Shownotes
We get into the drama of a government shutdown now stretching past 35 days, the finger-pointing between Democrats and Republicans, and the shifting landscape of American protest culture.
The guys kick things off with a bit of history—recalling the infamy of bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd and the legacy of Depression-era antiheroes—which sets the stage for a bigger discussion about the lure of socialism, misguided economic policies, and why some political promises, like free bus rides and government-run groceries, sound a little too good to be true.
A Big Thanks to our sponsor, Harper Plus Accounting. They provide more than just basic transactions, offering expert business consultation as well. They go beyond the basics, providing comprehensive advice on saving, planning, and optimizing taxes.
They also tackle a heated controversy out of the courts: Should gender identity be considered in sentencing? The conversation gets lively as the crew debates judicial overreach, the role of Congress, and whether impeachment is the right remedy when judges make questionable calls. Plus, they take a hard look at gerrymandering, voting rights, and even the right for non-citizens—and out-of-town property owners—to vote in local elections.
info@commonsenseohioshow.com
Tensions over protest rhetoric, violent political speech, and recent high-profile crimes spark a serious conversation about how words escalate to action in today’s America. And to round things out, there’s everything from local interest stories about Columbus to reflections on the importance of craft and hard work in an uncertain economy.
They bring clarity, debate, and a healthy dose of skepticism to the headlines, making waves across the Buckeye State and beyond.
Recorded at the 511 Studios, in the Brewery District in downtown Columbus, OH.
Stephen Palmer is the Managing Partner for the law firm, Palmer Legal Defense. He has specialized almost exclusively in criminal defense for over 26 years. Steve is also a partner in Criminal Defense Consultants, a firm focused wholly on helping criminal defense attorneys design winning strategies for their clients.
Norm Murdock is an automobile racing driver and owner of a high-performance and restoration car parts company. He earned undergraduate degrees in literature and journalism and graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1985. He worked in the IT industry for two years before launching a career in government relations in Columbus, Ohio. Norm has assisted clients in the Transportation, Education, Healthcare, and Public Infrastructure sectors.
Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy®, is an award-winning podcast consultant and small business owner for nearly 10 years, leaving a long career in radio. He is passionate about helping small businesses tell their story through podcasts, and he believes podcasting is a great opportunity for different voices to speak and be heard.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Copyright 2025 Common Sense Ohio
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcripts
All right, we are Live, Studio C, Channel 511 Common Sense Ohio. 1022 25. That's 10-22-2025 brought to you by Harper Plus Accounting. Our accountant could be yours. Anyway, shut them up and shut them down guys. Did Dem say it's Trump? And Trump says it's Dem. See what I did there? The shutdown continues 35 days in, tied with the Clinton era shutdown apparently turns out that king's crap 2. Trump's throne however is a, is not the toilet, it is a airplane.
Steve Palmer [:At least AI style drop feces on protesters. No Kings protesters. And you know, lots going on in the Supreme Court. Turns out equal protection is equal protection for all after all. At least it looks that way. That and lots, lots more to come here at Common Sense Ohio. So but first the fact of the day. I've skipped this last couple weeks because I just been negligent I'll call it.
Steve Palmer [:But there is some interesting stuff going on. What I'll point out first is believe it or not guys, I actually look up the fact, the historical fact of the day. I don't just know it's. And there's two different big websites I go to. One is history.com, and the other is Britannica, the old cyclopedia.com so in history.com, seems sort of boring. Didn't find much. So I click over to Britannica and guess what? This is the day that Kennedy announced the Cuban Missile crisis to the public. So why does one website make that as significant? I mean, is there something controversial about that? But on this day in 1962, JFK alerted Americans to the Cuban Missile crisis, declaring a naval blockade to.
Steve Palmer [:To prevent further missile shipments to Cuba. A naval blockade, of course the Soviet Union, Khrushchev. So that's a pretty significant fact. Like why does one. Is there something woke here going on that I don't know, I don't think so. But more important. Yeah, Pretty Boy Floyd killed in East Liverpool, Ohio on this day I believe in. Let's get the date right.
Steve Palmer [:1934. So Floyd was one of the notorious gangsters of the 20s and 30s and you know, he was the guy who would rob banks and then destroy people's mortgages. So he was sort of like he got the human or he got the Robin Hood. Yeah, the Robin Hood effect from people. But there was a multi state manhunt. He was actually captured in Ohio, once escaped, but then they ended up getting him in Ohio. East Liverpool shot him dead like the dirty dog that he was, I guess. But anyway, Floyd died.
Steve Palmer [:I didn't know that.
Brett Johnson [:Wow.
Norm Murdock [:So was he escaping from like a local jail or do you know the circumstances?
Steve Palmer [:I just know that they chased him down. There was a manhunt for the guy. But his moniker was the Robin Hood of Cookson Hills for his destruction of mortgage papers during bank robberies. Nonetheless, his criminal activities continued through, I guess, Minnesota, Michigan or Kansas City, Missouri, up in Michigan. All over the Midwest. I had no idea. Oklahoma.
Norm Murdock [:Was he part of the Barrow Gang?
Steve Palmer [:No, I think he was his own.
Norm Murdock [:Solo act, like Dillinger was.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Now, there was a little bit of controversy about his death, that he was only. He was merely wounded until he refused to talk to the cops. And then of course the cops, they lore would have it, shot him dead when he wouldn't talk and cooperate.
Norm Murdock [:Okay, I could see that.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Anyway, that's in an interesting time where totally pre social media. But the lore, the stories around him. Well, yeah.
Steve Palmer [:I mean, think about the movies that spun off the gangster. They were really Bonnie and Clyde.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Came out of the Depression and they sort of were folk heroes in some.
Steve Palmer [:Twisted, twisted way, as I tend to do. I like to draw these bigger sort of connections.
Norm Murdock [:Please do, Steve.
Steve Palmer [:You know, it was an era of pain and suffering in the country. The Depression era, Dust bowl.
Norm Murdock [:All kinds of nasty stuff.
Steve Palmer [:Terrible stuff. Terrible government policy.
Norm Murdock [:Hitler, the rise.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. Just lots of bad stuff. And then you have this sort of anti hero emerging. But it's really socialism. Right. I mean, it's like the idea of taking mortgages and doing all this stuff. But they were just a criminal.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, people hated banks.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, people hated banks. And you know, so there was.
Norm Murdock [:They were foreclosing on farms and you know.
Steve Palmer [:You know. Yeah. And there was a lot of emerge the New Deal era. And we sort of. I think we're flirting with some of that stuff right now. Some of these socialistic thoughts and policies and. And people are attracted to it. Like Mondame.
Steve Palmer [:Do you see the debate with Mondame?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. I mean, it's unbelievable to me that apparently in New York politics, if you're like AOC or Zoran, if you have wide bright eyes and a nice white.
Steve Palmer [:Smile, it reminds you of Obama a little bit, right?
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. I mean, all flash, all show are caught up in their charisma and they're attractive young people and all that. And it's like. But yet do you listen to what they say?
Steve Palmer [:What's lunacy? He's like. Right. And all the Bus rides are gonna be free and all the subway rides are gonna be free and everything's gonna be free. The government's gonna take all your money, filter it through their immense leviathan, to quote Thomas Hobbes, and then disperse it as they see fit. So what's gonna happen? I was listening to Victor Davis Hansen, who of course is a historical genius and just a down to earth dude. But he was talking about this and he was talking like back in the Soviet era, then again in Cuba Cuber as Kennedy would have said, the elites didn't really, all of them didn't flee, meaning run away. Some of them stuck around and sort of like cozied in with the dictator, thinking, look, I'll play your game. Oh yeah, but I want a little something something for me too.
Steve Palmer [:So they cozy in and that's what creates, that's what creates all the bad stuff. With social. It's like some people get it, they get the money. And so all the wealthy people are going to say, look, we know what you're doing here, Zoron, and we'll stick around. But in exchange for sticking around, how about a little something for us? And that's where the corruption is planted. The seeds of corruption get planted because it can't work. There's not enough money. As Raymond said, the problem is socialism.
Steve Palmer [:You run out of other people's money.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, Margaret Thatcher said the local New York government will run the grocery store.
Steve Palmer [:It's nonsense.
Norm Murdock [:What's he talking about?
Steve Palmer [:Like, when's the last time Zoran Mamda me was in charge of a grocery store?
