Do you want to be in a Mafican all right back, Yeah, the first one about twenty twenty six for me and probably for you, possibly for you. Here we go another year ahead of us. Of course, when you start with bad news. Hopefully, hopefully that's not the trend for the entire twenty twenty six campaign. I'm saying, we started in Cincinnati with a homicide of an eleven year old. For God's sake, Well, here we go again. Not much as changing. The big story I think over the last few days
certainly has been what just happened in Venezuela. As the Trump administration moved in, they took Maduro out. He is being a reigned today in the Southern District of New York probably as we speak right now. They've got him off an army heilo, I believe, and they've got him in court. They got him in custody. Hopefully it is not a Jeffrey Epstein situation and how that turned out when he was in custody. That would not be good
with the eyes of the world on us. But the idea that we're doing this over drugs and not oil. I think there's a lot of people that believe it's about drugs, but I don't know. I look at the history of this thing and go pretty clear to me talking anything about drugs. Right now, we're talking about opening up the oil markets and Cuba and Mexico maybe next
who knows what all this means. Maybe some perspective on it from a guy who actually lived spent a lot of time in Latin America as an expert in Latin America, the former director of National Studies that UD founded human Rights studies program. He is a professor. Mark and Salaco joined the show on seven hundred WW from the University of Dayton.
Mark, Happy New Year, Scott.
Let's jump in and go with the narrative here about this being the Yeah, I think we agreed last time we spoke that the pretext here was, you know, drugs protextual and this is all largely about oil because the whole drug thing really doesn't make a lot of sense. Even the government themselves, those who in the den also said, yeah,
Venezuela really is not a big exporter here. Of that it might go through Mexico be funneled, but China is the big end I mean here, Mexico is a bigger proponent of drugs than Venezuela is at this point.
But I look at this one.
This is kind of interesting because there are so many patriots from Venezuela because of that awful regime, and I think we should celebrate that. It's interesting because Trump's whole plan for America has been stopping the flow of immigrants. In Venezuela is one of those countries. It sent us a lot of a lot of their immigrants, and so I think that's an interesting juxtaposition.
Yeah, there's a lot involved in this. I'm not sure that the drug issue was a pretext. It was literally the Department of Justice had been looking at this guy for decades, so this.
Is a case was built. But it's about drugs, it's about oils.
But a lot of time talking about oil, which we understand, which is really necessary. You know, Venezuela is a seventeen percent of the world's controlling reserves and produces one percent. I mean, there's real growth there, so, but it's also about it's also about regime change. There's no question about regime change, and not just in Venezuela, which many people are applauding, even though they're not happy about military intervention in United States.
But I'm happy about the.
Removal of Maderto. Now you're thinking about Cuba, and now you think about nick at Iwa, which Daniel Otago is really horrible guy. And there are a lot of people who look an opportunity in Venezuela to ignite, reignited democratic movement. You know, this, this democratic unity platform, Maria Cordina Machallo.
Was really to be applauded.
So it's really strange to me because the president mentioned the Vice President Selsea Rodriguez. The oils are not the Nobel Prize winner leader of this very viable democratic.
Platforms.
Sou Venezuela has a long history of Latina of democracy, but there was really aborted by this years and years decades on Chevysmo Caesar Jave is now thankfully it's over Madudo. But Venezuela has the strength of a society to come to this positively democratically.
I think that's one of the things.
You know, we talk about Iraq and Afghanistan and which are twenty years endless war and look how it ended, and we do Vietnam, and it goes on and on and on, and there's some bright points where we tried to build states, but it generally doesn't work out too well.
Marketslock.
I think there's a little different because you know, the thing in the Middle East is you're fighting against Islam, right. You don't have that component here. So it's also in the West, right, and so they have a history of democracy. To me, that's it's a little bit. If you have a chance, it may very well be with Venezuela. Let's put it that way. Do you agree, Well.
You know, I mean Venezuela when I started going to Latin America, living there and researching there in the in the eighties, Venezuela had avoided the military cutictas and the revolutions. Even Colombia next door, the drug trafficking on the farc and the gorillas and nineteen ex are Venezuela state above that,
and there's there's a vibrant democratic element there. But even if I can had this, you know, what the President said was sort of strange, talking about just so strange, we're going to run we are going to run Venezuela. And he started talking about the Trump corollary to the
Monroe doctri et cetera. But you know, I see standing behind them Marco Rubil, who has been a long advocate, long time advocate for the removal of these type of these corypt dictatorships, being Cuban exil himself and he's a statesman, it would be wonderful time now Marco Rubio really working with allies in the region and the organization of Berican States to really produce it would be a major You know, in Latin America there are always suspicious in the United States gunboat diplomacy.
They started in Venezuela.
In eighteen hundreds, right, But there's how is a wonderful opportunity when a dictatorship falls, when it collapses. Now, if he makes this just about oil, it's got to be about oil because that will be able to buy democratic peace with that with that that income. But it can't be just about petroleum or US dominance. It's really got to be about genuine democracy and the rule of law. And you made an interesting point as you began this interview.
I for a long time said I welcome immigrants. I welcome immigrants and migrants and refuge and asylums.
Secrets understand it.
But the first right the Latin Americans have is the right not to be forced to flee. They deserve the right of democratic government and the rule of law, a prosperous economy. It allows them to stay in Venezuela, as you said, or Nicaragua.
Or whatever it may be. So whenever in Latin America where.
I was suspicious in the United States and gunbulk diplomacy and et cetera, et cetera, but in Latin America is always wonderful fronts of fresh air. When the dictator falls, there's and there's democratic possibilities. That's where that's where.
We are at.
We're in a moment of democratic possibility.
Doctor Mark Ansilaka from UD spent considerable amount of time Latin American expert talking about the fall of Maduro in Venezuela. What happens now and somehow we're going to quote unquote run the country. I'm not quite sure what that entails. Part of that problem, though, Mark, is the fact that if you look at the Maduro regime, right lost the election but kept the presidency anyway, and he did it
because he's got a huge payroll of people in the military. Generally, when you do that, you're not going to be open to democracy coming in. So you're going to have all of these generals and leaders in the military. They're going to fight tooth and nail to protect what they had as opposed to giving in to make a Venezuela democratic state. How can we do that without putting military, without putting
US boots on the ground. At this point, which you know, I think it was what twenty twenty at West Point when Trump said, We're not going to do any more of these wars. This is a military slash police action. Okay, but you're still going to have to occupy. How do you do that if you're Donald Trump?
Uh?
Yeah, I'm looking at fault lines. How this thing could go south? No plum attended very badly, go sideways really quickly. You got the military, Let me come back to that. You got the Chavistas, you got the movement founded by Google Chavez, who this regime really just serves. We could have what equivalent in Venezuela. We'll call it antifa to Chavez vigilantes. Yeah, that's a possibly drug traffickers. There are real fault lines. But you're actually it's the military.
Maw is correct.
Actually power proceeds from.
The barrel of a gun.
But what I suspect is contexts are already made between our generals, the Panama Canal Zone, the Central Intelsagency, diplomatic core, Marco rule. You we're already, we're already talking to people and these generals who enrich themselves. Uh, Maduro, they're there are days over, the gravy chains gone.
They're gonna What they need to do is, you know, gather up.
Their cash and their belongings and please someplace Spain or something.
That's what will happened. They're not going to stand in fight.
They're not going to be a military coup to retain this democratic government.
I don't see it, Doctor her. Know, the generals are already talking to them.
They're already talking about a first name based they want time to get on a plane. We got a hotel for you in Panama.
Something.
Well, you know, you examine that, and there's just so many of them there. They're obviously going to remain loyal to Maduro for the reasons you talked about. It's make our job harder as part of running things, as Trump said.
Uh.
The other element to with with that loyalty is the fact that all right, well, if you're already, if you already have the gun barrels as you spoke, isn't this is there a chance could make the the drug issue worse than better?
Well any instability, Yeah.
Because of the instability, right, and and the weapons and the power in Columbia.
Yeah, I lived in Columbia, which a really stable democratics, a political system, I'll call it that, I'll believe it or not. But the drug traffickers, drug traffickers were just a state within a state. But what happened with Madero was he had turned as had come by the way Juan Ernandez, the Honduran president that our president just pardoned for drug crimes right to Honduras and Venezuela had become the government had really become a sort of corrupt government.
It was just venal.
And so you know, I brought up the specter of you know, Chevista gangs out there trying to be violent resistance. But no one's going to go to their grave for Machado. He's not charismatic dictator. He's really a ten dictator. Not a lot of people are going to martyr themselves on the sec the on the on the on the altar of Madito.
Yeah, and also the scope of Venezuela's like, you know, twice the size of California.
You have got about thirty million people there.
That this isn't like a small island, you know, this isn't a Haiti or Panama, for God's sakes. That's a pretty big country and and and inhospitable one at that. One comes to the terrain. So anytime I hear this, I think of, okay, what about the US military? You just look at that and go oof. Based on what we described, and then the the you know, the topography and the land mass, the size of the thing and the scope of the population makes it even more difficult to run this country.
You know. But but it's not and you're a perceptive of this, it's.
This is not like a rock where we really had to have put on the ground because we were being there was an insurgency against our occupation or whatever we want to call it. No, that's not the situation. You don't have is law and order. Will people be able to keep the gangs normal crime, normal crime?
And then drug related crime?
If the military and the security forces and the intelligence surfaces sort of collapse, you have have instability, and that it will be dangerous.
What we have to avoid.
If I use the analogy of Rock, can is the depatification where anyone who was related to Mandeto, particularly in the oil industry and other key industries. Right, we can't just fire people because they're tired with Talbot. We may with Mendeto. We made that mistake in a rock. So again, you know there's a professional class. There is a vibrant Uh, there could be a vibrant private market, private ownership and market economy.
Uh.
It's been corrupted by this this regime, this democratic I don't we call this state capitalism crony capitalism. There's real epporate tunity for the private sector to go. There's a professional class, the attorneys and terrorists who can restore the rule of law.
I don't want to be I don't.
Want to have rose colored glasses about this.
I understand the difficulties, and.
I don't want to say, oh, it's gonna be a rock. There's gonna be a cake walk, and they're going to welcome us as as liberators and oil will pay for herself.
