Do you want to be an American idiot?
He's got a Flowe show on seven hundred WLW that we got some breaking news to share with you this morning about crime in Cincinnati. Robert Shaw has now been charged in the murder with that drive by shooting. He killed a thirty four old man by the name of Justin Johnson right after Thursday night football. This is on Sycamore in front of the in Between Tavern. Happened about two am, so people are still downtown celebrating the Big Bengals when Shaw was wearing an ankle monitor at the time.
Does the story sound familiar?
Sure?
And the reason why I was under a house arrest so to speak, was carried concealed weapon, illegal gun possession and here he is being held on that, being about to go and trial on that, and now he's out there doing it again. So initially he was released on a twenty thousand dollars bond with the electronic monitoring that was back in June. Also, the suspect in the Fountain
Square shooting last week has turned himself in. Twenty four year old Shaquille Ferguson said it's self defense because the people that he shot at through the window of City Chicken on Fountain Square were actually armed themselves and pointing
a gun at him. The only problem with that argument from Clyde Bennett is that mister Ferguson was already on probation in July for a violent crime, which means he's under disability and shouldn't have had the gun that he shot the window out and at the people to the City Bird. So we're back to this question. Is our
probation and monitoring system completely broken and beyond repair? On that is the honorable Betsy Sunderman, She's a judge in Hamlin County, joining the show to discuss here on seven hundred WLW.
How are you good morning, I'm great, how are you?
I'm doing final though you hear these stories, I'd love to not be talking about violent crime in Cincinnati. But you know, we have shoes dropping and now we know the backgrounds of the individuals and jackets on Robert Shaw and Shaquille Ferguson. You have two people yet again that should not be armed by law, and yet there they are.
Yeah, exactly, And if there's, if there are any issues with probation monitoring right now, it is interesting for your lists to know who is in charge of the probation officers. It's the judges. The judges hire the probation officers and make sure they're doing their jobs. So if we're having issues with probation monitoring, I mean, I haven't heard this issue before in the past. And it's interesting.
Now we have a.
Lot of Democrat judges who are in charge of the probation department and that seems to be the big change, and now we're not very happy with probation monitoring. So, for example, about a month ago, the Democrat majority of judges and Common Police Criminal Court decided to get rid of some of these, well all of the probation substations.
So there used to be these substations in the most violent neighborhood and people who are on probation could go meet with those probation officers there, and the probation officers could set up shop there and they could visit people in their homes. But now the Democrat judges have gotten rid of those and they said, well, it's more efficient
because now our probation officers can all be downtown. Well that's true, maybe it's more efficient, as far as you know, they don't have to drive places, but they're not able to monitor people.
They're not in the community.
So now they got it a far further to monitor the people instead of being in the neighborhood. It'd be kind of like just having one big police station district one as opposed to the multi different districts in and around Cincinnati. For cops, you put them where the people in the crimes.
Are exactly, and if they're visiting people in their homes, then people are picking up more violations when the probation officers are seeing things in their home. So of course the stats are going to show a year from now that there are fewer probation violations, but that's because the monitor monitoring is going to be subpar, and as we see the monitoring get worse and worse, we're going to see people out there offending.
For example.
I mean, I really can't speak specifically to a case, but if there's a case where someone, for example, is on the ankle monitor but has privileges for something, sometimes it's hard to monitor those privileges. So like let's say I was on an ankle monitor and I had privileges to go to work. Well, that's easy because I work at one location and I work from the same time I start and the same time I end every day. But a lot of people don't have jobs like that.
A lot of people, you know, maybe they work construction, or they work at a hospital, or they work odd hours. And how do you monitor someone when they always say, well, I was on my way to a construction job.
Or in the cases this is Betsy Sunderman ferguson the Fountain Square shoot at Teddy Bird. This young man has a two cases pending for aggravated assault, both with a weapon specification. There he shot someone two days prior, allegedly in Northside before he shot the window out in Fountain Square and shout at the people there, And yet he was on probation from the other one saying, hey, listen, as long as you're out looking for a job, it's fine.
I don't know if that's a good idea.
You turn your application at City Bird and then turn around and shoot their window out, albeit not to shoot at the bird's window, shoot the people in the bird. But still, I'm pretty sure, you know, if I'm doing the hiring that kind of behaviors frowned upon.
Yeah, I guess it depends what kind of job they're trying to book, but it's unlikely that that would meet the job description.
Right.
But by having these rules that seem really tough, but then not enforcing them properly, this is the way that the politicians can say we're combating crime but really doing nothing. For example, like the mayor and his juvenile curfew. Whenever a juvenile either shoot someone or get shot, he says,
we're going to tighten up this curfew. But then if you look at the actual rules of the juvenile curfew, it says if a child is out, if someone under eighteen is out and they say that they're on their way to work or on their way home from work, you can't make them go home, or you can't violate them for the curfew. If they say that they are exercising their First Amendment rights, which could be the freedom of speech, assembly, they could freedom of the.
Press, to.
Church.
They're on their way to church, Betsy, when they shot that person exactly.
And then even if the kid says, you know, I'm not I have no exception that fits, then the police all they can do is say, you know, we'd really like you to go home. And if the kid says no, Then they'd say, well, we'd really like you to go to this, uh, this rec center, and if the kid says no, they can't, they can't do anything. So it's great that the mayor's on TV saying we're tightening up this curfew. If if you're there and you're doing anything bad,
we're going to arrest. But it's just not playing out like that, all right.
Betsy Sunderman, Judge Sunderman is here on the show, and we're talking about probation and monitoring systems. Are they broken beyond repair? Robert Shaw, that was the man who's now been charged the drive by shooting. They killed thirty year old Justin Johnson after Thursday night football right right near the in between tavern on Thursday night Friday morning. He was already out on a lot. He was wearing the ankle monitor at the time he shot the individual in
the car. Justin Johnson form what I understand. People I know knew this guy and said, yeah, he's a professional, you know, seemed to be an upstanding guy. I don't know why he and Robert Shaw got into a beef and what was over. We don't know that, but the background is not Justin Johnson is not a street criminal. He's a professional, or was a professional before he was murdered in the Shaquille Ferguson shooting a City Bird chicken.
He was armed again, had priors, who's out on probation for a violent crime, and he shot the window out and trying to shoot at the people inside City Bird. His attorney, Clyd Bennett cle m self defense. We'll see about that. I'm not quite sure how that works within the law. If you're prohibited from having a weapon because you're on probation and you shoot at someone, I'm not quite sure that that is going to it's it's not
like ofsetting penalties in the NFL. And then you play it over in that regard to Betsy sentiment though, And I think it's interesting in pointing out, because we've talked about the problem in its progressivism in Cincinnati.
That that's fueling this.
It's because we want to hands off no bail policy and we want to be kindler and gentlemen people who are suspected at crimes because their life is already difficult, and well, it just gives the sociopaths out there more license to do stuff like this. I will point out, however, in both those cases in Sean Ferguson, those are both conservative Republican judges that ordered them on monitoring, and that would be Judge dink Locker and Judge Ruleman. Does that change the math a little bit on.
This, Well, I'll tell you those are two of the judges who give the biggest bombs. So without being able to talk to I can't call them and ask them about the case and then talk about it on the video, right right, But I would trust that those judges would set appropriate bonds. There's a trifecta that kind of effects every time someone's upset about someone being on parole or probation and being out there and committing crimes. There's a
trifecta that affects all this. There's the police, there's the probation department, and the judges. So the police are controlled by, of course the police chief, who is controlled by the city manager, who is ultimately controlled by the mayor. So the police department is controlled by the mayor. And then we have probation, which I already told you is controlled
by the judges, the now liberal Democrat judges. And then we have the judges themselves, which are now a majority Democrat liberal judges, so that basically the two groups that are controlling all this is the mayor, the city manager, the city administration, and the liberal judges. So if we're seeing a big change, those are the big changes. Of course, we've had a Democrat mayor for probably fifty years, right, but the way the mayor is affecting the police department
is different than ever before. And then all having a majority liberal, progressive Democrat judges is new for us in Hamilton County.
Look look look at it, and a lot of look at how the mayor's office impacted the brawl, and that he was demanding that the white guy be charged because he's a white guy and we've got to balance things out racially. Apparently, if yourest a personal caller, you got aggressed a white guy, even though he was the victim. Clearly this whole thing, and no one wanted to write that citation and unfortunately made a captain down at the Central Business dictor to it who wasn't even on the scene. To show you
how politically motivated those charges were. Just to appease the vocal contingent of folks in the community who were screaming about restorative justice, which is which is a farce. But relative to Robert Shaw, I don't know. This may be a tough question you can eat answer to you can. I understand you have a canon of ethics you have to abide by. You can't criticize other judges. But in the shawcase, this is a drive by from Thursday night football in from of the in Between that was under
Judge Dinkelocker. The guy Robert Shaw was on a twenty thousand dollars bond with electronic monitoring and this was from a case back in June. His jacket is this nineteen ninety eight six months in prison for coke possession, two thousand and three six months for concealed weapon, illegal guns, receiving spilling Property RSP, and then twenty eleven and then again in twenty fifteen he did prison time for a
llegal gun possession. He got twenty thousand dollars bond, an electronic monitoring out and murdered someone while he was wearing the ankle monitor. What would you prescribe what would you prescribe as a punishment for Robert Shaw? If we're in front of you, let's say, and he was already out
on bond for another shooting. How many more times do you give someone a chance to get out on bond even though they have priors involving a weapon, because it tells me they're probably just going to do something with a gun.
Again, Yeah, I mean.
What do you?
I mean, what do you do with someone who clearly is never going to put down a gun?
Right?
I mean, this guy, it sounds like he's been in prison quite a few times for having guns. He just keeps he just keeps picking up a gun, right. I mean, again, I can't speak to this exact case, but I do trust judge take a locker and if he set that bond, I mean, I don't know, I don't know. I can't really speak to a specific case.
Well what were you? What would you done?
Now?
Again, you have the hindsight that this guy's going to murder someone over apparently it's just a beef. It doesn't look like they knew each other at this point. We'll find out. But what And you can't look in the crystal ball and say, well, he's going to go out and murder someone. You don't know that because there are probably countless people are in the situations that going down and do it. But we're talking about stopping this from happening in the first place. Should we just say, hey, listen,
you already had a gun. Speck you go right to You're going to hold you and you're not going to get out, and you're not going to be able to walk around. And you decide to do something stupid with a gun and you shouldn't have a gun. You're going to sit in jail until your trial.
