is, like, Flexing its muscles. Yes. Yeah. But when you're doing it with the objective of keeping peace, what's wrong with flexing muscles?
Brett Johnson [:We're not taking over territories. And we're not
Norm Murdock [:even having a war. We're just scaring people.
Steve Palmer [:Look.
Norm Murdock [:We didn't That's good. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:We didn't stick around in in rural Europe after World War 2, you know, we kept them we maintained a presence in Japan, and we maintained a presence in east or West Germany anyway. Yeah. But, you know, we didn't just, like, take over governments and rule. We we we rebuilt the ones that we that were there.
Brett Johnson [:Because we understood the economy would benefit both.
Steve Palmer [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:If we build it up the the right way That
Norm Murdock [:was the thesis. We would we would
Brett Johnson [:help the European military
Steve Palmer [:cap. Dictators as the left would would, Or
Brett Johnson [:colonialism. We didn't Take over the country.
Steve Palmer [:We did. Yeah. And, you know, we've done have we done some of that in our yeah. Of course. But it it's it's it's absurd to say that,
Brett Johnson [:That's the main goal.
Steve Palmer [:That that what we do is on some moral equivalent with what Hamas is doing. Yeah. It just it's not even close. It it's so far field. It's not even close. There is no rationalization. There's absolutely no apologetics for this. These are just evil, bad people, and they need to be eradicated, I mean, I you you like, I would hope that we're on the phone saying, alright.
Steve Palmer [:What do you guys need?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. What do you need?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. You know, you almost want like, and there's Americans over there. Right? Both Christians and Jews and whoever, American citizens, even Muslims, I'm sure go travel over there. Sure. And they don't wanna be caught up in a a house to house slaughter. Which is gonna
Norm Murdock [:be really ugly. It'll be like Fallujah where, US, you know, troops went door to door, knocking down doors on storage sheds, going through the house, looking for weapons, And Israel, you know, they're gonna have to do it on that I mean, they'll just have to do it that way. Otherwise, they'll be committing an atrocity. If they I mean, Israel we think Israel has nuclear weapons. I mean, if they just wanna wipe out Gaza, they can do it. That mean they could drop a couple of megatons and and just, you know, turn it into a glass parking lot, But I can't imagine a people that have gone through the Holocaust and have been routinely subjected to pogroms, of of genocide, I can't imagine that they themselves then would perpetrate that. That's beyond my comprehension. I don't think, Net in Yahoo or the IDF would do that.
Norm Murdock [:I hope they wouldn't. I don't I'm I'm not lecturing.
Steve Palmer [:Coming. There's gonna be a war,
Norm Murdock [:and there's be ugly, and it won't be perfect.
Steve Palmer [:And and there's gonna be civilians in the cross here. Absolutely. When when you when you don't let when the government doesn't let the civilians out of the military targets, then there's gonna be civilians there.
Norm Murdock [:I mean It's on Hamas.
Steve Palmer [:You know, I I talked to a a former FBI agent whose job it was to interview and, operate in that part of the world recently. And I asked if that was true. I said, is it really true that they they they bury their, military complexes in the basements where the civilians live or in the attics? And he's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We do.
Steve Palmer [:And and, you know, tell that to the Harvard students. Right. Tell that to every in in, you know, years of their quote, you know, apartheid, which is total BS.
Norm Murdock [:When we were in the Middle East, as a force in Iraq, One of the common tactics because we wanted to respect the culture, we would not go in and search mosques at first. Right? Because, you know, that's the Islamic church.
Steve Palmer [:Sure. Because we have a history of respecting freedom of religion.
Norm Murdock [:The exactly.
Steve Palmer [:And nobody else on the freaking planet has, by the way.
Norm Murdock [:Well and and we we didn't wanna see American troops going in and raiding mosques. So what did they do as a tactic? The the the the the the the, insurgents in Iraq started launching rockets and storing bombs and whatever in mosques. Yeah. I mean, they will go where we think we shouldn't go. And just like your FBI guy said, they're going to stockpile and, project themselves out of residences, and those people they're counting on Israel saying, oh, those Those are noncombatants. We don't wanna blow them up.
Steve Palmer [:Yes. So I you know what? Conundrum. I sort of feel like what Israel's doing right now is saying, look. Get out. We're gonna with the and and, by the way, we're Israel was supplying power and water. Like, basic,
Norm Murdock [:They cut them off. They they
Steve Palmer [:cut them off. Like, they were supplying it. Yeah. And they cut it off. And they did it, I think I mean, there's an argument anyway that they did it because there's war. And, frankly, that's good enough. Yeah. But beyond that, it tend that they're hoping, I think, that that would tend to get the civilians out of there because you can't live I mean, they you know, get that mobile.
Brett Johnson [:But it does go back to where do where did the civilians go, though? I don't know. Taken them.
Norm Murdock [:See, that's the problem.
Steve Palmer [:So but but you have to like, if there's this if there's this moral equivalency judgment nonsense going on, then at least what that does is it's saying, alright. Now it's on you guys. Correct. You know, we're telling you, this is coming. Mhmm. We're cutting off your utilities. This is coming. Let your people go.
Steve Palmer [:Let them get out of there so we don't have to kill them, but they they won't. They won't let them out of it because they want Israel to kill them. What do they that norm. Yeah. Here here's here's what here's what here's what we don't understand, I think, in the west is that to them, that's honorable. It's honorable to die.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, yeah.
Steve Palmer [:It's honorable to die for Allah. And the you know, the and they've told these people that, so it's okay to die. You know? They're okay with it. Now we aren't. And I think I I used to play cards with a bunch of guys, and we'd debate about this crap. I was like, look. You don't understand. We have 2 different sets of morality here.
Steve Palmer [:It's like they're operating on a different set of rules, then we are.
Brett Johnson [:We can't even grasp.
Norm Murdock [:Well, like in Japan Yeah. In World War 2, the Bushido Code
Steve Palmer [:Correct.
Norm Murdock [:Completely different code
Steve Palmer [:Beyond comprehension to
Norm Murdock [:Then a then a mainly Christian country would approach warfare.
Steve Palmer [:Individual life matters there.
Norm Murdock [:Sign the Geneva Convention, the Japan. Death for the cause. Did Hamas.