We heard those errors, those those lives.
But then there's a if I can repeat it, there's a real democratic moment here that's why, I hope.
I don't know why.
He's talking about Delsea Rodriguez.
I get it.
She's oil minister and the finance minister. She's you know, she's some vice president has been talking to. But you've got the Democratic Unity Platform, whose founder was an excellent just want a Nobel prize, and you have an election in which this platform, Democratic Unity Platform one six percent.
It shocks me.
Unlike Anamal nineteen eighty nine, we're real with toroing Oriega imdately had the Panamanian Supreme Court inaugurate the president who had.
Won an election.
So they needed to do that yesterday or they needed to do it tomorrow.
They need to have the purged.
Supreme Court needs to install the man who won the legion. It's as simple as that.
Hey, real quick, do you think we might be facing now maybe a new era, a new golden era of colonization, of empire building, of expansionism, because you look at what we just did in Venezuela. You look at well what Moscow has done relative to Ukraine. But you know a lot of the Estonia, maybe Poland those countries like that could be on the brink.
Now.
Beijing looks at and goes, well, we can just take to Taiwan. Right now, are we seeing the big three being in the United States, China, and Russia moving that new age of colonization.
Yes, exactly right, that's the way Putin and g heard that speech.
Yeah right. And in Latin America.
Have you lived there, taught there from a long time, what they hear is US imperialism. They hear that back, right, But you have an interesting moment. You've got uh in Chile, right, we do. We overthrown a endy. This are the big issue in the US foreign policy. But Chile just elected host who's extremely conservative. You know, you can see change come about that is very favorable to the US interest.
I'm not I'm not trying to be a nationalist about this, but for the first time, maybe this is Marco who's influenced for the longest time. After the longest period of time, the Latin America is ton of interesting again, and it looks like what Trump is saying for the hyperbole of the Trump corollary to the Morton or doctor faddle, but there's intention suddenly on the Latin America, the anti drugs,
anti corruption, and markets. So I think there's that moment in Latin America, we're favorable for reals interests right now.
Well, I think I also since a strong you know, we're heard Marco Rubio mentioned, well Cuba could be next. You're Greenland, right, But what about Mexico. If I'm Mexico, I'm looking at this going this is a game changer.
Well, you know, there's a famous adage in Mexico. The former president said, the poor Mexico so far from God and so.
Close to the United States.
And you know, and this is when a president Wilson wanted to teach Mexicans how to elect good men.
So there's that concern.
No, So if you're worried about Venezuela, which is decisive of California, Mexico is a continent done to it so right, So that's just some touched But the drug violence there is astronomical. I've done a lot of research on drug killings, expert witness and courts and drug cases and dealing with mexicill I've dealt with political violence against women cases in
Latin America. Mexico is just massive. It's a democracy as a vibrant capitalist economy, but it has you know, there are one hundred one thousand disappeared, Achille.
It was it was a.
Thousand, one hundred thousands over the last twenty years. So yeah, what did to do about MEXICILU But Mexico is not ben as well, it's it's too large of a problem.
Yeah, how to how do you manage that?
Mark and Silaco at the University of Dayton uh Mark former director in the National Studies Program d founder of the Human Rights Studies Program and spend a lot of time in Latin America. Mark, thanks the time, appreciate it, Thank you, all right, all the best. Yeah, Happy New Year to you too. Let me get a news update, and there're a lot to chew on. There is this the new way to just taking stuff up, you know, if you're going to start taking countries over Venezuela or with the oil.
We'll get to that a little bit too.
I'm not quite sure this one makes sense from from a monetary standpoint. That sounds good. Go yeah, you know, more than other series of oil revenue. Great, but there's a problem with that thinking. We'll get into that in just a second. But you know, as long as we're expanding our footprint here into Latin America. You know there's one area that concerns a lot of people, well almost all people in this country, when it comes to reducing the cost of things. Kind of other country should we
think about, like Columbia Country. I'll tell you why next afternoons lonely back at it this first show with the new year, seven hundredule Do Gowty, Cincinnati.
How dumb you have.
To be to break the windows at the house of the Vice President? I see that's a different level of dumb right there. Secret Service called for CPD at quarter after twelve on January fifth, this morning, after someone was running eastbound after breaking a couple of windows in the back of Jade Vance's house.
Yeah.
I get politics and how divided we are and how angry people are, But at what point you pick up a rock and throw it through the president of the window of the president of the vice president the United States. You know, most of us could probably have our window broken. Somebody throw a rock through a break through your window and you'd never catch the persons impossible. But this is a different level of stupidity because of the vice president.
Now you've got the federal government coming after you for doing this. For God's sake. I don't. I've been angry before, but now let's let's get myself thrown in a federal person just so stupid. I wanted the family's home at the time too. So there's a lot of concern there
as well, for sure. For sure, slow me back with you here seven hundred WLWU talking to Markan Siolaco, doctor Marcin Siloga to ud about what's happening in Venezuela, and certainly was, well, I don't I think most of us, you know, follow news, did you really see this coming?
Going Okay, well, we're we're blowing ships up and like, and we talked about it, But did you really think that at some point we would just swoop in and take Maduro and bring them back to the United States, you know, outside of the professional protester class, which there was plenty of in Cincinnati this and by the way, I'd say most people celebrate the fact that this guy is out of power. That is a net positive this whole thing, simply because of that regime and staying in
power and ignoring election results and the like. In the fact that he's cut that country's GDP by like two thirds since taken over. So there's a lot of Venezuelan's expats who are celebrating that he is no longer in power. However, care of what you wish for, you might just get it, because when it comes to changing authoritarian regimes and turning them to democracies, we're really we're not very good at it. We've done it none of oka and smaller scales. But
this is pretty big, as Ensilaka was talking about. But the idea now that if you're Russia in China, you look at this going ooh, it's open season. Maybe the United States, maybe we're finally it's time to rethink that whole notion that you know, we're going to let countries rise and fall become enemies of the United States. And now we're maybe in the new area here of imperialism.
We're just going to start taking territories over. I mean, you know, history does repeat itself, and we're seeing that. We saw that with Russia. What's going on in Ukraine and elsewhere. That may give Putin an opportunity to go, Okay, well we're going to go after other states in that region. China for sure, what happens with Taiwan, it feels like
it's almost a foregone conclusion. They're going to take the Taiwan over and maybe the United States going well, instead of all this heady, feel good, Hey, we've got to stand.
Up for democrat.
Maybe we should just go back to the way it used to be before isolationism going Okay, now we're just going to start taking territories over again, because as I said, history repeats itself if you're going to go down that road. Yeah, Venezuela and is certain of Venezuela certainly is one for the oil, which we'll revisit in just a second here.
But over the holidays, and I often just in the morning when I go get coffee, we'll just fire a couple curing pods and my cure egg and take that because you know, get it out the door, ready to go and drink in my coffee. I don't have to wait in line, get off the highway and anything like that. It's about simplicity for me. Plus, I'm just a creamer guy. Coffee, dark dark roast coffee with a little creamer in it, and that makes me happy at my one big cup
of coffee a day. Generally, I'm a one cup of coffee, big cup of caf eighteen ounce cup a day in the morning to get going, and sometimes I mean even more than that. But when you're out over the holidays, obviously stop and grab a couple of coffee. Because Michelle same way. She just drinks it. She drinks HER's black, a little sweetener in it. And it was over ten bucks. I'm looking at them. It's not like I had some
sort of you know, whipped top. I had whipped cream and sprinkles, and I had a soy latte and extra ones like a gallon size. It's just like two cups of good sized cups of coffee. But still like, damn, that's expensive. If we're going after imperial as, if we're starting to take countries over, can I make a suggestion? How about Columbia? I know, I think Brazil is the biggest exporter of coffee, but Brazil feels like, kind of maybe that's just a bit too far. We're taking places.
Columbia seems more acceptable. I think they're just below bra for coffee exportation. She'd be like, why don't we start If we took Columbia over, could could that bring the cup of coffee down to you know, what's reasonable? A couple of bucks. I just I just I'm making suggestions.
I'm just spitballing. As long as we're taking as long as we're invading countries and putting our regimes there, could we could we start a wish list places says like, okay, if we took over most of Latin Mexico, you just think that one's like, Wow, it'd take care of the border issue for sure.
But I don't think we we can.
We can barely manage the United States, right, And then some make a good argument going, we can't even handle run in this country, and now we're expanding our territory. I'm just saying, but as long as we're doing corporate takeovers here, it's like, okay, when the next on the list, I don't know about Cuba, it'd be nice for you know, vacation, they believe it or not, despite the terrible regime that's
been there for a long time. One of the one of the biggest environmentals you talk about, like the reefs and stuff like that. I guess it's pristine. I've never been, but I've heard it's like, yeah, they really, they really take care of the environment off the Coasta, So you know, Are we gonna start to see out on McDonald's and Starbucks pretty soon and in Cuba? If we do that,
Mexico comes to Greenland to be another one? Or are we gonna invade Greenland at some point here for the natural resources and expanding our foot pritty from Mark No, No, But can we move Columbia up a little bit? It seems like that's a country now? In Columbia, Well, don't they do drugs? Generally coffee, but coco. It's an we just take that one. That'd be one like no one had noticed. It's like when we made Hawaii the fifties state. It's like, hey, Alaska, Wi sure, why not? God for sake?
Yeah, it's nice, that's tropical. So we got a little Yeah, okay, let's do that.
I'm gonna advocate for the expansion of the Columbia next to bring down the damn coffee prices.
Beef would be another one. I guess, yeah, that's a good one. Go for the beef. But you know, we had a drought, we had disease. That's probably going to right the ship.
There is going to write, But I don't know if we just take over a country and go get some argent argent You know, do you take over Argentina in that matter too to get the beef prices down?
Were just where does this keep going? Is be the big question?
Something else happening this week, and the first with the key of the year would be the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. If you're a guy, generally speaking, it kind of like techie stuff and some of the ones to look for this year at the consumer electronics shows, By the way, was founded in nineteen sixty seven. Hard to believe it's been going on that long. I wonder I have to go back and look and see what was the hot tech in nineteen sixty seven. Probably bigger color TVs.
