How does living without a clear external adversary impact social cohesion and patriotism?

Welcome back to another episode of Common Sense Ohio! It’s July 15, 2026, and Steve Palmer and Norm Murdock are diving into a whirlwind of topics shaping our world and community. This week, they kick things off with a reflection on the historical events of July 15th—ranging from the fall of Jerusalem in the First Crusade to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone—and draw modern parallels about unity, common enemies, and the changing nature of American society.

From there, Steve Palmer and Norm Murdock debate the generational shifts in patriotism and economic hardship, the allure and dangers of socialism, and the influence of government in every aspect of our lives—from housing policy to proposed government-run children’s accounts. The conversation covers hot-button news from Trump’s policy initiatives, regulatory battles over THC-infused drinks in Ohio, to the disturbing rise in attempts to control children’s access to the internet in the UK and beyond.

Harper CPA Plus

As always, the hosts bring their sharp perspectives to issues of crime, immigration policy, government intervention, and even the history and potential abolishment of daylight savings time. Whether you’re looking for hard-hitting opinions, local Ohio stories, or a thoughtful take on the news of the day, this episode delivers plenty to think about. So grab your coffee, buckle in, and let’s get started!

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

[email protected]

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.

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Copyright 2026 Common Sense Ohio

I know you couldn't wait. And I know you were on the edge

of your seat for another riveting episode of Common Sense

Ohio. It is July 15, 2026, brought to you, of course, by Harper Plus

Accounting. You know, I was just doing some accounting work upstairs, but believe it or

not, I get up early and I was doing some accounting work upstairs, trying to

figure out the nuances of my company's 401k plan. And

it said, do you want to send this information to anybody else? I was like,

yes, yes, send it over to Glenn Harper at Harper Pleasant County. Because no matter

what I screw up, no matter what I meant what, I don't know, they will

fill in the blanks. Our accountant could be yours. July 15th.

History 2. Really? Actually, lots of. I. I Google this every time and there's

Sometimes it gets sort of boring. Right. But not today.

Okay? We had two pretty significant things

happen on July 15th. The First Crusade, or Jerusalem

falls in the First Crusade, 1099. Okay.

Just. There's some interesting history there. Yeah.

You know, Jerusalem fell about 450 years before

that in sort of a peaceful conquest by the Muslims. And they

had a treaty that basically said, look, you Christians, you can

practice your Christianity. And they gave up the

city and then the Muslims even gave up or

made room for the Jews to come in and do their thing. Yeah, well, that

slowly eroded over the next 450 years and things got really

horrible. So the Pope says, we need to go help out down

there and offers everybody, offers all the knights salvation. So,

look, you want some salvation, I'll give it to you. All I got to do

is go fight this war and take Jerusalem and eventually in 1099, they do. Yeah,

that is a truncated version of history. Yeah, yeah. And then it, of course,

changes over the years. The Crusades are used for all sorts of other reasons, but.

Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of it was also to

protect pilgrims who were being

exploited and killed and robbed

en route. You know, when they were traversing

from, say, Turkey or Europe or somewhere to

Jerusalem to see all of the holy

sites in Christendom.

That was another one of the Pope's motivations. Well, that was the reason

for the. Because what happens is we had this peaceful existence where the Christians could

go make pilgrimages, pilgrimages to Jerusalem to see all the holy sites and,

and check it out and do what they do. Right. But then comes

the Seljuk Turks, who are

a new sort of radical, recently converted

group of Muslims who they say, nonsense, if you're not with Us, you're

dead. And they started cutting off the pilgrimages. They started killing. They

changed the treaty. Right. So the peaceful existence.

Istanbul, not Constantine. Yeah, that's right. So those of you remember

Falco, maybe. So there

was a disruption in the pilgrimages. There was a Byzantine cry for

help. Yeah. And Pope Urban II basically

offers salvation to the knights. And apparently this was

almost beneficial to the knights because they. We had this feudal system in the

west, in France and England, and it

united a lot of European. They're running out of people to fight. Yeah.

So they're fighting each other. It was like a preview of NATO in a way,

because, you know, you're banding together Germans,

Brits, Frenchies, Italians, people

who would otherwise be fighting amongst themselves were joining together

under the papal banner. Yeah. To do a single thing,

which, you know, is fascinating. And as I like

to. There's one other thing that happened. We don't need to dig into it. Yeah.

But I do. It's interesting, what you just said. It gave me

a thought that I want to get back to before I do that. The Rosetta

stone discovered. Oh, that's big. Yeah.

And that's three different languages on the same stone. Yeah.

1799, basically, again, another hallmark. Yeah. Of

ancient history and Christianity. And as a result. Was that a

Napoleonic. Was he in Egypt when that was

founded? A French soldier, Pierre Francois

Bouchard, in the town of Rashad Rosetta in the

Nile Delta, he found. What? He found it while troops were

digging the foundations of a fort during the Napoleon's campaign

in Egypt. Okay. Yeah. So sometimes

hieroglyphs, demonic and ancient Greek all in one place. Yeah.

And opened up the key to the ancient world. Yeah. Yeah. Really

was a cipher. Yeah. To break. To break these codes.

Yep. Hitherto unreadable. Yep.

Pretty cool stuff. Now they're using AI, from what I understand,

to accelerate things like,

you know, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other. Other things that they haven't

been able to, like, piece together where the missing chunks are

or understand Sanskrit. Some of these

ancient languages evidently

were able to speed this up. So I hope it does a

better job than it is doing on term papers for some of their

college kids, you know. Well, look, I want to get back to the thought

you gave me because I. My mind is, like,

here. Secret. I have a little bit of adhd. No,

no. Imagine that. No, not. But I've always got, like, 10 movies playing in

my head in different directions. I'm trying to find parallels and connections between them. And

what you just said gave me a thought. You said the Crusades are the First

Crusade. Unified in a way.

