Whether it’s Kid Rock vs. Bad Bunny, legal victories, or the ongoing mess in New York City, this episode is packed with sharp insight, humor, and the grounded perspective you’ve come to expect from Common Sense Ohio.

Welcome back to another episode of Common Sense Ohio! This week, hosts Steve Palmer and Norm Murdock are joined by guest Troy Henriksen for a lively and thought-provoking conversation about the headlines and hot topics defining the Buckeye State—and the nation.

In this episode, the crew dives into history with a quick lesson on the Punic Wars and how "Carthago Delenda est" echoes through modern politics, before pivoting to the current state of lunar exploration and the Artemis missions. They break down the heated congressional hearing that saw Rep. Maxine Waters telling Treasury Secretary Scott Besant to "shut up," and unpack the broader problems with identity politics, including the conflation of policies and personal traits in elections.

The episode also tackles tariffs, blue-collar realignment, and the shifting political affiliations of labor unions, with Steve Palmer and Norm Murdock debating their effectiveness and political fallout. They take a closer look at the legal side of hot-button issues, discussing the recent lawsuits around gender-affirming surgeries and the critical role of trial lawyers in shaping medical and corporate behavior.

The conversation doesn’t shy away from tough subjects—from the practical challenges of immigration and birthright citizenship to the mounting controversy over the release of Jeffrey Epstein files and the danger of rumor-driven reporting. And in true Common Sense Ohio fashion, no pop culture stone is left unturned: the Super Bowl halftime show gets the spotlight, with a debate on whether politics belongs in football and who really wins the battle for America’s remote control.

Moments

00:00 "Carthago Delenda Est"

03:59 Corrections on Greenland and Deportations

09:51 "Tariffs and Global Diplomacy"

10:45 "Tariffs: Economic vs. Political Impact"

16:10 "Advocating Informed Vaccine Choices"

17:19 Freedom of Access Debate

22:47 Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Debate

24:21 "Litigation Reflects Deeper Discontent"

28:54 Haitian TPS, Birthright Citizenship Debate

30:20 "Origins of Birthright Citizenship"

33:16 "Rudy, Koch, and Common Sense"

39:03 "Epstein Case Allegations and Fallout"

40:43 "Reflections on Evolving Debates"

45:58 "Grammys, Virtue Signaling, Stolen Land"

49:50 "Keep the Super Bowl Apolitical"

50:51 "Evolution of National Anthem Performances"

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

info@commonsenseohioshow.com

Harper CPA Plus

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.

Copyright 2026 Common Sense Ohio

All right, here we go. Common Sense Ohio. What's sensical about Ohio? I don't know, but here we are. Common Sense Ohio. Check us out. Common SenseOhio show dot com. Week in and week out. Brought to you by Harper Plus Accounting.

I tell you what, there's not a better time of year. Actually, the best time to get an accountant was yesterday. The next best time is today. So it could be Harper plus he's our accountant. Could be yours. So we're going to jump right into it. Currently, Carthago Delenda est. Carthage must be destroyed.

The last Punic War was February 5th in history. The Roman Republic triumphs over Carthage, effectively ending the Punic Wars. Why does that matter? I don't know. Because I remember learning that phrase in Latin. That's why it caught my.

Well, it is other than figures like Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler, Carthage, that. That extermination of Carthage because they just. That was a North African kingdom.

Yeah.

Pretty powerful. Like, they extended, you know, all throughout, like Tunisia and Libya, modern, you know, era areas. Morocco and Rome just obliterated, like the people, they were decimated their. Their cities. Unlike adopting those people into the Roman.

Empire, which was their MO Right.

They obliterated them.

So they found something there. Now, the quote is attributable to Cato the elder in the second century B.C. who insisted on the total destruction of Carthage. Jerome's rival. It represents relentless, repetitive advocacy for the cause. Now, this is interesting. In today's day and age, often used to signify an enemy or obstacle that must entirely be eliminated. So I guess that's why it became a famous quote.

So you said about anything. But during the lead up to the third Punic War, we're talking 149 to 146 BC Cato the Elder concluded every single speech in the Senate with this phrase. Regardless of the subject. The idea was to urge the destruction of Carthage.

It was scorched earth.

Scorched earth. Yeah, but that's not the only thing that happened on February 5th. In 1971, Apollo 14, we land on the moon. It was, I think, our third successful manned moon landing. Unless you're like Troy over there. Unless you don't believe that somebody ever walked on the moon. I'm not telling you wrong, Hollywood basement. I'm not telling you you're wrong.

And Steve's math is correct because even though it was the fourth mission to the moon, one of them didn't get there.

Yeah.

This is Apollo 13.

Yeah.

So, yeah, the commander I'm trying I think it was Wally Schirra, Al Shepard. Al Shepard was taking no prisoners during that mission, you know, because it was the mission following Apollo 13 had to go. Well, and his fellow astronauts have written in their memoirs that he was incredibly demanding to the point of dictatorial. I mean, because clearly NASA's future was at stake.

Well, and then I think this is important now because the current news I saw, it's like, now, apparently we're on the mission again. We're going to go do it.

Artemis. It's Artemis. Programmed to go back to the moon.

Yep, yep. So if we didn't do it the first time, then maybe we can prove that we did it this time.

Well, the chicoms and the Russians are, you know, even, even the Japanese, they all have lunar programs. And some of these treaties that have been out there about. No one really owns the real estate on the moon.

He who lands there and takes it is the person that owns it. Right?

Yeah. We might be the only people who are abiding by some of these treaties.

Norm. It's stolen land, my friend. It's stolen land. You can't deport people from stolen land.