I'd imagine that doesn't change this year. There's a new technology out there called micro RGB. I'm guessing the RGB is red, green, blue, and that is the next generation in color and contrast. I suppose because we had a micro LEDs now and I guess micro RGB is the next generation of making your TV pop. They have and I think this issung one hundred and thirty inch micro RGBTV and I think they have thrown the I don't
know if this is the trend or not. But they might be throwing the towel in on wall mounted TVs because most people don't wal mount the flat mounts. I'm sick in the head and I like doing that stuff, so yeah, I'll run the cable and electrical and hide the chords and all that stuff as well.
Most people just you know, put it on.
A pedestal or have the chords hanging down and get you know, eleven extension chords out and do it that way. And maybe they're throwing the townel because this thing is one hundred and thirty inch TV that is framed by a giant metal I got.
The best way to call it. This is an easel, so picture it.
It's a big rectangular frame, thin steel frame, and then inset in the frame on little pivot points on the axis is the TV itself, so you can kind of tilt it like a like a mirror almost, But the frame sits on the ground and it covers up obvious one hundred and thirty inches most of the hole and you would mount your TV that way, so it just stands alone now, which is kind of cool.
Actually.
Price tagging this bad boy, the one hundred and thirty incher thirty thousand dollars, So now maybe not for most of us, if not all of us at that point thirty thousand dollars TV, and that's probably more of a proof of concept thing I would guess is that you know, future ones are going to be a little smaller and more accessible, but still when they roll out this new stuff, obviously very cost prohibitive. They also doing a new line
of speakers will look kind of cool. They've got a new sound bar out that is a seven point one point two soundbar and the point two, I guess would mean two subwolfers in it, thirteen drivers and four subwiffers. Wonder how much of that thing weighs. Hang that on your wall and possibly the coolest to encounter. There's some and there's some gaming stuff new VR head where headsets
and things like that. But this is an interesting one with AI integrated into everything right now is one I must be a TV where AA you can use AI AI speakers to cancel out announcers. For example, So if you don't like a lot of people, certainly not here in Cincinnati, not fans of Chris Collinsworth, you you can have any AI take out Chris collins Worth. I don't know that's good for the future of art business.
Here my quote. Sure, if you don't like the sound of someone's voices, that's it. AI.
You can turn the commentators off in sporting events and just have the crowd noise, which is that's kind of interesting. Sometimes you really don't need it. Depending on the sport too, you really don't. Do you really need to play by play as much? I mean, look at what ESPN's done with the paytent cast right where it's not you know, you don't have the play by play games. Guys just talking about it like you're sitting around a bar or
something like that with a sound down. I suppose that's the next iteration of that, is AI noise canceled, canceling out the announcers or I guess other things that you don't want to hear during a game. I'm know you can take the crowd noise out, just hear the announce I suppose you could with AI. It's entirely possible, and at some point you think you could be able to put, you know, bring John Madden back to life and have him do the content.
Where the where the where.
AI basically takes the words of the current play by play team, and I don't know, you could have Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart call a game if you wanted to. They just used the words, but do it in their own voices. The future is limitless, it really really is. Don't know how much the AI canceling thing costs, but it's not gonna be more than the thirty k at
Chine hundred and thirty inch TV. An amazing part about that is it's, you know, as we talk about the prices of things, and I was kind of tongue and she talk about invading Columbia bring the coffee prices down. I wonder, you know, in the future, if we start looking when it comes to, you know, the cost of electron, it's like electronics if you look back.
I don't know.
I was looking at something recently.
It was kind of old school locally here and I think, like a, I don't know, twenty five state of the art nineteen seventy five or seventy seven, or or was twenty five inch color TV console, you know, the big old' common of the fake wood paneling, and it'd be like the center play piece you're living. It's like five hundred dollars for one of those TVs at twenty five inches, and now I mean, how like for five hundred dollars you can get a sixty inch TV and even bigger
for that matter, for much much cheaper. So that is one thing when it comes to electronics, the cost of that and the accessibility has become much much better than it has in the past, despite inflation and all that. And you mentioned the oil thing, and we've talked about the Venezuela and oil. I think it's interesting. You know, the idea here is we're going to have cheaper oil, and I still think I know people disagree, but you know, the whole drug thing was a pretext because we want
to get the oil. But you know, if you think about it, it's oil right now is pretty cheap. No one's really complaining about gas price. Is the one thing Trump can turn to, even though presidents generally don't have a big hand in that, is the fact that you know, gas prices have gone down since he's taken over, and I think this is probably a way politically to exacerbate that, and like, hey, look we're gonna get really serious about energy,
energy costs, an accessibility to oil. You know, we're already drilling in the golf. We open the golf back up Golf of America or Mexico if you're old school to drilling there. But the other side of that, though, is too is like, well, if gas already cheap, then what incentive do gas manufactured the people who actually go out and get the gas and drill these companies, why would they go to Venezuela. First of all, it's all up in the air. You don't have any idea what's going
to happen with the regime. And it's not like, hey, you go and it doesn't work out. It's not like putting McDonald's in Moscow. Hey it doesn't work out, we just close the store. I mean, you're talking about tens of millions, if not billions of dollars in investment just to start the process. And so if you put all that capital into Venezuela and it's up in the air as to what's going to happen with the regime there and what's going to happen, why would you take that risk?
Wouldn't you just take that money and then just invest it back into the Gulf of Mexico, the Golf of America or the premium basin in Texas. You know that's not going anywhere. And if I were oil baron which I'm not, I put my money in the known commodity. We're safe. There's a certain amount of risk just thrilling for oil. If you watch Landman, you get it. I think a decent I always talk to us. Should have got a guest come up and ask him about that.
How real Landman is. But yeah, its cost it. It's incredible on money and risky to try and drill for oil. I mean it's risky enough here in the States, in the Permian basin. It's going to be much much risk here to invest with all that money in Venezuela, considering the political climate and what the hell's going to happen.
Can't imagine. No, we're gonna do this and we're just gonna run it.
You know.
I think we're going to start taking the oil reserves out quickly.
I don't know if that's gonna happen or not quite honestly, but we shall see, we shall see. We've got news on the way in about seven eight minutes here on seven hundred WW Richard Harrison stands by with the Hamil County Water District. You hear a lot about microplastic in this time of year as we start to ramp up the news cycle again because there's really not a hell
of a lot going outside of Venezuela. You hear about a lot about microplastics and what of the fact that fiction here when it comes to our drinking water here in the Tri State for sure. So he'll jump in next later on the show, Julie Hattersheer and Scott angel Is the oil expert I was talking about and what this actually means for energy prices all to some war. We'll talk to Scott about in just a few minutes as well. Breaking news out of Cleveland this morning, Kevin
Stefanski has been fired as the Browns head coach. He goes out with a win yesterday at PEKR Stadium. So the Browns fired their head coach despite the fact they won. No word about our coach and Zach Taylor and Cincinnatian one would believe that his job is safe because I think with the I think of this organization you have if you go to the playoffs, but let alone with the Super Bowl, you're good for fifteen years. I really believe that's the case. Now you went to the Super Bowl.
Wait a year five, You're fine, No big deal, think Stefanski. I'm sure they're gonna Bengals fans going, well, what about bringing Kevin Stefanski down. He wouldn't have to change driver's license. That's true. It's a big plus because it's a pain in the butt going the d I don't care who you are, how much money you have, you got to go to the DMV yourself to change your driver's license. It could be incentive there for him to come to Cincinnati,
But how much of an upgrade really? I think you're getting an upgrade, but I don't know it could be all that much. With Stefanski, two time Coach of the Year is pretty good and as we know, it's not Zach Taylor and willing to give him a pass or sometimes simply because things have to change relative to the personnel that you draft, but also go back to what you did a few years ago free agency, hopefully to decide, hey, we're going to go in and push our chips in
the middle of the table. Now do they have the resources in the front office to get that kind of talent? Well, they have in the past, it's easier to get talent and free agency than it is to draft. And you know, with the NFL Draft coming on end to April, and it's not like we keep hearing ay, yeah, they've ad more bodies and specialists and the like in order to
assert discern which which players to get which not. So you know, we still manage to have the smallest scouting staff and all of the National Football League despite any
a few bodies, but we're woefully behind that category. That those are the things that have to change if you hope for success in the future at the Bengals, because right now it looks like that Super Bowl run was just in the AFC Championship games were lightning in a bottle, like we had a bunch of guys got you, no one saw it coming, and you were able to take over the league. Well, now the rest of league has caught up and surpassed you in so many ways, let
alone the defense. But anyway, Kevin Stefanski gone the next head coach. I don't know if you're gonna hear any more today. I would think that after the wild card run, if you get some teams that wind up losing in the wild Card rown next week weekend, you're gonna hear maybe some more coaching changes if there's some upsets in there as well. Anyway, we got all that morek to come, including news in about five here on the home of
the best Bengals coverage. Let's change that the home of the Reds seven hundred WW Cincinnati.
Do want to be an American idiot?
Twenty twenty six got so long?
But on seven hundred WW had I hope you had an enjoyable one, be it Christmas, New Years or whatever the hell does you do?
Get some downtime for you? That's good.
One of the things you don't think about, So it's a good time to I don't know, touch on these things this time of here, when it slows down a little bit, to put your little thinking hat on would be the state of our water supply.
Well, often don't think about that.
Right you turn your tap on, you have a glass of water, you make, boil, some pasta, something along the lines wherever, you don't think too much about it. As we know, for years now we have started to learn more and more about microplastics that are in our water system, and of course enough of that in you will kill you because it's a known carcinogen.
So what is the state of our water supply here in the Buckeye State.
There's been a lot with the EPA that's been made and special federally Ohio EPN or Mike and Whine did this a few years to get a study to find out where the stuff is coming from, to try and figure out the source. And if you look at a map of our local water treatment plants, we have two
big ones here. We have the Richard Miller Frank Harris Senior Treatment Plant that's the source of about oh ninety percent of our water in Cincinnati, and then the other one is the Cincinnati water Works facility I think up in the in I want to say Fairfield area too as well, that supplies some drinking water. But I don't know much about that other than I turned the foster to the shower head on and stuff comes out, and
I hope it's okay to drink and use. The guy that could tell me not to do that is Richard Harrison. He's the executive Director and chief engineer for the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission known as ARONSCO.
Richard, welcome back.