Yeah. Common enemy. Common enemy for a cause.

Yeah. And if you fast forward a few thousand years until, like,

today. Yeah. What's interesting to me is that you and I grew

up. You're older than I am, obviously obvious. No,

but our generation, we had a common enemy. You know, we grew

up and the Soviets were the bad guys. Yeah. They were going to blow us

off the planet. Reagan's evil empire. Reagan's evil empire. We used

to hide under our desk for the. Yep. Duck and cover. Yep. Yep. And we

had little fallout signs everywhere. In our schools, civil

defense, you know, underground shelter signs on public

buildings. All the movies. Yeah. All the Doctor Strange. Love.

Yeah. I mean, really. I mean, that's a little bit. I don't. When was that?

I don't know when that came out, but probably before my time. But I've watched

a movie and I grew up on a movie. And then in the 80s, all

the movies, the action movies were like, you know, Rambo fighting the Russians,

Red Dawn. Red Dawn. Right. And then

fast forward to this sort of gen. Whatever we're in. They

didn't have that. No. And they don't. See. Now, look, you could. They

would say, I think, well, you guys were skewed. You didn't understand how

you were all just brainwashed by this evil thing. And even you should have been

nicer to Mr. Khrushchev. Right. Who wanted to blow us off the planet

and who killed, you know. Yeah. 80 million people. But you

should have tea with Mr. Brezhnev. You know, you just. You just

didn't relate to him enough. You know, you, you, you were

Richard Heads. They think we're askew and

we're. We think you guys don't know what you're grappling with

here. Yeah. It's like, oh, for sure. You know, there's a caution

sign, like. And they don't have a context for it. There's a giant caution

sign right in front of them. They've stumbled upon a caution sign, and they're looking

around like, I don't see anything wrong with it. Why don't we just go forward?

Right. And the caution sign that we know is that we learn the history of

what that ideology did to the world. Yeah. And they don't have

it. We had a common enemy, and United

States, for all its flaws, for the most part, in

1976, when we had that anniversary,

was unified. Yeah. You know, we hated each other. Right. You know,

there was arguments, there was protests. Vietnam was a mess and all of it. But

I remember as a kid marching in the parade and there was at least patriotism

then. Yeah. And. And there were. And there were quite serious

problems. I mean, bigger than, Almost bigger than what we have now. Oh, yeah. I

mean, President Ford had pardoned Richard Nixon for

Watergate. You know,

we had thousands, tens of thousands of

Vietnam draft dodgers in other countries that

later on President Carter would pardon. So

the scars of Vietnam were very raw.

We had that embarrassing scene at the

embassy in Saigon with the helicopters taking

the last few people away. And of course our allies,

the South Vietnamese were just left behind to

deal with the communists who took over the country after

violating the peace treaty that Kissinger had negotiated

with Lay Docto. So, yeah. The country

economically disastrous. Oh, you know. Yeah. Remember for

policies, there was a button you could get during Ford's administration,

it said win. Which was whip inflation. Now because

interest rates were off the scale, inflation

was, was crazy. OPEC was strangling us on oil

gasoline lines. It was gasoline for your car. You had to wait in line.

I mean, I, I was only mean. Look, I was born in 1970, so a

lot of. I was only like six or seven, eight years old, but I do

remember this stuff. Yeah. And Ford did not win the election.

You know, he, he came in as Nixon's vice president. When Nixon

resigned, he was never elected president. And

Carter beat him. Yep. You know, in the upcoming election. So.

Oh, yeah. And people were, you know, you had the Charlie Manson

girls take a few assassination shots at

President Ford. Yeah. It was massive. It was a

mess. Society was a mess. But still in all during

the bicentennial of 1976, that's the year I

graduated from high school. Remember it well, because, you know, that was my

big year. And they even made a movie, Dazed and Confused

about that summer. And so I can relate to all that.

And there's a GTO in that movie, by the way. Way which both of us.

But at any rate, people understood that we

were still one country. And there were in the loyal

opposition at that time, the Democrats who controlled

Congress in the wake of. Of Watergate. They threw the

Republicans out. They still love their country.

They still understood the merits of

capitalism. You know, and they in the. Yes,

they were pro union, but they didn't want to destroy the economy

and bring in socialism. They knew that wasn't going to work.

So yeah, things today are really.

And the only people that remember it are like our, like,

we remember it, but we didn't live it. Yeah. But then you've Got the people

that are coming over. Yeah. Like the people that used to live in

Cuba. Sure. All the migrants from former communist

slash socialist regime regimes. Yeah.

Are saying, what in the f. Are you guys tinkering with

here? There's this caution sign. Heat it

right. Like it is. You know, the stove is hot.

But I think I heard Dennis Prager, you know, he's been injured and

he's had some issues. Yeah. But this was a recent comment.

He just says, he made a point and he just said, look, it seems like

every generation or every hundred years,

somebody we have to tinker with this again and realize how

horrible it is. Yeah. And then go back. I mean, it's like this cycle. Yeah.

I mean, you know, Cuba's a good example. Venezuela is a good

example. At one time, before Chavez came in and. And

tried socialism there. Well, imposed it

for. For many years. And in his successors,

Venezuela had this just

bursting economy. It was just doing so well. The. The rate

of savings by Venezuelans exceeded

savings of people in the United States. They were socking money

away. They were doing well. And you know,

now they're starting to get back to that again after throwing.

And obviously we helped with the capture of

Chavez. But. Yeah. So almost

like it doesn't. Or Maturo. Excuse me. It doesn't happen when times

are bad. Yeah. It only happens when people are fat and happy.

Yes. I don't know that to be. I have to do some thinking on history,

on, on the Russian Revolution. But in

modern times, these countries tend to. There

tends to be this shift to socialism. Yeah. Ours, our country is no

different. Yeah. When we're fat and happy. Yeah. Like, I mean, and these kids are

complaining and. But look, they're complaining on their iPhones and they're complaining and

they're. You know, we are fat and happy by all measures.