By little green men. Yeah, I need to make a couple corrections. We on this program have a policy that when we make a mistake or misspeak ourselves in some material way, that we correct it right at the top of the program. So a couple of shows ago, meant to do this last show, but I had mentioned that Greenland was twice the size of the United States and I meant twice the size of Texas. Quite a big difference, but it's still a huge landmass, but not as big as what I had misstated. And the other thing that I had erred about is I read my notes wrong and my 8 looked like a 3. Obama deported around 3 million illegal aliens. Not 8 million, but it still is a total thus far, much greater than what President Trump has deported.

So want to get those on the record?

All right, Yep. Well, let's jump right off. What do we got?

Well, comically, but kind of substantially, there were some hearings on The Hill in D.C. yesterday with Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessant, and he just, he put on a clinic. He came very prepared, ready to address just about any question involving the economic policies of the current administration. And during the questioning, Maxine Waters, who I think it's fair to say is crazy, she told him to shut up. She violated any kind of decorum and actually told him in the middle of his testimony that she didn't want to hear anymore and use the Word. Shut up. And later on in the hearing, she was corrected or admonished, I should say, by one of her fellow congresspersons and said, you know, that really wasn't right that you said, shut up. And then she denied she said it.

So they played the tape, and I just found that exciting.

Sounds like good courtroom attic. Oh, you didn't say it.

Would the stenographer please read back to the congresswoman what she had said? So I like that kind of stuff because, you know, like 15 minutes later, she forgot what she had said. And I. I want to use this occasion now. This is unfair. I'll say that up front, but this is the kind of logic that lefties like to use, because she was in an argument with a. A man who is gay who's publicly disclosed his sexual preferences. Scott Besant, you know what the lefties would say if this was a conservative who got in an argument, say, with a gay man? They would say, he's threatened by a strong gay man. So I'm going to say, Maxine Waters, you're officially threatened.

Clearly, you're uncomfortable with a gay man having power and being in a position of authority. And, you know, that's the kind of Orwellian logic that we seem to be into in our current milieu.

Well, there's no way.

And it's ridiculous. But that's what people taught. That's how they conclude these things.

The problem with this stuff is this. Let's just say a gay man is running for some sort of office.

Yeah.

I could give a rat's behind. Who cares if he's gay or not.

Who cares?

But if his policies, if his, like.

Pete Buttigieg is running for president, I could care less. Who cares?

I don't care who he sleeps with. I do not care. Yeah, but if I don't like his policies, then I'm not gonna vote for him. But that gets conflated with, oh, oh, you're a bigot. You're a homophobic.

Yeah, you're homophobic.

Right. Because you're not voting for a guy who happens to be gay. And then I think the opposite also happens. Is that because I've heard logic during the last election? Well, she's a woman. Look, I don't care what's between her legs, who's best for the job, and what are the policies.

Right.

And I hope sometime if a woman, if it's. I don't care if a woman's president or not. I really don't care.

Right.

But I hope if the right candidate happens to be a woman that she's not elected, or she's elected for those reasons and not because she's only a woman.

Right. This identity politics thing where what tribe, you know, somehow you're associated. We call everything a community. There is no such thing as a homosexual community. Scott Besant is totally different politically than Pete Buttigieg. They're not in a community. They just happen to have one factor in their lives that's similar or the same, and that doesn't make it a community. But we want to tribalize people.

Like all gay people are XYZ or all male white men are xyz.

It's ridiculous. One political party, usually it's the Democrats saying, well, look, how can you possibly be a Republican? You're gay. And it's like, come on, it doesn't matter. Well, anyway, look along. Well, go ahead. I got something. I got two things I want to talk about today, but we'll let you take it.

I think, you know, along the same lines, you know, there's. There's some. Some major things happening. And, you know, I think Steve and I, we had a fair. Reasonable people can disagree about tariffs. And, of course, you know, I think tariffs are useful, as I've stated in previous shows, to balance the economic conditions between two countries. You know, if a country has terrible environmental protection or they're using slave labor in a factory like in China, right. Then I think it's perfectly okay.

And I would differ with Dr. Sowell and Milton Freeman and my friend Steve. I think it's perfectly okay to erect tariffs to somehow equalize the playing field. Well, we saw that demonstrated just this week with Prime Minister of India Modi, who got a 7% cut in tariffs from India to the United States because he agreed no longer will India be buying oil and gas from Russia, which will probably help tone down the war in Ukraine because that's how Putin has been financing his aggressive war against the Ukrainian people. So there are some very useful.

This deserves. I've got to give you a little bit of response here, because I have never said that tariffs per se are bad.

Okay, Explain yourself, sir. Explain yourself.

So there's two different things at play. Tariffs could be bad. A tariff war is generally economically bad for the economy. Would say Thomas Sowell or Milton Freeman or anybody else who's really chimed in on this, but it doesn't mean they can't have political value. And those two things, I think, have to operate together because it could be like you're talking. There's a political advantage here to imposing a Tariff. To me, it's always been about the messaging, what were we trying to accomplish? And Trump has a tendency to get a little bombastic about what he's doing.

You don't like bombastic, that's clear.

It's not even that I don't like it, it's that the economy doesn't like it, the market doesn't like it, and it gives the other side ammunition to use against him because I think we are in an, dare I say, a war. Our goal has to be to keep the conservative movement going. And when you give the other side political ammunition, that hurts the ultimate goal. So just tone down the rhetoric a little bit. That's all I'm asking for.

Well, one point.

Explain it the way you just explained it.

Well, one political outcome that is absolutely ground shaking and is scaring the DNC is the blue colorization of the conservative movement because of things like tariffs. You've got former enemies of Trump, like the head of the UAW saying, you know, I may dislike this guy for a variety of reasons, but he is protecting union jobs with these tariffs and.

That sort of fantails. I mean, look, the Democratic Party, so.

He'S growing the conservative movement.

I mean, in our youth, you're a little bit older than I am. Just a little.