To the show.
Good to have you. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate you inviting me to join you today.
Yeah, I know this is well. I mean, I guess what comes out of the faucet. It's outside of your scope because you do more with intake in the waterways. But that's where this thing starts. If we can stop this stuff from getting into the water, it's a more cost effective solution than trying to treat it to the end. It's always the case, is whether it's this or healthcare
or anything else for that matter. But let's start with the pfas saying what do we need to know about this, where does it come from, and what are the links to our health?
Well.
PFASs is a very complex group of chemicals and the technical name for them is per and polypori alcohol substances. As you correctly noted, p FOSS is how they are known through their acronym, and they are a group of man made chemicals that are found everywhere. They're applied to many consumer goods to make them waterproof, stain resistant, or non stick. They're also used in products like cosmetics, fast food packaging, and types of firefighting foam. Specifically, something called
a triple F so they're essentially everywhere. They're very long lasting chemicals by design, they're man made chemicals, and that was the attraction to them back in the forties when these chemicals were identified and created and put together because of those tendencies that they last an extensive period of time. It can take several years for them the breakdown within our bodies. That's why there's also culled furbal chemicals.
Okay, so what happens is kind of like a lead poisoning. For example.
We know your body doesn't create a waste product for it. It accumulates, So the more you're exposed to it, the more it builds up in your body.
Absolutely, and because they can come from from anywhere, many many pathways, and of course we're talking about drinking water as one of those pathways, but certainly they come from other pathways the air, food products, again, clothing. So it's a challenge.
Well, your job is tasked with trying to prevent it from getting in the drinking water supply in the first place.
How's that going, Well, maybe we can step back and just talk about the process. So USCPA has invested a lot of resources in trying to determine how to remove these chemicals from many different sources. And we're talking about drinking water, so as we talked about the rivers and waters what we work with within the Higowa Basin. Of course, the Higher River is the largest body of water. They're
approaching this from several different directions. Of course, drinking water is one which we're talking about to day, but also there's something called the Clean Water Act, so we're talking about the Safe Drinking Water Act, and we talked about maximum contaminate levels and regulations for utilities. But also when you talk about the Clean Water Act, you're talking about the sources of water, and we talk about making water fishable, swimmable,
and drinkable. And that's ensuring that the Higher River and other surface waters are suitable for fish being able to live and survive bugs, macro verbrates, but also for human health we consume fish, and also the utilities have to have a water supply that is safe, so that's a
whole other area. We're expecting to have draft criteria for the surface waters for human health later this summer, and that's really when Orsenko we'll get more involved with our partner states to really figure out what's next?
All right?
So we should people be freaking out about this.
I mean, it's been it's you said, it's been the better ren since the forties, and it's taken a while for getting our drinking water. And it's probably a case where our equipment and our testing abilities have gotten much much better, more granular, if you will. And so we're now we're seeing stuff we never could see before. But we know that this is a known cursin egen, that it causes some bad things to happen within the human body, and obviously we want to prevent that as well. But
how concerned should we be? Do you drink out of the water the water you're talking about? You turning your faucet on, you're drinking tap? Are you doing doing bottle?
Richard?
I do tap? So I used to be the vice president of engineering, production and Distribution for North Kentucky Water District, one of the large utilities on the High River. And we're very fortunate that Kentucky Water District. Then, of course, gar used to state water works to the majority of their water adds grainuar activated carbon treatments to their process and that has been shown to be very effective. Ever, removing carbon.
But I drink tap water.
I feel very comfortable with it. A lot of discussion here is about overall risk. These compounds are everywhere. I'm very proud to be part of a water resource sector that works so hard to protect our drinking water supply in our river. So I think it's a matter of risk and balancing risk, and there's a lot we don't know. There are over let's see here. Let me make sure
I give you the right information. But we're talking about over one hundred and sixty million chemicals are known through the World Health Organization, about eighty five thousand of these USCPA lists on the Inventory of substances through the Toxic Substances Control Act. There are over four thousand pifoss chemicals in less than one hundred are regulated through MCL. So this is extremely complex. You covered it very well when
you mentioned we're learning more. We now know that through EPA toxicity studies that there's actually more p huss in rain water than is considered to be protective in terms of human health. And so this is very complex. So there's a lot we don't know, and it's a matter of just balancing risk. We all pay for this response through as customers. So we're customers of wonderful water utilities, wastewater utilities, and it's just a matter of how much
investment goes into this and benefit costs ratios. So this is very complex, but it's certainly not something I'm losing sleepover, but it is important that we continue to understand these chemicals and remove them at the sources if possible.
Well, that's the key, because it goes in the rain water, then that goes to water our crops, the food that we eat goes into our drinking water through groundwater, through the rivers and streams, et cetera, et cetera. Richard Harrison, active Director and Chief Engineer for the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission ARONSCO is what they're called. These are the folks who test our drinking water. And there's concern over something called pifos p fas, and those are basically
microplastics that accumulate in your body. So plastics do break down to some degree that gets in the drinking water and it's so fine that the filtration systems in the carbon it doesn't catch that, and it builds up in your body over time and it's a known carcinogen. We don't know the long term I mean, I guess we do know the long long term effects. But that is the current target now for water treatment people like Richard to try and eliminate that from our water system, if
that's indeed possible. Now, Ohio, we're still pretty good considering other states New Jersey probably manufacturing and military, Michigan more automotive manufacturing, and therefore you have a lot of chemicals that are in the groundwater supply, which is why they're seeing levels that are over the top.
Here in Ohio not as much.
However, I will say that I was looking at two of our bigger plants here, the Harris Treatment plant to ge it provides about ninety percent of Cincinnati's water. They didn't find any measurable levels there, But if you go up to Fairfield, the plant there said they were almost in the danger zone. It's really not that far away as far as distance goes. But how do you describe the disparity one plant showing no results the other one. The Neil's moving pretty well well, Skot.
You talked a little bit earlier in our conversation about the technology and the level of detections. What I find fascinating is through uscpa's research, and to be clear or Senko does not work in the toxicology end of things.
We work in the monitoring response to skills. I spoke with you last year about our response to these Palestine chemical train derailment still and so our area is working on the water quality and one of the challenges we have is now UCPA has determined that the levels of these are in the parts for quadrulean, and the technology to actually measure these are into parts of petroleum. So we're trying to find these and levels that are a thousand times more stringent then we can actually measure them.
So it is something that is a challenge. And so when you talk about disparities between cretent plants, it's important to understand that when USCPA puts together these types of regulations, they're looking at a lifetime risk and it's based upon an average person around one hundred and fifty pounds, which I certainly am over that, but they're looking at consuming a half gallon of water every day over seventy years and a one in a million increase in cancer risk.
And we're very fortunate to have this type of work to protect us from a risk standpoint, But it is important to understand what goes into these types of calculations and they are determined in a way to be very protective of human hell, so the variations, you know, we're talking about parts petrillion, it's really difficult to even measure these below four parts petrilliu in terms of accuracy. And so this is an evolving science and we're only talking
about a handful out of four thousand pfus chemicals. So it's something that there'll be more work in this USCPA every five years does what they.
Call a.
Contaminant monitoring process the Safe Drinking Water Act, and there's over twenty of these being looked at in the current ones. So this is an ongoing effort.
Richard Harrison, what may ask, are we just trying to scare people the compliance and you're telling me the equipment we have can't even measure and the great greatest detail of what this stuff is in our bodies. I mean, let's face it, the air that we breathe, the milk that we drink, the food we consume, it all has something toxic in it. I mean, you know there's arsenic in our food, but it's trace amounts. There's rat poop in your cheerios, but it's trace amounts. Is any different.
I'm very proud to work in a field that is so protective. USCPA follows the law to say Drinking Water Act when they put this together. I'm not the right person to talk about toxic coology. I will say that risk is a question and it's something that we have to look at. They're doing their job, they're looking at the science as where they's drinking water. But as you say, there is risk from everything, and so just the water infrastructure.
You know, I always like to say every dollar we invest as customers in a new regulation makes it harder to put that dollar in replacement of water bots. And so it's something that is very complex and we all have to be engaged in this. We have to understand it. We're the ones that are paying for this through our rates as customers, and I'm knowing working with our utilities, we're lucky to have incredible drinking water utilities in our areas. So I'm not going to touch a political question. That's
not where our sinker gets gets involved. But it's a fair question to talk about the overall risk and just balancing.
That because you hear this stuff and people usually it's new parents start freaking out about this stuff and they start washing there.
You know, they have their dishwasher.
Water coming out of a giant bottle of Desani and it's cost prohibitive and everything else. If I use like a Britta filter on top of my tap water, does a Britta filter take this stuff out or reverse osmosis?
Well, I won't talk about Britta because it's a brand name, but I will say that there are filters that can be added if if folks want to do that, they can. They can certainly contact their their doctors if they're if they're concerned about this. So keep in mind that the SDA currently is not regulating bottle of water for pifoss and so this is very complex. I would I would just talk to folks in which I'm doing, and just that it's all. It's all about balance, it's understanding how
complex this is. And USCPA is doing their job, or State EPA is Ohio EPA, Kentucky Divisional Water, Indiana Department Environment Management, they all work within this area. They're they're working as hard as they can on this and This is complex and it's all about managing risk in safety and following the lulls that that we we have approved through Congress, say Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Acting. So
that's what USCPA is trying to do. They would have they would be the ones to talk to you about all the science behind it. This is very complex.
Scott, Yeah, yeah.
I mean, if if you're so inclined, you know, you could do a filter system. I use the word britt of because it's like clean X or Jello. It's a it's a brand name that's become common. And I look at this and go, okay, yeah, look at the risk. Listen to what you had to say. You know, you're drinking the tap water. You see this stuff under a microscope.
We don't. And if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me.
I sleep well knowing that the drinking water being policed by yourself, people like yourself, and you're more at the source end. We talked during the East Palestine disaster about the plume that was traveling down the Ohio River. You guys had it all timed out saying, oh, we're tracking it. Everything's good.
It moved out. It dissipated and all is well at this point too.
So if you want to lose sleep over this and get down a rabbit hole, I'm sure there's stuff online that'll scare the hell out of you. However, it is safe to say that most of us aren't one hundred and fifty pounds. I would like to talk next to if you, I'm gonna have Richard as a guy who sets the average weight for Americans because I think he's a little drunk.