Historically, we're fat and happy. Yeah. Some are fatter and happier than others,

but we are generally fat and happy. I mean, nobody, you know,

we're not living on dirt floors. Yeah. What is considered suffering

today is things are things like, you know,

we don't have a big screen TV as big as the

one that the Smiths down the street have. Or he's got

a. You've got a whole home theater in your basement. Or how far is that?

Yeah. That's like this little TV here. Yeah. Or. Or, you know, I've got

dad's old flip phone, you know, because he won't buy ME A. An

$1800 iPhone 17 or whatever the

latest one is. Yeah. I mean, what people Consider

struggling today would truly make Americans

of even 50 years ago just laugh out loud

when, like a starter home back then might not

even have a fully finished basement. Most

didn't. And, or even plumbing downstairs, like, you

know, didn't have a toilet or a shower downstairs. But now, you

know, of course, every home's a McMansion or it's, or it's,

oh, God, it's uninhabitable. You know, like, I can, oh, how

can I move in there? There's not an extra three bedrooms for when

I invite my girlfriends over, you know, for a girl's party

or a wine mom thing or something. It's, it's like everything.

You know, I heard, for example, that people

are driving, like,

cars that are way more expensive, of course, than they used to be.

You know, when I was in high school or college or even

as a young adult, I was buying, you know, thousand dollar

banger cars and I was fixing them up myself, doing brake

jobs on them myself. And now, you know, kids, either

they don't have the skills or they're not interested, but they want to go

right into a dealership and buy a new car. Yeah. And if they can't do

it financially, they feel somehow they're being oppressed.

And what's interesting is like, work your ass off like the rest of us. You

know, by all measures, I grew up upper middle class. I'm not gonna, you know,

I had a good, my, my, you know, knock on wood. Thank the Lord. I,

I, I had a good upbringing. Yeah. Yeah. And we

didn't buy new cars every two years. No.

You know, it was like every 12 years or 10 years. And they were rust

buckets and, you know, but nobody really thought about that. You know, it was just

like, you know, it was the Pinto. Was the Pinto. A lot of

the people back then, Steve, that would buy new cars every two

or three years were people who had a financial

reason to always drive

a spanking new car. Like salesmen or

realtors or people who were putting clients

or they wanted to have that appearance of success when they pulled up to the

curb and they needed to have that image.

Right. But the rest of us, it was just transportation.

It was like a 10 year deal. You had a car for 10 years and,

and I, now I drive a car that's.

Or I have a 2011 Toyota Tundra. Yeah. Right.

And that's, you know, 15 years old. Yeah. I drive a

2015 Ford Ranger. And it's in. The reason

that cars lasted 10 years is because they only lasted 10 years.

They only lasted. They started to fall apart. Yeah. You know, so I

don't know. You know, it's like, I don't know what the. That we've upped the

standards. We've up. Yeah, that's right. That people don't understand the bottom.

Yeah. And we're going to. I fear. And then I'll let you get onto the

news, but I fear the, I fear the worst that we're going to have to

go experience the bottom again by going to socialism to see what that

really means and what that really is. Because if you think that it's going to

be. If you think that your government is going to give you a McMansion.

Yeah. Like your parents have, you're mistaken. I think

so feeding in that leads into one of the

news items and it, it's not particularly a sizzling

thing, you know,

but, but to me it's controversial. And that is. On July 4th,

in his speech on the mall, President Trump

rolled out several programs that in

his way of thinking, are advances.

And one of those is socialistic in nature. And

it just drives me nuts. It's this

Trump children's account of

$1,000 starter money to get children

invested into the stock market, you know,

get a 401k type of plan going for their

retirement and, and get them. And I know.

So even Bessant is in favor of this, his treasury

secretary. But, but so I know what the

intention is. It's. It's actually to demonstrate the merits of

capitalism. But the way you're doing it is by just

giving money. So, so to me

it's like, okay, so, so Trump kicks this program off.

Every newborn can apply for a Trump account and get

$1,000 to start it. And then, you know,

you're just like, well, the next administration, if mom

dummy becomes president or AOC,

they're just going to make that, what, $5,000, right. Or

10,000. Like, why are you just giving

somebody money? Because they're born. It is. I don't get that.

As I've always said, if everybody has the same, then it's

meaningless. I mean, because it's just not human nature.

So if, if, if it. Think how boring society would be.

Yeah. Some homogeneous. Everybody has identical stuff, identical amount of money.

They have the identical car. Because that's really what this is. I mean, that's

where social. I went to estonia in the

90s. Yeah. And it was after the fall of the

Soviet empire or the Soviet regime. But there's a lot of expat

Soviet Russians there. Yeah. And you could see the parts of

the city that were old Soviet

bergs and they used to, they would stack these like, they would make walls

out of concrete and they would take cranes, it looks like. I don't know how

they built them, but they were just boxes of concrete walls. Absolutely straight up. And

then you had like these old, like these old Estonian

villages or housing in the center village. It was

gorgeous stuff, like walking streets of brick, Gorgeous, beautiful

city and sort of flanked by these awful ugly

ass Soviet era housing. Yeah, and

that's what happens. That's right. Not like everybody gets the really cool stuff.

It degrades to. Everybody gets the crap. Yeah. So all men are

created equal. Right? That's in the Declaration of

Independence. And what's Trump say on the Mall? And this is

us being critical of Trump, by the way. So we're, you know, we're generally

very conservative by votes. Right? This is, this. Well, actually I can't even

say. I don't know what this is, but I don't agree with it. Yeah, I

mean it's, to me it's so all men are created equal.