Just a little.

In our youth, the Democratic Party always had the labor unions lockstep, man. And somehow along the way they latched on to this other, some insane ideas that this normal people don't buy into. What world government like one New World Order.

Exactly.

Bush was singing that song. And the other would be that men can become women or women can become men. And it's like, by the way, did you see the American Plastic Surgeons association has now spoken up on this. It turns out that you shouldn't cut a kid's penis off before he's 19 years old.

And did you see the, or at.

Least that's what they say.

Did you see the jury award in that detransitioning case? So a pretty major case where a 16 year old girl, I mean that is a minor, her parents were conned into thinking she was going to commit suicide. There was no proof of that, no report of that. And they were conned into thinking that, oh my God, if we don't let these surgeons turn our girl into a boy or vice versa, that she's going to kill herself.

Well, they were con. And then there's a lot of sort of searching for virtue. Yes. Like look, I've supported my child in this transition. Yes, A lot of nonsense.

Nonsense.

This is. Now I get to jump up. Let's see my soapbox up here.

Do it. Do it.

Yeah. Remember those damn trial lawyers. We hate those damn trial lawyers. We're going to start limiting verdicts and we're not going to let them sue. So here's the problem.

What was it, Steve? 2 million or 20 million? It was a pretty good chunk.

Yeah.

That you got what you get.

And this is. Look, I would venture to guess that the American Plastic Surgeons association is worried about their members getting sued for cutting off kids. Penises.

Yeah.

When they're.

And breasts.

And breasts and whatever else they're doing. And this is where the market, the legal system can help instill or maintain some semblance of reality. It's not always perfect, but if they're. I've always said this. Look, most safety mechanisms that have been employed in our society are because of lawyers suing people on behalf of people.

No question about it.

And if you think, if you go back when the government was trying to limit verdicts, what were they really like? You start to think you get the red pill and you start to think like, wait a minute, there's a lot of money trading hands because they're collecting money from this association or this association or these people or this people, and they don't want to get sued. So we're going to try to limit jury. Like, look, when the government puts its thumb on that scale, then there's always a compromise. And here, fortunately, you had some trial lawyers who may or may not even care. It's like it's a case to them.

That's right.

They can make a negligence case.

Right. But their clients, clearly their clients cared.

And they took on a cause for their clients and they changed, I think, a huge policy position. And I think the next the AMA will be not far behind.

Yeah. There's cracks in the dam. It reminds me of the nurses that are succeeding in getting back pay and punitive awards for losing their jobs during COVID you know, where they refuse to get the vax and we're discharged. And you know, those cases are coming in fast and furious.

I remember.

And again, thank you trial lawyers for that.

I was. During that timeframe, I was on the phone with trial lawyers all over the country and they were asking for help in Ohio. I didn't have the resources.

You were taking questions online, Steve, I don't know if you remember, but there was a nurse who called into this show and you were answering her question live on the radio.

Yeah. And there's a lot of that there was a lot of that going on. And hats off for those of you who stood up to your values, because now it turns out, imagine that there are adverse ramifications to the vaccine. Look, I'm not saying you should take it. I'm not saying you shouldn't take it, but at least give people the choice and give them. So I just had a hearing, and we talked about what it takes to make an intelligent choice. And intelligence implies you have all the facts and details, and if you don't, you're making choices based on half the information or less than half. And that's what the government did during COVID Hopefully, there's ramifications or there's justice for those folks.

Also, why don't we hit one of your topics? I've got a bunch, but.

Well, look, I'm a lawyer, as it turns out. I represent folks charged with crimes, as it turns out. Check me out. Palmer Legal Defense. You need a lawyer. I can be yours. At any rate, I've been getting a lot of questions on not only coming in here, but also some of the other platforms about Don Lemon getting prosecuted.

Oh, yeah, that's beautiful.

It's great stuff, because, you know, Norm, you'll know some of this history. But people would say, what's he charged with? He's just charged with being a journalist.

Yeah, right. Not so much.

Not so much. So, look, it turns out back in the 90s, I think, 95, 96, Congress passes something called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Face, there's always a fancy name for bad laws under 18 U.S. code, Section 248. So, you know, the people that were in favor of abortion were saying, we want to prosecute those people. Typically, like the people out there praying or trying to intervene or saying, hey, look, here's a go get this ultragram over here so you can see your child. We should prosecute those people because they're interfering with these ladies. Right.

To go get an abortion.

Right.

Well, you know, it turns out that's a little bit of a controversial topic in our country. About half the people agree and about half don't. And depending on who you ask, it might be a little more than half on one side or another, but it wasn't so crystal clear. So the other side said, well, look, we're not going to agree that law unless you also agree that you can't interfere in the same way, same fashion with those exercising their right to a religion in an established place.

Right.

So you had an A section and a B section.

Yeah.

And heretofore, you've never really heard about any prosecutions under the B section. It's only been the A section. You saw the old man. I forget his name, who I think is probably still in prison because he was praying outside an abortion clinic and say, can I pray with you? And they prosecuted him, or I don't know the facts. I'm butchering it, but something like that.

You're right.

Well, look, bad laws are bad laws, and I don't necessarily agree with these laws on either, but if you're going to have one, you got the other. And now it turns out when the worm turns, you've got Don Lemon going into a church where people. It's not that they were just hanging out at church. They were there on Sunday exercising their freedom of religion.

And there was a daycare center in that facility for the adults that were attending the services.

It was a church.

It was complex. It was not just a Sunday service, but there was a daycare area. And he was physically blocking parents that wanted to go retrieve.

Don Lemon was.

That's right.

All right, so, yeah, here's what the law says. Whoever, by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of worship. So you're not allowed to do that. No, it violates this law.

Now, and his theory is because I'm holding a microphone and have a shoulder camera.