Steve Palmer [:It's right. Right? The death for the cause is noble to them. And, you know, so dying is okay. And yet what they'll do is they'll turn around and say they're killing our civilians. But the like, you know, it's like it's so we have to wake up to this. And I think part part and parcel with this is the media has to wake up. You know, the legacy media has to wake up and say and quit apologizing for this crap. This is this is not good.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. You
Steve Palmer [:know? And and I think it's starting to happen. And, you know, this this may be you know, sooner or later, the the roaches come out, you know, and you really see the dirt and what's really going on. And this is that. You know, like like, there's no way that you can see this video, understand what happened, and then on on the news, somehow justify it.
Norm Murdock [:I just I just wanna say for for myself, and I did this in in the blog that I wrote, that I no more wanna see beheaded or machine gunned Palestinian babies from innocent, noncombatant, peaceful Palestinians. I don't wanna see that either, But at the same time, I do recognize the impossibility of doing this perfectly by Israel. There's just no way they can go house to house and do this perfectly. There is going to be civilian death.
Steve Palmer [:It's gonna be tragic.
Norm Murdock [:It will be tragic. It will be unavoidable because Hamas is not going and and the other Arab The the the surrounding Arab countries, I you can't walk from the Gaza Strip across the Sinai Desert to Israel I mean, to Egypt even if you wanted to, And I don't see Egypt or any other country sending a flotilla of boats to the Gaza Strip And Hamas allowing those boats to be filled with refugees.
Steve Palmer [:No. Hamas wants Israel to have to kill the they
Norm Murdock [:want this.
Brett Johnson [:They want that damage.
Norm Murdock [:The estimate is there are 35,000 Hamas fighters against 2,000,000 Israeli,
Brett Johnson [:you let their I was trying to fight find that number.
Norm Murdock [:So it is an elephant against a mouse here. And and Hamas, as you said, Steve, They're perfectly happy to die if that's what it takes to to stoke the the embers and the fire of hatred, and what I'm most afraid of is at a time when the 2 state solution and the Abraham Accords and all of this was starting to work pretty well, Hamas saw that, And it was none of this was in their best interest if they wanna eliminate Israel and kill all the Jews. So they started this to upset the peace accords. And They know they can't win. That's right. And so What what I I fear is gonna come out of this is another cycle of retribution where Israeli soldiers are gonna go into the Gaza Strip, Some innocent some number, some percentage of innocent noncombatant Palestinians will be killed, and then that stokes Another round of Yes. This
Steve Palmer [:is 50 more years of
Norm Murdock [:of of thousands of years of this back and forth between
Brett Johnson [:Hatfield McCoy kinda feel to us.
Norm Murdock [:Arabs, even pre Muslim Arabs, but, you know, goes back before the the the 6th century. You know, it it this is just gonna do another round of that, and it it it and what they wanna do is kill off the 2 state solution. They don't want there to be a desert.
Steve Palmer [:They want all the Jews. Dead. That's right. They want them dead. That's right. The so, I mean, so say that everybody uses to sorta say that out loud and get their head around it.
Norm Murdock [:They want it all to.
Steve Palmer [:It's not about land. It's not about territory. It's not about Right. Economics. They want the Jews dead. It's what they want. That's their that and it and you know what? Where what's what's my source for that? Them.
Norm Murdock [:Them, Murray. Them. The idea that this can be pinpoint And, avoid, collateral, deaths, it's it's impossible.
Steve Palmer [:It it's it's impossible, and it sucks.
Norm Murdock [:I hope that Israel will limit it as best they can, that's what I pray for.
Steve Palmer [:Well and I think that they will.
Norm Murdock [:I I I think they will try.
Steve Palmer [:They will try. And it's gonna be like, yeah, I think you said it best. It's gonna be imperfect, and there's gonna be a lot of that going on, and it's not Israel's fault, and, you know, the now that now, like, you've got our politicians to to take it back to our country, and then, you know, they've got our politicians calling for a peace, stand down. Oh, god. What are you talking about, Steve?
Norm Murdock [:Talking about?
Steve Palmer [:Like so alright. Yeah. We'll stand down. Ceasefire. You just killed 2,000 of ours of of women, children, babies
Norm Murdock [:It's a Steve, it's the same nuts
Steve Palmer [:gonna stand down? It's the same gonna stop you from doing it again.
Norm Murdock [:It's the same nutty people in congress, that immediately knee jerk reaction after 9/11 said, oh, well, wait a minute. Osama bin Laden and and Al Qaeda, we caused that to
Steve Palmer [:happen. It's our fault.
Norm Murdock [:It's our fault that that the that the Twin Towers were knocked down, the Pentagon was attacked, and there's a big crater in Pennsylvania. That's all our fault, though. It's America's fault. No. No. No. Afraid not.
Steve Palmer [:It is not Israel's fault that Hamas crossed the border
Norm Murdock [:No. It's not.
Steve Palmer [:And cut babies heads off.
Norm Murdock [:No. No. Right? Right.
Steve Palmer [:There there is no time
Norm Murdock [:to grow up AOC Yeah. And, That that that Ilhan Omar and all the other nuts
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Rashida Tlaib.
Norm Murdock [:To re yeah. I mean, honestly. I mean, I think the Democratic Party has got to toss those people out of their party. Well They need to ostracize them.
Steve Palmer [:It's starting I mean, look. You come out they come out of the woodwork like that and start making those statements. I mean Yeah. It gets real tough to support. Like I said, even the socialist are sort of saying, oh, not not not this time. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:You know, we're not we're not on board this time. So, anyway, that's,
Norm Murdock [:A lot there. A lot of emotion and, and and a lot of,
Steve Palmer [:And in the mix of all this, there I saw some of the left blaming the fact that the Republicans don't have a speaker of the house. Yeah. Right. And it's like, again, like, how do you how do you do that with a straight face? And then well, you said
Norm Murdock [:100% of the Democratic Party did not live up to the assurance that Nancy Pelosi gave Kevin McCarthy that Kevin give him that 1 person can challenge your speakership, and then there has to be a vote. Go ahead and give them that. I got your back, Kevin. And then when Kevin needed just a handful of Democrats to vote for him Right.
Steve Palmer [:Not with Nancy Stafford
Norm Murdock [:in the back.
Steve Palmer [:Of course and
Brett Johnson [:I'm right
Steve Palmer [:now, it's all politics. Like, politics just become this game. So we've got at least, Jim Jordan was in the race, in the run, and and did not, he fell, what, like, 8, 9, 10 votes short Yeah. Of, the candidate. But then
Norm Murdock [:And now and now Scalise is took his name out. So now
Steve Palmer [:Oh, is he backed out now?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. He's backed out. Now Some people are even talking about maybe Kevin McCarthy will be back in. I I you know?