Norm Murdock [:Well, he's never had a job. I think that came out in the debate.
Steve Palmer [:Well, the one good Cuomo line was your only job is working for your mommy. I don't know if you said it quite that way, but that's exactly. That is his only job.
Norm Murdock [:He's a rap artist. New York City is about to elect a guy who was born in Uganda who is hanging out with an unindicted 911 conspirator, you know, at that, you know, at the Muslim temple and has been saying things like we need to restructure American society. That's our goal.
Steve Palmer [:Right.
Norm Murdock [:And you're just like, are you kidding me? It wasn't that long ago they had Rudy Giuliani, you know, restoring civil order and you know, tamping down violence and even graffiti on the buildings. And now it's come full circle. We're gonna elect a communist after Eastern Europe has gone to democracies. And you would think, you know, that people in New York, being an immigrant city, would take note of what the Eastern Europeans had been through for half a century and say, no, the last thing we want is socialism and communism.
Brett Johnson [:It almost feels like a high school class president run. Yeah, I'm making lunches free for you and we're going to be able to.
Steve Palmer [:Free lunch for everybody. You know, it's childish.
Norm Murdock [:It is.
Steve Palmer [:That's a great analogy. It is. It's so childish.
Brett Johnson [:It is. And I guess to a certain point he's trying to recognize a pain, maybe, but it's like you're taking it to the nth degree to solve this problem.
Steve Palmer [:The pain is that everything is too expensive. Housing has gone through the roof.
Brett Johnson [:Totally get that.
Steve Palmer [:Inflation is out of control and it's all because of the same policies that he claims are going to fix it.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly.
Steve Palmer [:Right. It's the complete opposite of what he says.
Norm Murdock [:It's the rules for radicals. Create the chaos. Right. And then exploit it and run on it.
Steve Palmer [:And as Thomas Sowell said, these kind of policies are never judged on their outcome, only their goal. So, you know, oh, we're going to eradicate. We're going to make housing cheaper by government buying it.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:When's the last time that was a good idea anyway?
Brett Johnson [:It never has been.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly.
Steve Palmer [:Every city across the country, where has that been good?
Norm Murdock [:Right. When they've tried to, like, take section 8 housing and these government apartment buildings that Great Society built and they tried to basically give it like, give title like, it's a condominium now, and actually tell the families that are in the units, here you go. If you pay some kind of small mortgage on this, in 10 years you can own this former federal section eight.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:It never works. And it doesn't work.
Steve Palmer [:Doesn't work.
Norm Murdock [:It goes to hell in a hand.
Steve Palmer [:And look, everybody, everybody. I'm sure there's lots of new Cabrini.
Norm Murdock [:Green, Exhibit A. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:I'm sure there's lots of New York listeners here to comment. I'm sure all you folks in New York City are about to this episode understand how this stuff is enforced. It's enforced at the end of a barrel of a gun.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Ultimately. And you would say, and I, I mean that sort of metaphorically and literally, because when you don't comply, they will come arrest you.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, sure.
Steve Palmer [:And so your choice is going to be. Fortunately, so far, we still have a choice. They'll have a choice to leave to a different state and just get out of there. But I've even heard him talking about. He goes, we're going to incentivize it. What does that mean? We're going to incentivize people to stay? Does that mean you're going to force them to stay? Only the communist countries build a wall to keep their people in, right? Only the communist countries do that. It's never happened in a democracy. It's never happened in a capitalistic society ever.
Steve Palmer [:We build walls to keep people out. They build walls to keep people in.
Norm Murdock [:And in New York State, they do have all kinds of ideas and proposals to penalize their snowbirds that pay taxes in Florida rather than New York State.
Steve Palmer [:It's like, bye, bye, bye, bye. So anyway, we got lots going on the shutdown. Is that where you want to start, Norm?
Norm Murdock [:Well, I think the shutdown is good fodder for discussion because, you know, like, on top of the shutdown, there was the no Kings protests of this past weekend. And it seems like the people who are most upset about the shutdown are middle aged to older Americans. They were the primary people at the no Kings protests. There wasn't a lot of young people.
Steve Palmer [:Participating and what, only like 8 million people across the country.
Norm Murdock [:And they were mainly, you know, ex hippie geezer type people. Like, and their signs were very, like, diffuse as to what they were protesting. Well, as they were dippy, kind of daffy, you know, like, you see these.
Steve Palmer [:Like, there's YouTube guys who go out and they interview these protesters and they say, what do you protest? And of course, they're not. They're only showing the ones they want to show. So I appreciate that. But they're showing like, they're interviewing these, like, older, white, middle aged people. Like, when you protest, they get tongue tied. They don't even know.
Norm Murdock [:Well, they called them grand tifa because they were grandpa's and grandma grand tifa. So they called them grand tifa. And when they would ask, well, it was almost like that Marlon Brando reply in the movie where he goes, I don't know, man. What do you got?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, what are you rebelling against? What do you got?
Norm Murdock [:What do you got?
Steve Palmer [:It's like, look, they're protesting because they hate Trump. Fair enough.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah. I mean, and they're allowed to.
Steve Palmer [:They can protest all they want.
Brett Johnson [:And I'm glad it was safe and nobody got hurt.
Steve Palmer [:Nobody got hurt. But there was a lot of violent. Like, the media didn't. The media didn't report it. Like, you go to the mainstream media and always says, it's remarkable how peaceful it was. Very peaceful. Peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. But then when you start seeing like other people are showing.
Steve Palmer [:I saw Megyn Kelly showed a bunch of clips of people talking about killing people.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And it was. It was pretty ubiquitous both ways. So it just is, you know, this idea that their side of protest is always right out of the mainstream. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:You have every right to go protest, get your permit, walk, carry your signs, do whatever. Of course, I. I don't know. Maybe I'm living in. See, the good news is about Ohio, it's sort of a little bubble. You know, Ohio. Ohio always is.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Like, we're always sort of protected here. The housing crashes are never as deep as. It never goes as far, and the UPS maybe don't go as high, but we're always pretty stable here in Ohio.
Brett Johnson [:And I think the protesters are, in my view, a representative of a generation that did protest, Gen X, Gen Y. All the other younger generations, they never had to or did participate in protests. It's that the boomer generation protest, and that's their thing.
Steve Palmer [:And it's an interesting point you're making because I remember in college there was this.
Norm Murdock [:And to reinforce that point, they're rolling out the same tired, staid phrases like, hey, hey, this is what democracy looks like.
Steve Palmer [:Right?
Norm Murdock [:I'm like, yeah, what do you. What are you doing?
Steve Palmer [:What's your message?
Norm Murdock [:I heard that during the Vietnam protests, and this is not the first time, like, there's been riots against federal policy at home. In my. One of the books I have from my dad's library is the Presidential Commission on Riots in America. Like, it came out in 1971 or whatever. And so this isn't the first time. And you can. You know, Lincoln had draft riots in New York City during the Civil War. Like, this country has been protesting and has had street confrontations with the police throughout American history.
Norm Murdock [:And when people say, this is new or this is different, the thing that I don't like is the rhetoric, the violent rhetoric. When I heard people talk about Charlie Kirk, of all people.
Steve Palmer [:Well, that's right. There was a lot of Hitler. I'm glad he died.
Norm Murdock [:I'm glad Hitler.
Steve Palmer [:I wish I would have seen his head pop. I heard all sorts of terrible stuff.
Norm Murdock [:All this stuff. And the guy.
Steve Palmer [:I didn't hear that on the news. I didn't hear that on msnbc.
Norm Murdock [:And the guy running for Attorney General in Virginia saying that the Virginia speaker of the House, that he wishes he could put two bullets through his head and kill his wife. Like, what the hell are you talking.
Steve Palmer [:About, you know, we've gotten to a place that.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly.
Norm Murdock [:This federal judge in Maryland that Chip Roy filed articles of impeachment against. Because a couple of days ago, her name is Boardman, federal judge, she came out with this decision based on. She said, based on his gender identity, that this guy thinks he's a woman.
Steve Palmer [:Let's give some background. The case you're talking about is the Kavanaugh assassination. Attempted assassination of Kavanaugh. When I say attempted assassination, this wasn't. I don't think people really understand. This guy went out and intended to kill Kavanaugh.
Norm Murdock [:He came from the west coast to.