Yeah, well, I mean I would want to look at his pre trial services sheet. So every single person who's arrested and put into the jail and has an arraignment the next morning in front of a judge, a municipal judge and pre trial services interviews the person and sees if they're a flight risk, sees how much money they could afford for a bond. They ask them a million different questions about drugs and guns and family members and community ties and do they have a job, that kind
of stuff. And the judge is able to look at that sheet. The prosecutor is not able to look at that sheet. I know that because I used to work in that courtroom. One thing that we could do is we could give everyone access to that information that might be very helpful. I'm sure some of the new prosecutors have different strategies than when I was a prosecutor there because now they have a different boss.
So I don't know.
I mean, giving everyone maximum information and maybe giving the media more information. I know the media doesn't see those pre trial services sheets. I'm not saying those should be turned over to the media, but usually that docket is very rapid, and the media kind of leaves confused, like, well, why did one person get a low bond and one person get a high bond? Right, So maybe making some of that more accessible.
Why isn't I shared with the prosecutor if anyone else.
Yeah, I don't know. It's a good question.
I don't know.
I should know that, but then it should be shared with the defense attorney. If you can't share something just with the prosecutor and not the defense attorney discovery, I don't know. Maybe there's no time. I mean, it's a very quick docket. I mean, it's probably not as quick as it used to be because we not as many people are arrested because there aren't that many people in our jail anymore.
But well, I remember, was it long ago under Sheriff Simon LEAs, and I know he's revered in this community. I think there's something he did was way overreaching. I mean, like you know, but he was tough on crime for sure. And I remember having discussions about we need a bigger jail, we need more jail space because we can't house all
the people. You don't hear that conversation anymore, and that was, like, you know, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, it's because we're not holding people anymore.
Right, twenty years ago, sy Lease used to meet with all the judges and say, listen, we are bursting at the themes. I'm going to have to create some new work details and things so we can let the least violent people out earlier. And the judges would respond, you know, do what you need to do. We're going to do what we need to do. You know, we're not going to change our sentences. But you know, if you don't have room, you got to do what you need to do.
I can't imagine that conversation is happening now where the sheriff is saying we don't.
Have any room. I never hear it, right, But even if.
We did try to arrest another two hundred people to fill up the jail. We don't have sheriff's deputies, we don't have enough corrections officers. Police officers have told me when they arrest juveniles now and they bring them to juvenile jail at twenty twenty, we call it twenty twenty. Auburn Avenue that most often twenty twenty just says we're not going to keep them. We just don't have enough employees.
We just can't keep them.
Yeah, Well, I don't know. Is it a policy issue? Is it a staffing issue. Is it people are vilifying police correction officers and then no one wants to do it, and then that's fulfilled the plan to be understaffed and to not be able to lock people up.
I don't know.
If you look at the climate and CPD right now, we've got a huge number of officers retiring, even at early ages, because they can't stand all the politics and the bs and what the mayor's office and how much control they have and how their hands are tied in a lot of cases. And they go to a suburban office or trying to do a little recruiting, and I understand it's difficult because people go well the money's good, but you know what, on the job in Cincinnati, I'd rather stay
where I am. It's not attractive to them because the climate created by the political ecosystem in Hamlin County, but specifically in the city of Cincinnati. She is a judge, Betsy Senderman, who's running for office this cycle. Will know in a couple of weeks if she wins. But it's it's a tough job. But we've got to reform this system because ankle monitor the grant and there are probably thousands and thousands of people out there that abide by the terms of the deal they made with the judge
and are trying to do the right thing. But how do we segregate the most violent people? And I'd say, if you have a gun specification history of priors with guns like this Robert schaugu I did, then I don't understand why we're giving you house arrest essentially because chances are you're going to break it. I think, if it's a gun speck, we already have laws in the books.
Let's enforce federal law that if you're prohibited because of a felony prior felony from owning a firearm possessing a firearm. Then you go to jail right away and there is no release, there is no ankle monitoring going on, because you're a menace to society. Betsy Siderman, I always appreciate the time and the insight. Thanks again.
You have a wonderful day, Judge Clown, I like it.
No, I'm not going back to school. You ain't gonna get me there. Hell no, I'm not taking out more student loans. I'm I'm on the wrong side of fifty and I just finished paying mine off.
Bets Yah the.
Best, Take care, see you later.
All right.
We got a news update coming in momentarily and we'll chop it up next about what you just shared here. Surprise surprise, guys out on ankle monitors and house arrest and they're out shooting people.
This is what this is. This is the government we deserve because we elected them. Seven hundred w well them, Scott flu Shows seven hundred w al them.
So I'm coming off of this foot surgery thing with my ruptured perineal tendon that they had to sew back to my foot. I've been barely walking around motion somewhere on that because I'm stupid that's why, why why wohl't you get that fixed?
Right? It?
Because I'm dumb. Pain is my business. I embraced pain like a second cup of coffee. Just dumb is what it is. So I got the boot out. I've got the walking with that scooter. You put your knee on, your roll around. It's got a little basket on the front of it. Could put bourbon and snacks in there. It's nice.
Uh.
And then the you know, the walking booth, the soft cast and then crutches of course too, and so anything takes a lot longer to run down the hall the second to grab something I've forgotten, Like, I just can't walk there. I have to hobble there, tiny Tim on his crutches. And uh, you know, of all the great medical advances we've had, and we have medical advances coming out day to day. I mean, it's incredible. I always make fun of the you know, the prescription ads on TV.
A bunch of fat, happy people dancing around at a flea market somewhere outdoor festivals, singing about something or another. I don't know what's making them so happy enough to sing, whatever illness it is they have. I have no idea, but they seem rather happy. And whatever it is they're trying to sell you to ask your doctor about. You have no idea what it does, what it's for. But damn it, I gotta write that down because the jingle's catchy,
and those people that are dancing look very happy. I need me some happy joy juice, if you know what I mean. So we have all these modern miracle all these inventions. Now you're fat, We've got GLP one. Now get an injection thirty five pounds. Like it's nothing, isn't it?
Great?
Technology solves everything? But there's one area that we have not addressed. Where's one area that seems to be like this, somebody can make billions of dollars. They came up with an alternative to crutches. Crutches have been around forever the Civil War veterans. You know you got you gotta a scratch air in your leg and one of that doctor comes in and cuts your leg off. As there's all you don't want the gang green. That's really bad. We're gonna cut your leg off. Here, bite this bullet and
we're gonna cut your leg off with no anesthetic whatsoever. Okay, um, it's still the same technology. It still something goes into your armpit helps you walk. Like all these years, you think they would have come up with an alternative, a better solution than crutches. And the crutch that I have, it's aluminum. It's got a little rubbery thing at the top and a grap certainly like the wooden ones they had handed out back during the Civil War. But it's the same design. And I don't care how much foam
you put under your armpit. It your armpits wearing a mire. I've worn up by any of that armpit replacement at this point, and it's only been five weeks. But there is something that really needs to be reimagined and rediscovered. And I know we have walkers now, and there's the canes with the tripod with the tennis balls on it. Man, it's still a cane.
I get it.
And I have you have one of those knee scooters you rolled on ane scooter, but the knee scooter. I'm driving myself now and I got to take my boot off getting the car, and it's getting the scooter out. I barely get the crutches out let alone. A fifty pound scooter. It's nice, it's just not portable. It's just not easy. There's got to be a better Somebody need to be working on that. If you want to make
a lot of money. DME is a categor or a durable medical equipment because the up charge with the chargers things a small fortune. But the crutch has been around for hundreds of years. That's something that somebody needs to look at and go, can we make a better version of Can we do something to make it easier unless wear and tearing your armpits and your wrists than the good old crutch? Just some low hanging fruit there for somebody who is aggressive and smart and an engineer type.
You want to make some money, think about redoing the crutch the crutch. I just had the honorable Betsy Sunderman on the show on seven hundred WLW the latest on the downtown violence. And you know it wouldn't be a Monday if we didn't wake up and talk about more downtown violence. In the two cases in particular here Robert Shaw the one charge in the drive by shooting that killed a thirty four old man by the name of Justin Johnson right after Thursday night football on Sycamore Street
by the way near the in between. I guess that would be this guy was wearing an ankle monitor and an ankle monitor out on twenty thousand dollars bond, by the way, because he was carrying concealed weapon and illegal
gun possession. The shooting at Fountain Square involving twenty year old Shaquille Ferguson, this is the thick guy who fired the shots into the window of Ceedybird Chicken now claims it was He's turned himself in by the way at the behest to Clyde Bennett, his attorney, and Clyde Bennett is pulling the it was self defense. The people who shot through the window of Ceedybird Chicken were actually armed and pointing a gun at him.
He said.
The video hasn't be released because it's part of a political cover up.
They don't want you to hear this.
Now other things in Cincinnati, the way progressive politics are, is it the one that you wouldn't release that video? Why to make this guy look bad, to advance the narrative that violence is running rampant in downtown and Fountain Square. Now you do the exact opposite. It doesn't make much sense. And not only that, I don't know how you can get away with a self defense argument when in fact your client is in possession of a gun he shouldn't had in the first place because he was on probation
in July for a violent crime. So I think the bigger question, in addition to the fact that the two judges in the Shaw and the Ferguson case are both Republicans and dinkele locker enrollment, is that the system itself is broken. It doesn't work because if you can say I'm going to go find a job, I'm going to do this, I'm going to report to my probation officer. And we've seen countless people, countless people who marchai Black.
For example, with the murder of Patrick Herringer, you know, shouldn't have been out and airy was community control, cut the ankle monitor off, we got a murder, and it's been a steady drum beat to that all summer. I was doing a little bit more looking in research and
in some states they've actually addressed this issue. In some states now in areas actually they're cracking down and saying, you know what, we got to get tougher when it comes to people who violate while wearing ankle monitor or make it tougher for someone to qualify to wear the ankle monitor. If you look at the grand scheme, the number of people who are on quote unquote house arrest
in Hamlin County, it's in the tens of thousands. But in that regard that it's just a few of them who are violating and getting out and committing more crimes while they're allegedly on house arrest. So that's not lost on me, but there is. And these aren't exactly conservative hotbeds either. Washington, d C. New Mexico, Florida is one of them. Florida implemented stricter criteria for pre trial detention.
I think the one that to me carries a lot of weight here and looking at what's going on in Florida, for example, that it's a house build that I don't know it's past yet. But anyway, if you're in being held for a dangerous crime for first degree fela in his heart, which should be capital murder, life felonies, dangerous crimes, things like that, if you're arrested for a dangerous crime, that's a capital felony, life felony of first degree felony.