Steve Palmer [:It's it's in in Geitz's name out of Florida. Gates. Gates out of Florida, it's like this you know? Guess I'd heard he
Brett Johnson [:had no interest in it, though, either, but things can change, obviously. And 12 meeting can change your name.
Steve Palmer [:Well, he's the guy that orchestrated all this crap. And it's like, what's he what's his cause here? What's he trying to accomplish? We talked about the disruption.
Norm Murdock [:We did talk about that last week and and, basically, I so I get it. Right? Kevin McCarthy did not keep his promise.
Steve Palmer [:So so but they didn't back him when he had it. Like like, he had a better version of this. They don't back him.
Norm Murdock [:Well, remember, you know, it took 14 ballots for Kevin McCarthy to become speaker, and the final ballot, the the, if you will, the hateful 8 or whatever you wanna call, they basically They they they just voted present, and they allowed Kevin to be elected speaker. And the key part of that deal was balanced budget process. And what they asked and what they got from Kevin McCarthy was an assurance that instead of voting for an omnibus Porkopolis budget bill, which is you know, we're on a continuing resolution right now. We have not passed the budget, And this is the occasion where Kevin basically said, yeah. We're gonna do an omnibus bill, and they were like, wait a minute. You promised that you would allow us to vote on each budget for each department. Twelve separate budgets would be individually voted on so that we could reform some of the waste and some of the politicization Sure. Of these departments
Steve Palmer [:Like, it sounds great.
Norm Murdock [:And he he didn't do it.
Steve Palmer [:It sounds great. The problem is that have these people looked at the political landscape lately?
Norm Murdock [:They wanna change it.
Steve Palmer [:There's a Yeah. The Dems control the senate I gotcha. And the presidency. Yeah. I gotcha. Right? So there there's, like, there's a little bit of a problem with this. And you you've got so here's here's the here's the balance. Right? Everybody thinks that this is so simple, and it's not so simple.
Steve Palmer [:You can't just go in and say, we we want it this way because that's the right way. And it it it may very well be the right way, but the government still has to operate. You still have to operate within the political system. There are checks and balances in our country.
Norm Murdock [:See, I'm in favor of this community. So, Steve, we we may differ on this, and that's okay. Right? It's all good. I'm totally in favor of a shutdown if that's what it takes. It's time to play poker.
Steve Palmer [:I'm okay with the shutdown, but you you have to also understand that things have to get done, and and the the political system has to operate. And if if you can't just say, we're gonna have this or shut it all down because you lose the things that you do have. I mean, you you should
Norm Murdock [:You could do a CR for the Pentagon. You could do a CR for border patrol, CR for at the IRS or whatever essential But then but then the Department of Education But
Steve Palmer [:then we don't have the license
Norm Murdock [:closing it.
Steve Palmer [:No. Look. I look. I, again, I I agree with a lot of this, but the Republicans have to look at the big picture here. We are not in control. The Republicans are not in control here of the government right now, and we are losing elections left and right with these with this kind of stuff. And, you know, the the the Dems didn't take control overnight. It's an incremental process.
Norm Murdock [:I was listening to Newt Gingrich on the radio, and he pointed out that It is a little bit of a myth that when there is a shutdown, it true. It gets blamed on the Republicans. Always.
Steve Palmer [:It's not always true. But
Norm Murdock [:Of course, it's not always true because it takes 2 to tango. The other side can cave in too. But it's always the Republicans that at first, you know, say, okay. You know, we're at an impasse. The government shuts down, and then they cave. Yep. Newt pointed out that after every one of these shutdowns, actually, the Republicans picked up more seats in the house afterwards. It is it is a little bit of a myth that it costs the Republican seats.
Norm Murdock [:They've always gained seats.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. And I, look, I they I don't have I don't
Norm Murdock [:have facts on Steve, it's a mess. I'll give you I don't have the facts to mess.
Steve Palmer [:To debate that. But I would say this is that the the hateful 8 or whatever, it's like those ilk are losing elections.
Norm Murdock [:Well, are they? I don't know. Yeah. They are. Newt Newt says they don't Lou, you we we won't lose seats.
Steve Palmer [:Republicans generally may not lose seats, but, like, that faction of the party, while I agree a lot of what what they're saying Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:I mean, Jim Jordan was one of them. He's he founded the Freedom Caucus.
Steve Palmer [:I I'm with you. But they're the a lot of those a lot of the Trump supported candidates are losing elections. You know, we lost the senate. We're we didn't get as many house seats as we wanted.
Norm Murdock [:Well, Trump condemned, thankfully. We need You know?
Steve Palmer [:We we need to figure out some sort of consensus within the party, and then we can start making better policy. But baby steps, guys. All we need it was like,
Norm Murdock [:if I'm
Steve Palmer [:with you. Like, you're not gonna get this overnight. We have to have incremental steps to this process. And if we're gonna balance the budget again, if we're gonna take over we gotta do it within the governmental structure that we have. You can't just take your ball and go home. And it that you know, we we're shooting ourselves in the foot by infighting, at a time when we need to start we need to look big picture and say, alright. What do we need to get off our couch here
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And start doing something.
Norm Murdock [:I agree. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:But I agree.
Norm Murdock [:Like, Kevin McCarthy should have kept his promises. They were only 9 months old. Why? You know?
Steve Palmer [:I don't think he could have done anything that would have, satisfied him. Well, the CR,
Norm Murdock [:Look. At some point, if you're gonna reform the budget, and the budget starts in the house and the Republicans do control the house Only by 5 vote margin, but the Republicans have the majority in the house. And I think at some point, this is what we talked about last week, But I think at some point, with a $34,000,000,000,000 deficit with, you know, all the problems we have, And we just keep spending money in Ukraine and pissing money away on all these crazy programs. And we could do the William Proxmire list if we want to Of all the bizarre things that the federal government funds and, you know, like like taking care of shopkeepers in public employees in the Ukraine, but not here in America. Like, our veterans sleep under bridges. You know?
Steve Palmer [:Sort of a whitewashing of it because, like, given our given the veterans who sleep under bridges money isn't gonna stop from sleeping under bridges.
Norm Murdock [:No. I'm just saying we are spending money on other peoples, On other countries,
Steve Palmer [:I would rather not spend the money here or there. I'd rather have it in my pocket.