That doesn't mean the government goes in and tries

to balance out inequalities. That's, that, that's

not the purpose of government, in my opinion. And another

thing now Trump, he didn't sign this housing

bill that he was himself in favor of because the

Save America act wasn't passed. So in a, in a fit

of pique, he has decided, well, I'm not signing the housing

bill that he himself was pushing for. And what, what

is the housing bill that, that, you know, Congress will override that

there, you know, it's wildly popular. And what it is is basically

says big corporations can't buy houses because somehow they're

going to control the real estate market. Well, that's been going on since the

beginning of time. You just can't control it that way. I mean, there

was something called the Ohio Company right before Ohio

was even a state. The Ohio Company owned vast

tracts of the Northwest Territory before we were

even a state. And so there's always been big companies

owning real estate and trying to, to control growth and

trying to dictate, you know, where the cities are going to

be and where the farms are going to be and all of that. And now

it's data centers. So, you know, I,

I'm far more interested in what the natural market forces

would do with housing. And, and it seems to me when you prop

up housing prices, you're, you're again

making it less and less affordable for young people. And I know

their intention is to keep, is to keep the

companies from buying these properties and then

refurbing them or re. Or flipping them. Right. For more

money. But, you know, if enough companies do this, just

like when they were over building fiber optic,

it backfires. Fiber optic became incredibly

inexpensive because too many companies went into it. And if

too many companies think that they're going to flip houses and sell

them to people who don't have the money to buy it,

guess what? Housing prices will crash. It will fix it. It

will fix itself. So instead, what we're doing is in New York, like

Mandami, he has put insane regulatory requirements

on owners of housing. Yes. You can't even have two

houses and not have to pay extra because you have a second

place. And at the same time, he is putting rent

controls. So not only do you have to meet the new regulatory requirements,

then you have rent control. So you can't do it financially. And that's all just

a means to justify the government coming in, say, look, we have to take over.

Because you're right, you have been paying your taxes. These people are so horrible that

they're not doing for you. So we're just going to do it for you. So

now the government owns or we're going to condemn your private property, right? We're going

to condemn the property. The government's going to take it. Now we. Now the government

owns it and no, no worries. What, what could possibly go wrong? Because

the last time the government maintained housing, it was always successful, right?

Yes. Like all the Section 8 housing they're knocking down here in

Columbus, all the, all the public housing projects that

they're, that they're going to level here, you know,

because, well, they can't control what's going in, going on

inside. They can't control the crime. And really, Steve, it's

a, it's a refusal to control the crime. The police know

and the Feds know, just like these ice shootings,

they know how to address crime. The public doesn't have the

stomach for it. And you see that at curfews,

at malls. You know, well, let's just shut the mall down

because we can't enforce the curfews because that'll

upset people. So then the quality of life in your city

stinks and people move out to the suburbs and,

and they bring their attitudes, you know, out into the

suburbs and the cycle continues again because

now the crime wave goes to the suburbs. Guess what? You

know, we go to where the, the, the Goodies

are. That's where we do the crime. So if the goodies are going to be

in the suburbs, the crime follows. Guess what? So that means they're knocking on your

door. Yeah, that means they're knocking on your door. Door. Yeah. And the problem,

I mean, look, getting rid of the cops. When has that ever worked? Yeah, when

has it ever worked? Right. It doesn't. It doesn't. And you got

the, you got the candidate for the Senate in, in, in

Michigan, this doctor, this radical

Islamicist running for Senate in

Michigan has said, well, we need to de.

Weaponize the police. They don't need guns.

And then, and then let's shrink the departments because rather

than policing what he calls poor people,

so he associates crime with being

poor. And which I don't because I know a lot of

rich people commit crimes. So it, it's not, you know, crime

is not the purview of poor, poor people. There are many

honorable law abiding poor people. So I don't know,

you know, but this is a socialist mindset is, is

you have to tie it, you have to tie it to that. You have to

tie it to that. Yeah, exactly. And so, well, we'll take all

that money that's going for, you know, bullet vests

and, and guns and police

retirements and pensions. We'll take all of that money and we're

going to spend it on, you know, building government,

I don't know, villages, departments and, and have government

administrative something or other. Right. I mean, so then you take the money,

you put it up here, you take your money. Right. You stick it up

here. Yeah. And with the promise that we're going to give it to the people

that were, we know best how to, how to spend your money. Right.

But then they're going to filter it through all their cronies. That's right. It's got

to get filtered through these giant departments of whatever. Correct. That

employ hundreds of people at six figure jobs to

decide how to use your money. Because we have to do that fairly. Right. And

then by the time your money gets from here to here, it's down to hardly

anything. Yeah. And then the only solution is not to do all this,

it is to take more of your money. Yeah. And the process continues. And

like we talked about in a previous show, people like Karen Bass or this guy

running for Senate, they don't really care about the depopulation

of their area because they're getting down to the core

group of people who benefit from this largess

and it's just a self Feeding system.

So, you know, why bring in a guy like Spencer Pratt

who's going to blow up the system and really fix la? Or

try to fix la. No, just keep LA the

cesspool that it is. Yes, people are moving out, they're

leaving California in droves. But the people left behind

are the people who are dependent on Karen Bass.

And so the system is self perpetuating,

you know, because you've gotten rid of the troublemakers, that is the people who

have income. So you're left with,

you know, you're left with people who are either

intentionally or inept in some way and they're

totally dependent on, on government to survive.

And you know, the more that happens, the more that

people, you know, people with money are not stupid and at some point

they pull up stakes and leave. Well, that's happening, right? And they

empty it out. I saw the number of millionaires now or the people of X

net worth have now left New York City. Yeah,

it's terrible for New York. It's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible.