The state has to follow motion for pro prile detention, and so the court has to find what they call substantial probability that they committed the offense, and not only he said, she said, but pretty clear evidence this person is the right person. And if that's the case, you get no release whatsoever because of well, what we're talking about here. You can't have non monetary release, which is the no Bell thing, but the discretion about electronic monitoring.
You have to have monetary bonds. You have to have a lot of cash but down which most of them can't afford. So it's a strict one. It mandates detention for serious crimes and eliminates the option of cash. No cash bail eliminates that. I think that's a step in the right direction. I think that's something we need here in Ohio and specifically Cincinnati. Address what we're talking about here. I can't speak for Cleveland and Columbus and other cities.
I can speak for Cincinnati. And the idea is that these people who are arrested and have long histories. Is the case of mister Shaw, which is the guy who murdered the person on Thursday night football. After Thursday night Football,
the in between sitting in his car. Is this guy had a lot of priors, you know, six months for cocaine back in the nineties, in two thousand and three, six months for a concealed weapon and illegal gun possession because of the cocaine would prohibit him from having or looking at or thinking about a gun at any time in his life. And then in twenty eleven and twenty fifteen he did more time for a legal gun possession.
You got the coke possession, You went to prison for that, then he got out, and then within a few months of that, you had to conceal weapon on you, okay, and then you did time for that, and he got out, and a few years went by, and then within four year period you did it twice.
I don't know.
To me, if you had three priors where you had a weapon under distability, why the hell are we giving anyone who is like that, even if it's a high bond electronic monitoring in the first place, It just to me, they seem extremely dangerous.
Now.
I understand right to a speedy trial, and I get that, but maybe making the bond about higher I don't know if that would have stopped anything, but probably not. Hell, it tells me a lot. When you are you have the ankle monitor on you, you're not even cutting it off. You're out there shooting people while you got the ankle monitor on. Not particularly bright. It's going to send you back to prey, isn't but probably back to prison for a few years ago, back out, and you know what,
you'll do it again. It's like Joe Peshian Casino, I'm stupid that way. Prison is my business. Apparently business is good. I guess other states like New Mexico and in Washington do things similar to this, not as extremist is in Florida, but you can make a case look at that, going why are we releasing these people who have have gun priors? And then you hear folks like my friend Anna Alby who was on last week talking about how we need stricter gun la we need tougher gun laws.
No, we don't.
If I'm sorry, If you got busted for distributing cocaine, possession with an intent to distribute, distributing cocaine, you go to prison for that, that's felling, which means a lot of things, but primarily the big one is you're not allowed to have a gun in your possession. Okay, it ends right there. There's no I'm sorry, there's what tougher gun law do you need?
Then?
The bad guys, if you're convicted of felony, you can't have a gun, And we have countless people as a matter of fact, all the people just about it. I think all of the people that we've talked about involving these crimes that have given Fountain Square in particularly the Central Business District and Cincinnati black eye, all of them, I don't think, without exception, have had prior felonies that would prohibit them from possessing a firearm. That seems like
a pretty tough law. Making more laws isn't going to stop that. We have a law that says, well, you're on house arrest and you're out on bond, you can't do the things you're doing. And yet people with the monitor on are killing people. That's a pretty strict control. I would think, I don't care what the court says. I don't care what I signed my life away, and I don't care that I struck a deal. I don't care. All I care is about immediate gratification. And God only knows.
Because we're starting to hear more and more come out about the thirty four year old man who is murdered on Thursday, well Friday morning, Thursday night, right after football and Sycamore. And this guy, I guess is a professional in some capacity. It wasn't like he was another street thug, probably with what happened with Shaquille Ferguson City Bird, that he saw other street thugs out there, and they street
thugs kill each other. You want to kill each other, do it in an area where there's no one around, don't do it on Fountain Square. But in the case of mister Shaw, Robert Shaw, I don't know if it was a beef that spilled over from during the game or maybe the in between or parking our argument of our
stupid stuff. But that's the problem with this is you get an argument with someone you don't know if their sociopaths, they're gonna pull out and gun and kill you over a parking spot or dispute or dirty look or something that was misinterpreted or whatever it might be. You know, the whole I was disrespected. I get to disrespected daily. That's called being an adults. Full of indiscretions and of course and things that just bring you down a few notches.
That happened to you every day. It's called humility. Settling that with a firearm is part of the big problem. But that's what happened with Robert Shaw anyway, So we'll find out the details of that case. It comes a little bit more forward Scott's Loan show here on seven hundred WLW been talking a lot about healthcare. Brad Winstrip, of course, served in Congress. He is a physician. We
got to talk to you about this. I've talked for a while about how I disagree with the plan the Democrats plan for healthcare is, well, we'll just take more hard earned taxpayer of dollars and subsidize the unaffordable healthcare and call it the Affordable Care Act. That's not really a solution. That's a band aid. I think we can all commut that. And when you put in that context, which is accurate, it's a band aid, Like, well, yeah,
I get that. I also get the fact that the people who not all, but most of them are going to get squeezed on this are folks who can't afford healthcare. So all of a sudden you look at it and go, we're an open enrollment season, and now I may not wind up getting those subsidies. And how am I going to afford healthcare? I've got a wife, I got a kid, I worked two three jobs, none of them off for healthcare. I got to buy it on the market. How am I going to afford that? I can't afford that? And
that's a real scare for people. That's the reality of it. Now, then you know the politics aside. We've got a broken system. This is this makes it worse because we just continue to bankrupt America because we're as you know, every time you said said I something, it doesn't make it cheaper or affordable. It masks the costs and makes it more inaccessible. It drives a deficit up and costs more. College should be a great parallel to that. College should be relatively cheap.
It's all of the incentives and carabouts and seticides and grants and money and funny and the federal governments involved. We've got to make it more affordable. And the more Democrats scream about college not being affordable and out of reach, and we've got to do something about it.
We got to aleviate debt. Well, someone picks up the tab for that. Debt.
Probably a lot of the people who can't afford healthcare go well, I have no choice. My taxes are there, and I have to pay taxes, and that's going to go to fund student debt relief. Student loans cost so much money. College is too expensive because it's inflated by subsidy, just like healthcare and a lot of other things in America. There's the core of the problem. Subsidy is what drives the cost up, makes it harder, makes compliance harder because
of government rules and agencies. And you've got to hire as a physician a bunch of people behind the scenes just to work with Medicare, Medicaid and the insurance company is another factor. It's a night for folks. How do we fix that system? Well, I know what Democrats are doing. What are Republicans offer? And I said for a long time Democrats, I don't think it's a plan.
I think it's a patch. But at least it's something.
And it's the only issue when you pull Americans that has a higher favorability than the Republicans do on that. Everything else, Democrats are underwater. Mean think Republicans got problems. Democrats got some real problems. They don't have any answers, they have no standard. They're directionalists, they're twisted in the wind. They've got one thing, and it's healthcare, which is why
the government shut down. Could shut it down over a whole bunch of different things, but healthcare is one issue that most Americans, majority Americans, go, Yeah, Democrats got a better idea, which is really not a better, it's just an idea.
It's a patch.
And then that regard, I don't see Republicans happen much, if anything. But what are Republicans have to offer? I've been saying that for a while. Brad Winsterp was listening. He said, you know what, we've got the plan here. Let me share with you what the GOP thinks is the path forward. And I'll hear that coming up in just a few minutes here in the show. On seven hundred doublew on a beautiful Monday mornings, we get back at a heavy rain yesterday and wind, my god, the
wind was crazy yesterday. It was like Wizard of Oz like the flags were completely bending in the breeze. We got tons of rain, which we desperately needed, and now we get a few days of drier air. But the cold air has moved in. We have gone from summer to officially winter here in Cincinnati. When you got out in the morning and go, man, I can see my breath. And just the other day there was steam rising up from the rising rough from the pavement because of the heat.
It's like, yeah, that's that sinsy. You don't like the weather, Hang out a couple of days. It's going to change, probably in a couple hours for that matter. So more of that cold part as we head towards fall, late fall, and then winter. We'll be here before you know it. So it's a Monday morning on a Scott's Loan show on seven hundred w WELW at five, three, seven, four, nine, seven, eight hundred the Big One talk back on the Art radio app here till noon and then a Willie takes over.
Not sure what he has yet today, but we got lots of stuff to cover. As I said, brad winstrips on the way next, it's also a mental health Monday with Juliettas share at the bottom of the next hour. Hang on for more slowly on seven hundred WLW.
Do you want to be an American idiot? Flow me?
On seven hundred WLW Welcome back. It's day nineteen of the government checkdown. We've nineteen today and when Senators returned to Camp holl by the way today, we're all informed, including staffers last week, they're not going to get their October twentieth paychecks.
So no paychecks.
Today, and I can be paid for the remainder of the shutdown on the I guess fixing this whole thing in the deep seated political but most I think they're right in this thing.
That's frustrating.
Greg Landsman chimed it on this making hay and saying, some nearly eighty percent of Americans Democrats, Republicans independence want the Affordable Care Act tax credits extended. That's what this is all about. So you know DEM's want more the same, more subsidies. But I've a questioned for all, Okay, well, we know what Democrats want and it's not sustainable.
What do Republicans want?
That's a really good question, and on that is former US Representative brad Winstrip Welcome back.
How are you.
I'm doing okay, I'm doing okay.
I'd be with you.
All right, it's Monday that it takes a while for the tongue to get going here. I have the thoughts. It's trying to articulate them on a Monday morning. But nonetheless, the GOP pushes a narrative I'm stamped about and right now it's about okay, illegal aliens and wow, this is about fattening insurers, which is which is true? I mean, you know this is going to make insurers a lot more rich. But the takeaway for most people, Brad as
simple as a practitioner, doctor yourself. Millions of Americans are going to have to pay a lot more for their healthcare if Congress doesn't act. You know, we're an open enrollment right now. Annual healthcare costs in the US are about thirteen four hundred dollars per person on estimate. Working people just simply can't afford that. And I get that the idea of taking money from Pile A and moving to Pile B, it doesn't make things affordable. It makes
it more expensive. It's just someone else's paying for it, that's the problem. But that's something, and I think something that working people can hang their hat on. What are the Republicans offer? I need, we need a plan?