That's right.

That my First Amendment rights are somehow supercilious and exceed everybody else's rights. And the Supreme Court has never said that.

Yeah. Here's what Lemon's gonna argue. I'm exercising my freedom of the press.

Plenty of journalists have gone to jail for withholding testimony or withholding sources and stuff like that. We're talking about those, but it's that same First Amendment. Yeah. You know, in other words, journalists don't get a free pass from criminal behavior. Well, that's right, is what I'm saying.

So the question is, can the law criminalize basic journalism or being a journalist? And let's say, let's take it this way. If Lemon is simply walking down the street because there's protesting going on and he sees this group going to church, he's like, well, this is interesting. I'm going to go. This is newsworthy. I'm going to go document this.

Right. That didn't work for J6 conservative journalists.

Well, that's a different story.

They all got prosecuted, too.

Fine.

Yeah.

But I think Lemon might have a better defense in that situation. But he's charged not just with violating this law, he's charged with a conspiracy to violate this law. Meaning we have an agreement, Norm. We're going to go do this thing.

He was at the organization, so now.

We need these facts. To what extent was he at the organizational meetings? To what extent did he participate? To what extent did he help instruct? Did he commit any. Himself overt acts in course, in furtherance of the conspiracy?

Yeah.

What did he do on the scene, like prevent people from doing this or doing that? So even his defense if valid and maybe valid to let the facts come out. In general, that defense might be valid because there also are plenty of journalists who haven't been prosecuted when they're just along for the ride, documenting this stuff. Because we'd like to encourage that.

Right.

But once you start participating, it gets blurry. I think Lemon, I would guess he's got more of a problem than he's leading on or than he's acknowledging.

Yeah, probably.

And I would also say this is why when people pass these laws and when Congress does stuff, they never think what it's going to be like on the other side. It's like they almost don't think, well, we'll never lose power again. How possibly could somebody else get the string, get the. The reins of power and prosecute us for the B section? What's happened? You know, Troy pointed out to me once, it was good insight. He said, usually.

And Troy is.

Troy is our resident. We'll call him factual specialist over there. He's a law clerk for me upstairs in my law office. But he and I were talking about this, and once one side opens the door to prosecute people for something that has even possibly, like, even though you could do. Never has happened.

Yeah.

Now it's fair game. Now the other side's gonna do it, and then the other side's gonna do it. Then the other side's gonna do it. And this is why I think in the last five to 10 years, we have crossed the Rubicon on that kind of stuff more than ever.

Well, like your point on this abortion clinic thing, it got down to the point where the Supreme Court and state supreme courts had to figure out how feet or yards away from the entrance were reasonable under a law. And tossing out, well, 100ft sounds like a little too much. Let's be a super legislature here in the court, and we'll decide it should only be 50ft and all this crazy stuff. And it's all because of, like you say, upping the ante. So then they pass another law and they codify that it's 100ft.

Yeah, it just is.

It's insane. There's no discretion anymore.

These are political laws. I don't care how both these.

That's right.

Right. Both these are political laws and they're being used politically now. And look, I'm not saying I agree with it, actually, I'm not saying I agree with it, but it is. This is the world we're living in now. That's right, because they did it. We're gonna do it because this happened on January 6th and you didn't prosecute then and we're gonna do this.

Yep.

It's like, look, this is the world we're living in. Stop. Right, Stop.

It's not going to stop.

You can't legislate decorum very easily. So when did we stop wearing suits on airplanes? When did we stop? Once you give that stuff up, it's a slippery slope and we have to all agree on certain things that just shouldn't be legislated.

Yeah, everything is litigious anymore because I don't mean to shift the discussion, but you know, just take here in Ohio we have almost 200 data centers and 113 of them are in central Ohio. And you have people who feel so disenfranchised and so alienated from the decision making process about where these go and how much energy they use and how much potential pollution may result in the groundwater being used and all of these issues. And they feel so threatened by it, Steve, that the only way that they can fight back is these micro battles about things like intersections and roundabouts and rights of way. And so they're fighting around the fringe of this situation because they feel powerless about the main thing. And the legislature and Congress and the President oftentimes don't address the main issues that people really are concerned about, like violence and about the environment and about the economy. And we citizens then take to the streets or we hire lawyers or we go to meetings and we shout about all the little tiny things like how many feet away from the door are you allowed to be? Instead of talking about whether that baby is a human being and has constitutional rights to be alive. We don't want to talk about that, but we want to talk about how we yell at each other or even.

Another similar, maybe not the same, but take our current immigration law. There really doesn't seem to be any debate that the law prohibits people from crossing the border without some sort of screening and a process. And if you cross the border illegally, you violate the law. But for years, for political reasons, nobody enforces it. Or maybe they sort of haphazardly enforce it. We're only gonna pick the real criminals. We're gonna pick these. I mean, go change the damn law.

Congress just doesn't do its job anymore. And if we don't like the way the law is and you just wanna open the borders, we'll go get the votes and change it right now. I would disagree with that. But fine. That's what the legislative process is all about. That's what the representative government is all about. Instead, we're taking to the streets and the political sides are sort of saying, all right, we're just going to back off. We're not going to even talk about the law.

We're either going to enforce it or not. And then when somebody does enforce it, we're going to take to the streets.

Yeah.

And say you're wrong for trying to enforce it. And they're saying, well, wait a minute, you were wrong for not enforcing it. And they're going to say, well, nobody's ever enforced. Well, it's just, it's endless.

Yes.

And nobody is, like you said, nobody's getting to the heart of the problem.

That's right. And that feeds into a pretty interesting battle brewing at the Supreme Court. So Senator Bernie Marino and Congressman Jim Jordan both have filed briefs, amicus briefs in that case before the Supreme Court about the denial of birthright citizenship. And that's brewing along with the tariff case. So two major Trump initiatives are before the Supreme Court and they potentially could be earth shaking decisions depending on how they come out.