Steve Palmer [:Do this and was thwarted in the effort. Right. Was caught in the act. So Kavanaugh did not get shot at, but it was sort of like the second Trump assassination. And he was going to do this.
Brett Johnson [:Cause they caught him outside his house. That was the same thing, I think.
Norm Murdock [:Outside his house in the federal sentencing guidelines. And what the federal prosecutors wanted was the standard. You know, you threaten a Supreme court justice, it's 30 years, and she gave him eight. And she said, you know, part of her decision was mental illness and that his gender identity as a female. And it's like, what the hell does gender identity like? Why is that a mitigating factor?
Brett Johnson [:Well, is it leading to the end of dysphoria, of a mental state, of mental problems?
Norm Murdock [:No. She said mental illness was one thing, but the fact that he has a gender identity issue.
Steve Palmer [:It was almost like she was saying, since you're going to go to a male prison, then I'm going to give you a break. There was something. I've sort of read something like that into it. And then just because he suffered as somebody with gender dysphoria or. She didn't call it that, but no.
Norm Murdock [:She didn't call that.
Steve Palmer [:Anyway, so there's a lot to unpack here. You've got this notion, first of all, how this works in federal court. We have something called the US Sentencing Guidelines. And I think it was 1980ish. I can't remember, but the US Sentencing Guidelines used to be mandatory. They used to be that. Here's the guideline. And the idea, of course, was equality.
Steve Palmer [:Like all other bad ideas, we're gonna make sentencing equal across the board. So we're gonna create guidelines and we're just gonna plug everything in. It'll be like a computer. It'll spit out what the guideline range is and boom, there you go.
Norm Murdock [:Like the Manson girls that set up an assassination of President ford, they got 30 years yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Well, the guidelines turned out to be a disaster because it didn't give any judicial discretion whatsoever or very little judicial discretion. They're guidelines, but they were mandatory. Judges had to follow them.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. And not in this.
Steve Palmer [:About 2006 ish. There was a case called US v. Booker that said, look, this is unconstitutional. Yeah. The guidelines are now are for heretofore, the guidelines will be only considerations that the courts can take into account. But we're going to go back to the United states code, section 3553, that talks about factors that judges can consider, like who's the person, what's the character and condition of the offender, impact on the victim. So need for, you know, rehabilitation, all the crap that you would think that sentencing matters.
Norm Murdock [:Now we throw gender in there.
Steve Palmer [:The point is, is that I don't see gender identity as a 3553 factor. I'd be arguing if I were representing somebody like.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, especially now with some precedent.
Steve Palmer [:But I think more important here, I think impeachment is the wrong move. The court of appeals is the right move. Look, judges make mistakes all the time. Judges sentence. And so look to the. I'll give you the pros and cons. To this judge's credit, she at least pronounced on the record the basis for her sentence. That means that the government can go appeal and say, look, look what the judge did.
Steve Palmer [:The judge's sentencing considerations do not fit within the 3553 factors or any other relevant consideration and therefore it needs to be reversed and remanded for a new sentencing hearing with proper instructions on how to apply and what to apply as far as factors. And then spit it out and come back. This happened locally with a judge in our district here in Ohio, and it went back and forth up and down the ladder a couple times.
Norm Murdock [:I got you. But I think the legislature, also the Congress, they definitely have a role to play. So like Tom Cotton has introduced legislation that would remove specifically gender identity as a factor.
Steve Palmer [:Fair enough during sentence. But that's not impeachment.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, no. But impeachment.
Steve Palmer [:But Congress can do that.
Norm Murdock [:She has a poor record on other matters. I don't want to go into it.
Steve Palmer [:No, I got you. But there's more to it here.
Norm Murdock [:But there's a series of decisions I.
Steve Palmer [:Disagree with, removing gender dysphoria as a factor for sentencing. I think judges.
Norm Murdock [:Well, that's not. No, they didn't say mental illness, which.
Steve Palmer [:Is what I understand. Gender identity.
Norm Murdock [:Gender identity, which is separate from mental illness.
Steve Palmer [:I think what he's trying to say you shouldn't deem this a plus in a mitigating fate.
Norm Murdock [:Well, let's take a straight up rape.
Steve Palmer [:Because there's an equal protection problem.
Norm Murdock [:So if a female commits rape on either a girl or a boy victim. Okay. Shouldn't, should her gender determine the sentence versus a male commitment. The question is, I would say no.
Steve Palmer [:Here's the question. This will, this will. Fantastic.
Norm Murdock [:All other factors with the, with the.
Steve Palmer [:With the voting gerrymandering argument, too. Here's what's going on. Should we deem it a mitigating factor, a plus, if you will, for a defendant, if they happen to be trans? And you would ask.
Norm Murdock [:Well, why?
Steve Palmer [:I would think a judge should be. If you're going to, then the judge should be able to break down what part of being trans is mitigating in that particular case. I can't think of a scenario off the top of my head, but there may be one. But what this judge is sort of saying is it's just mitigating because this person's trans, so they deserve a break.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:And I think that's what everybody's railing against on the other side. That's what the government is railing against. Just because you're trans doesn't mean you get a lesser sentence. That violates equal protection.
Brett Johnson [:Well, exactly. Because it could be that the person was Puerto Rican. Well, I'm gonna give you a break. Because you're Puerto Rican.
Steve Palmer [:Right. And should.
Brett Johnson [:It's the same thing if that's, if that's the lane she's traveling.
Steve Palmer [:Should this individual get a lesser sentence than the individual who tried to assassinate Trump just because this individual's trans? Similar conduct? You know, I, I don't know. The answer, I think, is clearly no or I don't see a rational connection.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Unless she's trying to open the door of like, okay, there is mental problems here.
Steve Palmer [:Well, that's different.
Norm Murdock [:Well, she's not going to say that.
Steve Palmer [:She's not saying liberals will never say.
Brett Johnson [:Or did she just step it to that last.
Norm Murdock [:She is a Biden liberal appointees.
Steve Palmer [:Like I would be arguing that forever. I'd be like, look, this individual's got mental health problems. This missile's got whatever you need to argue.
Norm Murdock [:Who said that people who can't tell whether they're male or female should not be able to own a firearm? I'm the guy who said that on this show. So I do think it's a mental illness, but that's sure as hell not what this judge said.
Steve Palmer [:No, that's not what this judge is saying. And, you know, ultimately, I think, again, back to my point, I think impeachment is the wrong direction for this, because I do not think that we need to get into the business of impeaching judges who issue decisions that we don't like. This judge did it wrong, but did it right. She did it right, but wrong. Here's what she did wrong. The argument is, of course, that she considered the wrong factors fair, but she did it right in the sense that she put it on the record. So now there's a redress for that in the court of appeals.
Norm Murdock [:Well, but she also did that, Steve, no doubt. Right. To send a. She's sending a social message out to the world that, you know, gender identity. She wants it to be a fact.
Steve Palmer [:So now the court of appeals can say it's not or it is, or whatever the circuit court is. That's their job to do that.
Norm Murdock [:It's not.
Steve Palmer [:Impeachment, to me is misconduct.
Norm Murdock [:You're forcing me to pick up Chip Roy's arguments here.
Steve Palmer [:No, let's do it.
Norm Murdock [:And it's more than just this case. The same judge also issued a nationwide injunction bar against. Injunction against Trump orders, like, for example, on birthright citizenship. So she took it upon herself as an individual district court judge.
Steve Palmer [:Well, again, there was no reason when she did that that she wasn't permitted to. We've talked about this, too, and I think the Supreme Court's gonna stop it. And I think they did sort of in their order.
Norm Murdock [:Well, there's. Yeah, there's a substantial amount of legal precedent that says individual district court judges don't. Do not get to make nationwide.
Steve Palmer [:I think that's going to. I think that. I think that practice is going to be dead on the vine.
Norm Murdock [:But, I mean, that's been going on for decades.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. And I think that's going to die on the vine. I think most people would agree with that.
Norm Murdock [:But look, I mean, they did, like, 12 against Obama. They've done, like, 90 against Trump.
Steve Palmer [:Well, that's. The lawfare has emerged as the. As the means of war.
Norm Murdock [:So I think impeaching her or at least having an impeachment trial about her decisions, that is part of what Congress is allowed to do.
Steve Palmer [:I'm not saying, like, you want the.