Well that's that's the science behind develop these criterias. But I'm not near one hundred and fifty pounds.
I just flew.
I just flew, and there are maybe two people on the plane there were one hundred and fifty pounds, and it included the toddlers.
So yeah, well, I mean it's true.
So what you're saying is if you weigh more, then you can absorb, you can absorb more p foss or is that true or.
I'm not gonna really say that. What I'm saying is the background that USCPA uses to complete their studies, and so it's important to understand when criteria put out it's it's based on a specific methodology that they follow from a science basis.
I was trying to make an excuse and say, see that's the upside to obesity. You can.
Richard Harrison, the executive director, is the chief engineer at the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission. He's the guy policing our water sources in and around Ohio and elsewhere. And Richard, I appreciate you coming on the show. I know I didn't want you talking out over your skis a little bit there. I asked you some questions that were outside of your scope, but I appreciate you coming on and trying to give us a basic understanding whether or not our drinking water is safe.
And it sounds like it is always a pleasure. Scott, take care.
Thank you once again, and we've got a news update in just minutes. Here our first Mental Health Monday update. Julie Hattershar's next Scott's loan seven hundred w. Everyone needs he every now and then, and she'sier to help us get our heads right.
This is Mental Health Monday with Mental health expert Julie Hattershire. Yeah, first one of the new year.
Here we are on the fifth day of January and the resolutions have been gone for four and a half days. It's awesome. Four and a half days, Julie, welcome back. How are you, my friend?
Hey, I'm great. Happy New Year.
Yeah, it's just too hard to do those resolutions, lose the way to exercise, like, yeah, you know what, I'm good? Well, yeah, what you feel like at this point too? Being the fifth of January, the year's almost over.
So till twenty twenty why bother?
Yeah, yeah, you know, I'll start fresh twenty twenties up?
Why not?
That's the big I don't know how many people actually do resolutions or try to stick to them, but it's our old friend will power. Willpower is a tough mother, isn't it.
Will Power is really hard. It's you know, it is easy to start to lose focus on things over the course of a day or a week, and will power and making decisions consistently is hard. So one of the things that I thought we could talk about today is what you should put sort of on autopilot and create habits around and what you should maybe be more intentional and mindful about, because you can't be intentional and mindful about everything, all right?
So what does that mean?
Well, so there's this concept called decision fatigue, and we all wake up with a certain amount of energy every day and it varies, right, But the more decisions we have to make over the course of a day, the more it becomes difficult to make another decision. Just like you know, it's a muscle that you use. The more you work your muscle, sometimes the harder it becomes to
continue to do that. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about was what are the kinds of things that you should build habits around that you should put on autopilot and give very little thought to, And what are the things that it makes sense to be more careful and more mindful about and optimize for because you can't put everything on autopilot, and you certainly
can't be mindful and optimized for everything. And if you can decide what to do what with, then that helps keeping whatever your resolutions are or reaching whatever your goals are, that helps make that a little bit easier.
Okay, all right, so let's start with that jump in. Take me through that.
Okay, So okay, So.
What we know about building habits is that it takes a few weeks for your brain to wire an activity into a habit. The timeline varies, but let's just say.
A few weeks.
And so if we think of things like most of us brush our teeth at least a couple of times a day in the morning and before we go to bed. This is not something we think about.
We just do this.
That's the kind of habit that we want to build around some things, and it takes a few weeks to be able to do that. So if one of your resolutions, and for many people it is, is to become more physically fit, then what you probably need to consider doing and is building a routine of building a habit around going to the gym or getting up and working out, or going after work and working out, whatever your plan is, and start doing that consistently for several weeks until it
becomes automatic. You don't think about it anymore. You're not wondering whether you're.
Going to go.
You've already got your gym bag passed, your clothes laid out, you're ready to rock and roll. And then you've automated that. You don't have to think about it anymore. So now you have brain power and energy for other things.
All right, well, that makes sense, right, You lay your clothes out, the day before, so you're ready to go. It's one last thing you've got to make an excuse for the day of, like, oh, I can't find my shoes wherever they are, so I'll just skip it today. But if it's all ready to go, then you wake up and you know you can focus on other things.
That makes sense exactly so often. Another one that people have is they want to eat healthier throughout the week, and so one of the things that can be really helpful is to come up with ten or twelve dinners that you know you like, that you have easy ingredients for, and that you know fit your lifestyle and your family's tastes, and put those on rotation. So you just run through that list. If it's tacos on Tuesday, then it was on you on Thursday, then it's something else on Sunday.
You just run through the list. You don't have to wonder what you're going to make. You don't have to wonder whether you have the ingredients. You keep everything on hand, and you just roll through that. And if you do ten or twelve over the course of a month, since most people don't eat home every night of the month, you're probably only going to have that meal a couple of times a months, and if it's something you like, that's not a bad thing. But you've automated the dinner process.
Okay, Well, what about if your problem is portion control? Are you just going to eat all five beers in one night?
Now? What do you do?
Smart?
Ask?
Give me an answer to that.
That's where you need to be more mindful. That's one of those decisions, one of those situations where you need to be a little more careful and you need to think how much should I actually eat? How hungry am I? Truly? What have I had over the course of my day
to day. But if you don't have to autumn, if you don't have to think about all of the things you're doing over the course of the day, then you have more brain power for the things that actually require some willpower, some decision making, some care.
And some thought.
Okay, Or you could just maybe prepackage the portions up and then do it that way too.
Exactly exactly, and a lot of people do that. They do meal prep for breakfast and lunch, They prepackage everything. Some people do it for dinner as well, and then there's your meal, it's already done. You don't have to think about it, and so that's one less thing you have to think about, so you can focus on other things, put your energy toward other things that actually make a positive impact on your life or help you reach your goals.
Okay, but when we know that that pattern setting takes about what good thirty to forty days or something like that.
True, Yeah, it takes a few weeks. It depends on the pattern and depends on how quickly you adapt, but it takes a few weeks. And what we know is that once the brain has that pattern set, it can be really difficult to break, which is why sometimes we need to be careful and mindful about the things that we already have on autopilot and we need to maybe take a look at them and say, is this actually serving my goals and my needs? Is this really the best way to do it? So, for example, I tend
to drive to work the same way every day. It uses a highway. Sometimes it's full and packed and crowded, and sometimes it's not. There actually is a better way for me to get to work. I just don't do it. So I need to be more mindful about optimizing my drive to work and less habitual about that so that I end up getting there faster and with less stress.
Part of this too, you know, as much as creatures and habits, our brains actually like some sense of not like a new challenge they.
Do, and brains are energy conserving, they want to do things the easiest possible way. But our reward centers are Dopamine, which is our reward center of our brain likes new challenges, It likes rewards, It likes accomplishment, it likes to be engaged, and it likes novelty, and so we tend to crave that as much as we tend to crave habitual expectable results.
And so it's a balance between what are we going to reward our brain with dopamine for and what are we going to automate so that we have more energy and more time available to do the things that actually are rewarding to us. Yes, our brains crave.
Novelty, all right, So we've got to tap into that element. But again, after three or four repetitions, or maybe a couple of weeks, it becomes a pattern. You just kind of fall into it. So it's interesting the way you describe that, though it's all set up to succeed, and yet we continue to fail.
Why is that?
Because I think to some extent, we are habitualizing the wrong things and rewarding the habitualizing and rewarding the wrong things. So if we look at social media, for example, social media is something that many of us habitually go to when we have any downtime on our hands at all, rather than doing something that might be productive in our lives. We scroll, we doom scroll, we Facebook, we instagram, we whatever.
There are rewards associated with that. We get the dopamine hits of the quick fixes of information and pictures and engagement, but it actually doesn't serve us very well. So we've got the habit of going to social media. It has the rewards associated with it, but it isn't actually serving our goals, our development, our life in any significant way. Although the social media gurus would hate to hear me say that.
That's true, it's true.
And often the ones that are going to be better for you are not ones is enjoyable social media or I don't know, drinking or eating, whatever it might be. What are your habits, you know, sitting down a TV and mindless eating a bag of cheetos for example, that's a tough habit to break, it.
Is, and that's tough because it's got the reward associated with the flavor of the cheetos and the mindlessness of the TV. But it's got the habitual thing that that's what they do when I get home from work, I grab a bag of cheetos, they sit down in front of the TV, or a crack a beer. I open a bottle of wine and pour myself a glass. A minute I walk in the door. That's the habit part of it, and the reward part of it is the wine,
the cheetos, the TV, the beer, whatever. And so when those two things combine, when you've got the habitual and the reward, it becomes very difficult to break because the mindlessness of the habit makes it just happen before you've even thought about it, and the reward.
Keeps you coming back for more nature.
So it's about understanding which one you need to tackle first. Do you tackle the reward first, remove the reward, or do you tackle the habitual part. Remove the habit and make it a more mindful thing, make it harder to get the cheetos right right?
Okay, it just sounds like kind of This is what high level athletes do, right, is that.
You know the automating, the healthy habits it becomes you know, you practice and practice and practice. For example, golf swing could be throwing a football whatever, and then in a game situation, you don't think about it just automatically happens exactly.
So let's use golf swing for an example. So most I don't play golf, but I know a lot of people who do, and I know that you do. Have you ever changed your grip or tried to change your swing all the time?
I hate my game, okay, okay, and so I think I need a psychologist actually probably more than a code.
At first, that's a really hard thing to do, and it feels really awkward and it doesn't feel natural or and it doesn't seem to work at first. And then the longer you stick with it, the more you build the habit, the more practice you build in, the more automated and muscle memory it becomes, the more effective and fluid. Ideally your swing or your grip becomes. If not, then you change it again, but ideally you practice it and it becomes and then it becomes automatic. Then you don't
have to think about it. Then you have taken that decision making and that thought process out of it. It's now muscle memory. You can just swing. So that's an example of taking something that is new, doing it often enough that it becomes ahead of it, and then you don't have to think about that. You can think about other things to do with your golf game.
That's it.
You know, I've spoken so elchoin from someone who doesn't golf. You just don't understand how easy and important to get in your own head.
It's one they go, well, your.