Norm Murdock [:But if you're gonna piss Money away. Like, we've been pissing away on things that aren't really our business. Well, we yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Because we talked a little bit about last week too that all these, You know, factions go, well, it's only $1,000,000 here. It's only in the you know, all that sorry. Because I know there's a piece I just read recently. We talked about this in the previous episode too about, You know, the the this the r a the National Association of Broadcasters want to reinforce and enforce that car Car manufacturers keep the AM frequency in cars. Okay. So now they're saying, well, we can add $1,000,000 to the budget. It's nothing to to enforce this.
Brett Johnson [:Well, you got all these little $1,000,000 floating around here, and it freaking adds up.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:I mean, they said it three this article. It's just $1,000,000 or whatever. It it it isn't just $1,000,000.
Steve Palmer [:It's $1,000,000 is what it is.
Norm Murdock [:Clean Just that one day when they were throwing Kevin McCarthy out, that one day, the, the debt went up $250,000,000,000 On that one day.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. It's it's
Norm Murdock [:And every day, it goes up. It's not we're we can't even cover the interest now
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [: On: Steve Palmer [:And the problem with the and I think the the other side of this is we can't the argument is we can't have it all right now. If we wanna get to the point where we can get control of all this, we have to first get in control, politically speaking. And we have to get on the same page, politically speaking, because 8 people aren't gonna get it done, and the rest of them aren't gonna get it done. And, you know, like, the it's it's like they're they're shooting for the moon without the hand of cards to back it up. And that it's like the I can agree with the endgame on that, but but you're not gonna get there this way, and now the party looks even worse. So maybe shutdown government shutdowns might lead to a lot might lead to Republican victories. But right now, what it looks like is the Republicans, aren't even in a coordinated order at in any way, shape, or form
Norm Murdock [:Well, we have.
Steve Palmer [:All over the place. There's no leadership. There's no common cause. There's no common ground.
Norm Murdock [:It's nothing. The so I think that so if you look at half if you look at Trump's 4 years, For half of those 4 years, we had a Republican senate, a Republican house, and a Republican
Steve Palmer [:president nothing with it. Okay.
Norm Murdock [:So Well, because so
Steve Palmer [:Trump, frankly, was a spender. Well I mean, he was
Norm Murdock [:I'm talking about pre COVID when he wasn't a big Spender.
Steve Palmer [:Well, I mean, he still he still was even
Norm Murdock [:in control
Steve Palmer [:of it.
Norm Murdock [:COVID's when it went off the hook. He he wanted to build the wall. He wanted to get rid of
Steve Palmer [:was all all happy to spend money
Norm Murdock [:No question
Steve Palmer [:about nobody's looking at the red herring here, which is all entitlements.
Norm Murdock [:I'm not picking out good guys, bad guys here. I'm just saying that when you when you think that nirvana will be achieved when we have all 3 branches in Republican hands, including now a Republican Supreme Court. So all 3 branches. It's ineffective. So full 8. I understand what they're doing. Some of them are less than likable people personally, and and, of course, the spin is that, oh, they just don't like Kevin McCarthy as a person. Hey.
Norm Murdock [:I I I'm not gonna get into all that. But at some point, Steve, And and maybe you're saying this isn't the point where it should happen. And and and and and right you might be right.
Steve Palmer [:We are fighting for the life of the country, not the budget right now. That that that to me, that's the bigger cause. Right? So we're we're heading down a path with the other side in charge.
Norm Murdock [:Well, part of this is that. So the part the way you change the life of the country is through the budget. So when the DOJ, right, doesn't pursue Joe Biden for the bribery scandal or go after Hunter in real time for his gun charges, which just got dismissed, and all kinds of other Politicization of the DOJ, how do you deal with that? You deal deal with it through the budget. Right? The budget is the congress's tool to change conditions politically and culturally.
Steve Palmer [:We are teetering on the edge of losing the house again even, you know, it's like it's we're not gaining ground. You know? It's it's like We'll see. And Right? I mean,
Norm Murdock [:we'll see next year. Right? I
Steve Palmer [:mean We will see.
Norm Murdock [:You will see thesis is when the Republicans are badass and tough
Steve Palmer [:But these aren't badass and tough. This is divided and, disorganized. Okay. I'm not talking about the government shutdown. I'm talking about the party itself. It's divided and disorganized.
Norm Murdock [:I I know the chaos argument. I I get that. Alright?
Steve Palmer [:And so it's not cause of shutting down the government. It's the fact that we are all over the place.
Norm Murdock [:Well and and I think these people would say, give us our little bit of chaos. Like, Mitch McConnell is chaotic. Trump was chaotic, and they're like, what so we're gonna be a little chaotic here. We're gonna we we wanna throw the scrabble letters all over the table and then put it all back together, and it'll be like making sausage. It'll be ugly, And they can't get a speaker elected yet. But you and I have said many times, Steve, that When congress is out of session, right, that's generally a good thing.
Steve Palmer [:That's a good thing. Right?
Norm Murdock [:So I'm okay with them shutting down.
Steve Palmer [:Parties. I'm okay with look. In theory, I'm okay with shutdowns. I I because I say the same thing you said every time. Yeah. But the way this is happening, it's not that there wasn't a shutdown. It's that now we're going after our own leadership within the party, and it it it it's it's weak.
Norm Murdock [:I gotcha.
Steve Palmer [:It's weak.
Norm Murdock [:I I wish it didn't look this way. I agree with that. Yeah. 100%. Hey. I gotta correct myself on one thing. We were talking about the speaker, last show
Steve Palmer [:Mhmm.
Norm Murdock [:And I surmised that I thought William Howard Taft was the speaker of the house, as well as he was the chief justice of the Supreme Court and president. I was wrong about that. I was thinking of Nicholas Longworth from Cincinnati who's Oh, okay. William Howard Kent.
Brett Johnson [:I didn't know any different either.
Norm Murdock [:He sounded good. Yeah. No. So he was never speaker. But I did a little research. The only president who was ever speaker of the house was James k Polk. We've never had a president. And, you know, they were floating the idea of Trump being speaker of the house, there for a while, and that would have been yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Incredible television. Can you just imagine?
Brett Johnson [:Oh, gosh. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:When he recognized Nancy from the would have been would have been entertaining.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. It's
Norm Murdock [:So, anyway, I did need to correct that. Yeah. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. You guys wanna talk about issues 1 and 2 Little bit? We could lightly touch on them, I guess, since we're we spend a lot
Brett Johnson [:but, no, I think we should because it is coming up, the airport.
Steve Palmer [:No. It's hit it.
Brett Johnson [:I it yeah.