Norm Murdock [:Judges to have power. Well, so does the Congress.
Steve Palmer [:I'm not saying they're not. As my dad used to say. He said a federal judge has more power than the Holy Ghost himself. You know, it's like it's a lifetime appointment, and there's not much oversight other than the courts of appeals. So, look, I mean, I'm not saying that they can't file impeachment. I just don't like the practice. Look, this judge hasn't done anything. Let me explain what might change my mind.
Steve Palmer [:If there is something nefarious, the judge has done some crime the judge has committed some act the judge has committed. If the judge were actually deciding this stuff, but then concealing her basis for decisions, if it emerged that some law clerk for this judge says, look, here's my notes in this meeting with the judge where she said, I'm going to help this guy because he's trans, but then has a different reason online that's different to me. But writing your decision out, writing your reasoning out and being foolish about it is to me not impeachable. That is reversible, but not impeachable.
Norm Murdock [:Okay, we can disagree. I think it is impeachable. I think if you're so ridiculous, and I think this is totally ridiculous, assassinating a Supreme Court justice because in the would be assassin expressed to the investigators why he wanted to assassinate Kavanaugh. And it was about abortion rights decisions that were coming forthcoming from the Supreme Court, and it was about gay marriage decisions forthcoming from the Supreme Court. So he wanted to have an effect. You talk about having an effect on jurisprudence. Well, you know, when you start killing Supreme Court justices, Steve, I would just say, you know, you've gone over a certain line. And I think the rest of the judiciary needs to be pretty damned harsh on people who have been found guilty in their sentencing of would be assassins for that very reason, because this guy was trying to change the outcome of Supreme Court decision.
Steve Palmer [:Look, it's a horrendous crime. Killing someone, It's a horrendous crime. I agree that more time is warranted.
Norm Murdock [:This pretty serious situation.
Steve Palmer [:It's a horrendous crime.
Norm Murdock [:Okay, man. So, like, I respect what you said, though, about her integrity intellectually, about putting her reasoning into, you know, she told.
Steve Palmer [:Us what she's doing.
Norm Murdock [:That's fine. That's fine. But that doesn't. I mean, that would be like Hitler explaining, you know, what, what he's doing in some crazy politics.
Steve Palmer [:Look, now the difference with Hitler is there is no, no oversight over Hitler.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly right.
Steve Palmer [:But there is here. So if a judge issues a decision based on faulty legal reasoning, the next logical step is the courts of appeal look at it and say, sorry, judge, that's foolish. Do it again, try again, whatever. And that happens all the time. I don't say it happens all, but it happens in federal court. So the case I'm talking about in Ohio was a. A child pornography case where we just happen to have a federal judge who was frankly very rigid on crime. Like it was a staunch old school Republican, tough on crime guidelines guy.
Steve Palmer [:But in these child porns, he looked at the cause. Look, child pornography is this weird anomaly where you get these dudes in their basement who just got whatever, mental health, and they're looking at it. And our federal judge says, look, this guy does not deserve to go to prison for 15 years for that. Just. I don't see it. Yeah, you can disagree. And I'm not taking a position on child pornography. I'm not taking a position that child pornography is good.
Steve Palmer [:But the sentencing gets crazy out of hand very fast for all sorts of reasons that we can talk about. But the judge says, look, I'm not doing it. Not following the guidelines. Goes up to the sixth Circuit, sixth Circuit, sent it back, went up to the sixth Circuit again after the judge resented it back. I mean, this happened two or three times and, you know, eventually it washed out one way or another. But the idea is that there is a place to oversee what this judge is doing. I hope and I pray that the court of appeals looks at and says this is not a factor you can consider as mitigating just because. Right.
Steve Palmer [:I don't think it is. And I think it'll be based on. This will be a nice transition for us. I think it'll be based on equal protection. I think what the court should. What I would say is, look, you can't say that one group of people gets this kind of protection when another doesn't.
Norm Murdock [:Exactly.
Steve Palmer [:So you're a white heterosexual male. Norm. If you did this and you committed the same crime, should you go to prison for eight years? Or would this judge say because you're a white heterosexual male, you're going to prison for 20?
Norm Murdock [:Wait a minute, I'm confused about my gender. Okay, then you get eight years.
Steve Palmer [:And I would posit the following. What if you're trying to assassinate a Supreme Court justice or a president or anybody for that matter? You've got a mental health problem anyway. So that mitigation should be baked into the cake.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Like you're not doing that because ingredient one.
Brett Johnson [:That's ingredient one, Right.
Steve Palmer [:That's the flour, right?
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:The only thing. So now we're really getting in the weeds. But I have felt and advocated for a long time that I don't think mental health should be a reason to not find somebody guilty, I think it should be like an incarceration issue. Somebody who has attempted to assassinate a president, Supreme Court justice, the mayor of a city, a governor, a police officer, fireman, whatever it is, public servant. If they have a mental health issue, I think they should still be found guilty, still incarcerated. It just should be a different facility. It should be a hospital. It should not be a prison.
Steve Palmer [:The problem with that slope is it gets really slippery.
Norm Murdock [:Yes, it does.
Steve Palmer [:I have pondered this for 30 years in my legal practice. Even before I became a lawyer. I was like, always, because I understand normal, rational people don't commit these kind of crimes. I would start with that premise. You might say normal, rational everybody at some point, not everybody, but lots of kids at some point go into the drugstore with their mom, they steal candy, and then they get the. The proverbial, like, embarrassing moment where you have to go back and give it back. That happened to me, right? I was too young to even know.
Norm Murdock [:Well, if you have good parents and, you know, that's what they do.
Steve Palmer [:I. I came out and my mom said, where'd you get that? And I was like, I got it in there. Yeah, I just took it from the. It was like a pack of Certs or something.
Norm Murdock [:It's like, trick or treat, mom, right?
Steve Palmer [:I just took it and she's like. And I remember with terror, sheer terror, going back in and having to give it back to the lady behind the counter. And that's all I remember about it.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, but you remember it.
Steve Palmer [:I never stole anything again.
Norm Murdock [:That's an object lesson.
Steve Palmer [:But I don't think I was crazy. But I have represented lots of people who are. I don't think people who have a penchant to go rape kids have normal mental health. I don't think people have a penchant to go commit murders or psychopaths, for instance. Can you blame a psychopath who doesn't feel anything and doesn't mind killing or is born with this sort of thing that they have to kill. Like, the system has to deal with that. And it can't deal with it by giving people a break.
Norm Murdock [:Because, like, a Jeffrey Dahmer, it would be. He's eating body parts.
Steve Palmer [:Nobody would say that guy is sane.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:Nobody.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:So he gets punished like everybody else. Now, where the slope ends, I don't know. You know, I don't does. And Dahmer should go to prison. He should go to the same. So I don't know where he got.
Norm Murdock [:Killed, by the way.
Steve Palmer [:Where he died. Right. So there was a justice. There was. It has its own vigilante justice in the world.
Norm Murdock [:But you know what, but cosmic justice.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. You know, a criminal justice is what that was. Yeah, in its own way. But. So look, I don't necessarily agree and I don't know where the curves cross. Maybe our system in the west has the curves have decided to cross with the definition of insanity where you don't know right from wrong, you don't appreciate the nature and consequences of your action. If you're truly insane, legally insane, then you get a pass. But look, crazy people commit crimes, otherwise they would be.
Norm Murdock [:But then what?
Steve Palmer [:They wouldn't commit crimes.
Norm Murdock [:That's what's always bothered me.
Steve Palmer [:Well, then they go to this. There's a process.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, there should be a process.
Steve Palmer [:Hinckley was declared insane. He was. He was insane. Yeah. There's lots of people trying to impress Jody Foster. Right, right. This is. We're talking about John Hinckley Jr.
Steve Palmer [:Look, it's this guy who killed Kirk. If it is him, I get there's lots of controversy about that. Maybe, maybe the Israelis did it. Maybe, maybe the Jewish power structure in the country did it. Maybe it wouldn't sound surprise me if other people knew or partly involved in the planning. That may come out. But at any rate, assuming he did that, he's crazy. Yeah, but it doesn't mean that he didn't know right from wrong.
Steve Palmer [:It doesn't mean that he didn't appreciate the nature and consequences of his action when he pulled that trigger.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:And it certainly doesn't mean that there's not a place for him called prison. There is. Yeah. So I. And it's going to be general population prison where life is going to be hard. And it's supposed to be hard.