Yeah, Well, I mean, first of all, you're asking a lot of the taxpayers. It's not like this money's just out there and going, oh, here you go. And you're right about the part where the insurance companies are the ones that are benefiting because with the Affordable Care Act, you have so many things that are mandated in the coverage and therefore it costs more and then they jack
up the price. But you know what actually was done is money that was taken from the savings supposedly from reducing the cost of drugs under Medicare by negotiation quote unquote. That savings was then gone to subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. None of this makes any sense. We have
a bigger problem when it comes to healthcare. And when we talk about it in Washington and Washington you mentioned healthcare, and everybody immediately start to talk about Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and Blue Cross, Blue Shield, etc. Etc. But they really don't talk about health. Do you really hear anybody talking about health or they just talking about a plan? And you know, so what Republicans had done we put together what was called the Healthy Futures Task Force.
Our doctors is put together program we called the Healthiest Nation on the Planet and this is before make America healthy again. And you know, to me, it's a national security issue for one thing, because we need to be a healthier nation if we're going to be a strong, strong nation. But you know, we don't put any value on the healthy human life. And this is what we are talking about, and this is what I think we need to do. We put the patient pers and you
have to start young. You have to start educating people. Everyone knows there's an obesity problem in this country. Why is that? I mean a friend of mine who started the soup, she goes into schools and she says, kids don't even know what a vegetable is. What about the President's physical Fitness program? Where did that go since I was a kid? It is important, and we can do that and accommodate those with disabilities. And look, I'm grateful to live in a country that has safety nets for people.
I think that is really important, such as Medicaid, Medicare. There's safety nets for us overall. But we shouldn't be bragging about putting more people into what is the government program safety net. We should be bragging when fewer people need it, because then they may have good insurance and there's a lot of things that go along with that that we want. We want to reward prevention, we want
to increase education. We want early diagnosis of things and so that people have access to physicians that can make an early diagnosis. We have a physician shortage and we need to increase those that are graduating in medical school, and we need more Marcus Welbys by the way, And you know, we've got a system in place today that it's becoming all hospital based and controlled under that way, rather than the guy who's just down the street that will take care of you and knows you. So these
are the things that we're for. And you know, I like home care, I like telehealth. I don't want it abused. I want it to be good. Where's transparency in medicine? You know, people are going into surgery. I have my patients say, you just had surgery, right, you know how much is is going to cost? Well, the insurance company often to say, well, we'll let you know after you have it. And it's like, well, this is what I'm going to do. Why can't you tell the patient how
mu's going to it's going to cost them? These are problems that are that are out there, and people should be able to know what their costs are going to be, make decisions, work with their doctor to make make decisions. And the other thing is we're driving towards innovations, chores and better treatments keep people healthy. When people are healthy, they can go to work. I mean, we have a problem putting people into the military today because our youths are a problem.
Today. Seven out of.
Ten Americans today right now, all of us, seven out of ten of us bra At robs.
Right, this is the problem, and that's what you need to address, not just the Affordable Care Act. So the debate can go on, and this is what the shutdown is over, and you're talking about people losing their jobs, et cetera, et cetera. You know, this continued resolution did not stop the subsidies. That's at a later date. So now you're doing all this shutting down the government. Well, what you're fighting for isn't even in play yet.
It cost another trillion dollars to keep the government open seven more weeks.
What are we getting for that? Over a trillion dollars?
That's again, it's that's always a question, right, it's taking you know, it's all you're doing is transferring. The problem we know subsidy, for example, college is heavily subsidized. How's college working on? Is college affordable? Answer is hell no. If you subsidize something, all you're doing is you're you're taking the cost and passing into other people. And I know that's how our healthcare system is set up. But
with compliance, you mentioned burnout. For example, physicians are leaving not because they don't love practice and medicine helping people. It's because there's so much between them and the actual practicing of medicine with compliance and bureaucracy, Medicare, Medicaid, insurance companies, they don't have time for it.
Thank Scott. I know a guy in the rural areas. He doesn't take insurance for primary care. They can pay him with ex state one too. When you're on insurance plans, if if somebody gives you eggs, you might be in trouble for that because you're like you're taking a pride.
I like direct primary care. I think that's I think that's a great thing.
Yeah, and I.
Think there's ways of making that in medicaid. But that's that's the topic for another day. But what's the return on investments. I mean, that's what we need to be looking at. And you you brought that, well, what is that do Are we healthier because we subsidize the Affordable Care Act? Now we're becoming a healthier nation? No, we're not. And so there's no return on investment with what they're
what they're talking about there. And I look at something like we've got to cure for hepatitis, see what like five ten years ago, and I remember in Washington, the immediate reaction is what is that going to cost? Well, if it cost twenty five thousand dollars and you're avoiding the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars liver transplant, there's
a good return on investment. The problem we have in Washington is the Congressional Budget Office, which people live and die by too often, doesn't know how to do that. They actually met with us in the scott and they said, well, we don't know how to do that, and we actually got a bill in place that you can over ten years look at things like that to see the return on investment, because guess what, people that get hepatitises are no longer getting liver tramp right right, I mean you know,
you can see the savings and see that. All right, let me know there are things we can do.
Brad Winstrip US representative retired. He's a physician, as you know, and I'm great person. Talked about the government shutdown and it's over healthcare. Democrats want the Affordable Care TAXI critics extended for people. If you're talking tens of millions of people who rely on this thing. And I for a while now, I've been questioning, okay, so what's the GOP plan? Then, I you know, I want to pick the best plan. I think it's flawed. I think it's faulty. I think
subsidies make us pay more than we should. It's more bureaucracy, it's more red tape. But it's something you can go, hey, we're going to subsidize your healthcare because you can't afford it right now. And I've questioned, okay, what is the GOP alternative? Give me a good alternative, and for a long time, and I hear what you're saying, Brad, but it's it's maha right.
It's prevention over treatment.
It's access to healthcare of telehealth and competition, and that's going to just workforce shortages and of course price transparency with President Trump in the first term got his hands around it. In the sample size, maybe too early to tell because I think it just all the final components that wasn't to effect last year.
But that's a good thing.
But when I look at that whole thing, you know, to me, Brad, sorry, it doesn't seem like it's a it's an answer. It's it's observations, it's platitudes. We know what's wrong, but we can't fix it again. Democrats are shifting money from wildpod to another with subsidies, right, and that's but it's not making us healthier. But you're talking about, all right, if we started this today, because habits are hard to break, as we know, that's that's great for
that's great for a newborn, for a young kid. Hitting this message with thirty forty fifty sixty year olds, I think it's missing the plate simply because all right, well, that's if we teach people to be healthier, that's great. But I have cancer, now, I have als, Now I'm in a wheelchair. Now, my mom has diabetes, my uncle has cancer. What can you do for me right now? Today? This is long term and changing a mindset. That's great and we should be doing that, but that doesn't help
people today. That's the problem with this plan because it's not aude.
But nobody's talking about getting rid of taking care of people in generally in general. And instead of just having to break it fix it, we try to prevent it. And that's where the real cost savings is. That's where there, that's where there's the return on investment. And you have to start it sometimes, and that's why I say you start with the youth. You know, we have to educate our children. You know, what about health class. I mean,
that's just that's just the start. And you know, when you talk about the Affordable Care Act in general, you know what they're what we're finding is there's people on there that have other insurance and there and there are illegals on there, and our taxpayers don't want to pay for that. They just why should they? You're paying for people that don't pay any taxes and pay into one hundred percent.
But it doesn't address the issues people can't afford healthcare today. And you know, you may look at hey, subsidies, I get it's driving everything up, but I need this now. I mean, we're in enrollment season or close to it, and people are afraid. They're you know, if your healthcare costs quadruple, no one can afford that. If I had to pay thirteen four hundred, which is the average, that's not affordable for most Americans. So this addresses things in
the future and taking care of yourself now. If you if you're an adult and you need health care, which we all do at this point, I don't thought I don't, and nothing's making it cheaper. We need to, and I think that's where Republicans is one of the few things that Trump's losing the war on, right, And this is why Democrats are falling on this hill, Brad is because healthcare is the only thing that they win on that they're on the right side of with the American people.
Everything else they're upside down losing the trumpet underwater on. So they plant the swag and rally around it. I get the political nature of why they're doing this, but it also is the fact that health care sucks in this country. I would love a Republicans are something a concrete plan to get it fixed, kind of like you know, Trump does something and hey, we're going to put them under his he put a man on the moon in the week, right, if those are nineteen sixty nine, we
need a plan like that. We need a man in the moon strategy to fix healthcare in the next few years.
Okay, well, let's talk about that for a second. So you have the Affordable Care Act, and it's like so many other plans, and I can tell you this first stand from patient frustration. What do insurance companies do? They delay your care and they deny your care. Why you talked about doctors leaving because we get tired of having to get prior authorization. These are all things that need to change, and they can be changed now. They can be changed now. Congress can do this, and we need
to streamline. I have a bill called the Safe Step Act, and that's been out there for twelve years and we can't get it through. What does it do. It just allows the doctor to say, this is the medicine that my patient needs. It's not on your formulary. This is what they need. And here's why. Instead of writing for the prescription that you want your patient to have, waiting for the insurance company to approve it, telling them that's telling you it's not approved. This is not good for help.
These are all the things that are taking place and that has taken place within the Affordable Care Act and everywhere else, and so to feed the monster doesn't make any sense. We need to change the monster as well.
Why is the political power to do that? Though? I mean, you mentioned something.
I love what you just proposed her, But why why is that bill languishing for twelve years?
Brad? What what's holding that up?
Because because the insurance lobby is pretty strong, and they get to some people and say, oh, you know, you can't do that, that's that's not good, it's going to be a waste of money, and blah blah blah, and then they blame doctors, doctors just they're getting kickbacks from these companies and bloom, which isn't true. It's not true. But this is the political narrative that's being held out there, and this and who suffers. Patients are the ones that suffer.
If you think the insurance lobby isn't huge out there, then just wonder why they're getting the subsidies to begin with. They're making a lot of money off this rather than competing, and maybe they have a little less profit that now.
Falls in the area of campaign finance reform, but little action. That's a whole, that's a whole separate. Well, that's what's true scrip of the system. I get that these represent companies that have people that they hire and their shareholder value. All those things go in the that's kount of they shouldn't have a voice. But when they hold senators and congressman hostage, that's a different story. And that's you know,
the cost is driving up. They're making the money off the middle and that's why there's no impetus to change things because both Republicans and Democrats are the ones that are are being enriched through campaign donations and everything else with the people we're trying to uh decrease their reliance on that's driving the cost of healthcare up. And if that's the case, is that it's never going to be solved, is it?
But you have no and you have to shift in their until you can look, until you can determine and claim that we as a country want the return on investment to be a healthier nation, and that means taking care of things acutely, but it also means preventing and coming up with treatment cureservations. This is common sense stuff. Just throwing more money at an insurance company doesn't make any of those individuals on that plan healthier. That's a fact.