Norm Murdock [:So to me,
Steve Palmer [:I know Well, identify them first. Issue 1.
Norm Murdock [:Issue 1 is the abortion essentially on demand.
Steve Palmer [:And DeWine and his wife have politically come out and said we what like, why his wife? Like, I I saw I read that headline. Like, DeWine and his wife are against this. Like, what?
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. You know why.
Steve Palmer [:I I know.
Brett Johnson [:You know why.
Steve Palmer [:It it just seems so gratuitous. My oh, my my family's against this.
Brett Johnson [:Well, why didn't his wife Come out and and say stuff about the education Yeah. Right. Department. Right. Right.
Steve Palmer [:Why is her voice on this one so important?
Norm Murdock [:So important. Because it's viewed as a women's issues,
Steve Palmer [:that's why it's completely rolled out. Judiciously.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly. So the wording the the key wording on this is that it will guarantee reproductive rights, any aspect of it.
Steve Palmer [:Orwellian writes
Norm Murdock [:Not not just and it says right in the constitutional amendment that's being proposed, Reproductive medical treatment including, but not limited to, abortion.
Steve Palmer [:I I it's like I call this Orwellian because it's like reproductive rights. It is the categorical opposite of reproduction. Yeah. It is no reproduction. It it is, like True. Preventing reproduction. It just seems so like, the like, the whenever you have a controversial thing like this I think this is politically consistent across the board. It's like, you water down the name, so it doesn't sound like we are going to end and terminate pregnancies, meaning we're going to kill babies.
Norm Murdock [:Well, the proponents did exactly what you're saying, Steve. They included the the amendment guarantees protection of fertility, Treatment and
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Like, that's in jeopardy.
Norm Murdock [:Like, that's in jeopardy. Right? So they threw that in, And they and they threw in, you know
Steve Palmer [:Look. It
Norm Murdock [:counseling and all this other stuff, none of which is up for grabs. Yeah. That's ridiculous.
Steve Palmer [:So as a as a practical matter, this is a constitutional amendment that doesn't need to be a constitutional amendment. I have I said it time and time again, no matter what my stance is on abortion, to me, this is a legislative debate. This needs to happen on the state house floor.
Norm Murdock [:And it did. And and and the state voted, and the governor signed a 6 week heartbeat bill.
Steve Palmer [:That's right.
Norm Murdock [:That's where we're at.
Steve Palmer [:Now we're trying to overcome that. So the good news the good news and the bad news, depending on what side you're on, the government signed the 6 week heartbeat bill, and, guess what? In 2 or 3 years or if the if the political winds change, you you can go vote again. Somebody can propose another bill. Somebody can modify this. Somebody can change it without a whole lot of issue. But as soon as you make it a constitutional amendment, it becomes something different. And then how you implement a constitutional amendment that needs tweaking, I don't I it's almost now you have to now you've treated the constitution as a legislative, document, and it's not. This is why I I I don't think it should be easy to amend a constitution.
Steve Palmer [:I don't think it should be used for legislative purposes. It needs to be used to establish, broader, mains mainframe foundational stuff of government Yeah. Not whether or not you should be able to gamble, not whether you should be able to,
Norm Murdock [:Have a turnpike commission. I mean, it there's there's all this Junk in our in our constitution.
Steve Palmer [:Those are legislative issues, not constitutional issues.
Norm Murdock [:And I
Brett Johnson [:guess if you look on the the opposite side of it too, you see all the the The discussion about that if it if it if it's not a constitution wealth, it's just, a law, then all of a sudden, whoever's in power gets to decide, they're just gonna Cross this line out. Cross this line out. Yeah. I I get why the constitution
Steve Palmer [:Well, they have to vote. There.
Brett Johnson [:I know. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:I mean
Brett Johnson [:And it but it does create Transparency that in regards to if it if it's if it's a law and legislators, It's passed. So legislators take a look at it again going, we're gonna change this, this, and this. Well, they're on record then. So you vote them out.
Steve Palmer [:So you can well, that's right. You can vote. You can you can vote to modify to change laws. Right. And it's not so easy or it should not be so easy to vote and modify or change the constitution. And the other problem with it is implementation. So Yeah. You have these basic definitions and this was one of my fundamental problems with Roe v Wade anyways.
Steve Palmer [:They invented in the course of the decision after it had already gotten to the US Supreme Court, they invented this trimester thing. And I say invented because Yeah. There wasn't like there was a trial with testimony presented. Right. There so that stuff is the kind of crap They
Brett Johnson [:had to put some foundation around it.
Steve Palmer [:If they right.
Brett Johnson [:They made
Steve Palmer [:it up. Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:And and
Steve Palmer [:that's the kind of stuff that has to happen, in my opinion, on the general assembly floor where you can call witnesses, where you can call policy, where you can you can argue about policy, you can argue about facts. So when is a fetus viable? That could be an important fact. Well, well, you think that's gonna be the same today than it will be in 15 years? And it's certainly not the same today when that it was 15 years ago, I don't think, anyway.
Norm Murdock [:Excellent point. Actually.
Steve Palmer [:So No. No. Definitions matter, how do you do that in the context of a constitutional amendment? Yeah. It's it's or even a Supreme Court decision saying it's constitutional right
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:You can't do it. Yeah. Those debates have to happen on the floor. And it may be that you have to decide how you're gonna perform an abortion and what the techniques ought to be. And that changes daily probably or or maybe not that often, but there's science going on and procedures that we learn medically that will change. And if you're gonna outlaw 1, but not the other, etcetera, and you can't it gets a lot more it gets a lot stickier when that's a constitutional amendment to make those changes Yeah. You sort of freeze the problem in time without the ability to change it.
Norm Murdock [:The real curveball in this language, because it is so open ended, When they say reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion, The detractors of this, the opponents of issue 1, the people who say vote no on abortion on demand are pointing out that that language opens up, transgender, because that's reproductive medical treatment changing a reproductive Now
Steve Palmer [:you have a constitutional so then who pays for that? Exactly. So if there's a constitutional right to it, then presumably, the government is gonna pay for it. That's right. Yeah. That it's and for the and and the and the marijuana, I I sort of look at the same way I mean, to me, that's not a constitutional issue. That's a legislative issue. Yeah. You know, you don't muddy up the constitution with this kind of, legislative nonsense.