Norm Murdock [:Isn't it interesting.
Steve Palmer [:I'm not an advocate for prison.
Norm Murdock [:Or is it just coincidence that he was involved in a trans relationship with.
Steve Palmer [:A furry or whatever? Right, a trans furry.
Norm Murdock [:I mean there is something deeply mentally ill about that involvement.
Steve Palmer [:If a judge looked at that and said, look, sorry, we know you killed Charlie Kirk, but you know, you've got a trans relationship and maybe you're dancing on trans yourself, or maybe you're gay or maybe whatever. Whatever tag you want to put on that person. So we're just going to deem it a break and we would have given you 20, but now it's eight. Yeah, I got a problem with that. I think.
Norm Murdock [:Totally.
Steve Palmer [:And I look, here's the craziness of my job. I would take that argument into a courtroom and argue it. Well, I understand, sure. Yeah. But I don't expect that is.
Norm Murdock [:So, Steve, I'll stick up for defense attorneys here. That is how we make sure that the system is fair, is you want the most vigorous, you want the most expert, you want the most competent defense attorneys defending the worst sorts of people so that if and when they're convicted, the rest of us in society could say, hey, man, you know, that guy had Steve Palmer or F. Lee Bailey or whoever is an excellent lawyer. And then you have some satisfaction that that was most likely a fair outcome because that person had an incredible advocate for them. You know, so that's how the rest of us have confidence in our system.
Steve Palmer [:But here for the same thing, we're blaming the judge, and that's the.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, the judge can let the whole thing down.
Steve Palmer [:Well, no, the defense lawyers clearly argued this and they knew they had a solid.
Norm Murdock [:I would say Judge Ito squeezed, screwed up the, the O.J. trial. Terrible.
Steve Palmer [:That was good. That's a whole nother debate.
Norm Murdock [:I mean, that's a whole different show, but I mean, that's where a judge can completely screw up not only the jury selection, but the, you know, the, the, the venue, the, the evidence, you know, if, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit and all that.
Steve Palmer [:I, I heard, I heard Ben Shapiro the other day. I don't remember when it was, but he was talking about the jury system and whether. And he was sort of advocating that the adversarial system was not as good as maybe a committee type system, you know, the European Tribunal crap. And I couldn't disagree more with him on that for the reasons you're talking about, because, look, these people all have the inherent flaw of humanity. Yeah. All the judges, men, women, trans gay, whatever, we all have.
Norm Murdock [:I can get jaded up there.
Steve Palmer [:That's right.
Norm Murdock [:And just start like, oh, you look guilty.
Steve Palmer [:And they think they know best.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:I've been in front of many of those wearing a black robe who, once they cloak it, they become king. Yeah. To the, to the.
Norm Murdock [:They are a God in that everybody stands up. They walk. Friends walk in the damn room.
Brett Johnson [:And everybody stands up like, you know, who are you?
Norm Murdock [:You're just a.
Steve Palmer [:Or in lots of judges. Like, oh, no, sit down, Sit down. Yeah. And it's like, we don't really do. And look.
Norm Murdock [:And in England, everybody wears a wig.
Steve Palmer [:They wear the wig and they do all the stuff.
Norm Murdock [:They take their whole personality when the.
Steve Palmer [:Jury gets it wrong, meaning they acquit somebody who is guilty or they convict somebody who is innocent, which is the worst type of injustice of all time. We have to accept it, just what it is, because the alternative is the corruptness that everybody's railing against.
Norm Murdock [:But if you have a fresh law student graduate defending a guy accused of murder, he's not going to get a fair trial. You've got to have competent representation.
Steve Palmer [:And that means pushing the envelope and pushing the boundaries. I make arguments all the time.
Norm Murdock [:That's why I, you know, I have no problem with, like, if you were in that sentencing situation and you wanted to push that theory, I have no problem with that.
Steve Palmer [:Oh, I'd be absolutely, I'd be all over that. I'd have psychologists, I'd go find the best trans psychologist there is. And I'd be running with it.
Norm Murdock [:I get it, I get it.
Steve Palmer [:I'd be running with it. And I'd go home and say, this isn't.
Norm Murdock [:And if I was a prosecutor, I'd be calling you out. And, you know, and that's how the story system should work. It's an adversarial system. So you talked a little bit about voting, Steve, and I thought I'd throw this out there. The Supreme Court is in the midst of probably writing up. They heard the arguments on the Voting Rights act vis a vis how we do redistricting. And a lot of, you know, of course that's based on the census. And one of the factors that the Voting Rights act put in how we do gerrymandering and how we do congressional districts is that the racial makeup of the population can be a legitimate factor in how you maybe do these very strained boundaries where you do an arc around the inner city to make sure that the other part that you're leaving represents African Americans or Hispanic Americans or Cuban Americans or some sort of population racially that you feel as a redistricting board for that state you feel needs to be protected under the Voting Rights act.
Norm Murdock [:And the state of Louisiana is taking this, has taken it to the Supreme Court to say, you know, it's been 60 years or whatever since, you know, President Johnson signed that and it's time to move on from race based considerations. If we're not going to do that in college scholarships and admissions, you know, like the Harvard, Yale case, and if we're not going to do that straight up in the military, let's say, when deciding who's going to be a pilot, who's going to be an artillery person, then we shouldn't be doing it in the voting area.
Steve Palmer [:Well, that's Right. Should we create districts just to have more black voters or more a black majority somewhere? And that's really the issue. Is that an equal. And I think. Clarence.
Norm Murdock [:Or put all the whites over here so you can have an all black district or separate them and do these strange districts that don't make geographical sense.
Brett Johnson [:Oh, and you can give another example of that too, of how Columbus has been developing up in regards to its groups of people. I mean there is a whole section in the Northland area of Somalian. So are we going to carve out that area?
Steve Palmer [:Because they're a minority.
Brett Johnson [:Because they're a minority and they have a Somalian representative that's running for office? I don't know the answer to that.
Norm Murdock [:I don't know. That's your guy.
Brett Johnson [:I don't know.
Norm Murdock [:And that doesn't really. That's not a melting pot attitude.
Steve Palmer [:Not at all.
Norm Murdock [:At all.
Brett Johnson [:Because I don't know the answer. I don't know. To me it's un American because it has developed that way. We are.
Steve Palmer [:Gerrymandering's been around since the beginning of time, right.
Norm Murdock [:And it used to be religious based, like largely like the Calvinists are over here and the Methodists and the Catholics and the Jews. And so we're going to, you know, we're going to make sure those bad people.
Steve Palmer [:Gerrymandering based upon a classification of race, gender, religion, national origin, something like that. That's really what's at play here.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:And is that a violation of the equal protection clause or is that constitutional? I mean that's what they're arguing about. And you know, each side is gonna say no, we want groups with our voters.
Brett Johnson [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:And this is something that's gonna cut both ways eventually. I mean this is, this is the.
Norm Murdock [:Kind of poison that when you start going down this road, I don't think it ends in a good place. And this has led to the Balkanization of America, in my opinion. All of these well intentioned civil rights fixes, like we're gonna force people from this neighborhood to get on a school bus and go way the hell to the other side of Baltimore or Boston to another neighborhood. And then we're going to take those kids and make them do an hour ride to the east side, all of this. And you're talking about children on a bus for an hour in a totally unfamiliar neighborhood.
Steve Palmer [:It was an abject failure too. Right. I mean everybody just left the city.
Norm Murdock [:The black parents hated it as much as the white parents.
Brett Johnson [:And the kids, the kids end up Being pawns.
Norm Murdock [:And the kids.
Steve Palmer [:Well, Kamala remembers being that girl waiting on the. But that's what. You're really playing her violin, Norm. I think that's what's going on.
Norm Murdock [:Hey, let me throw this at you guys. So I was pondering this. Now, this is kind of a subset argument, but our voting laws really are the product of America's agrarian phase. Right. We were primarily an agrarian country where most jobs were not in cities, they were in the country. And they were on farms, plantations, all kinds of things like that. And so we came up with this voting system. One person, one vote.
Norm Murdock [:Eventually, women are added, former slaves are added, people of any. You know, to now where I think it's very fair and it's very open. The thing that I don't like about our voting system is they talk about taxation without representation. And let's just take. And I don't know about. Brett, if you have real estate, let's say in Columbus, but Steve and I do, and yet we live in other municipalities or other political.