And so if reducing the subsidies makes them have to be more competitive, I know it makes it more difficult. We want it to be more affordable and that goes to the transparency and accountability and all the things. And I think I sent you the information of what we're trying to do and trying to make a common sense. This is putting patients first, and that's not what's happening. It's putting insurance companies first, not patience and their health.
And that is the narrative has to change. If we should be asking providers in the providers, insurance providers and the Affordable Care Act, what have you done to make America a healthier nation? What about your plan makes America healthier because they have coverage, it's it's delayed and denied. We've got to do better, and just just feeding the monster doesn't make sense to a lot of people, and it doesn't do the patience any It doesn't.
Okay, but what do you say.
Somebody hears it goes that's all well and good, But I'm worried about tomorrow if these tax credits expire and that they just simply die. I can't afford healthcare for me, my spouse and my two kids.
What do you say to that, Yes, you, well, maybe you can if you can get the plan that you choose, if you can go out and shop for the chance that plan that you choose, it doesn't have things in mandates mandated in it. You know, for the little sisters of the poor to have to get contraceptive covered, that doesn't make any sense.
Stop.
There's problems within that, proproblems get that, and and that's not a free choice for people. And you know that that creates a problem too. So you've you've got over certain people a monopoly of what they have to buy, and it isn't cost effective for most people. And so if they have to compete, it makes a whole whole lot of difference. If they have compete compete, A lot of people would say, you know what I can pay for my day to day I just want catastrophic That's
that's all. I want to have servers.
Right right as well? It should well it should and have enough on the side wall.
We heard that analogy before about well if you had if your health insurance, for like your car insurance, Church app and car insurance, when you need new wipers for example, or gasod be covered under insurance, and that's not what
it's there for. It's for catastrophic needs for Unfortunately, so many people don't have the savings set aside to be able to afford anything above that, the healthcare system is a mess and it doesn't sound like it's changing anytime soon because of the deep pockets that really control things, and that'd be hospitals, insurance companies, big pharma, medical professional groups and the like have stakeholders on this as well and have the leverage you have able to influence lawmakers,
which is why good ideas like that bill you had, Brad just sit there and shrivel up and die because it's not in their best interest. Brad winstrop Us Representative retired now in private practice. I don't know if we solved any any Maybe we answered some questions here, but I think we solved anything today.
Well, I will tell you this that there there's a group in DC that is talking about Brad. Can you get involved if we can maybe put together a collaboration. It's not part of the government. Where you have pharma. There, you have hospitals. There, you have physician specialty represent table, if you will, and a round table front of Sea Span, not sitting in front of Sea Span, going getting your five minutes, and it's to satisfy your baby.
It's all dog and pony. I get hey, Brad, I got to get going. I thank you for the time.
Be well, always a pleasure. Thanks gott my friend.
Thanks.
So we're running late. We've got to get to a news update. Lots to chew on there or maybe not. You go oktill the answering. I gotta pay my stuff today. I feel you seven or WWI.
Everyone needs help every now and then, and she's here to help us get our heads right.
This is Mental Health Monday with mental health expert Julie Hattershire.
Yeah, we do it on Monday because that is a struggle day for most people. Now, if you got your bleep together and every day is a holiday, every day is good and you're probably the envy of most modern brains. But that's not how it works. Julie Hattershare, I hope trust you had a good weekend.
All right, Yeah, it was a really good weekend.
How is your good?
Fine?
Just tobbling around, that's about it. I can't do stare at the window like a drooling fool. But maybe another couple of days so maybe I can crawl as opposed to sit there and not move at all. So hey, you know what, And then there are people with real sickness in ls in the world, so I don't feel so bad. I'm good, We good, were good. There's a
story ripped from today's headlines. And I know we'd often talk about political stuff, but this, I mean it's political, but I think there's also so something else going on here. So by now you've heard about the leaked telegram chat of twenty eight thousand plus matcheses between young Republicans. I think it was on a platform and a social platform, and there are comments about Hitler, praising Hitler, racial slurs, gas chamber jokes, horrific, horrific things in there from a
ledge of the future of the Republican Party. Bad look for Republicans, because if you don't like Republicans or on the other side, you say, well, that's about right for these guys. But I think there's somebody to be said about who's doing this and why I mean, this is extremely difficult to talk about, I know, but I think it also gets back the fact that a lot of people there's their online persona and then there's real life persona.
I just wonder how many of these people believe what they said, and if they weren't just trying to get a rise and be an edge lord and get a rise from the people in that particular circle. I think it's an interesting sociological thing that's going on here.
Yeah, I agree with you.
So I read through some of this and did a little research, and of the eleven people on that chat, three of them were women, and eight of them were between twenty four and thirty five. So when people say, you know, it's just kids being kids, I want to point out that these are the young Republicans, but they're
not teenagers. Many of them have jobs that are in lower levels of political office, and in fact, one is a state senator in Vermont and his wife, So these are not kids in the sense that they've been portrayed as kids. But yeah, it's really hard to know from reading through what I read through whether they actually believe this and meanness to the extent that they said it, or whether it's just sort of the common language of their group, you.
Know what I mean?
Right, right?
Right?
And nebic, you know, young anything young professionals, for example, typically means people forty and under, But that is also a broad spectrum. Is that it does an eighteen year old? How much does an eighteen year old have in common with a forty year old? So it's not like it's a specific demographics as gen zers, But there's also millennials in there too, So young is basing any group under forty exactly?
Yeah.
And so as I was reading through this and keeping in mind that you know, prefrontal cortexas don't develop until early twenties, and then maybe a year or two later than that, we've still got some people in this that may not have full comprehension of the potential consequences of what they're saying. But then as I'm continuing to read, there are more than once it says, you know, if
this gets leaved, we're in bad trouble. So some people in this definitely had some sense of what the potential consequences could be, but some of the stuff that they wrote was just shocking. And the question you asked me is how much of this do they actually believe versus how much of this is just you know, in group languaging. And I don't have an answer for you for that. It's really distressing to think about, right, But you.
Wonder because it is younger people and again not teenagers here there's generally natures don't give a damn about politics. They know they don't like stuff, but they don't know why. It's not till you get older you go, oh, okay.
I get what's going on here.
It's politics in the fact that this is online culture though, right, is that we are in these individual silos. Now, if I am a I don't know, a blind agnostic who's into a fifth century pottery, I can find a group online of like minded people. Before I'd be kind of the freak and ostracized, But now I find my own group online. And that's the other side of it. But
the downside is more tribalism. Is this one of those deals where everyone in this echo chamber espouses the same political ideology, but it's just trying to basically roast or outrage other people. And the more you outrage, the more it looks like you are I guess more of a believer in the cause, and it just becomes this self fulfilling prophecy that's anchored by well, how outrageous can I be because I'm with Kindred Spirits. Isn't this all about tribalism and wanting to belong.
To a group?
I think that's a big piece of it. Yeah, and trying to see just how far you can push the envelope. Okay, so I make this joke, I say this word, I say this thing, and people are giving me thumbs up and piling on positively, or people are giving me thumbs up and thumbs down and piling on negatively. So now I'm trying to test the boundaries and figure out are their boundaries and what are they? And what we do online is very different than what we would do in person.
So you would say something terrible in person, and there.
Might be people who would give you pushback.
Or a disgusted look, or or there might be some indication that that wasn't okay. But if you do that in the online world, sometimes all you get is dead air. So there's no negative. The dead air is the negative, which is not the same as people saying hey, it's not okay to say or Conversely, you say something in real life.
When people are yeah, absolutely.
Go more with that.
So it's about finding out where you fit, I think to some extent, and testing the boundaries of just how far things can be pushed, where are the edges here, and how provocative can I be and still be part of the group.
In the pre digital age, I will say that you know you would you may be at a rally or something like that and you have a sign or I mean, let's face you. Okay, let's say that there's the real life, in real life version, this would be let's say a Nazi rally or something. All right, okay, so I'm going to go up there and like what we saw over
and Evenil in the summer. Right, Look how many people showed up and yelled at them, threatened them, brought guns to the dance and want them the hell off of that overpass.
Everyone did except them.
You have now real time feedback from your comments and your beliefs.
Do I really believe this?
Well, they did everything they could to sell this ideology that no one was buying. But online you don't have those repercussions. You're not going to get punched in the face. You're not going to get physically threatened. You might digitally, but it's the same as a compliment. It doesn't matter. It's different when you're saying that someone's these things, they're face And that's really what's changed about the digital age.
That's really what's changed about the digital age, which is that now with the Internet, we can say things that we wouldn't say to someone in real life, and we
can have very limited consequences to that. And if we happen to be in a group where that is the norm, then not only do we get limited consequences, but here are our people, and we're saying it to our people, whether it's positive or negative, whether it's left or right or center, we're talking to our people, and we're getting more affirmation for that than we might otherwise in a more mixed group.
And we don't have to affiliate with people online who aren't like us.
As we would in the real world in a job or in a social situation where there are.
People who aren't like us.
Can be as as groupy as we want to be online because those are our folks.
We've always had these kind of groups, Julie. But at the same time, I think they're more prevalent. It seems like this's happening with impunity now. COVID had a lot to do this because of the lockdown, because we were all islands or by ourselves. We've still got stuff done, learned to live online a lot more and there's no going back.
It really changed everything long term. I don't know about permanently, but certainly long term.
It changed everything.
I mean, I'll tell you from my own profession there as therapist who went totally online during COVID, and we'll never go back to seeing people in person. And so if you just look at you know how many people stopped working in person and are now only working online, So you can't you don't have the same social interaction with people you're not choosing to interact with as you do if you go into an office every day, or you go into a factory every day.
Or you go out into the world in a different way now than we did before.
COVID for sure, and I think it definitely made us more in group ye and less diverse in the people that we spend time with because we don't have to to the same degree that we used to.
Right, Okay, that makes sense.
She's Julie Hattershoes, she's a licensed mental health therapist from here in Cincinnati. On Scotsland show. It's Mental Health Monday, and I don't have mental healthy. This is in a sense that we have traded digital relationships or face to
face ones. And I think maybe that's the big takeaway is that, and I'm sure you treat or see people and hear about from people who are in the same boat, is that if you get a steady diet of these echo chambers and that takes over your real life and reality, it's probably gonna lead you some meleal health issues.