Yeah. So at any rate,

one of the other disturbing tendencies that's happening with

the rise of socialism is this knee jerk

reaction they're having in the EU and in the

United Kingdom. And I think it's coming here. And

I see conservative blowhards on

Fox News, for example, who thinks the following is a good

idea. They think the UK has this good idea where you're

going to ban children from using social

media. You're going to ban them. So

the, the, the proposal in the UK EU

and the UK is under 3, can't

use, can't use a cell phone, can't,

can't get, nobody can be on the Internet

if you're under 3, if you're between 3 and 15, you

can only go to sites approved by the government.

And then between 15 and 18. Now think of

this, between 15 and 18 you can join the armed forces, you can get

married, you can buy, you know, drive a car.

Yeah. You could do lots of things, you can have babies. But

between 15 and 18 you can only go to

sites that self certify themselves

to some kind of government agency that they are

safe. Right. This is the country, so we know what that means, right?

Yeah. This is the country that won't let you pray outside. Right. An abortion clinic.

Right. So if you want to talk about real. I wonder what,

yes, I wonder what's going to get filtered into their approved sites. What is

safe to them would be whatever

the political philosophy is on either side of either side,

either side that's in power at that time. To me, that.

That's crazy. Is. Is irrelevant. But if you give the government control

over what your kids can have access to,

in information wise. Yeah, that's disaster. You're not

on top of it as a parent. Yeah. If you're relying on some kind

of law that the

workarounds. I mean, children are very clever.

I don't know how. What verification. If I pick up a

cell phone and it belongs to, you know, Bobby Jones over there and he

gives me a cell phone and I just start using his cell phone. What

verification system exists to tell them how old I

am? I mean, that's going to be. I mean, look, I imagine you could do

something like have the screen recognize your face. I imagine you could do something

like. Yeah, well, just ratchet up the penalties. Right? I mean,

we do this for other things. So I take my dad's picture and put it

in front of the phone. Yeah, that's right. You can maybe do something like that.

Or maybe it verifies in real detective. They'll develop the technology to police it.

You know, we do. We do. And that in itself is scary. That's scary, right?

Yeah, we do something similar already. You can't go buy a Playboy magazine until

you're what, 18 or 20? I don't even know what the age is. Yeah. I

don't even know if they publish Playboy. I don't think I do. But, yeah, maybe

all the good ones are still there. Yeah, but you can't

watch porn. You can't go buy porn, but you can watch it ubiquitously on the

Internet. So I look, I don't know what the technology be again. I would just

ask rhetorically what could possibly go wrong with it. Right, Right.

It's. I love Thomas Soul. And as he always says, these programs are hardly ever

judged by what their intent is, but. Yeah, or only they hardly ever judged

by what the outcome is. Only what their intent is. Yeah. So the intent is

to protect kids. We want to make sure kids don't get access to this

dangerous stuff that's going to cause them to go off the rails and maybe make,

you know, radicalize them or whatever, but that's not how it's going to get

implemented. And that's not where the. Even, even unintentionally, it's

almost as old as Aesop's Fables or, or, you

know, you go back to Benjamin Franklin or Chaucer, but

the, you know, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. And it's

just a. It's a human characteristic. So, you know, if we tell,

if we, if we assume that, oh yeah,

there's a bad list and a good list of websites and social media,

then in, in, in, you conclude. I just heard on

610 the local AM station coming into the show today.

Steve, there's law firms that are

trolling for people who want to claim social media has

destroyed their lives. They're overeating, they have body image

problems, they're addicted to some kind of thing,

they're suicidal and they're looking for clients. So you

know, call this number or text to blah, blah and tell

us your story because we're going to do what they did in Arizona

or California, we're going to sue social media. So

people are looking for some kind of solution to their

personality problems or whatever it is. Allow me to retort

though. Yeah. So the lawyers are looking for clients and look, I hate

lawyers. I am a lawyer and I, I get it. I, I understand all like

first kill all the lawyers. Right? That's what they, that's what they always say. Yeah,

right. Anyway, but it's a market

force. If, if people are getting

sued successfully, then that will change.

Conduct will. You know, there's going to be a cost benefit

analysis. There's going to have to be some sort of

economic law they call law and economics where what's the, if we fix this or

not, but that will, that will move the market and

I would at least rather have that than a government

crackdown on what we have access to on the Internet.

The problem I have, Steve, just sidebar here,

no pun, before I get to my main point. But

the problem I have is like the failed McDonald's

fatty lawsuits where

they said, well, the hamburgers are addictive in nature.

Like, you know, they're so good, so tasty that my

350 or 400 pound client here

could not resist having Big Macs, two or three Big

Macs a day. And so McDonald's is a reason for his

poor health. And so they're making a similar claim with

social media that it's designed to be addictive. Well,

hell yes, it's designed to be addictive. Like what business

doesn't want to addict, if you will, or,

or, or in. Now, addict is a strong word. But.

But what? So Shell gasoline, right,

Is, is a quality gasoline. Let's say shell or

let's say Sunoco. What? Pick your brand and they

advertise all the time about, you know, more power for your

engine, more will clean, you know, your combustion

chamber, whatever. And so they try to

addict you to using their gas, you know, and

they use all kinds of ploys, you know, hey,

join our little club and you get $0.05 off per gallon

or Kroger, you know, hey, we have the best fried chicken

at our deli, you know, so come in and eat, you know, eat our fried

chicken as opposed to, you know, the Colonels. What business

doesn't want its customers to become loyal? And if you

want to call that an addiction, call it that. I don't care. Well, all

I can say is the first word you said was failed

lawsuit. Failed lawsuit with that McDonald's. So it failed.

Yeah. Now a few. Now, in particular cases

where, you know, social media,

you know, I think there were. That case in Arizona is a good, A good

case where it was pointed out that there

were lack of guardrails, lack of

checks and balances, and

that school children had access to certain things

in school. They were being promoted and, you know, and then when they

logged on, they saw things. Well, that's different. Okay.