Brett Johnson [:So I own property in west central Ohio.
Norm Murdock [:Okay.
Brett Johnson [:I don't get a vote.
Norm Murdock [:And you don't live there.
Brett Johnson [:I live there.
Norm Murdock [:So I think. And I'll just throw this out. I think Ohio should have a constitutional amendment that if you personally. Not through a corporation, but if you personally own real estate in a political subdivision, that you should be able to vote on local issues. I'm not talking president or governor or anything like that, but township trustee, city council and tax referendum, because I have an investment in Columbus. I don't live in Columbus, and yet this city is antithetical to almost everything that I would want for public policy, and I have no say in it. And it just feels wrong, and it feels like it would drive me. Eventually I'll get so pissed off, I'll sell my land in Columbus and leave.
Steve Palmer [:Well, that's it. So the. I was just going to say the same thing. Like, I own this building right here in the city of Columbus, and I note there's more trash on the streets. There's more homelessness on the streets. I have a guy right out there. Right out there. There's a guy that sort of breaks in to my office suite, and he stole a bunch.
Steve Palmer [:He stole somebody's book bag and cell phone and some other stuff. You know, it's just, you know, and five, six years ago, it didn't happen. Yeah, it's getting really bad. It's getting bad now. I don't live in Columbus. I don't have a vote here of what Happens. So my solution is. Your solution? Well, just sell a place.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. Bail out.
Steve Palmer [:Bail out. And who's going to own it?
Norm Murdock [:And then it just gets worse.
Steve Palmer [:That's right.
Norm Murdock [:Once people quit caring about the community because they don't have a voice, this.
Steve Palmer [:Is what causes the city squalor.
Norm Murdock [:I don't even know of a city council person that would listen to me. Me in the city of Columbus, I could see.
Brett Johnson [:Let's play the other side of this. So let's. Because I'm thinking pros and cons, because I like your idea.
Steve Palmer [:And I'm not sure that giving us voting rights is the solution either, because.
Brett Johnson [:You could have corporations. It's just buy property after property after.
Norm Murdock [:Property after property and you're not giving them a vote.
Brett Johnson [:Gotcha.
Norm Murdock [:Oh. Personally.
Brett Johnson [:Personally.
Norm Murdock [:Have to vote personally.
Brett Johnson [:So no corporations.
Norm Murdock [:Like, I can't create one. Inch by one inch. Parcel.
Brett Johnson [:Sure. Okay.
Norm Murdock [:And then go bring in a thousand Republican voters at each.
Steve Palmer [:Owen.
Brett Johnson [:Because I could see the incentive. Okay. If you're going to vote, you need to live here. You need to be part of the community. I have a stake, and I would.
Norm Murdock [:Say having an office building is a stake. Like I have and Steve has. We both have an office building in Columbus.
Steve Palmer [:I own it. With a corporation.
Norm Murdock [:Say again?
Steve Palmer [:This is an llc. Okay.
Norm Murdock [:But. But if it's wholly owned. If it's not.
Steve Palmer [:But if I had a partner. Foreign. Foreign owner, it's hard to chop it up.
Norm Murdock [:If it's wholly owned, I would give that one owner a vote.
Steve Palmer [:What if I had a partner, though? I mean, how's that any different? If my law partner and I decided we're going to buy a building together.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Steve Palmer [:How does that really change the equation?
Norm Murdock [:Well, we could hash that out. I don't know.
Steve Palmer [:I don't have a. I guess the point is it's difficult.
Brett Johnson [:It's an idea, though.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, but you should have a.
Norm Murdock [:You have a stake in what? Columbus City Council and Franklin County.
Steve Palmer [:When they raise my taxes, I get to go. I get to challenge it. I mean, I have this school hearing, you know, this school district hearing because they raise my. I always lose.
Norm Murdock [:Come on. You know. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And there's a. Here's how it works. Yeah. To win, you have to go pay money. You have to hire somebody who's going to do this evaluation and all this other nonsense, and then you can win.
Norm Murdock [:I know of no one that has.
Steve Palmer [:But me going. I had the last hearing. I won the first one.
Norm Murdock [:One.
Steve Palmer [:They're like, what's your evidence? For what? The building's worth? I said, I just bought it.
Norm Murdock [:Oh, okay, that's pretty strong.
Steve Palmer [:Here's what I paid, you know, like, what's your evidence that it's worth that?
Norm Murdock [:The market.
Steve Palmer [:The market.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, well.
Steve Palmer [:And I said, listen, I was in competition to buy this too. There were other people making offers. I won.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, I won. So I lost. Right.
Steve Palmer [:So now you want to raise. Now you're saying it's worth twice what I paid. I don't, I don't agree. Well, the last time around, they raised it and they said, what's your evidence for the value you're building? I said, I just had an offer to buy it for somebody who wanted to buy it. And they said it was this. Well, how do you know it's worth that? I said, because that's the offer I got. That's the market. They don't care.
Brett Johnson [:Well, it's either. It's got to be one or the other. It's what the market is bearing or what the valuation is by the county.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, what they say it's got to.
Brett Johnson [:Be one or the other. It can't be. What's your opinion? What's your opinion? That's a ridiculous throwback question.
Steve Palmer [:With all due respect, I know what my building is worth.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, it's either one or the other. And usually they go with the county valuation.
Steve Palmer [:I should have said, and I'm going to pay extra.
Norm Murdock [:For what?
Steve Palmer [:Like, what are you going to do with my dollars?
Norm Murdock [:Well, here's.
Steve Palmer [:What are you, sir, going to do with the extra? Because this is like 5,6000 a year difference.
Brett Johnson [:Wow, that's a big difference.
Norm Murdock [:So, fellows, what got me thinking about this is in certain jurisdictions in this country now, they are permitting for local elections and local issues like school tax issues, they are allowing non citizens to vote in local elections. Like in New York City, in la, in San Francisco, they are allowing non people who are not even Americans are being able to vote.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, that's lunacy.
Norm Murdock [:They're being able to vote in local elections. So I'm saying, well, why, if I own property in Anaheim, California, but I live in, I don't know, up the road in Hesperia, California, but yet I've got a city council and I've got all these other issues in Anaheim and I own a house there and it's a rental house or whatever, why shouldn't I be able to?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, it's again, it's that slippery. But a non citizen, well, that's stupid. That's just foolish.
Norm Murdock [:That's crazy.
Steve Palmer [:That's foolish. Somebody who doesn't have any stake in the outcome? I mean, it's like they're not. Right. That's foolish.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. And they're outvoting my interest because they're voting in, of course, largesse.
Brett Johnson [:And how can that mentality. It doesn't even make sense. I mean, talk about someone that can be totally influenced by a bribe. Hey, vote this way, vote this way in. The highest bidder wins.
Norm Murdock [:Right.
Brett Johnson [:Because they have no stake in it. The only stake in it in that situation is making the most money from the person that's gonna buy my vote.
Norm Murdock [:Well, think of it. People that are gonna vote for mom, Donnie for mayor of New York City. Many of those people are non citizens, and they have been permitted to vote by changes in the law in New York State and in the boroughs of New York City. So I'm like, hold on. What if I owned an apartment building there, but I lived in whatever, Connecticut, Why shouldn't I be able to vote anyway? I thought I'd throw that in.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, Food for that. So the shutdown. We sort of covered the shutdown, but we sort of didn't. So we're on day 35 of this shutdown, and it seems to me, guys, like, nobody. I want to say nobody cares because I'm sure this is impacting people.
Norm Murdock [:The pain hasn't come.
Brett Johnson [:Nobody cares. Unless they're in front of a reporter to name call back and forth. Yeah, that seems to be the place that they care. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:The politicians. It's Trump shut down, or it's Schumer shut down, or it's the Dem shutdown, or it's the Republican shutdown. It's like, I think we're all just sick of this nonsense.
Norm Murdock [:Well, have you heard, John, Senator Fetterman.
Steve Palmer [:I have heard. Like, Fetterman's turned out to be the most rational guy in Congress.
Norm Murdock [:He's incredible. He basically says, well, hey, Chucky, you were totally against.
Steve Palmer [:The government should never, ever be shut down. I think that's like a quote from Schumer years ago.