Well it does, and also it leads to some relationship challenges. So I'm not even going to say if you get a steady diet of these echo chambers, I'm just going to say people are losing the ability to interact with
each other effectively face to face. The more time we spend online, the more time we don't have to make a phone call to a customer service rep to get something done, or make a phone call to schedule an appointment for something, the more that we don't actually have to go out into the world and interact with people on a consistent basis, we're losing some of our social skills, or at least they're changing and they're becoming more online
social skills. And the problem is that then if you forget where you are and you say something in the real world that you would only drop in a chat online, suddenly you get some negative pushback for that. But we're losing the ability to interact and relate with each other face to face.
And I see that in my practice a lot.
I see people who are so isolated and so lonely despite the fact that we're more connected and I use air quotes around that word than ever before. And the thing is that we're connected often to people who think like us, and not connected to people who don't.
Think like us.
So there's no real world fact checking or pushback for some of the things we say and do.
That's interesting because so what you're saying is like people, for example, who I don't know, maybe they're you know, Trump seems to be the bit and it could be anything that right now, it's Trump, Like I'm a big Trump fan, and I only associate with people online who are in the real world I know people who aren't, and then I don't associate even family members and we've seen relationships break off over who's president of the United States.
I mean, it's it's so stupid and myopic that you're gonna you know, you're losing family members and friends for a long long time over who got voted in the office or who didn't win. It doesn't make any sense to me, but for those people it does. And that to me is that detachment from online versus real life.
Yes, and that detachment from a reality check that not everybody thinks and feels the way that you do, and that people who don't think and feel the way that you do can actually be good people and you might actually have to work with them and interact with them, or be a family member or a friend to.
Them, or go to school with them.
And so we're losing the ability to hold opposing viewpoints as being equally valid as ours, and we're starting to dehumanize and other eyes people who think differently than we do.
Well when we and yeah, I'm sorry, when we establish like you know, saft zones on college campuses where I can espouse my you know, actually my first amenment, right, but you can't challenge me that you know that that
predates and that overshadows. In my opinion, we're talking about to hear digital, but it feeds in the whole same thing is that we want to shelter our children who eventually become adults so much that they only have their views reinforced and never be challenged to think another way or see someone else's that that's dangerous.
And it leads to this.
Doesn't It does leads. It definitely can lead to this. These witness tests for you in or are you out? And these belief systems that if you disagree with me, if anyone disagrees with us.
They are bad or wrong.
We dehumanize, we otherize them. We don't have the ability to, as they say in politics, work across the aisle.
We're losing the ability to.
Say, you and I disagree on this, but we still have to work together to get this done.
Whatever that happens to be.
And we're becoming very tribal, to use your word from earlier in the segment, we're becoming very tribal. And that can be a strength, but it more often than not, I think is a deficit because we're losing diversity of thought and diversity of representation, and we're losing our abilities to deal with people who think and feel and operate differently in the world.
Than we do.
Also the ability to negotiate, to realize we have differences in coming to common ground. I mean, I think it's not a coincidence that we same day we're talking about this business. I mean, look at the shootings on Found Square, look at the one we just had on Thursday after
the football game. People are willing to just Okay, I'm in an argument over something stupid, not even a street total strangers and pick up a gun and shoot them because what because they looked at you differently or you thought they said something, or a parking spot, whatever it is. Rather than just you know, argue you're getting a fight or discuss it, somebody's going to pick up a gun and shoot YOUO. This is cut from the same fabric.
I think it's very similar. It's all part of the continuum of increasing uncivil discourse in our country, in our society. It's increasingly becoming extremist, it's increasingly becoming.
Violent word wise or action wise.
And it's increasingly becoming cooperative and cooperative and negotiated. And so yes, I think it's all part of the continuum of uncivilizing our civilization.
Julie hattersh here.
I don't know if you see this in your practice, or maybe you've heard stories from colleagues and the like it are there people that are realizing, Hey, I've got a digital problem. I've got to get some help mentally and this or I guess it's a mental health therapist about this above all. Also that's changing my you know, changing my or or someone's forcing someone to go to
therapy because they've isolated themselves. To the point is that actually has that become a thing over the years in practices like, yes, yeah.
It has.
I have a lot of people, a lot of couples I see in fact that I suggest going on a digital diet or a digital detox because they're spending so much time with their face on the screen that they're not actually connecting with themselves in life and with other people in life, and it's creating problems in relationships, it's creating problems in mental health in individuals who get so sucked into the screen that they're not actually connecting with
folks in their life and doing things outside, like actually outside the house, but outside of their screen. Becomes very isolating and it's meant to I mean, the stuff online is meant to keep you there. That's what they want. They want you to stay there. They don't want you to go out and you know, paddle connue or take a bike rider.
Engage and have lunch with the friends.
Engagement, that's what it's all about. And engaging.
But then you get more of the diet of what you subscribe to and want to see, and so the algorithmnosis and feed you more of it to keep you on on longer. The problem is there's a definite mental health component to this. The more you spend, the more it hurts your mind. Now and the other thing too is you may not see it right is how many people have done that and go, well, that's not me. I just is what I like and not realizing that this we're talking about you.
Exactly, and we are not.
We humans are not designed to live.
In isolation, and yet so many of us are isolated from the world, and our primary relationship is through a screen, and we are not. Our brains and our bodies are not designed to live in isolation.
We're designed to live in.
Community with other people, our friends, our families, our co workers, our neighbors, and this keeps us connected again in air quotes.
But also it's so incredibly disconnected.
It's not good for us mentally, emotionally, relationally, it's not.
Good for us physically.
There are so many things that it's like anything you know, too much.
Of anything is bad. And this is another example of that.
Yeah, as the young Republicans chats like, it's got so narrow and so so tribal that you know, if you step back and look at and go, what what the hell is?
What what am I reading here?
This is and not suspecting that someone at some point of all those people in that chat would and so either be exploited or I've heard it, maybe the blackmailed a little bit. But still, I mean it's it's they're your words, and somebody's going to get a hold of that. We'll definitely use it against you. But there's a bigger problem. It's the more connected we become as a world digitally, uh, the more lonely we become an individual relationships. I think
that's the takeaway here. If that's you're someone to love, definitely need to talk somepon Like Julie hattersh here, she's at beconnected dot care. Hey, Juliet, be connected dot care if you want to reach out question for a future topic on mental health Monday. I always appreciate the insight and the good stuff as always be well, take care youte. All right, getting you to a news update and when
we return on seven hundred WLW. Last week, we had the governor's ban on what do we call it intoxicating hemp beverages and products because they may fall on the hands of kids, you know, using the children to enact prohibition as nothing new. Uh, but this part of a bigger problem is is just how slow the government is to legislate, control and regulate things that go into our body, whether it's those drinks or edibles I'm talking about, or something like a nicotine pouch which you put in your
lip and you get nicotine. It's not smoke, it's not tobacco much much safer, but you're getting the nicotine delivery system. You're getting kotine without the harmful byproducts of tobacco. Well, much like what's happening in Ohio, it's happening nationwide. With Trump's FDA, he wants he wants to fast track some of these products these uh, nicotine pouches, and the problem is now the market is flooded with black market products as well.
She writes about this.
For a reason and why we need to fast trek regulation a lot quicker than the FDA has in the past, and Trump's trying to do it. Her name Sophia Hamilton. She joins the next next on the show to talk about that. Just ahead seven hundred WWT Cincinnatic.
Don't want to be an American Scott Flone show.
This is seven hundred w LW.
Welcome to the show.
So Mike DeWine issued his Delta AD Intoxicating hamp emergency band that kicked in last week. But that's a emblematic a bigger problem. Uh, and it's the problem is a it's a slow to move government right that drives the black market. The reason why he had to do that band was because the legislator's been dragging their feet for
a long time. They had a caravat for hemp and then that's I'm going to figure out a way to go, Hey, we could take some of the low level TCH and hemp and process it and as long as we derive the THHD, which is the psychoactive ingredient and weed the stuff that gets you high. We can make these products and then you know, for example, fifty West rolls out of beverage.
Many companies are doing it.
That's CBD infused, cannabis infused, and you get a decent buzz, kind of like alcohol without the alcohol side effects.
Money people like it.
Well, kids were getting a hold of this in the smokeable and edible form in some Roague carryout stores and around the state, which of course happens when you have a black market that's created by government overregulation and the government's low to move, and the end result is now adults can't have nice things either. No one wants kids getting high at the same time as an adult. I've kind of earned that right. So this fits into something
else that's going under the Trump FDA. They're fast tracking reviews of tobacco. Companies are in the nicotine pouch game now because we are people are smoking tobacco, as you know, so they're going to go, hey, we got to make our money. We'll do nicotine pouches, things like zin and
other stuff like that. That's all well and good, but the problem is it's much like Ohio's doing with the CBD stuff is that the slow moving government, the plot and government, the legislature simply can't get on the way and create rules that make access available to other companies. And then the end result is you have some black market folks getting their products into well convenience stores, for example, just like we do in Ohio when it comes to CBD.
Kind of a long setup there. I apologize. She's Sophia Hamilton. She writes in Reason magazine about this. Also she's a fellow with Young Voices. Good morning, how are you.
I'm doing great, Thank you so much for having.
Me this morning.
I'm excited to chat a little bit about this scary market changes that we're seeing with not only nickedine couches, but like as you were saying, with cannabis as well.
It's two sides of the same coin, right, I mean, that was the world's longest setup. I apologize, But it all comes together because it's the problem is a slow moving, plotting government and we live in an on demand society. People sample something and they see something, they read something, they eat, they drink O.
Wow.
I like this a lot.
Where can I get it? Well, all of a sudden, you have an exploding consumer market for that, and we get it. Whether it's a CBD infused to THC CBD infused drink or whether it's a nicotine pouch, somebody's gonna rush in legal, arly illegal to fill that void. What's happening relative to nicotine. We know what's going on with THCHC here in Ohio, but what about the nicotine patch game?
Yeah, so nicotine policy is changing all across the country. We have some states that are incredibly strict and how to have a lot of bands where they limit ages percentages of nicotine flavors. And then you have a different regulatory regene at the spiral level where they are very slow to improve quality products that have been on the international market for decades and that we know are safe, and so consumers are trying new products like nicotine pouches.
They've been on the US market for at least a decade, but they haven't had full SDA approoval and that's a whole it's a whole process to get the official stamp of approval from the SBA. So American consumers have been able to try these products and realize, oh yeah, I really like the nicotine pouches. They're a lot smoother than base, there's less downside, all of these, all of these great things,
the FDA hasn't moved as fast as consumers have. They've they've moved out of snail's pace, and so consumers have dried this product, decided that they liked it, and it's hard to get what they want because of all of the state restrictions on flavors. So who's come infilled that
demand where the state's safe block access the market? And so we're seeing a bunch of counterfeits explode onto the scene where they look exactly like the old products that people know, but there's new flavors and that's exactly what consumers want. But they don't know that they're getting a sketchy product.