Practice and practice you just become second nature and you just go out there and then no, you don't. You sit there and you obsess about every little thing in your swing and your back swing and your grip and all these things, and it totally closed your head and you're shank into the woods.
Actually, I do know that I was married to the golfer for a long time and I know a lot of them. It is it is a game that gets in your head, isn't it. And so the more that you can habitualize and ritualize things, because this is another thing that all leave lead athletes do. They ritualize things. You see it all the time when guys go up to do free throws in basketball, they have their little routine.
They bounce it, bounce it, spin in their hands, bounce it, bounce it, throw And that's how they set their body up to know what's going to happen. And I'm sure you do that in your golf game too, when you get up to the te to address the ball, you do the things, wiggle your feet, you do whatever it is you do to get your body ready to do what it knows it needs to do next. And so the more you can really allow for that to happen, the freer your brain can become. But I'm not saying
it's easy. I'm just saying it's possible.
Right Well, this time of year, Julie hattersh here comes down and talking about mental health.
It comes down to.
For most people, diet and exercises are two big ones. And it may be I don't know, coming up being better about money, for example, use that one as an office that one. All right, We always talk about diet and exercise, and it's no one how many people it comes a habit. You like to ride peloton and those and it becomes you know, it becomes a habit after a while, but it's hard at first. But there's a physical thing. What about something like like being better financially, How does that work well.
One of the things that you can do to help yourself be better financially is to automate a lot of your financial processes so that you don't have to talk. So you can automate money going directly into a savings account from your paycheck or from your bank account. You can automate having your bills paid so that you don't have to touch them. You can automate some things coming out of your checking account instead of going on your credit cards, so you don't have a big credit card
bill at the end of the month. The less you have to actually think about it, the more systems you set up, the better. James clear who wrote this really wonderful book, Atomic Habits, and he's a guy, he's a local guy, he's from Hamilton. He says, we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems, which I love. I just think that's a brilliant thing to say. And so the more systems you set up to take care of these things for you, the less inclined you are and the less
able you will be to impulsively buy something. If you don't have the money in your bank account, you're less inclined to impulsively buy it. If you have a lower limit on your credit cards and you can ask them to lower your credit card limit, the less inclined you are to impulsively buy something big. So you can set up systems to guard rail your spending choices, if that's something that you want to work on in the coming year.
Very interesting.
She's Julie Hattershare, license, mental health therapist here in Sinncia. It's mental Health Monday, first one this new year, and this one is about patterns and failure and how to come up with something that's going to stick in the new year, regardless of it is because willpower does fade.
But if you are like an athlete that I'll say practice is that free throw over and over and over again once you get out to play it actually said, it's so ingrained in your pattern to behavior automatically do things, and you can't apply that to the rest of your life. What's things like healthy habits for example, So what happens when automatic fails? Though there are times where you have things set on autopilot and all of a sudden it just doesn't work for you anymore.
What about that?
Well, then maybe you need to reevaluate if that was, If that still is the right autopilot for you to have, maybe you need to take a look. This is a time that you may need to take a more mindful look at something you've consistently done habitually. Is that actually the best way to do it now? Maybe it served me then whatever then was, Maybe it doesn't serve me now, So take a look, evaluate, assess what other options there might be, see what else might work better for you.
Make some changes, and you will be able to do that more easily because you freed up mental energy and time from automating and sort of habitualizing and ritualizing other things in your life that you can say, Okay, this's working, and now this isn't making sense for me anymore, So what can I do differently? How can I take a look at doing that? And you'll have experience to back that up. You can take a look at what other options you might have and see if any of them
would be better for you. Not everything works all the time. It's not a question of you set it and leave it. But you set it and leave it until it doesn't work for you anymore, and then you reevaluate and say, what could I be doing differently going forward from here?
Okay, sounds easier said than done. Julie had or share that license?
Well it is.
It's easy to say.
Licensed metal health therapist out of Clifton at be Connected dot care. You can reach her if you've got a maybe a subject for a future conversation, idea problem you're having. Hey, Julie at the letter B that's be Connected at dot care. She joins to show Monday Mornings on metal Health Monday. All the best, Thanks again, looking forward to a great new year, me too, be well with news on the way in just a couple of minutes when to return. At eleven oh seven, Scott Angeel is here. He's from
the Bayu. He's an oil man himself, oil expert. And what does this venezuela mean? Venezuela mean? Okay, So we're going to run the country, presumably to get oil out of the ground, which has already been stated by the President, Marco Ruby and everyone else. And we're going and take those resources out outside of managing the country, which is a whole different beast entirely. Let's say we actually do that. What incentive is there for oil companies to go to Venezuela?
I mean think about this way. You have the premium basin here in the United States, uh, and we know that's not going anywhere whereas with Venezuela if the political wins shift, if we don't do what we think we want to do or have the the FRUI should do that make it come to fruition. Are these companies going to go there and invest tens of billions of dollars for something they might not get a return on investment.
And with oil prices being as well as they are right now, is there incentive for oil companies to go to Venezuela and do with the President hopes.
A lot of questions.
He has the answers for you coming up after news update next Scott'sland showing the home of the best Bengals coverage. By the way, Mike Brown, if you have not heard, releasing a statement just a little while ago saying that the focus of the team is building a consistent competitive ball club and after thoughtful consideration, he writes, I'm confident that Duke Tobin and Zach Taylor are the right leaders to goud US forward. They've proven they can build and
league teams and compete for championships. We take a hard look at everything we do as your approach US off season with determination to build a championship caliber roster that wins consistently. From the words of Mike Brown, Bengals President, Duke Tobin and Zach Taylor. On going anywhere. With the news that Kevin Stefanski has been fired by Cleveland, take that what you will. Scott's Loan seven hundred WWT Since.
Nat do you want to be an American?
Scott's Loan Shows seven hundred wlwshow. With the US forced regime change and the arrest of Maduro, President Trump said the US is going to run Venezuela and oil companies are going to enter the country to the start rebuilding their oil drilling infrastructure and begin selling oil at even cheaper prices. Only problem is oil is still relatively cheap. What does this all this mean? Scott Igiel is down
on the Bayou this morning in Louisiana. He's with USA Energy Worker's former Lieutenant Governor of the Great State of Louisiana.
Scott, welcome back. How you been happy new year?
I am great. It is good to hear you, boy Scott's Spector.
Shout out to Cincinnati, appreciate all the good work you're doing and happy to join the show this morning.
What happened to your guy Joe Burrow this year? By the way, Well, you know.
If you could get me an offensive line over there in Cincinnati, we could get you a two rings.
We can't do everything for you.
Can you give me an offensive line?
Brother? I just need some.
Well, you got yone.
You know, you got Chase and you got Burrow. Generally you go to the playoffs it's just those two. But you've got a thousand yard rusher. We've got a guy named t Higgins who's pretty damn good as well. And explain to me how the hell you can't make the playoffs with that lineup?
Yeah, I know, I'll tell you, boy.
We uh you know we we uh we I'll think over here, but I'll tell you what when the when the Bengals on.
Uh, It's it's hard to pull against Joe Burrow.
What a tremendous individual that brought a lot of credibility and fame to l issue with that undefeated national championship run. We'll wish you all the best there in Cincinnati. We know we got some great days coming. Jose Oh Warrior, he just stood and don't give up. A great days ahead for Cincinnati Bengals, no doubt.
All right, Scott, let's get down to it. We take Maduro out. He's actually in uh. I guess it could be a rain. He's being ranked today as a matter of fact as we speak. But now this opens things up in Venezuela as far as oil companies go. The only problem with this logic, I think from your perspective here keeping the pollics out, but keeping the it's about money, it's about oil, and let's just say that it was a pretext the drugs, a pretext to get the oil.
But with oil prices as low as they are right now, is there incentive for us, you know, drillers and these big companies to go into Venezuela considering the political climate there, because you're talking about you know, billions and billions of dollars. Is that why it's hard to find someone to go in there right now, because they don't know what the future is going to bring us in it just safe for to invest in the permium basin here in the United States.
Yeah, I think that's right.
I think at the end of the day, right business or capital is deployed where capital is pret well, where there's stability and there's an opportunity for a return. And when you look at a third world country like Venezuela, you often want to whether or not that American dollar can can flow there and get a return. So look, I think there's a lot of headlines out there about oil, about drugs and about running.
Venezuela and all that.
We'll see a haul that wolves out and that will, you know, unfold here in several than several months. Let me just say this, much that you know, Venezuelan and oil is not showing up in the market in America tomorrow, even by the summertime. What I can tell you is that what we have witness in this country in twenty twenty five is what we call the Great Energy Pivot of twenty twenty five. We have seen a country go
from energy defense to energy offense. We've seen this country begin to embrace all forms of energy and bring back some common sense to energy policy. And that's credible because not only is it good for USA energy workers, it's absolutely great for the American consumer. Right the current average of gasline right now about twenty and eighty one cents.
A year ago was three h six.
It's much lower than the record break and higher that we saw at and twenty and twenty two. So look, what I would say is that Venezuela is a big asterisk,
and we'll see how they're unfolds. Our focus continues to be on the deployment of capital, as you say, in the Permian Basin, in Alaska, in California, in Oklahoma, in Ohio, in Louisiana, where we know that we've experienced six recessions from nineteen seventy three to twenty nineteen in this country, and all of them have been preceded by spiking energey prices.
So if you want to get.
An economy rolling, job one is to make sure you have access to affordable energy. Nobody does it better than the Red, White, and Blue. And look, Ohio was a perfect example. I mean, you top ten in gas, you top ten in ukula, you top ten in electricity, or how do you get it? And not only do you consume a lot, but you actually export some of that.
To other states.
So we're proud of what Ohio does for the nation when it comes to energy. Our football seasons, both for you and me, this year didn't go like we wanted, but we're still proud of our energy forces, Right.
Scott, I deal with the USA energy workers and what's happening in Venezuela and how that relates to the US markets here at least US operations when it comes to drilling. I think that is it, Chevron. I believe you tell me that they they've been in there for like one hundred years in Venezuela. But get in the money from these other companies, from the Exons, from the Chinical phillips Is of the world, the Haliburtons of the world. It seems to me you just keep that money in the
United States in those companies. Notorious. You know there's a break even point right now you can talk more about this is that you know, we want cheap gas, but not too cheap because it's awfully expensive to get that out of the ground. So there's got to be a profit margin and a profit margin for you guys. And so if we saturate the world with Venezuela. With cheaper oil, there's no incentive to drill and invest that money.