I heard some commentary on this on birthright citizenship that opened up my eyes to something, what I didn't know, and I'm not going to portray this as fact, but it came from. I can't remember who I was listening to, but it was a factual source. I would encourage everybody to look it up. But apparently China about 15 to 20 years ago started sending people over who were pregnant to have their kids in the United States Government policy by policy by practice, have the babies, so get citizenship and immediately take them back to China to raise them under the Chinese doctrine. In other words, no assimilation whatsoever with the idea that then we can send them back when they're adults after we've had them and they're citizens and they can start voting in ways that they.

Don'T even have to come back to vote.

Yeah, that's a scary thought.

Yeah, they can vote by mail.

And if that's going on, and I think it is and has.

Yes.

Then we have every reason beyond this stupid petty politics that people are bickering about to stop it.

Right.

And when I've told that to people, it opened my eyes to something I didn't know was going on. I didn't even think about it.

Well, let's talk a little bit because Governor DeWine of Ohio has brought up this issue and again, it's complicated the temporary protective Status of the 15,000 some odd Haitians living in Springfield. So while they were here the last several years, naturally husbands and wives and girlfriends and people that I'm sure American women and men that became involved with them personally, they've had children. So under birthright citizenship, if that theory holds with the Supreme Court, you have non citizens temporarily allowed to be protected in the United States who are having children who then would be awarded citizenship when their parents get deported back to Haiti. Apparently there's an issue with these children about, well then they can't go back to Haiti because they're American citizens and they can't travel because they don't have passports. And you know, you're scratching your head.

It's a mess.

It's a mess.

Follow the law in the first place. We circumvented it with whatever executive orders. This is my, this is the problem we have when Congress doesn't do its job right.

If you go back far enough before the Chinese railroad decision, railroad worker decision. But if you go back to when this entire idea of birthright citizenship got started, it was about Native Americans, it was about Indians on reservations being American citizens because they were born within the borders of the United States regardless of whether they were in an Indian nation on a reservation. They were therefore American citizens regardless because they were born within the boundaries of the US and it was meant to address that, meant to address ex slaves and their children who weren't considered human beings. And if they moved to a non slave state, were those then American citizens? Yes, they were. It had nothing to do with, with Chinese government or Chinese worker. It had nothing to do with temporary protected Haitians. And now you see the complications that are coming from this. You try to do an empathetic thing and protect migrants while their country, it suffered a hurricane or in the case of Somalia, there's warlords.

So you take these people into the United States and then surprise, surprise, they, they produce children. And that creates a whole host of issues yeah.

And look, the altruistic reason they needed help, they needed this. Fair enough. But we can't overthink this. So we've got to. There's gotta be a policy here. It's gotta make sense. And I suspect the Supreme Court is going to somehow, no pun intended, split the baby. They're gonna come up with a way that makes it work.

We'll see.

Yeah. There's gotta be some sort of way to sort this out. And I think I read it's only an estimate because I guess nobody really. There are no hard statistics on this, but I think they estimate as many as 300,000 of those Chinese dual citizen babies were born in the United States.

That's crazy.

So that's more than enough to sway an election. If they would all register to vote, let's say in a close race, like up in Wisconsin or in a Senate race, 300,000 people or a chunk of those could easily throw a race. And they're going to vote from Sichuan province.

Yeah. And who knows if it's really them. Right. It's like the whole thing's a mess.

Yeah. Mail in ballots.

All right. Well, it turns out New York's a mess.

Yes. Literally.

Mountains of snow and mountains of garbage. Except for outside Mondami's mansion. Who's to say that that wouldn't be the case before, but there is some sort of a sweet harmony to it.

Somehow I don't think Rudy would have allowed that to happen. Or even Mayor Koch back when Democrats were saying, you know, Ed Koch of New York City, he would today be a conservative Republican. I mean, it's ridiculous, but he was a great mayor of New York City. I think everybody says that about Mayor Koch. I really liked him. I thought he was fantastic. And he was one of those kinds of mayors, like Rudy Giuliani, that just tried to do what was good for New York City. Common sense.

Let me make a prediction. It's not that the policies are bad. Mondani will say. It's not that what I'm trying to do is wrong. It's not that socialism doesn't work or communism doesn't work. It's that you didn't give me enough money and power to really fix the problem. Problem, like what? Yet I bet there was not those trash heaps when in the old days, we'll say there probably was at certain times and not other times, but. And look, I get it.

There's a huge snowstorm and so there's mountains of snow and there's probably some difficulties that he and that natural that the natural conditions gave him. But that's part of being a leader, man. You live it. You got it when it's good and you got it when it's bad.

Well, winter came on schedule and I think they know that New York City like, you know, hello.

I don't.

It gets hot in the summer.

It gets colder. Gets that burden. Yeah. Just how it is.

Absolutely. So, Steve, we have some sports coming up. I know you love sports. Me too. I don't know much about the Winter Olympics, but that's starting this weekend. I think or may have already kicked off. Yeah.

It shows you what I mean.

Yeah. In Milan, Italy.

I love the Winter Olympics. I always have.

So I think it's on. Check this out, Troy, while we're talking. But I think it's pay per view or it's on some kind of pay like Paramount or something. Remember the old days, you just turned on channel 12 or something. It was just free all the time. Yeah.

Look, I remember watching. We used to love it. I used to love the ski jumping, the ski racing.

Absolutely. Eddie the Eagle from the uk Remember. Remember him kind of teetering up there and you know, you were, you were like, Eddie, get 10th place.

It's on both. It's on cable and. But it's also Peacock. So if you do want to. If you don't have cable, your streaming option is Peacock. But they are putting it on cable also.