That's an actual failure to,

to contain it during a program that's being

promoted by social media. They simply didn't

do their job. And I get that. But to just

say that social media in

and of itself is addictive. Well,

you know, to me, they go, orange soda.

Fair enough. I don't know. I don't know

the cause of action that they're seeking. So there's nuance to this.

Yeah, well, they're probably trying to figure it out. Typically

they're getting clients. A successful cause of action, I would think

would have to have baked into it some accusation of

fraud where, yeah, it's advertised as this. But really behind the

scenes, they're doing this right. So parents, don't worry, we're going to teach your kid

to read. But underneath all this, we're indoctrinating with some other nonsense and data

mining data on these children. So stuff like that,

you know, that's a different story. Or you've got the kid in Florida who

I think he committed suicide based on an AI bot. Yeah.

Encouraging it. Right. How do I commit suicide?

Oh, here's some great suggestions. Right. I think it's a great idea. You should do

it because life is horrible. Right. And so I, you know,

somewhere in the middle. That's. That's why I don't think, maybe.

I'll put it this way, the alternative to those kind of lawsuits would be another

government regulation prohibiting those types of lawsuits. Or

you could just have the system smoke it out. So the

McDonald's lawsuit was a failed lawsuit. If they didn't succeed, if the, if a

jury didn't say, we're going to give you this award, well, then

it fails and it sends the lawyers in a different direction. Yeah. And it's

what. It's imperfect, but it does move

problems. I'm not against the idea that somebody can

sue. What I'm troubled by is

obviously the concept that would

occur to somebody that it's somebody else's fault.

I'm the parent of my children, and now they're grown and

gone now. But at the time, I took control

of their access to the Internet. You know, I didn't get

them cell phones until they reached an appropriate age.

The computer was kept in the

open area of the house. Yep. So the kitchen.

So, you know, they're not going to be able to log on to a

pornography or something malevolent without

mother and father seeing it. Well, and I think you've struck,

you've cut to the core of this problem is that the government is

not your parent. No. And the government can't do that job better than

your parents. That's exactly right. And more and more and more

of this stuff has a theme behind it, which is we need governmental

intervention. Yeah. Kids lives. Yeah. It's part of the

socialism. Yeah. And part of Marxism. And socialism is

to destroy a published. Part of Marxism is

to destroy the family unit because it is patently inconsistent with what

they want to do, which is a government control over everything. Right. And what really

disturbs me about a lot of conservatives, and this goes

back to the greatest generation, your George Bush seniors, your

Bob Doles. And, you know, President Trump

suffers from this. He's not really a movement conservative. And

he and others like him, you know, including, you

know, former Republican leaders coming

out of World War II, is that, well, the government can solve anything. We

put a man on the moon. We. We landed at D

Day, we took out Tojo and Hitler. You know,

I'm like, you know. Yeah. Actually about the

15 years before that where FDR basically, absolutely torpedoed

the economy with this kind of control. That's right. And it's been

downhill ever since. And, and the, the rise of

the executive power in the United States is very

disturbing to me. I grit my teeth every time Trump

issues another executive action

because, I mean, that's what Obama did, too. And

I don't like that. You know, I would rather have debate.

Yeah. It's slow. It happens in the Senate and the, you know,

in the House of Representatives. But, you know, I'd rather

Have it that way than the EPA just willy nilly, you

know. Oh, we're going to close comments on data centers because

we're getting feedback we don't like. So let's shorten up the federal,

you know, the notice of pending federal executive order.

Yeah, that's bullshit. These presidents are changing your shower

heads. Yeah. Light bulbs and toilets. It's

lunacy. Lunacy. It is. So we should

talk a little bit, I think, Steve, about ice. This

brings in your legal expertise. Just,

you know, what's happened in the last week there were two fatal shootings

involving a vehicle stops by ice. One

down in Texas and one in Maine. Both.

In both cases they were, my understanding,

you know, pending further clarification because ongoing, I mean,

it's, it's very fresh, so investigations by the FBI

are, are taking place. My understanding is though, the

raw fact in Both cases were 1, the

1 in Texas was an attempted ramming, if that's

true. And in Maine, it was an attempted

getaway after the stop where, you know, he was under

the control of ICE agents and then he just decided to leave.

And in both cases, these were illegals with orders to

deport. And from what I understand, the

reason ICE likes these, likes to use

vehicle stops is because they don't need a

warrant. They like to go into the home. They

can isolate the person, you know, because

they're by themselves typically. Hopefully not with a child in the car

are. But they can, they can get them going to work or going to do.

It's in public. Right. It's. Yeah, yeah. And usually they're

not going to have a weapon with them if, if you're lucky. Because in

the house. Right. Somebody knocks on the door, well, you get the

shotgun out of the closet. Yeah. Look, I mean, to me this is all

about what are alternatives and how did we get to this spot

if we had cooperation

up and down the put or the governmental entities.

Yeah. All the way down to the local village, all the way up to the

federal government. If we had cooperation. Right. There would be less of this. Yeah.

Because then there would be, you know, when, when the,

when people here unlawfully got in trouble. They would never get

out of jail. Yeah. You know, and that the safest place

for ICE to do its job is in a local jail. Yeah. Right. Or

prison. Then you don't even have the vehicle stopped. You have nothing. Yeah.

It's the safest, easiest way. If somebody enters the system

charged with a crime and they, they

are here unlawfully and they get held, ICE comes and gets them. Nobody Gets

shot, end of story. Right? But if you don't, if there are cities, if there

are places, if there are. Oh, for God's sakes. Judges that let

the, the person out the side door who won't do it, then it, it pushes

this all into the streets. Now they would say, of course, well, we just don't

want ICE doing anything. And I'm like, okay, well,

yeah, change the law then. Yeah, change the law, change the rules, do whatever. But

ice, ICE is doing this. And you, you, by not

cooperating with this, are really creating a safety hazard. So that is absolutely. You

know, when you harbor criminals, bad things happen, right?