Right, Well, look, I think you make some good points, and clearly, you know we would say is that none of us, none of us want cheap energy.
We all want affordable energy.
Access to affordable energy is the key, and there is a balance there, right, and the market will always find that balance.
At the USA Energy Workers we always speak.
To the balance of the three e's. We believe there are three important e's, much like a three legged bar stool that we have to focus on when it comes to domestic energy policy. Obviously, energy resources is one of those e's. Environment nobody does it better than the red, white, and blue, so obviously we're going to do it better for the environment here, then we're going to do it in other places. And then of course the economy. You know, the environmental E is blue, the energy the energy is red.
The economic E is purple. It's not red or blue, it's purple and cloves across all states. And we believe when American policy balances those three e's, we end up with some really strong results. Again, we experienced that in twenty twenty five with the pivot from all of government war on domestic energy, to all of government's support or domestic energy. And one of the things that happened, you know, late last year that I think they list and would be interested in, is that we had a lease sale
in the Gulf of America. It was the first le sale we had this twenty twenty three. It was mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill. It's referred to as Big Beautiful Gulf one lease sale. It had a lot of interest. It generated propertly two hundred and eighty million dollars in hot bid across one hundred and eighty one blocks.
The Gulf of America has traditionally represented about one in every six barrels of oil produced in America for over half a century, you know, Scott, both presidents of both parties have embraced the Gulf of America as a significant part of the American energy portfolio. We want to do more, We can do more. We think this administration is headed in the right direction, kind of taking off some of
the change that have held us back yere. And so we're looking forward to this twenty twenty six in a big way.
Yeah, And that was part of the two in December last year you had the Golf of America off shore lease sale and the first so I think we had in a couple of years mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill. As you said too in the Golf, how many more of those leases are going to become available?
Well, you know what, what basically the One Big Beautiful Bill did is mandated thirty different leaf tales into the future. So again, leasdale is an event, uh, that that is scheduled, that is public public is it has to go through a variety of environmental reviews to be able to get there.
Uh.
But in the past we kind of left some of that up to the administration. And I think we found out that in the previous administration was playing games, if you would, with with lease sales. And so the Big Beautiful Bill just kind of came in and mandated native the law that you got to have.
These lead sales.
So they will be a significant amount of lease sales that happened not only in the go but it will happen in the Pacific and as well as the Artic and and that's good, that's good news for American consumer. Again, one of the things that we you know, we we like to repeat when we talk to our national audience, is that there are no wealthy, low energy.
Consuming nations on the planet.
Let me repeat that there are no wealthy, low energy consuming nations on the planet. Got it in a lot of ways, In a lot of ways, Scott's energy consumption has become a proxy for human prosperity, and so having access to affordable energy just means that's obviously they had much more prosperity available and uh and again here on
the Golf Coast. But we believe that every state has a role to make this union as great as it can be, and the Golf Coast we certainly recognize that one of our roles, in addition to having a good time here, is to make sure that this country has the energy in need. And you know, whether it's Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, we highly focus and we kick and.
Ask he's Scott a gild USA energy workers on the show this morning, And obviously to take over Venezuela and the oil operations there, and that's a long time coming. By the way, I don't think you can find anyone who's well. You can always find people are angry that we topp up a durero. But the pretext it was
about drugs, and it's actually about oil. And in this case, though, it's kind of like you made a case for not invading Venezuela and taking over oil because you said, what, we're getting thirty leases that are going to be available to oil producers. That's less incentive than for them to invest in Venezuela.
Well, look, I believe, probably contrary to some of the pubalic comments, I really believe this was about drugs.
I do really believe that that is.
Being played out in the media in different ways. But I do believe that this was about the importation of drugs into society of America that is absolutely ruining a generation and making it very difficult for families. And So while there's again a lot of comments and it's about oil, it's about just about this. I personally believes that there is no substitute for the USA energy worker. There's no
substitute for real strong energy production from this country. We've seen it this look, this country is not going to forget the lessons of early seventies where we got ourselves in position to rely on foreign producers, and we saw what happened in my nineteen seventy three with the Arab oil ago and and we learned that lesson, and we quickly went from being a slack producer to the number one producer in the in the world. Today America is
the number one oil producer in the world. Okay, and this I believe our country has learned that lesson, and we are not going back to those days certainly. Look, I think you know, getting rid of anyone who imports drugs into this country for for kids, uh, and for their own self wealth is a detriment to society.
So for that, uh, I'm pleased to see that.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, I agree it destroys society, but I mean the bulk of the drugs aren't coming from Venezuela.
But you know, it.
Does, it does.
I would say also on this one, Scott angel is that maybe this, you know, if it works out, and as we know, it often doesn't, but sometimes it does. And that is regime change at the hands of the United States is uh. In three years, if we have a foothold there, it's gonna be awfully tough for the
next administration to unravel that. If it's a democratic one, it's a Republican fine, but if the Democratic when unravel that probably not that kind of hedges our bats a little bit in having a stronghold here in the West in Venezuela when it comes to uh a source of energy, a sense of oil which you're going to need for the next hundred plus years.
Yeah.
Look, at the end of the day, right when we all recognize that access to affordable energy is good for the American consumer, we all win. We experienced it in twenty five. We absolutely believe that, you know, this White
House is headed in the right direction. And when it comes to focusing on American energy policy that I think if you write the story of twenty twenty five, one of the things that really comes out to meet Scott is that getting energy policy fixed was job worn because once we fix the energy policy, because the experts tell us about forty percent of overall inflation is driven by
energy inflation. So we saw what happened when energy is in twenty twenty five, we also saw that inflation was reduced, not to where we want it to be, but it certainly is reduced, and we saw interest rates come down. So job one focus on American energy, we believe, was the right call, we've seen it, execute it, and we believe we're not going to forget those lessons in twenty twenty sixty.
Yeah, that's the oil ement.
I believes that those other legs of that still right, which be natural gas, It would be other things like that too, But it seems to me is transmission as the other issue hit and getting it from point A to point B producing it. But we know the strain on our energy grid. For example, we know that the Keystone XL pipeline was shut down and now restarted under Trump.
That will definitely help to reduce if it's not already reducing oil prices, gas prices at that But infrastructure seems to be the bottleneck, no doubt.
I'm glad you brought that up, because we've had this incredible, I think bottleneck permitting infrastructure that we need in this country. And again, I think there was this mindset that, you know, energy wasn't necessary, that we were going to maybe we had begun to accept that we're going to get all of our energy.
From the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.
And I think there's starting to be some realization that you know, hey, we don't make these investments. We started up having serious issues and so the grid does have a bottlenecks. I do believe that there's a couple of things that happened that's very important to getting the big beautiful Bill provided some relief on infrastructure.
Also, the Supreme Court.
Decision, I think it's called seven Counties Eagle County versus Seven Counties Infrastructure. That was a significant decision coming at a Supreme Court. The executive order that created or get created the National declared the National Energy Emergency, the creation
of the National Indidominance Council. I think you can expect twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven to be absolute record years, record years on the capital that's deployed in infrastructure development, because I believe that the capital deployers have the confidence that this country is fixing its bottlenecks. One of the other things is going through Congress right now, something called the Speed Act, which is designed again to
remove some of the bureaucratic bureaucratic holes. And you know, folks have a hard time when they put together a business plan and it's a big and dollar business plan, and it takes on certain mouthstone and those milestones get get delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed, and nineteen years later you're still waiting for a permit. That's no way to run a business. There's no one way to provide affordable energy to American consumers. So you absolutely right.
I'm glad you brought it up. A lot of bottle necks on the grid. Looked for twenty twenty sixth and twenty twenty seven to be extremely strong with the deployment of capital to start removing some of those bottle necks.
Well see how it shakes out on the home front. Things are good. We'll find out. Venezuela now an outlier. But Scott Einshiel is with USA Energy workers down on the Bayou. And thanks again for the time. It's always Scott, all the best.
Thank you so much, and good luck for you in twenty twenty six.
You too, You as well, my friend. I'm sure we'll talk again soon. You know, as he was talking, there was so thinking about the demand, and it was the stupidest thing that the Hubris, the previous administration, had about forcing electric vehicles on people. Hybrids are where it's at, and we said no, no, we don't want that because that's gas. We can't have gasoline. Got to go right to electric, and we saw what happened. It kind of
collapsed upon itself. Not that there's you know, electric cars are going to go, evs are going to go anywhere, but certainly trying to force people and pushing that agenda didn't work out most people. Most people who drive, you know, drive a significant amount of miles in the United States outside of the big cities, and you know, the ryal leveluild of having to charge something every so often, it's still a lot of pilling despite the incredible range that
these cars have. At the same time, you know, people want SUVs and bigger vehicles now, I think largely because the roads suck. I think if you want people to become more you know from the environmentalists, to go to all electric, which poses its own problems.
But we need more.
We need wider, bigger and better roads. Uh so you know, every every pothole doesn't feel like your teeth are going to get knocked out. Just my two cents anyway, quick time out more to follow slowly on seven hundred w O got to flow show seven hundred WIWD slide in the first one Shower of twenty six or a lot of people, and I want to talk about generally, it's so sports related about this time. And Cleveland knocks off
the Bengals yesterday twenty eighteen. Bengals fall to six and eleven, and I, for one, am happy the Bengals lost yesterday. James Rapeat is here from SI's Bengals Talk dot Com in the Lockdown Bengals podcast.
James welcome.
I said, yes, I'm glad the Bengals lost because I hate the tired narrative where our teams go on a streak once the season is out of reach, once the postseason's out of reach, and they talk about, well we got something to build on for next year. That is the stupidest, most excuse ridden concept ever. I'm glad they lost, so you go, listen, blow this thing up and fix.
It, right, you did it?
I do.
I totally understand that. I think I hope they knew regardless that they weren't close. But now you look at it and you lose to Vat Brown's team with Jill Burrow, which just shouldn't happen. I mean, it really is an embarrassing loss, and you have to look in the mirror and say we were five hundred with Joe Burrow. You know, we were three and three with Joe Burrow, right and after he came back to be clear. Yeah, so a tough cover swallow for sure, no no.