Norm Murdock [:I mean, you could put a constitutional amendment, you know, before the voters, you know, that free government ice cream cones every Friday. Right? Yep. And just and just have idiot voters go to the polls and go, oh, wait. Free ice cream. You know? I'll vote for I mean, this is why you elect. We are not a pure democracy for that reason. We have an upper house and a lower house, and the idea is They come from different strains and parts and areas and all the gerrymandering, but they do come from all over the the state, Urban areas, farm areas, suburban, and the idea is they mesh, and they come up with some kind of policy, as you say, Through the legislative process where you slow it down, it's not decided on November 7th when people go vote Depending on the weather, depending on whether they voted ahead of time, you know, absentee. The legislative process takes weeks months and maybe even a year or 2.
Steve Palmer [:There needs to be a town hall debate on it. Right, you need to go anybody who anybody who's not done this, they should. You should go down to the general assembly when they're in session
Norm Murdock [:and listen
Steve Palmer [:to listen to them bell you scream at other, close
Norm Murdock [:to 4 committee meeting.
Steve Palmer [:Or go to even committee meeting.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:And and I'm not saying that that's where all the magic is made, and probably a lot of that's theater now. It does for show because all the stuff is happening in the back doors. But at least
Norm Murdock [:you get to see it. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:You know? Right? Because what that is is that's the that's your representative Right. Publicly making an argument or stating his or her position to explain to the voters why we are here and, like, hey. Look. I don't agree with this, and, you know, shame on all you for voting for this. And, you know, I I I went down and watched 1 on, gaming machines, and there was a guy down in Southern Ohio where they were making a lot of money with skill games. And, he said, I I hate to use these words or I forgot how many words they are, but he goes, I'll use these 5 words. I told you so before, you know
Norm Murdock [:I yield 2 minutes To the general lady from Chillicothe. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And it happens. But more important, if even the back door, like, you're gonna go knock on somebody's door and say, look. Let me tell you my position about this because here's what's it happened. I there's a lot of doctors in my in my under my representation, and here's what they think. And then you get to hear that.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:And then the other guy says, well, look, I I have this community, and here's what they believe, I can't go your way on this, and you reach these compromises. You can't do it if it's in the constitution. Right. That doesn't happen. True. And, you know, maybe there's some new science that comes out that says, here's the best way to perform an abortion. Even if you're in favor of it, you would be in favor even if look. I can be against abortion, but I would certainly be in favor of doing it the safest way if it has to happen.
Steve Palmer [:You know, yeah, I'm not gonna say, well, I don't care if the women die during abortion, but if there's a better way to do an abortion, even though I'm against it, I would prefer that that be happen or that happen legislatively. So it it is, things can change with the times. And you can't when it's a constitutional or it's harder.
Norm Murdock [:The question I'll I mean, getting away from the constitutional aspect for just a second, The thing about the issue itself about abortion that I've never been able to hear a proponent of abortion answer in any kinda logical way is why can, on the day that a woman is going to go get an abortion, if she's in a car accident and the other person kills or injures her fetus, she can sue. Right? It's murder. It murder.
Steve Palmer [:The government the government will charge that person with murder.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Well, criminally, but I'm talking about civilly. Right?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:That same woman can can go after damages For the fetus, but she's on the way to kill the fetus.
Steve Palmer [:Some states have now changed their laws on that because, look, it's murder. You can get 2 counts of murder if you kill a pregnant woman. Both of Exactly. The unborn baby
Norm Murdock [:So it must be a human.
Steve Palmer [:But some states have changed it in order to to avoid this obvious inconsistency Yes. So what it really comes down to is it's not a baby unless the woman wants to have it.
Norm Murdock [:Right? Which is what
Steve Palmer [:it is.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Right.
Steve Palmer [:If it's if the woman wants to abort it, it's a fetus.
Norm Murdock [:If she can if she self describes, This is like gender. You know? Right. If she self describes that fetus as a human life, then it is a human life.
Steve Palmer [:Like the opposite of murder. The intent to kill makes it not murder.
Norm Murdock [:But but if she she self describes her fetus as just an unwanted organic, mass, then she's entitled to have it taken off just like a cyst.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. I mean, we I Or or a tumor. I I I don't think we need to go down a rabbit hole debating the pros and cons of abortion right now. But the point is, should it be a constitutional amendment or shouldn't it be a constitutional amendment? I vote no. There's no no no way there should be a constitutional amendment. Right. Change the law if that's what you wanna do. And guess what? It's easy to change the law.
Steve Palmer [:Just go vote.
Norm Murdock [:Yep. For me for me You
Steve Palmer [:may not like the outcome, but that's the point. Right? It's not a majority rule country.
Norm Murdock [:For for me, issue 2 so issue 1 for me, I'm voting no. Issue 2 for me is far more difficult for me to figure out. You know? Yes. I think I agree with Steve. It should be legislatively handled, But I'm talking about the issue itself. You know? When people roll out the, well, alcohol is legal, so therefore kinda logic, I I I'm just not all the way there on that, but yet I do understand that for people so, specifically, this This issue is it's for people 21 years or older. They can buy or possess 2 and a half ounces of flour Or, you know, dried flower, marijuana
Steve Palmer [:this is supposed to be a constitutional amendment.
Norm Murdock [:Or fit this and or they can have 15 grams of extract, And that's actually the amendment. That's that's what we're voting on. Look at those details. These are legislative details. Is it it's it's a little
Steve Palmer [:too much for anything the amendment should say, marijuana shall be there there's a it shall not be unlawful to, or or you you you make marijuana legal, generally speaking, and then you have to delegate whatever regulatory scheme to the legislative branch of government to fix it. They won't. They'll create a they'll create a department of something.
Norm Murdock [:And then why is this
Brett Johnson [:Go ahead. Well, this is blowback from when we had voted on this before. So Ohio of it.
Steve Palmer [:You know?
Brett Johnson [:How you go? I wonder.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Once you start
Norm Murdock [:Ohio would be the 24th state, so half the states have recreational marijuana now. We would be the 24. All almost fit.
Steve Palmer [:Look. I got no problem. I I my problem is not whether there should be recreational marijuana or not. You know? To me, I have some opinions on it, but it it that's a general assembly question. Yeah. So Yeah. How is that not? Right. You know? I I I just ask you.
Brett Johnson [:Forwarded. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:But, Steve, let me ask you a federalism question. So it's still what do they call that? A class Something drug
Steve Palmer [:with It's a scheduled drug.
Norm Murdock [:Thank you. Schedule 3?
Steve Palmer [:I it's
Norm Murdock [:Schedule 1. 3
Steve Palmer [:to schedule 2, I think.