You're making it less safe for the illegals and for every.

Your, your entire city, everybody around the, everybody around there.

So look, I mean, it's, this is. But,

but it looks good. You know, I'm making my, I'm, I've got, making my political

point. So. So some interesting stats. So you had Tom

Homan, who's the border czar, was, you know,

responding to these two incidents, and they're going to,

they put a temporary halt on vehicle stops by

ice. In most cases, they're. They're putting a

halt on it until they can assess are their

training procedures. Okay, are there. Is the

rule. Are the rules of engagement clear? And, and

then he expects them to go back to doing vehicle stops,

but they're going to take a pause to examine their process and

their procedures, which I think is prudent. He, he, he also

gave a couple statistics which I think are interesting. So, so Trump

has been president for roughly 16 months. Okay.

Which it seems like a longer. Well, okay, a little longer.

18. 18 months. So it, it, it seems like he's been in office

longer, but in the first 16 months. So that would take us

through the end of April of this year.

There have been 800. Over 800,000

illegals have been removed from the country, so

probably by now about a million. And

as of the end of April, 641,000

arrested by ICE in 16 months.

So those are. Was that in addition to, or.

Well, some of those 800,000 that have been removed, they didn't need to arrest.

Some were voluntary. Remember? I think, I think

there still is in place a

stipend that if you contact ICE and say, hey, you

know what, I overstayed my education visa

and I'm going to go back to England, they'll give you.

I forget what it is, like 2,500 bucks and they'll

cover your plane fare to get you back out.

So I believe that still exists, that you can

actually get a little money on your way out the door if you do it

voluntarily. Yeah. And you're allowed to therefore to

also reapply to come back. Whereas if they

arrest you and there's an order for you to be deported. That's

it. That's it. Yeah. You're not eligible. You have to change your name.

So I thought those were interesting. We're back at

war with Iran. Six straight nights of attacks.

It's almost like we predicted that this might happen. Yes. We, it and actually

we advocated, let's just get this done. And it's almost like the

memorandum of understanding was sort of calculated to

be a do over. So you got a new 60 days. Yeah.

Oh, maybe we heard that here at Common Sense Ohio. I

think the Iranians calculated that Trump

was afraid to go back to kinetic

war because of the pending

midterms. But, but I don't think Trump thinks like that. I don't think

he does. And I don't think, I don't think

it's going to impact the midterms the way it might

have had he, the way it was going. I think there was a

shade on that that wasn't so good. Yeah. I

like this play actually. I think. And we talked about it here. Yeah. Look, there's

a memorandum understanding. It's very generous. Yeah, right. All you got to do is follow

it. Yeah, we tried, guys. Look, we

gave them every opportunity to not do these things,

to not shoot us, shoot at us in the straits. Right. And shoot at

other world ships in the straits and they won't stop. Yeah.

So now we have no choice. What are we supposed to do? Like we tried.

Yeah, we tried. So it's game on.

Hopefully in short order. There's been a reimposition then

of the blockade, so it's not just the kinetic

part, but now actually the United States

Navy is going to prevent any Iranian

shipments going in or out.

You know, other nations can, you know, we're letting, obviously

other, other nations can go in and out, but if their

intended port is, is Iran.

No. Yeah. Anything that benefits Iran, it's not going in or

out. Going in or out. I mean it's, that's, that's, that's it. That's a

stranglehold. That's a stranglehold. So I

don't know how much longer it's going to last, but pretty, pretty incredible. Well, what

I hope. Look, Iran's going to come to the table

with a bunch of false nonsense and hopefully

this time it doesn't work. You know, just, let's just, let's just get the job

done. Yeah, right. Just get the job done. Yeah. Just whether you agreed with being

there or not, whether you agreed that we should have been there, now we have

to get the job done that well. And maybe just

like back when we installed the Shaw and

you know, the CIA arranged for the

original, you know,

Islamic fascists to be put

out of office. And in the CIA, in fact, it was

Norman Schwarzkop's father who was working for the

OS Office of Strategic Services, the

predecessor of the CIA, who helped engineer

the installation of the Shaw of Iran. And

maybe it's time for us to seed

with weapons and with support. The,

the. We probably are. Yeah, I mean, I'm probably talking

about something that the CIA is doing. Yep. I, I would think, I would imagine

we would have some invisible hand behind. Because really, Steve, the

fix is as it always is. The fix is

to change the people. You know, like we didn't bomb

Venezuela into submission. We got Maduro out

and now Venezuela is a whole different ballgame. Yeah. It was a different, It's a

different scenario, though. Different scenario. But I think Trump was

hoping that the, that the native population,

unfortunately, I think the mullahs killed off, well, too many of the

protesters. I think, I think Trump was, I think they were short

sighted. That's not the right word. I think they were naive in that regard. I,

I think that there would be an uprising. Yeah. Because he, and

he actually said it in one of his spear, one of the clips. I heard

they don't have guns. What are they supposed to. And the government does and they

do. They're not going to keep coming out and they'll use killed and the government

will shoot them. They'll shoot its own people. Yeah. So you know, that's not going

to happen. Yeah. Because they don't have the means to do it. I guess,

I guess the outward signs that there is something going

on there, the. Is that women are not wearing

their burkas in, in large numbers in a. Yeah.

So social media, you know, they, they, they allowed the,

something the mullahs did is they, they restored

people's access to the Internet, I think about a month

and a half ago. And so some of the social media

posts show young women in. Well,

older but large numbers of women

are in Tehran and they're not wearing headgear at

all. And that used to get you a beating.

Yeah. Or worse. But I don't think that the

IRGC is nearly as powerful and

the women seem to be making a statement like frankly, a lot

of women lead the way, you know, in the, in social change. And

I think these Iranian women are being very brave right now

by basically saying, hey, we want to go back to a secular

culture where if I want to wear a burqa because

I'm a very orthodox type of

Islam, fine. But if I don't,

I don't have to wear one. That is the, that is the point. Point.