Can you see it for free?

Yeah, well, you can see if you have cable.

You got to have cable. So it's not on broadcast tv?

No, it's. It's not.

I remember the Today show used to go and set up there.

Oh yeah. Pat Summerall or whoever it was, Katie.

Couric and Matt Lauer when he wasn't in the back.

Brian Gamble. Yeah, that whole crowd.

Right.

It was cool. And the super bowl is Super Bowl Sunday.

You're going to watch the super bowl halftime show or you're going to watch the Turning Point usa.

Well, that's actually my. One of my winner is. I'm definitely going to turn on Kid Rock. Are you kidding? Bad Bunny. No.

I don't even know what Kid Rock. I don't know what a bad Bunny. Is that a bunny that doesn't behave?

No, it's a Puerto Rican superstar. Like he's the number one downloaded musician right now. Now is he's the big deal and of course he's, you know, going to be political and he said that. And the NFL.

Yeah, I've heard is.

Is going to let him you know, do his spew. And frankly, you know, I. I would just say parents that don't want their kids brainwashed, you know, probably ought to just watch a really wholesome halftime show. They say it'll be family rated non political, you know, pro America. But man, I'm watching Kid Rocket at. I think a ton of people are going to. Are going to turn on the free stream and watch that halftime show and then go back to the game when it's over.

Well, that's I'm going to do, assuming the game is good.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, right.

So Seattle's going to kill him. That's what I think is going to happen.

I would not even venture. Troy, probably you're a football fan.

I'm not more of a college guy.

Unfortunately, he doesn't know either. What do you know then? All right, let's. Let's. Let's knock off some good and bad.

Well, just real quick, you got another story. Well, I think these are interesting things from a legal point of view. I'd like to throw these out there. So this Savannah Guthrie case with her mother being kidnapped, evidently. And it just harkens back to these celebrity kidnappings, like the Lindbergh baby, Patty Hearst when she was kidnapped, and then the Stockholm syndrome thing that went on with her conditioning. She then became an armed terrorist for the same people that kidnapped her. I mean, that's how they kind of turned her. And I just wonder about this situation where I'd never seen this before, where the family last night got on national tv, Savannah, her sister and her brother, and begged the kidnappers to get in contact with them.

And I don't recall ever seeing anything like that before.

No. Can you imagine? It's just horrific. If this is all what's going on. There was a Mel Gibson movie where his son was kidnapped and he gets on TV and sort of famously says, look to the kidnapping. Like everybody thought he's gonna deliver the ransom. He's like, I'm not giving you a penny. I'm gonna hunt you down and I'm gonna. You know, it's stuff like that.

Like Liam Neeson.

Yeah.

I have special skills.

I have special. Yeah, but this is horrible. So it is like the Lindbergh kidnapping or Patty Hearst.

And neither of which turned out well.

No, they don't. And I don't think this one is either, so probably not. I hate to say it.

And then the other thing that occurred to me legally, and I. I think you were withholding judgment. I don't want to speak for you, but I think you were sort of okay with this investigative file on Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, we do have to talk about that being disgorged. And what I had predicted was the unfairness with these just raw allegations without any investigatory, like, backup that they were true or false and without any prosecution of them. You know, assume that the evidence wasn't strong enough. But you have people like our local billionaire, Les Wexner, and you got Bill Gates. You've got a lot of junk coming out about their investments or their personal life or the letters that they wrote or whatever the phone calls they made or alleged, you know, have done this or that behavior.

And. And it's just raw data without any context. And of course, the media is all over this. And it just seems to me completely wrong, completely unfair. That's why the deliberations of grand juries are secret.

Yeah. Having represented folks charged with crimes for 30 some years now, I have this love hate relationship with these. The confidentiality of investigative material. Because on the one hand, you just want to air it out. On the other hand, there's reasons you don't want to air it out. And I can see the efficacy of both.

Yeah.

And when we talked about this before, that's sort of how I felt about it.

Yeah.

But I came down because of the way it ratcheted and sort of the. The debate evolved on the Epstein stuff. I came down inside of, all right, folks, you want it? Here it is. Let it go and just let the market deal with it. I hadn't considered something, though, at that time, that is now, and I probably should have. It's obvious what people don't understand because I had a friend call me yesterday. In fact, this happened. Not going to mention names, but somebody calls me and says, can you believe what's going on? And actually, several people called, and one of them says, starts to talk about.

I was like, well, I hadn't heard about that. And I looked into it a little bit, and what's happening is media sources are latching onto tip line stuff. So look at it this way. You have Epstein. Epstein and all sorts of other things. There's an open government tip line. Anonymous. Hello.

I've got a tip about Epstein. Turns out that Norm's uncle was Epstein's cousin, and they were all going to the island together, committing horrible acts on my. On my daughter. All right, well, that's documented in a transcript, and it doesn't mean that it happened. But because it's documented in a transcript, the news sources are. I'm not talking. Maybe some Less than honest news sources are sort of pushing that out there for likes and views because it sounds so shocking, but it's not true. Or at least we'll never know if it's true.

And some of it facially is so absurd that it's not true.

And it gives them then some sort of basis to say, well, we're publishing what was in an official file. Kind of like what James Comey did to Trump. He comes into the office and says, oh, there's this unsubstantiated report about you doing things with Russian prostitutes in a hotel when you were in Russia. And I just want to bring that to your attention. And then the media then, because he briefed President Trump, has some pretext then to put it on the front page, even though it's since turned out it was completely made up.

It just is. So all I would do is encourage those who are really interested in this stuff to don't take people's word for it if you think that you found, dig down and spend the time and spend the effort, because the people disseminating that are feeding it to you for likes and views because may not be doing that. Now. That said, there is some troubling stuff coming out. Look, a lot of famous people are hanging out with this dude, exchanging money with this dude and cohorting with this dude, even after he was convicted as a child pedophile.