Norm Murdock [:It's it's in the it's in the category that's the most
Steve Palmer [:look. It's it's unlawful. Illegal. It it so what we're dealing with is this is weird. It's unlawful federally. So it's it's against the it's against, 18 USC, whatever it is.
Norm Murdock [:It's a little weird that we're gonna be We're
Steve Palmer [:doing this weird dance right now where we're just hoping the feds don't come in and start enforcing federal marijuana laws when people are using it lawfully under state marijuana laws, but they could.
Norm Murdock [:And you're thinking, like, when is the Supreme Court gonna come in and say, well, federalism would dictate that
Steve Palmer [:Nobody's taken it up.
Norm Murdock [:All the 23 states that have legalized it so far are in violation, And so they're all struck
Steve Palmer [:down. It's like these these weird issues, like, has have the feds preempted the field of marijuana regulation and therefore so what's gonna happen is this, congress has to act. Congress has to act. Yeah. Congress is going US congress is gonna have to
Brett Johnson [:do it.
Steve Palmer [:They're gonna have to say, we hereby, take it off the controlled substances schedules and make it and and get either give the power to the states to regulate it, or do something to preempt the field and create only federal regulation on marijuana use.
Norm Murdock [:So I I was talking to my brother who
Steve Palmer [:up something like alcohol.
Norm Murdock [:One of my brothers who's an internist, a physician. And I was asking him, well, I'm hearing all this research coming in from Canada that talks about higher incidence of paranoia and, suicide and other things with the high dosage, regular users of marijuana. And I'm concerned about that, and I don't know if it's true or false. What does American research say? And and he told me that Because it's a schedule one whatever drug
Steve Palmer [:I think it's a I mean, I think it's well, I think it
Norm Murdock [:was Yeah. So, Steve, I'm not familiar with the With the, you know, the language of of the FDA schedules. But he said because it has that high That it's the most serious of the illegal drug categories is schedule 1 or whatever it is. He said Our universities have been prevented from doing real credible research
Steve Palmer [:That's true.
Norm Murdock [:On marijuana. Because, I'll just get to it. So, like like, Steve's talking about, it should be debated within congress, but because we've made it impossible for universal
Steve Palmer [:schedule 1 drug.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. They they can't research this.
Steve Palmer [:So that's true. But there was it's funny. There was a, when CBD and hemp sort of became emerged as as, lawful.
Norm Murdock [:Like, you can get it at Kroger now.
Steve Palmer [:There was a there was a regulatory scheme that permitted universities to get a hold of it to for study purposes. And but with THC and marijuana, I he's correct. Is it it's it's unlawful to possess and use or do anything with it even for Research. Without a specific change in law. There needs to be a change in law. Look. You can't just say categorically, marijuana is bad, therefore, it's it's against the rules. When when there is there's enough here where this is a legislative debate again.
Steve Palmer [:Right? There's there's enough here where there should be some discussion about alright. Is it look. It's a medicine. There's all sorts of medicines people take that have adverse impact on other
Brett Johnson [:Don't drive heavy of When it on on the drugs you
Steve Palmer [:take freaking opioids.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Like, we're we're scheduling heroin. Or, I mean, we're prescribing heroin, essentially Mhmm. As a painkiller. Yeah. But not marijuana, come on.
Brett Johnson [:What do you see the, the the effects? Let's just say it's gonna pass in regards to OVI And those laws. I think it's it this that's
Norm Murdock [:gonna be a kind of a
Steve Palmer [:It's already there.
Brett Johnson [:Domino effect. Marijuana people. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:There's there's already medical medical marijuana or people with medical marijuana licenses that, that drive. The real tricky part is if, say, I've got a case right now. Somebody was in an accident, and then they drew blood at the hospital later on, and there's THC in the system. Now is that the cause of the accident? Nobody knows. But theoretically, it's an OBI Yeah. Because if you drive with a prescribed limit or prohibited content of THC in your system, that's an OBI even if you're not under the influence. So those laws are sort of starting to fall into step.
Brett Johnson [:Because if it was alcohol induced, the alcohol would be Out of their system by the time they've taken that Correct. That that, THC test.
Steve Palmer [:It used to be that you would have to have well, not used to be. So with alcohol, you have to have a test in theory, within 2 hours of your driving, and, you know, the legislative branch where that's actually under the Department of Health, the director of health has created these rules and regulations that said, alright, that's 2 hours is good enough because in 2 hours, we can safely say that that somehow impacted driving. We're gonna make it unlawful to have out a certain concentration of alcohol on your system within 2 hours of driving. But with THC, they never really had to get there because it was always against law to use any of it. They could easily just say any THCs and OVI, and, you know, I had my stoner clients for years saying, dude, I didn't smoke. I smoked at the party, like, 3 weeks ago, and it's still there. Or yet last week, I wasn't under the influence, and I'm like, yeah, but it's still against the law no matter what, so it's a hard argument. Once it becomes lawful, it's gonna not such a hard argument.
Steve Palmer [:There's gotta be so the we're getting into the weeds of administrative law, but there has to be some sort of reasonable rational basis for rules. So the director of health has rule making authority as any administrative agency does. The rule making authority has to be rationally related to an end. You know? They can't be arbitrary and capricious, and it starts to get arbitrary and capricious to say that any amount of marijuana in a blood in your blood somehow, is an OBI, 1, when it's lawful to use in the state, and 2, when it's not rationally related to the end game of preventing impaired driving, because, you know, you can't tell if somebody's impaired by the amount of THC is in their in their blood. You can't do it, because they could it's it stays there too too long.
Brett Johnson [:And I I guess I bring that up just to set the table that once that passes, if it does, which it probably will, there could be a lot of changes. Yeah. It's gonna be confusing for her. Quite a bit of time.
Steve Palmer [:There's gonna be some aftershocks to it
Brett Johnson [:for sure.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Yeah. Almost like, the, constitutional carry. You know Right. Rolled out a lot of questions. How do I comply? And confusion and
Steve Palmer [:relatively simple. Just do the same thing you're to do before, except now you don't need a license to do it.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. And somebody
Brett Johnson [:made it confusing. Yeah. Somebody did
Norm Murdock [:it though.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:Well, you you wanna do some quick hits?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Let's do the nuggets.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. So, the Cleveland Browns turning to something a little lighter here. The the Cleveland Browns, had a had a touchdown couple of weeks ago, I think it was because they had a bye week this past weekend. So it was 2 2 weekends ago, where Deshaun Watson and David Nejoku, you know, congratulated each other by staging a little Okay Corral finger gun thing like bam bam. Hey. You know, kinda like the Dallas Cowboys used to do all the time. It was the finger gun thing. And the NFL called that a violent gesture after the play after the touchdown.