Right because they haven't the process. Well, there's a fine line of balance there. And I get whether it's what Mike DeWine's doing here in Ohio, it's the exact same argument we're doing with the THHD and the intoxicating hemp as we call it, and what's going on with nicotine edibles and the pouches, and that is government will tell you, well, hold on, we need to research you and to make sure this stuff is safe to be consumed by people.
You don't know that if you go to your comedience store, you don't know if a product has been tested or not.
And that's that's part of the problem.
Right exactly. Well, I think most consumers go into a store and they see something on the shelf and they go, oh, yeah, this is this is perfectly safe they're getting it's getting told to me, and there's there's there's there might be some risks, like they know when they buy cigarettes or when they buy a vase, when they buy any sort of products, that there's a downside, but they aren't going
in there thinking that it could be a counterfeit. And I think that's where it's really scary and dangerous, is that they think that they're buying a real product, and with the nicotine pouches, they it's a.
Harm reduction tool.
They think that they're buying something that's safer for them, and really it's it's a counterfeit and and it's it's not.
Meeting the needs.
And the reason the reason why we have all of these restrictions on the nicotine pouches is what they always say is for the safety of children. The children aren't getting these products. But we we've all been teenagers. We know how, we know how teams are. They're going to get their hands on what they want to And now the market is even more dangerous because the market is fulled with counterfeits because we restricted it for the safety
of these teams. But now all the teams are getting what they're getting the counterfeit.
Product, right, right, So what would happen basically politically speaking, is a lot of progressives, for example, and some conservatives what we'll talk about, well, this is why we need a strong FDA, and this is you know, you're you're just gonna fast track all this stuff and put all these more poisons on the market. And they're getting on the market anyway, to ignore the what the black market is created, whether it's THC drinks or edibles or in
this case, nicotine pouches and pretty much everything else. They've they've got to meet consumer demand head on. And you don't do that by Okay, in five years, we're gonna have research and we'll find out whether or not we're all lot of this stuff and that's gonna get polluted down by lobby groups and everything else. Or just simply you know, if you're if you're anti edible or vape
or nicotine, you're you're gonna shoot this thing down. Whatever the corporate policy is, so to speak, the party policy. So this stuff has to be faster. We got to do a better job of saying, Okay, well it's not the best thing you can put in your body, but at least there's not mercury or serious harmful chemicals in it. We need to test this stuff and screen it much much faster. But that's the reality here. Can we actually change.
That, though we definitely can. These products have been available in the europe market for chuckies. We know that they're safe. We don't need to go in through a whole new approval process. We can look at these markets that we know and trust and say, okay, here's the research that they've produced. It's good to be on the US market.
Let's fast track it and approve it. Instead, they're doing the same thing where they did with spates, where they blocked good things from getting on the market that we knew we're safe and that we knew consumers wanted, and instead of approving things, they went and attacked the counterfeits which needs to happen. You need to get the counterfeits off the market, but they're ignoring why those counterfeits are on the market, and that's to fill the design of
the consumers. And so we're seeing the same issue with nicotine couches where they're attacking the counterfeits, but they're not addressing why the counterfeits popped up first. And so they really do need to address the approval process to get good quality products on the market that adult consumers want, and that includes flavors, that includes choice in nicotine percentages.
And you can't just put this desire to have prohibition, especially among teenagers, to harming adult consumers because everyone will be worse off if you take away that change.
And that was Governor Mike Dewines cry here is this is about the children. The child.
We got to save the children because children, I get. Okay, Well, well what about the retail around of the Sophia Hamilton. You know, if I'm a retail what's the retailer's perspective on this or some instiga. I don't care what's in it, even if it's poison. I'll sell it to him because I need to make money at my carry out. It's certainly not all retailers. I don't see the big box stores or you know, the Krogers of the world, for example,
shelving this stuff. But you know, at the same time, the little guy at the corner, what's the process for them? They're trying to keep their head above water to I get it, but I don't think i'd want to make my money, you know, selling the kids. Some people are going to do that. It seems like it's an enforcement issue.
Yeah, there are enforcement issues, but they're smart. They're going to find someone who's above the legal age to buy the product for them or have a fake idea. There's definitely ways. It's really not that complicated for them to find ways to get these products in a reliable manner. And I think it's fairs not want teenagers to be using these products, especially if they've never used other nicotine products. You don't want to get them addicted. But they're going
to do what they want to do. At the end of the day, they're going to drink even though drinking age is at twenty one. The aids to consume nickedine and tobacco is also at twenty one, And we were all in college at one point. But I just this, this desire to go through prohibition policies and we've seen them fail time and time again with so many different substances, is the silliest thing in my mind. We've seen it fail.
Why are we trying to do it again? Because it's hurting retailers, like you said, it's hurting consumers, it's hurting the companies, and it's hurting the local economies because you get so much money from taxes on these products, right, and so you're trying to prohibit it and you're putting it into the black market where you're the state is no longer able to get the excise taxes from these products. So it's really just the loose situation all around.
No question.
And you know the fact of the matter is the government can never keep up with demand. They need to move a lot faster, be a lot leaner. That makes capitalism work better. Certainly, we don't want poisons going to convenience stores or our bodies.
We assume that a lot of stuff is tested.
But the way the models set up the big tobacco companies that have all sorts of research and development and backing and money coming or talking billions and publicly traded companies they can afford to play the regulation game, like Zen, for example, simply because they have the what about the mom and pop the entrepreneurs. And the same is true
when it comes to THHD infused drinks. You know, I mean, you know, Anheuser Busch may be able to put a product out that rivals at but something like fifty West here in Cincinnati, when they roll a THC infused product, they don't have the backing, the wherewith all the R and D to be able to afford all the regulatory red tape to get the government seal of approval. That just stemy small and mid sized businesses, doesn't it exactly?
Going through the approval process takes good years and countless countless dollars. Zen just speaking, the first company to be approved to market to adulop consumers in the US their nicotine pouches in January of this year. The first company, They're a giant company international, and that took in years and years to get that first stamp of approval. That's not even the end process. Most companies cannot wait that long, and so it's it's an incredibly difficult process to go through.
It's also very very confusing and long, and the sea is has a huge backlog or records long backlog, and most companies just cannot survive that weight to get the approval, and that's where you're seeing good competition get pushed out of the way, while we have the door wide open for counterfeits where we don't know what's what's even in them because there's no there's no approval process, there's no regulation there.
I know what no one's saying. Nicotine is you certainly you can get sick. You can overdose on nicotine for that matter too, But you know, it seems to me a better alternative than traditional tobacco would be VP products, but especially nicotine pouches that you put between your lip and gum. It's not a can, it's not a carcinogen in the way that the traditional snuffs and dip and
smoking is. And so you know, if you're worried about the future generations and lung cancer and cancer as well, this seems like to be a good alternative.
It's not perfect.
I'm not saying it doesn't have harmful effects, but it's certainly a lot less than what the alternative is or the traditional methods.
Are exactly it's a harm reduction tool because it is more safe than the other products that are out there. So if you're going to be consuming nicotine, this is the safest way that you can do it. And there's still downsides. You can have some irritation, stomach upside, but you know, I'm sitting here drinking of coffee and there's similar downside to coffee as well with nicotine. So it's really the safest way that you can consume the product.
And it's it's funny to see all of the restrictions when you can easily go and buy a pack of cigarette still, and so all of these, all of these barriers that we're putting up to a less harmful product and placing more taxes on it. It's it just does not make sense if the end goal is to have people consuming in a safer way. It really does seem like the end goal is prohibition and abstinence from any subject.
Well, I think the other leg of the stool here between you know, companies and the government, of the fact of the the big business that is the health prevention people, the health the health people right. The Long Association Heard Association where Association amou BE is when the vaping trend started to take years and years ago. What surprised me is some of the same people that said, oh my god, we've got to sue tobacco companies out of existence, and
they're they're killing people. They are being seemed a good way to wean yourself off of traditional tobacco. And yet they fought just as hard as they did against traditional tobacco, is it against vape? And some of them are fighting against nicotine pouches and I'm like, that's a much safer alternative to what you get. So if you, you know, if you stamp out the problem, not that you know, we I don't know what the smoking levels, but they're
nowhere near where they used to be. Now your organization cees too. Is this so we have to find the next boogeyman in order to keep.
Our funding exactly exactly And what they will never say is that they'll never point to the tobacco studies that are done at the national level that show our use in adult smoking rates are at a historic level. They will never point that out. And why is that? Because of new products like nicotine pouches, And they just want to demonize this because they think it's from the same
old big tobacco of two decades before. And know these these are companies that want to have safer alternatives for their for their client base because they know what their consumers want. And I'll go when I testify on these issues to state legislators, the people that are arguing against against access to these good products are not based in reality. They really are, I think, just trying to keep their jobs, arguing against big tobacco.
And their mind right.
And they will argue that nicotine is as harmful and as substances like heroin, And I hear that line so many times and it's the funniest thing to me. But it's sad because they think it's rooted in reality.
It's any bits.
Laugh at the What we got to do is to save the children because children are being corrupted in their bank And do agree, you knowuse children should not be buying intoxicating hemp products your carry out, But that is not a reason to shut the entire industry down because somebody adults enjoy it. Uh, you know, whether it's THG drinks or nicotine pouches or vaping, it's the same predictable argument from the pearl clutters about, you know, protecting the show.
We've got to shut that on protected children, damn it. With the adult market wants, we've got to do this to save the children, which they're doing at the behest of well, the big health organizations as we mentioned, as well as the big tobacco companies that are getting decreasing revenue from tobacco here in the States, and so they supplant that income and keep their shareholders happy with something else.
With us Nicotine pouches are vape that shouldn't price out the little guy though, and that's what's happening here, whether it's fifty West or you know somebody who's selling vape juice to a local supplier. Anyway, Sophia Hamilton writing about this in Reason She's with a Young Voices and thanks again, soph We appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me on Scott.
I appreciate it.