If it is what everybody wanted, they will do it.

Yeah, they will do it. Right. If, if people want to, to

incorporate religion in their day to day lives such that they don't go out in

a certain way, they don't act in a certain way, they don't do these things

in a certain way, then they will do it. Right? They will do it and

the government should not have to enforce it. Yeah. And they, they, they just don't

want the freedom in Iran. You know, they, they want to control

people. It's a religious state

in every way. What do you think about this daylight

savings becoming permanent? So it passed the House

in Washington and Thune, the leader of the Senate

says he's in favor of it.

So if it passes the Senate, unless Trump

vetoes it, we'll have permanent daylight

savings with the option for states to, to opt

out. Yeah. So like in Indiana in

January they say if, if

and they say daylight savings would make, you

wouldn't have sunrise until 9 o' clock in, in, in the morning

in Indianapolis. But I'll tell you what Steve, when

I come back to my house after a day of work at

five o' clock and it's pitch black in January,

that is totally depressing to me. It's very depressing. So I just did a quick

search. It was first adopted on a large scale by Germany and Austria Hungary in

1916 to conserve coal during World War I. Its

conceptual roots trace back to New Zealand entomologist George Hudson

1895 and British builder William Willett who sought to

maximize evening sunlight. In

1784, Ben Franklin casually and jokingly suggested that

the proof regions could save on candle usage by rising earlier with

the sun. 1908 Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, Canada,

Ontario, first city in the world to implement it. 1918 Following

Europe's lead, US enacted the Standard Time Act.

1942. During World War II, Roosevelt initiated year round daylight

savings. Wartime lasted until 45, 66.

The Uniform Time act passed 73 to 74. We

implemented a year round daylight savings time during the energy

crisis in 2007 and the mothers threw a Fit.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, because. And that got thrown out. Yeah.

Energy policy of 2005 took effect in 2007,

extending the duration of daylight savings time by several weeks, resulting in the

modern schedule observed today. Yeah. So I think it's

crazy for Indiana to be on the same time zone as New

York. Like, like they probably should go to Central

Time. That would resolve that. That might result. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm in favor of it. I, I, I would like it to be

permanent, but for Ohio and other states can decide

whatever they want. That, that just, you know, it doesn't bother me. That's how it

should be. Good and bad. Well, just one other,

one other bit of Ohio news that I think you might

even jump in here.

So a U.S. district Court judge yesterday

blocked DeWine's Senate Bill 56, Prohibition

on Hemp infused drinks being able to be

sold outside of dispensaries. So there were 10

breweries of hemp infused drinks

that sued in federal court to stop

Ohio law on that Senate Bill 56.

And a preliminary injunction was granted yesterday in federal

district court. So it'll get sorted out, but

I find that, I find that to be. Well, I'm not a

big DeWine fan, so anything that frustrates him frankly gives

me a slight jolly. But I don't know what is the right

decision here. I'll be honest, I haven't studied it. I don't, like, I

don't, I haven't either. A temporary block enforcement. Ohio Senate Bill 56 regarding

hemp derived THC drinks. Yes,

I want to know what a hemp derived THC drink is because I have not

researched this. So is this an intoxicating beverage? Is this sort of a. I had

one accidentally. An herbal beverage or is it intoxicating? I was in a

Canadian bar last year and I ordered some kind of

cider and I just thought, well, you know, peach or pear

or peach apple cider, whatever it was. And the guy

next to me elbows me and he says, well, you know, that's got, that's

got THC in it. I say, I had no idea. I don't know. So

hempt derived thc. So is this in. Because there's different strains of

this stuff. Oh, you know, like we got the Delta 6, Delta 8, Delta 7,

all this. And I know nothing about it. I don't need. I. So I'm presuming

these are intoxicating beverages on some level. And what I don't

like is, well, it was mixed with cider, Steve, I can tell you that. So

it was combination. It had alcohol and thc. Well, some. I think

what they're talking about here are just THC drinks. Okay.

And I. What I don't like is the government taking over a certain.

An industry that probably should be private. So if. If only the government can

sell you your THC. Oh, I see. What. Yeah, yeah. Because DeWine says it's

okay to buy it in a dispenser. That's right. Yeah. And. Yeah. You know, I.

Now that point. Yeah, that is a really strong

point. Yeah. Like, if. If. If we're going to license

dispensaries to sell this, then why can't I buy it at

a 7 11? Yeah. Or make it myself and sell it. Right. So this

is like. And we have the same problem with liquor. Liquor is treated uniquely, too.

And, you know, some of this stuff just has the history of it. But

if you're going to prevent. And you know, in Ohio

here, we had a long time where you had to go to a state liquor

store to buy liquor. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's a little

bit. Franchises that were actually preferred by

the state. Yeah, yeah. You had to apply to be. It was kind of like,

from what I understand, like little. Like little hardware

stores used to have a post office in them and they would actually

be a franchise. Yeah. Like you had to apply to be a post office.

And. And it was kind of like that for our liquor stores. And I remember

going down in college for spring break to Florida and you'd see

ABC Liquor. What the hell is that? I can go buy liquor here. It's not

a state store. Yeah, right. And they're on every corner. And they're on every corner.

Yeah. Yeah. My winner is AC dc. They're playing

in Columbus, Ohio, tonight at Ohio Stadium.

And I had the. I'll say it

was an honor because the lead singer for that band,

Brian Johnson, who replaced.

What was it? Was it. Yeah. Bon Scott. One

of the Young brothers, Malcolm Young, suffered and

died from brain disease, progressive brain disease. And

Brian Johnson has ever since then been very active

in raising money for charities and putting on events. So I met him

at one of those events at what happened to be a race in Chattanoog.