Norm Murdock [:And you're against the. Where they can call an emergency vote, and then it's not 60, 40, but it's a 50, 50 vote. Like, you're against that except when it's an issue that you care about.
Steve Palmer [:Well, that's right. And this was Mitch McConnell's famous, you know, I told you so. Be careful what you asked for.
Norm Murdock [:Right. You know, we'll appoint Supreme Court justices during recess, you know, or federal judges, not Supreme Court Justice.
Steve Palmer [:But the point, I guess the point of I just Have a fundamental problem with shutting down the government for stuff like this because it's political in nature. I'm not suggesting the government spending is good by any measure, but if we're going to shut down the government, I would at least like to make sure Congress doesn't get paid. Yes.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. I would like to see a balanced budget amendment like we have in Ohio. Ohio is not allowed to have a deficit do deficit spending.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. If we're going to shut down the government, maybe have it defined why and how and what needs to happen to reopen it.
Norm Murdock [:Unless there's a declared war and unless some economy economist panel like the Fed declares that we're in a depression, maybe war and depression we could deficit spend. But other than those two conditions being met, we should have a balanced budget.
Brett Johnson [:And you brought up for the show that Steve was not part of that show that we talked about arbitration.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:Bring an arbitrator in there. I don't know how that would work or how do you appoint such a beast.
Norm Murdock [:But some kind of system.
Brett Johnson [:But yeah. Hold feet accountable. Hold your feet to the fire accountability here that get the job done. This is why you were voted in. Congress's job is to do this.
Steve Palmer [:You're not doing that.
Brett Johnson [:Basically that's your mandate.
Norm Murdock [:Like right now, what has continued confuse the American public right now is both sides are arguing about whether or not the Democrats are pushing for health care under Medicaid for illegal immigrants. And the Democrats are saying we are absolutely not in favor of that. And the Republicans are saying, well when people, when illegals go to the hospital and don't pay their bill, guess who covers it? Medicaid. And so what would be good for arbitration is a finder of fact. Right. Like let's have a trial on how.
Steve Palmer [:Is this really working.
Brett Johnson [:Who's bullshitting?
Steve Palmer [:Because we kicked this around and like look, I read as much as I could about it. It's not all that clear exactly what's going on with this. But the bottom line is there are people who are not citizens that get health care. And I don't know if any of these two provisions that they're fighting over is the responsible provision for that, but it's happening.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:So I think the big beautiful bill said no mas to that.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:And now the Dems want to roll back. Basically they lost the big beautiful bill argument.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:And now they're using the shutdown to roll back that provision. Look, and that pisses me off.
Norm Murdock [:It does.
Steve Palmer [:It's like that's not a Reason, Look, I don't like that the Congress does nothing except pass one big bill once a year or something, or once every four years.
Norm Murdock [:And none of them read.
Steve Palmer [:And none of them read. Right. But look, you lost the debate on the floor. It's voted, it's law. Get the votes and change it if you don't like it. But don't shut down the government to get what you want. That seems, if it's as simple as that, which it seems like it might be.
Norm Murdock [:Well, that's just what Federman's saying. It's a clean cr.
Steve Palmer [:So a clean CR is, it's just.
Norm Murdock [:A continuation of the existing funding at all the same levels for the next few weeks till the middle of November.
Brett Johnson [:And while this is going, then you can start arguing the minutiae.
Steve Palmer [:Argue the minutia, but let the people get paid.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Now look, Trump's solution was we'll just, fine, we'll just use this as an opportunity to lay off all the non essential employees, which, you know, and people were laughing about it. But Biden brought In how many IRS people? Like 1500 or 5000 or something like that. And Trump just got rid of them. So it's like, come on, it hadn't been, you know, you can't have it both ways.
Norm Murdock [:Right, right.
Steve Palmer [:It's like if you can't just say we never trim the fat at all.
Norm Murdock [:Well, and I find it very hypocritical that the Democratic all of a sudden after January 6th and talking about how sacred law enforcement is, they seem to be so worried about federal employees and the longevity of their careers, but all of a sudden they want to kill all the ICE agents. It's a free fire zone. You could put out a contract on the ICE management and you can ram trucks into them. You can fire.
Steve Palmer [:And this is the other case that's sort of matriculating up to the 9th Circuit and they're arguing about whether Trump can send the federal or he can nationalize the National Guard. It was a Portland and, and Chicago. But this, this is the 9th. This case was Portland though. And I, and you know, but you.
Norm Murdock [:Know, they're being held back behind a fence in Chicago.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:And not being allowed to patrol.
Steve Palmer [:So the issue is this, speaking of those, speaking of that is like Trump.
Norm Murdock [:Is saying, which is not ice, but it's National Guard. But go ahead.
Steve Palmer [:Well, what he's saying is we need the National Guard to protect ice, to protect the federal facilities.
Norm Murdock [:Because they're federal employees.
Steve Palmer [:Because they're federal employees and they're being.
Norm Murdock [:Targeted and whatever it is, and locals won't help.
Steve Palmer [:And as an ancillary effect of that, we're gonna have some law and order in Portland for once. Yeah, I think the 9th Circuit's gonna rule in Trump's favor on this.
Norm Murdock [:I do, too.
Steve Palmer [:Sure. And I think if the ostensible purpose is that the right word, ostensive purpose, is to protect federal assets, I think he can do it. And I think it's been done historically.
Norm Murdock [:It has.
Steve Palmer [:And even beyond that, in the case of Brown.
Norm Murdock [:Well, we have radio traffic from the police in Chicago telling their officers not to assist ICE officers who are under fire, who were being shot at, who had trucks, traffic trying to run them over, and they called for local backup and they have dispatcher radio where they said, do not lend assistance to federal officers who are under physical jeopardy. So if locals aren't going to come in and protect the ICE personnel, the National Guard's the only other tool. What other tool does Trump have to protect ICE officers? You know, so I don't know, man. Again, what I am really bothered about is the rhetoric and how people are talking very violently these days about political things. And I just, and this is part of it, I think when you have imbalanced people that keep hearing that somebody's Hitler and we just, I mean, you know, Trump got shot in the head, Kirk got assassinated, and what, the governor there in Pennsylvania, the mansion was half burned down. And it's all coming from this rhetoric. I think imbalanced people, if they think that they're going to take out a.
Steve Palmer [:Hitler or a Mussolini, well, it's an invitation for violence. It's like a, it's justification, permission for a weak person. It's a permission slip to say, look, what else are you going to do with Hitler?
Brett Johnson [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:You know, this guy's Hitler. And Hitler in our. Everybody knows what Hitler means in modern terms.
Norm Murdock [:That's right.
Steve Palmer [:The guy, the most evil person that ever walked on the planet Earth who was going to take over the planet and kill everybody. Yeah. Like, he's the most evil person. Like there's, there's the costliest war. Like there's all sorts of philosophical debates about, like, if you could go back in time, would you kill Hitler as a baby? You know, it's like this, like, that's Hitler. So like the idea is kill him, you're Hitler, kill him.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah. And then you're some kind of hero.
Steve Palmer [:And you're some kind of anti hero for trying, or you get a pass because you try to kill cabin like.
Norm Murdock [:This Mancheon guy taking out the health care executive.
Steve Palmer [:Blooded effing murder. It is. And on another show, I got criticized for my take on this. I'm like, look, I'm a criminal defense lawyer and I could represent man, but that's cold blooded murder. Yeah, it is. There is. It was. Without mitigation, justification or excuse.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah. There is no purpose for that murder. None that is valid in a courtroom.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Now, there's always a purpose for murder. You're always. There's always a motive. And yet the motive is reprehensible.
Norm Murdock [:There's a social media cheerleading section, of course, for Mangyung.
Steve Palmer [:Even Bill Burr is out there screaming about it. Like, these people. Like, this is gross.
Norm Murdock [:It's gross.
Steve Palmer [:It's crazy. This is gross. So what you're doing is saying it's okay to murder, murder people that you disagree with.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, that's where we're going.
Steve Palmer [:Because these people's politics or what these people do for a living is so dangerous and so bad that we should just be able to kill them. And, you know, and not only that, let me take the. Take up the cause of the murderer for a second. It's not fair to the murderers. It's not fair to Mangione because he's been indoctrinated with this nonsense and now his life is over. It's like, his life also. It's like, I'm not. Not suggesting that he didn't do wrong.