Doubt about it.
I look at a you know you because if they'd won that game yesterday and they're very close to doing it, obviously, that's a that field goal. You go back and go, well, okay, we won three and they lost to a Jets team this season that by the way, yesterday I watched that Bills game. The Bills started well, Josh Allen I think once here one handoff, and then he was out of the game to keep his one hundred and twenty games
streak alive. But Mitch Trubisky backup comes in, all the backups are and the Bills throttled the Jets.
The Jets the.
Only team in NFL history not to get one single interception all damn season long, and the Bengals loss of that team. That's what I look at and scratch my head and go, how is that even possible? What the talent this team has. You've got Joe Burrow, you've got Jamar Chase, you got t Higgins and a thousand yard rusher in Chase Brown, and you still can't make the playoffs.
Yeah, and not even close. I mean they've been eliminated for so long. It's not like they were in it down the stretch and something didn't break their way like last year. Yeah, that's it. That's the frustrating thing.
And so.
Now it's about how do you get better? What do you need to get better? What needs to improve? What are the changes that need to be made? And what's interesting is is you could say, yeah, because a bunch of changes need to be made, and you could say the coaches and guess what, I think you're right. You could say they need to be more aggressive in free agency,
and guess what, I think you're right. Obviously they need to draft better with talent that's ready to go right now instead of needing to be developed for two to three years. If that's how they're trying to bank on the draft, which is a dangerous game to play. So there's a lot of ways they can get better.
Well, everything's on the table, but it's really not because it's the Bengals. Of course.
Just dropping a couple hours ago was Mike Brown's statement that after thoughtful consideration, I'm confident that Duke Tobin and Zach Taylor are the right leaders to guide us forward. Why well because of one of the playoffs in the Super Bowl, so it can't possibly do them. But we're going to look at everything that doesn't make a lot of sense and confidence there and maybe the one area that he didn't mention that should is free agency.
They better be aggressive in free agency. And I actually just wrote something this morning what Joe Burrow said about free agency because I asked him because it's one thing for me to stay on all my platforms, which I have for quite some time now that hey, they set themselves up for failure this season because of their lack of activity and free agency. They went and they got t J. Slayton, and that was really the only defensive
starter that they brought in. And we saw the defense last year, we knew it wouldn't just be a coach that would fix it. And so for that to be the case is unacceptable. And Joe Burrow saying, quote when I asked about free agency, that's a paramount importance. You have to identify where you're weak and figure out a way to be strung in that area. It's pretty simple,
and so they need to do it. They need to add multiple starters, probably one to all three levels of their defense, if we're being quite honest, and that doesn't mean that they're not going to or shouldn't add to the offense. A lot of people are going to say, all of the offensive set we saw yesterday, the offense is not set. The offense is far from set. They're good, they're talented, they have a chance to be really good.
But they should have hung thirty on a crappy, lifeless Browns team, even with the turnovers, and they didn't get close.
James repeating so on that.
You have to ask yourself, Okay, during that that anomaly where they went out and leaned in the free agency, in the last three seasons they got away from that. So the question would be why if it worked, then we know the reasons what predicated that. So aren't we in the same position now, why wouldn't you replicate if that worked for you once, why wouldn't.
You continue to do that? I don't have the complete answer. Here's what I would tell you. I think that they overthought, completely overthought this idea that oh my god, we got to pay Joe and Jamar and how are we going to make this work? And they looked up and they had no one to pay. That's why if they didn't pay te Higgins I would have lost my mind. They had no one to pay that. They have so much money, so much cash shaded, so much room, and they drafted
so poorly that they easily could have paid Jest. They easily could have paid DJ. It was a predative by the way. They easily could have paid all of these guys and kept their stars. But in their minds, I think they thought, oh, well, we got the quarterback coming up, but we got the receiver coming up, and they felt like they couldn't operate. And that's why, Like I think back, really the past three off season. Last year was TJ.
Slayton was their big get, which can't be your big get if you're a Super Bowl contender in free agency.
Just can't.
It's not that's not even have bininary thy for a lot of teams, And that's no knock on TJ. It's so the reality of it. You need to add real starters that and he's worth it, but you need to add more than one piece to that defense. But I think back to over the past three years, really the only significant free agent signing was Orlando Brown Junior. And I'll tell you right now, Scott, they didn't go into free agency thinking they had a shot at Orlando Brown Junior.
That wasn't even a guy they were targeting. He fell into their laps because he looked at the situation and said, ooh, that would be a good situation. And that's what scares me is like, you guys got to think like this is the Joe Burrow era. And so however you get to Little Lombardy, you got to get there. It doesn't matter if you're hurt feelings, it doesn't matter what wall you got to run through. You got to find a
way to get there. And it doesn't feel like they're willing to climb, crawl, run through, do whatever it takes to get there, because if they were, they would be willing to manipulate how they structure contracts to get more guys on under the cap and all of the things that I've highlighted with you all, Oh yeah, well I think that that thing.
Yeah, And James, to your point, I mean, Chase Brown right thousand and out Rusher, you know, his contracts, and I think, what end twenty nine the next season, you should have him locked in right now or at least this offseason. That's a priority, right for getting him. You can lock him in cheaper than it's going to cost you down the line, and we've seen them not do that with plenty of players.
Yeah, and so Chase Brown's interesting. But what's tough about that? They're spending a lot of money on offense, right and so do they overthink that? I don't. I don't know.
Here's what I do know.
DJ Turner is in the same boat. I want DJ Turner on the team next year, on the team the year after. Yes, that's still entering his fifth year option. So there are guys like that. But here's the other thing. Don't worry about those extensions and those guys that are under contract in the middle of free agency. The real loss of the Jamar and t contracts was it wasn't just how they structured them. And I'm not going to get two into the leads there because they wasted about
ten million dollars in cap space. It didn't have to, but it was the when, why the hell would you do that? With free agency opens, they're under contract, they're yours. You can negotiate with them anytime you want. Once free agency opens, that is your time to go after outsidecast. They didn't do that. They were so worried I think internally about getting those done and how it would look and impact their salary catch space that they could not
operate without getting those done. That just cannot happen.
Well, also hamstring themselves because it's I only have this heart official. We don't negotiate during these during the season, these particular times, and like you're always negotiating.
It doesn't make any sense. That's what the rest of the league is.
It's always negotia.
Some stupid like, well this is the way we did it when my dad ran the team. Well we also have color TV, So what what the hell are you talking about. You don't know if they do, I don't know, probably not working off a rabbit or I'm not sure, get in trouble.
They uh, I'm watching this football game. They're at midfield.
They have a chance to really to put this thing away fourth and one, they wind up punting the ball comes back to bite them. And then later on when Miles Garrett gets his record setting sack of Joe Burrow, which was I thought. I thought for a while he wasn't gonna get it, but he got it. You know, the stadium is reluctantly. Even Bengals fans were on their feet for this because it's a milestone, right, I haven't
seen this in twenty years. He's eclipsed and become the old time NFL set the record for the most sacks and one season twenty three. I've seen a lot of sports and you have too, and I can't remember a milestone like that where the game didn't stop and they didn't celebrate. And yet in his press conference, Zach was all pissed off that they stopped the game to Kurt Miles, I'm sorry to kurt him off the field and celebrate him. And it took the momentumway from the Bengals. Like the
urgency of that moment in the running tempo. Somehow that mattered, but the fourth and one punt did not.
It makes no sense.
I totally agree with Like, I get what he was saying.
Yeah, I do.
Come on, let's not make it a huge deal because you just got your buff loos right like right, Like it is annoying and it is frustrating, and you were trying to play to win the game, which makes it even more sad that the backup Browns team that very well is going to fire their coach. And it feels that way I talked to people up there. It's just it cannot it cannot be a thing like that has like millions of us that Taylor complaining now and so now when And he might not care because he also
praised Miles Garrett. But that's not the point that everyone's going to remember. It's gonna be I remember when that Bengals coach complained that they so.
Like, that's just it's just not a good look.
So he could have made his.
Point without being so we were trying to get on the ball and we were finding to them we're fighting for our lives here and then like, all right, well.
Why fight for your lives?
And with zero zero gets the yeah, yeah, there's no it's odd.
This morning the Brown said we're done with Mike Stefanski, two time Coach the Year. Immediately Bengals fans start thinking, well, is he an upgrade from the coach we have now in Zach Taylor. Mike Brown kind of cut this thing off of the Knees issued a statement not long ago saying, after thoughtful consideration, he's confident that not only Duke Tobyn but Zach Taylor are the right leaders to guid his forward. Should the Bengals have gone after Kevin Stefanski, I don't know, doesn't matter, So.
It matters for sure. It matters because I've thought about this a lot, like if the front office isn't changing, you see what an elite quarterback can do for you. If you have an elite quarterback that can do that, and you get an elite head coach, which they do not have an elite head coach, it goes without saying then like pretty good spot to be in. And uh So, I I don't know if I think Kevin the Fancy is the laite head coach. I think it's muddy. I
will say this. I think in NFL circles held in higher regard than jacket correct, But do I think that he's this awesome coach like I don't know, I don't I don't know if I think that maybe he is and I'm missing it and I'm not seeing the full boat. And in the NFL evaluators that are uh seated differently in our right. But for me personally, I never looked at Kevin Stefanski and I was up there when like right when he got hired. I wasn't there for that season,
but right when he got hired. But I'm not sure I'm convinced and completely sold on that I made my words. In two years, if he goes to Tennessee and has them competing for titles, yeah.
Yeah, letting Brabel go. You know, I think it's bad in Cincinnati that Tennessee. That just leaves everyone shaking there. Nonetheless, James Brabel is elite. Tennessee is like, yeah, we don't like this guy, we don't need him. Uh, James Rapine over that s I of course I'll locked on Bendals podcast and Bendle's Talk dot com post a new stuff about our conversation today were talking about. Go check that out. James, all the best. Appreciate you all season long and anything breaks,
we'll have you back on. But have a great offseason.
Man, Appreciate you, Thanks, Scott, appreciate you. Take care.
Let's get a time out in. We're running late. We've got news on the way. That means Willie is just ahead here on seven hundred ww Cincinnati