And one of those, by the way, was not President Trump. He kicked him out of his club.

So far, that's how it looks. Bill Gates looks like he's got a little bit of egg on his face.

And that health expert for NBC, the bald guy can't think of his name, but he's apologizing. Oh, the head of Harvard, Lawrence. Gosh, what's his tribe? Nah.

Yeah, I can't remember, but he had to resign. But there's two things here. Look, cohorting with a guy, cohorting with a guy who is engaged in that behavior is bad, Right? So I would like to think that, Norm, if your past were uncovered and it turns out you've been, I had.

Babies with Martian women or something, you.

Were abusing girls, underage girls, and getting away with it. I'd be like, look, dude.

Yeah, we're not friends.

I wouldn't even say, no hard feelings. I would say, look, dude, we're done.

We're done.

Right? We're done.

Yeah.

I just can't. I just can't do that.

But what Steve would not do is read a headline and assume it's True.

I would never do that. Everybody's heard me ask this a hundred times on this show and every other show, and even in my law practice, I would want to know more, and I'd make a list of things I'd want to know. I'd want to know what the evidence is. Can we prove it against this specific person? How do we know that this was anything more than just doing business with the guy? With respect to Les Wexner, you just want to know. Now, there's a lot of stink about it, but I've just done this long enough in my career to know that this type of stuff gets skewed. It gets skewed often by anybody who's got an interest in skewing it, not the least of which might be selling likes and views on a media platform.

Well, yeah, I mean, the old saying, where there's smoke, there's fire, is not accurate. A lot of times, where there's smoke, there is no fire.

Yeah, where there's smoke, there's smoke.

Where there's smoke, there's smoke. And, you know, this is some of the most, you know, coercive kinds of. I mean, the worst kinds of things are being said about people anonymously. And it's kind of like what's going on with Facebook. Facebook now allows people to spout anonymously online. And you have a lot of that happening. You have people weighing in on things, and they're not required to identify who they are. And so then they're like snipers.

They're just taking a potshot. So my winner, as I said, is Kid Rock in Turning Point usa. My loser, Steve, you kind of alluded to it, is Billie Eilish.

Yeah, we're on the same page.

Yeah, man. So at the Grammys, right, she does this massive virtue signal. And the Grammys were just nothing but a Trump hate night anyway. And that's kind of their annual shtick is whoever's in office, if it was George Bush or whoever, is a conservative, but there were no Obama jokes, no Biden jokes during their presidencies, but now that Trump's been back for a year. So what she said is essentially, I'm paraphrasing that on stolen land, which in her view is all of the United States, maybe not Manhattan, because, you know, the tribe there actually was paid 20 bucks worth of beads, but everywhere else was stolen from the American Native First Nation peoples, in her point of view. And so if it's all stolen land, nobody can be illegal here. That there is no such thing as an illegal Immigrant. Because the land's all stolen in the first place.

Well, well, the, the tribe in the Los Angeles basin that was There, you know, 500 years ago, the Tongva tribe has, has their spokesperson got in front of a mic and said, well, we would certainly like Ms. Eilish's $3 million mansion.

I think it was like $7 million.

Yeah, 7 million.

Or at least like to spend some time there.

Yeah, well, it depends on whether the Palisade fire got to her property. Probably not.

No. It's a walled off place with guards. I think so.

I mean, I love how it's coming back to bite her in the ass.

You live on stolen land. But she doesn't.

But she doesn't. And I think we've said that before. Steve, if the Virtue Signalers feel so bad about DownToRodden people's from third world or fourth world countries, write a check. You're multimillionaires. Write a check. You know, give it to the Red Cross or the United Appeal or whatever you want to do. The United Nations. Write a check.

Go do something good in the world with your own resources. Or, Billy, give your land back.

Yep.

Her Highland park mansion's only a humble three million.

Three million.

Three million.

So my three.

Looked like I had one fact right today, didn't I, Troy?

All right, so my good and bad. Look, I've already talked about the good, but I'm going to talk about it in general. Good job, trial lawyers for exposing this butchery of cutting off genitalia of underage kids.

Yay, lawyers.

And it looks like now we might be able to effectuate a policy change out of the fear of litigation. Look, if you're going to get completely libertarian about it or completely like not Keynes, Adam Smith, sort of free market about.

Right.

Money tends to make the world go around. Yeah. People are motivated by their livelihoods and, well, beings. And I think this is throwing a huge shadow over their ability to earn a living. If they continue this stuff or at least the liability. What's going to happen is insurance companies are going to say, we ain't covering you if you're doing this. And as soon as that happens, it's over.

And I have seen some hospitals in clinics also come out and say, we're no longer going to do this.

Yeah. Because insurance companies are saying, look, if we're going to be exposed for all these millions, we ain't covering it.

Yeah, we ain't covering it. And I think, I think Secretary of Health RFK has also said we're going to cut Off Medicare to hospitals that do these procedures.

Yeah.

So now.

But that's a toggle. That can change because the next government will just undo that. But you can't undo the verdicts. The bad. Look, you've already sort of talked about it. Look, I think it's awesome that Turning Point USA is doing their own halftime show. But come on, NFL. Look, didn't we learn.

Didn't we learn that. Look, this is. People just want to watch a damn football game, right? I don't want a political message in the Super Bowl.

Right.

I don't want the wokeness coming at me in the Super Bowl. I don't want the other side. Look, just play the damn game. If you're an entertainer and you got the opportunity to do a halftime show, go sing your song, do your dance, have some fun and entertain the crowds, I don't give a crap what you think about Trump or immigration, Right? Don't make it political. And if I'm in charge of the NFL and you told me you were going to do that, you wouldn't. Not because I'm squelching your speech. Not because of any of that, but because I'm putting on the biggest football game of the year. And I just want people to have fun and not go.