Steve Palmer [:He did. But to the extent he was indoctrinated, encouraged or what, kind of pushed to that and egged on.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:The media and the messaging pushed him to that place. You ruined now two lives. And think of it, and all the aftershocks that go with it.
Norm Murdock [:This guy that killed Kirk, the guy who shot.
Steve Palmer [:Same thing.
Norm Murdock [:The guy who shot Trump in the head. And this Mangione, they're all pretty young.
Steve Palmer [:Men who have been indoctrinated, like in their 20s, indoctrinated with whatever philosophy that encourages that kind of violent behavior and condones it on some sick, gross level. And you've done those people no favors. They've done the world no favors. You've made them evil people, and now you've killed two people.
Norm Murdock [:So, Steve, I want to roll this out, if you don't mind me going to a local story here, but this is an intriguing settlement that Columbus just did with the father of a child. This father had custody of this child. And what they're saying to me doesn't make sense. They're saying two Columbus police officers who were New on the job. So inexperience. They somehow got a hold of motions filed by the mother. So the father had custody. This is in domestic relations court.
Norm Murdock [:Her attorney files a motion that she should get some sort of custody, either shared or full custody. But the father, in the meantime, he had legal custody.
Steve Palmer [:And the police acted on the motion. Not the order.
Norm Murdock [:Not the order. Now, how would policemen ever get a motion? Like you wouldn't even imagine.
Steve Palmer [:Mom would give it to him.
Norm Murdock [:Okay, as an attorney, you walk in.
Steve Palmer [:The police district and you mom calls the cops. That guy's kidnapped my. I don't know these to be the facts, guys, but let me just tell you a scenario.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, tell me how this could happen.
Steve Palmer [:Dad's got the kids. He won't give them back. Okay, okay, ma', am. Police go out. Sorry, it's a domestic relations matter. We can't do anything about it. Unless you have some sort of order or something, you know, we can't do anything about it. Well, here's the order.
Steve Palmer [:Here's the. And they hand a motion to the cops, and the cops misinterpret it.
Norm Murdock [:So you don't think they got it down at the station? No, mom probably said, hey, here's something from the court. But it's what her. What she filed. It's not a judge's.
Steve Palmer [:That's my guess.
Norm Murdock [:Wow.
Steve Palmer [:It's only a guess, folks. Fact check me, please.
Norm Murdock [:Well, now that's starting to make sense.
Steve Palmer [:So the cops are negligent.
Norm Murdock [:So then she took off for seven months and is said to have abused the child. We don't know what that means. Maybe he didn't get three meals a day, didn't get a shower every day or whatever. But the child was said to have been abused and she took off. She went on the run for seven months until they could get the child back to the father. So they gave the father a million dollars?
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, I mean, and I'm just wondering, like, how. It's a big number.
Norm Murdock [:How in the hell does that happen? Right, but your scenario, that makes sense.
Steve Palmer [:Mistake. I don't think there was anything intentional there, just a mistake.
Norm Murdock [:So in the. Like in the basket on the sergeant's desk, I'm thinking of, you know, like Hill Street Blues or something. Like there's not a basket, is there? A basket of orders that, you know, judges hand down, like domestic relations or.
Steve Palmer [:Whatever, or a habeas stay away orders maybe. So sometimes stay away, like the police may be not in a basket, but online they could say there's a civil protection order. Or something like that. But as far as this stuff. No, no chance. I mean, it's just.
Norm Murdock [:Okay. They wouldn't go in online and go, oh, hey, let's go enforce. Let's drive down the road and go get this kid.
Steve Palmer [:No.
Norm Murdock [:Okay.
Steve Palmer [:No. Mom called, somebody called and said, dad's kidnapping the kid. Here's this stuff could even been forged paper, who knows? But the, you know, but then the police didn't do whatever due diligence they should have done, apparently.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:To ensure that they're taking the right.
Brett Johnson [:Based on the reward or award the guy was given. Yeah, yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And a million sounds like a lot, but if you go through a trial and legal fees and all that, it's.
Brett Johnson [:Not that much anymore.
Norm Murdock [:And seven months, you don't know where your kid is.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah, it's bad.
Brett Johnson [:That's, that's a lot of stress.
Steve Palmer [:All right, guys. Good and bad.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah, good and bad. Good and bad. So good. On Jon Stewart's show. Now, Jon, legendary for his liberal commentary and his disdain for Trump, but I like Jon Stewart, kind of like I like Bill Maher because they have flashes of reasonableness every now and then. And John said on his show where Bernie Sanders, Senator Sanders was his guest, that federal largesse, the bottomless, you know, well, of federal subsidies for drugs, you know, drug prescriptions, medical care and college tuition has caused all three of those things to outpace real inflation. And basically, if you can bill all the medical care, all the drugs, all the tuition, you could just keep raising the prices and the federal government up until it seems like Trump, like, there has not been any pushback. And so Jon Stewart said, pretty much what Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman have been saying forever is that, you know, when you subsidize something, you're going to get a lot more of it.
Steve Palmer [:Yeah.
Norm Murdock [:That's just the nature of it.
Steve Palmer [:You're bought and paid for.
Norm Murdock [:If you say, I'm going to buy your groceries, Norm, if you say, hey, I'm hungry and I can't afford groceries, if you just say that, and that's good enough to give you $100 a week to go buy groceries, you're going to get more people to say, and that's not making them evil or anything. That's human nature.
Steve Palmer [:That is capitalism.
Norm Murdock [:That's capitalism. People will seek out those advantages. My bad is that with the peace attempt between Hamas and Israel, that Hamas seems to be breaking its word in the ceasefire. And I think some of it, and I'm glad Israel has held off of a full scale response, but Hamas.
Steve Palmer [:Shooters.
Norm Murdock [:Killed two Israeli soldiers this week. And I'm sure Netanyahu's impulse was to just, okay, we're gonna start the war all over again. Like, you know, ceasefires off. They responded in what I would say in some kind of scaled way with some targeted things. And Hamas leadership is saying we're not in full control of our people. Like the Hamas negotiators are basically saying that some of our people don't even know there is a ceasefire.
Steve Palmer [:Like, it's like the Japanese on Gilligan's Island.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah.
Norm Murdock [:The infrastructure.
Brett Johnson [:Civil war. The civil war, the same thing happened.
Norm Murdock [:So that's bad. But I'm hoping Israel continues to try to be. To try to have the big picture if we can actually settle this war and get Hamas out of power and actually disarm them and, and let the Palestinians run Gaza. Oh, my God, you know, what a great thing that would be. And I hope Israel continues to show some proportionality. Right?
Brett Johnson [:Yeah, yeah. My good and bad, very similar to that. My good was that it's, you know, the peace, we're seeing it, but the bad going, dang it, still fighting, it's still not there. So it's kind of a mixed bag on that. But yeah, I'm right on that as well. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:Yep. So I only have a good thing today, and it's sort of a. I like to make this personal sometimes. I'm building a house and we all say that there's like, there's not enough craftsmen, not enough that. But look, I showed up, I'm doing a lot of the tile work myself, believe it or not. I'm a fool that way, I suppose. But I tend to get up early at 3 or 4 in the morning and go and do that kind of stuff and then hit the office or on the weekends for sure. But I was there on Friday morning, or no, rather Monday morning early, and I pulled up to my house in the woods that's under construction, and there was some dude there who was doing exterior trim with lights on.
Steve Palmer [:Like he had brought his own lights, his spotlights and his music going and his saw cooking. And he's just bebopping around doing work. And I was like, holy crap, I'm the homeowner. Matt, nice to meet you. And his craftsmanship was perfection, by the way. And he goes, yeah, I get up at 1am and I just get. I get to work, I get my work done. He goes, I go to bed early, but people don't understand me.
Steve Palmer [:But I said, I get you. You're working your ass off, my man. You know, here's to you. A hat tip to that, so that we still have people that work. We still have people that do good, that are craftsmen, that still care about what they do and take pride in what they do. In a good way. I mean that in a good way.
Norm Murdock [:Yeah.
Steve Palmer [:And so that. That's my good for the week. I don't have a bad for the week because we've mentioned all the bad stuff already.
Norm Murdock [:We have covered a lot of bad.
Steve Palmer [:So that is common sense. Ohio. Check us out. Common SenseOhio show dot com. We are coming at you each and every week right from the middle.