Steve Palmer [:But their movie what's the one with Keanu Reeves where they, like, the strike breaker movie, or maybe it was, I think it was that movie where they scored a touchdown, and then the guys would line up and act like they're shooting everybody down.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Yeah. Right. It was just funny. Funny. Alright? If you
Steve Palmer [:add a fine.
Norm Murdock [:The NFL fined them $14, almost $14 each. It's just, I I I can't figure it out. When there's real violence, Yeah. You know? Whatever. Yeah. That that is,
Steve Palmer [:like so foolish.
Norm Murdock [:Well, you you even looked at the the real fine.
Brett Johnson [:It was, like, 13,000 it's 659. Yeah. Right. Hell did they come up with this number exactly?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. It's the fine was $13,659. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Go figure. Right?
Brett Johnson [:They just can't do the 14, but we'll do 13 6.
Steve Palmer [:Make it 15. Let's round up. Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:We're not yeah. Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly. I mean, You can't pantomime now in an NFL.
Brett Johnson [:They it's it's their own it's their own little world.
Norm Murdock [:So the, Victoria's Secret, there's been some criticism. They're new so instead of that thing where they walk down with those ridiculous wings, and, of course, they're all real hot models and all that. And, honestly, I never liked that whole thing anyway. I thought it was degrading to women. I thought it was objectification And all that shit and I'm not a woke guy. I just thought it was like, why is there a show that's amping up sexuality On broadcast television, it just I didn't like it. I didn't like what what it was telling girls about their body image. I I didn't like what it was telling little boys about, Oh, these kind of women are hot, and your your slightly flabby sister over here, Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:You should get on her shit all the time and tell her what a Pig she is or something because she doesn't look like Naomi whatever. Right? And I thought that was all toxic. I hated it, But that was just my opinion. So, anyway, Victoria's Secret got in a lot of trouble for that image, and they started having Heavy set models, and they did all this crazy stuff. And now that we're out of COVID, supposedly, they came back with their show, but now it's not A live show on TV. It's a film. It's called The Tour, and it was just it just rolled out. You could see it on Amazon.
Norm Murdock [:We're garnered only 1.7 stars, and IMDB only has it at 29% out of a 100, and that's because it's boring. It's super freaking boring because now it's all about woke politics and fat models, Which I don't think you should promote fat models either. Like, that's not healthy. I it just the whole thing's nuts, and I think they should just sell underwear at their store And and, you know, stop the show.
Brett Johnson [:Yes. An underwear is underwear. I mean, you pretty much when you see it on on the rack, you kinda know what it's gonna do. Right?
Norm Murdock [:I don't have any problem
Steve Palmer [:with the modeling shows. I've had it. Get your angels on or get your wings on and go traipse around the the runway. There's a whole culture around that, I
Brett Johnson [:you know?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Well I don't care. Yeah. I so I think, like, the real Americana, like, miss July firecracker thing, that's great. Or miss miss corn festival or miss America. You know? But now they have dudes. Like like, the Netherlands and Portugal, Their miss universe candidates for miss universe coming up
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Their 2 of them are dudes. They're transgender dudes. The Netherlands lady is a dude. The Portuguese lady is a dude, and I'm like, Yeah. They're they're ruining everything. Yeah. It's this woke stuff is
Brett Johnson [:a just to prove a point.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Well, look. Miss America should not be a guy.
Norm Murdock [:No. Thank you.
Steve Palmer [:And I don't wanna see a guy modeling Victoria's Secret underwear.
Brett Johnson [:Thank you. No. I don't need to see that package.
Norm Murdock [:No. I don't.
Brett Johnson [:No. No. No. No.
Norm Murdock [:I don't wanna see the tuck Flap that they sell at, where is it? Target?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Yeah. I don't need that. I don't need that. Now I guess the the counterargument is don't watch. I won't. And not normal I buy anything from there anymore either if they start doing that.
Norm Murdock [:No. Right. The reason I bring it up, of course, Victoria's Secret is an Ohio yeah. He's comfortable, so little.
Steve Palmer [:Old limited brand.
Norm Murdock [:Couple things. So we talked about the speaker in the US house, the Ohio house speaker was sued this past week, by another Republican, And it is over a $3,000,000 election pot. So The speaker of the Ohio House, a Republican, his his name is, Jason Stevens, was sued by another representative, of a GOP representative, Derek Maron, Derek is the caucus leader of the Ohio House. The speaker is not the caucus leader, and so they they're going to court now to find out if a court will order which one of them is entitled to control the reelection money. I mean I mean so it's ugly in Ohio, and it's ugly in DC With these Republican speakers Okay.
Brett Johnson [:Just right back to your point, Steve. It's just like, dude. Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:Figure it out.
Steve Palmer [:With that, we probably gotta wrap it up. I think we're we're sort of at the do you have one more?
Norm Murdock [:Well, it yeah. I don't know if this is a trend. Please don't hate me. I'm just the messenger. But in 1 week, We've had the 2, child counselors. 1, a 34 year old lady in Dublin and another, a 24 year old lady, in Mount Sterling both engaging in sexual Activity in one case and phone sex with nude pictures, texting, and these are with 12 year old and 13 year old boys that are their clients, that are their that are the people they're supposed to be counseling. Horrible. So I don't I I, yeah, I mean, I just I I don't know what's going on, but our culture I don't know if it's A trend, but, like, the I don't know how you perpetrate that on either a boy or a girl regardless of whether you're a female or a male counselor.
Norm Murdock [:But never in my wildest thoughts would it ever occurred to me that a female, 24 years old or 34 years old, Would be interested in a 12 year old or a 13 year old boy. It's just sick.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Alright. So Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Well, with that, we're gonna wrap it up. It's been another riveting hour and change or so of Common Sense Ohio show .com, that's commonsense ohio show .com. Check it out. You can see Norm's blog there. If you wanna be a sponsor like Harper Plus, reach out. We've got, we're carving out different sponsorship opportunities, and we'd be happy to carve 1 out for you. Maybe even get you on the show, talk about how great you are, whatever it is you do. Next week, we will be back.
Steve Palmer [:Couple weeks more, we're gonna have a cut. We're gonna have some guests, so stay tuned. Lots of great stuff to come. So we are coming at you right from the middle each and every week, at least until now at www.commonsenseohioshow.com