Not make it political because what you're doing and that. Look, the ratings went way down when they started letting people kneel and they wouldn't play the anthem and all that crap.

No question.

You're running into that again. And I'm gonna turn off the damn games.

Little factoid. This is pretty cool factoid. The first time at the super bowl where the national anthem was sung was 1974 by Charley Pride.

Really?

Yeah. The African American country western singer Charley Pride. Before 1974, it was marching bands playing the national anthem or, gosh, just over the intercourse or somebody reciting it in a speech, but not sung. And it just shows you how this whole thing you were talking about laws having to outdo each other and amp it up. The halftime show used to be marching bands. It would be like, here's the Alabama band, the Alabama, you know, University of Alabama, marching around, and they're putting on a little show with their trombones.

But I get it. You want to. Look, it's all about the money, right?

And then it's just. It's just amped up.

It's always about the money. So when, you know, the Rolling Stones and all these people have played in the halftime show. So it's a Janet Jackson and it's a blast. I Loved it. Like, I watched it, right? You know, And I can't say I like their music or I like this or I like that.

It wasn't political for 15 minutes, right.

It didn't say anything to me other than, wow, yeah, that's a spectacle.

Right?

How did they do that during a halftime of a game? What went in, like, it's really sort of cool. And then you can turn into political forums, like, yeah, damn it.

It'll be interesting. What, the Nielsen show.

I think they're going to get crushed.

If people really turn off that show. The NFL is going to have to retool their mindset.

They're going to get crushed.

They're going to get crushed, you know?

Troy, you got anything good and bad?

Don't.

Don't be so excited.

That is a tired law student over there, folks. That's what that is.

I had kind of a take on the. On the Bad Bunny stuff, and I kind of remember when. Who was it? Who's the Hips don't lie girl? And.

Oh, yeah. Right, right, right.

No. Oh, my gosh.

Right, right, right.

They had 2. The two, like, few female artist.

I know.

I'm the one.

You're the fact checker man.

Right in front of me.

Shakira. Shakira.

And I forget the other one, but I thought the NFL was just trying to tap into the Mexico market really bad because they started doing this games in Mexico City and around Mexico that same year.

Of course, he's Puerto Rican, but I'm talking about Hispanic.

I'm talking back when. Yeah, Shakira did all that.

Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

And people were kind of doing the same bit. They're like, all right, this is like. Like, why are we doing all this Spanish stuff? And I was like, I don't think NFL is actually taking a political take. I think they're viewing it as a business strategy. They're like, we have this entire untapped market, this community down here. Let's try and bleed into them.

Fair enough. And maybe. But there was no political statements. It was just Shakira shaking her hips.

But maybe they just didn't really care. They were like, we just want the money. Maybe.

Could be. That's just.

He is a number one guy right now.

Yeah, but he is. He has said up front he's going to make some political statements.

That's the thing. That's crazy.

And if I'm the guy writing his check, I would say, no, you're not. And if you do, you're not getting paid.

You would think, Right.

Because this is the NFL. We don't want to take a position on politics because we want everybody to like our product. We want. If you like Trump, we want you to watch our games. If you hate Trump, we want you to watch our games. If you believe in unlimited immigration, we want you to watch our games. Or if you want the borders closed, we bought. If you like ice.

You get the point. Yeah, I would be selling the product that way. So I just think it's foolish. I mean, I think it's foolish.

It should be a nonpartisan. I mean, this is where we go to relax when we watch baseball, football, basketball.

This is not to say they don't have a right to do it. They do. The NFL has. This is. The government should not stop them from any of this.

But Roger Goodell, he's smoking something bad here and they keep paying him. I mean, I think he makes something like 500 million a year. It's insane. What. He makes pretty good living. Yeah. And he's in these kinds of controversies. If I'm the owner of an NFL team, I'm like, dude, we don't need this grief.

We're losing our base of people. You know, we.

It does. Like, it shouldn't. And I don't want you to take a position on the other side either.

That's right.

I think it's just. You would probably do better if you did, honestly, from a marketing standpoint.

Well, just. But pro America and let it go with you.

Play the national anthem. No more fanfare about it. Go play football. Have a great entertainment show during halftime. And then everybody, you got no complaints.

And I don't need the Captain Obvious things in the end zone. End racism. Like, no shit. Excuse my language. Who is pro racism?

Oh, you know what? I didn't want to end racism until I saw it in the NFL. In the NFL. I didn't even think about it.

I mean, it's like, end pollution.

Great idea.

End pollution. End wife beating. I mean, what are they doing? Yeah, they did just put the New York Giants logo and the Bengals logo like, like it used to be.

Right, right, right, right. All right.

So the only other thing I had was Olympic wise, something you guys should look into is the hockey rink. They accidentally made it five feet short, I believe.

That's awesome.

Are you kidding?

That's awesome.

In the Olympics.

Yeah.

Oh, my God, that's great.

I mean, there's not doing it. It's too late now.

So they're just playing a different game of hockey now.

It's just five feet short.

They're playing backyard hockey.

Wow.

Right, Like Mystery, Alaska.

Wow. Anyway, I wonder if NASA did that, you know, the Mars landing thing, right, where instead of meters they did it in yards and that damn thing crashed.

All right, well, look, that's your weekly dose of common sense. I can't say it made sense to me, but it hopefully made some sense to you. If you've got a question, a topic, something you want us to talk about, you can go to common senseohishow.com, leave a comment right here in the socials. We'll address it. If you think you can take on Norm in the studio or even remotely by zoom or otherwise, I dare you. And I suppose he does too. Let us know. We'd be happy to have you as a guest.

So Common sense, Ohio show right from the middle, at least till now.