Be well, good stuff there, and that's the libertary inside of me coming out. And I'm not saying you open it all up and it's a free There has to be reasonable amounts of testing to make sure the product's safe as safe as it could be, but it shouldn't take decad and it shouldn't be only available to the
big pocketed companies. You can afford that Scott's Loan show with News on the way, and when we're returning, what the no King's protests refused to accept the protesters and I get what you're complaining about when I sort of do. It's a bunch of people complaining about different things, and that's not one unified protest that just comes out as we hate Trump. We'll get into that next seven hundred WLW Scott Clone show, seven hundred weather. That lou Hes
is fascinating, absolutely fascinating. That ladder leaning up against the building already, no one saw that coming. You saw a ladder there, I went. It's kind of security issue and somebody breaks in. When the what's seven to ten minutes took off with a portion of the French Crown jewels and Napoleon jewels, that's pretty Uh, it's actually pretty Pink Panther. I'm not talking about the Steve Martin one. I'm talking
about the Oldsco. If you're old enough, remember uh was that Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies?
The minute that story broke. Well, you have France, we have a jewelized Where is inspector gluso?
That's nothing med dig all right, go look it up, kids, go look it up. Home stretcher will he takes over at twelve o'clock. And this weekend we had the No Kings rally. I did, actually I did the Little King's rally myself. I was rallying for some Little Kings because
start on Friday afternoon and don't until Saturday night. Anyway, looked like pretty decent turnouts this weekend if you're into protests and estimated I think they said seven million nationally, big group of people at small riverfront Park and elsewhere. And uh, I know our Republicans old brand. This is a hate America rally. I mean, come on, you know some people may hate America in that group, sure, but I mean one could say it's a hate America rally.
You could say the same thing about Jay six, you know, trying to unsuccessfully subvert the Constitution. Because the MyPillow guy said so that just seems like hack politics and a
hacked defense. I don't you know, I thought the No Kings rally was stupid for different reasons because typically in these things it's just the it's it's a bunch of aggrieved progressives with different causes and different you know, anger points and talking points and assorted beefs under the common threat of we hate Trump.
And it's just more of the same.
Participant groups include you had the a c LU there, you had teachers unions, you had the Human Rights Campaign, you had Indivisible and move on. I'm not quite you're indivisible, but move on, we know goes back to the move on from the war. Nonetheless, it's a bunch of people with various indifferent interests, but the same hate for Trump, I guess. And that doesn't to me. It's like, okay, well, what else is new? What else do you have? It's not like one central thing. It's just well, you know
what it is alone. It's fascism, That's what it is. It's it's fair. I mean, just look at the young Republican chats for example. It's fascism. It's you know, Trump's a lot of things, and some of it I like, some of it I don't like, but the whole tired fascism trope. I mean, every time there's a Republican it's fascist. Reagan was a fascist when I was younger, and then every Republican.
Between is a fascist.
It's Fascism is closer ideologically to communism, you know. So you have Marxist socialism, you have capitalism, liberal capitalism, that's a blend to that. So and then all you're doing is to you're taking public and private sectors and putting under a central government and central ideology. So privately, yeah, you can have private industry, but the ultimate authority is the state, and so you've got a lot of censorship.
And I just I don't.
See how someone who has a track record of being anti authoritarian and a capitalist is a fascist.
That's again, Donald Ruby, Calma j you want.
But fascist is such a it's such a character, that's incorrect, you know, Fascists witnes to point judges and jurists who want to minimize the authority of the federal government. It's exact opposite. The real problem, though, are the executive orders. Now we've had a decreased, believe it or not, of
all things in the number of execut doors issue. If you look at presidencies over the last twenty years, and recent presidents have seemingly man they're just doing everything by executive order, which is sure like for the front part of the front loadings increased thematically, like Trump signed I think one hundred and forty three executive orders in the first hundred days, Franklin Roosevelt saying ninety nine. But by the way, Franklin Roosevelt is the goat when it comes
to executive orders. He wrote over thirty seven hundred of them during his years as president. Of course, that spanned an ungodly amount of time. He was in office for like now forty five years, and you most you're going to get now is two two terms, so that with a grand assault. However, I think part of the issue here is the numbers have declined, but they become more political, and they're front loaded, and it's all part and partial descent, you know, to the politics. To discuss most of us,
it'd be the partisan warfare. To just make a lot of sense, you can talk about well, for example, Obama himself, DHAKA is a Obama edict, so was a Clean Power Plan, but also the Affordable Care Act. A lot of that got done because well, let's face it, the executive order, and then Biden picked right back up on this other thing.
Gotcha.
Oh my god, he's subverting congresses. He's a titan, and he's a fascist because he's a king, because he just writes these executive orders.
Hold up just a second. They're skipping now.
You got to point that dirty under the stick at yourself somewhat here because your boy Biden, in his first mom signed I think twenty executive order. It was like, somewhere are on twenty in the first two days, I think, first forty eight hours, and he went nuts with the pen. And one of the things he was into was DEI. So this whole anti woke feeld that came about is because of he writing single handedly executive orders leading to the DEI policies that have been refuted now by Republicans
who are in charge. It's like, okay, well, you're celebrating the fact that Biden expanded DEI training in that the you know, uh, there's equitable treatment in the government workforce when it comes to people, and uh, there's advanced pay to address racial and gender pay gaps and all this other noise and nonsense. Then about half the country more disagree with like the gender pay gap. Well, you know
gender Okay, why do women make less than men. Well, women take time out to have kids, or they leave the workforce for a while and then raise kids and come back.
To the workforce later, like my wife did. Should you just pick up where you left off?
And they're like, well, just because of age, now you get x amount of how you get paid the same as a person who's been in that position a lot longer than you have to. No, of course that doesn't make any sense. I mean, if that were the case, no one would ever hire a guy. Everyone in the workforce. If you're a woman, you're willing to work for less. You know, seventy seventy cents on seventy seven cents on
the dollar. Companies above us want profit right, and if you look at the bottom lines, so well, why we're hiring guys.
We just hired a bunch of women. They're willing to work for less.
It's the same reason we outsourced jobs of different country is because of the wage scale. It's just the stupidest argument ever. But that's something he signed into law by executive order or Climate action for that matter. You know, cancel the first thing he did, cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. Well, how's that looking when we know we're getting our fuel from our enemies. How's that looking? Gas press up here? Four or five dollars? Again, not a good idea. It's
not a good look, Joe. You know, you can wish that we're all in a new energy economy where everything's a windmill or a battery or whether the sun or whatever, but we're not anywhere close to doing that right now. We still live a good one hundred plus years of relying on petroleum. Just the way things are set up doesn't mean you can't do better and work towards it. But again with the subsidy that winds up costing a lot more, and again with the pushing the agenda rather
than reality. But the same people are out there protesting in the No King's rally, we're celebrating Joe Biden and Oba Barack Obama for Affordable Care Act, which is again more subsidy. But climate and DEI and all these things.
Where were you?
Why were you protesting the fascism in the king then when the king on your side, your king, was doing all this stuff. So I look at this and I just kind of smile and laugh because I realized the nonsensical nature of partisan politics and the culture wars feed into this whole narrative. You Ca'm sorry, it seems disingenuous to me for you to be protesting and burning an effigy the president, and I certainly am not the biggest Trump fan of this radio station. Some stuff I look
at you go pretty good. Other stuff I look at you go, I don't get it. The tariff, I don't get it. Some of the stuff he says, I get it, But I'm calling it like I see it. And if you're gonna be out there upset that this guy is a dictator in your opinion, and a fascist and whatever other ist it is wrongly labeled, I'll add then I would suggest, Okay, where were you when your guy was doing this just a few years ago. Nowhere to be found, because it supported things that you believe in your core,
and that indeed is the problem. That's why we need a rule of law and things to applot all of us the same way. I suppose it's like turning a blind eye towards our it's our guy, so he can cheat the system and do the same things. Now we're accusing the other side of you, much like what's going on with the Young Republicans tech scandal. There are a lot of outrage Democrats and enters our outrage Republicans too.
But you know, let's not forget. We also just went through this period where we had we had lawmakers with some avowed anti semitism publicly being anti Semitic, and there wasn't any fallout from that from from your party or Charlie Kirk's assassination or anything along those lines. It's just, you know, you'll taller if you're drinking the political kool aid. You will tolerate your side's beliefs and then of course absolutely obliterate the other side when they're guilty of something
that didn't defend you previously. It's just while the rest of us in the middle just throw our hands up and go, this is stupid. Where are we getting with all this? We're getting nowhere. And whether it's Trump or Biden, they both, you know, they using executive orders aggressively when there's gridlock. They got to focus on the core issues to their constituency. And you're going to get court challenges and there's gonna be some reversals in there as well.
And now it seems like court spends a lot of time reversing the executive orders, and then this is why the President gets up and says, this is why we got to change things.
Otherwise nothing can get done.
And we've got this incredible gridlock in our country that I don't have to tell you have a government shutdown. That shutdown over well, an issue that's not going away anytime soon. As I pointed out, we're shutting the government down over the core issue is healthcare. And the reason why we're doing that is because it's the one single issue that Democrats have on their side. Everything else they lose to Trump and the GOP on when it comes to public opinion.
They've got one thing.
Well, I think it's the equal pay thing, you know, workplace that that doesn't really that's not getting a lot of traction because look at how well women are doing from college on upward. You're excelling. Good for you, that's good. Unfortunately, I think it comes at the expense of a lot of young men. And at the same time, one of the other issues that they have is healthcare. They win on healthcare that they have a plan, No, they've got a band aid, they've got relief. A subsidy doesn't fix
the problem that healthcare is too damn expensive. But at least it's something to go, Hey, we're giving you temporary relief to help you pay your healthcare bills. I talk to Republicans about this, and it's well, we need to get America healthy again. Okay, great, that's great. Well we also need to we have more accountability, and we need more competition. Okay, awesome, we need to do that. You're right,
how does that pay my bill that's due tomorrow? And I think that's what most Americans look at, right, Okay, I get that the Affordable Care Act is broken and it's just a band aid fix. We're just taking money we don't have and spending it on this temporarily so you can get to the next page. It's like a paycheck loan for healthcare. It's what it is. It's gonna get It's not gonna solve the problem. It's going to get you to the next payday.
Okay.
But that's something that I think working people, a lot of Americans look at. Go, I don't like it. It cost us more money until we fix the problem. Fine, but we're not fixing the problem. And if Republicans have an alternative to healthcare. Sure would love to hear something rather than going, we got to make America healthy again. Great, we'll teach kids to eat carrots, we will tea which, by the way, I think Michelle Obama tried to do that and then she got left out of the building on republic.
We're gonna make kids eat carrots again. Politics is such a joke. So I look at the whole thing and go, all right, well, what's the alternative. Well, we're gonna teach people how to take how to have a stake in their own health and so they do know need too much, and they do the right thing and they exercise.
Awesome, That's that's one good. But what about the forty or fifty year old now that can't afford the subsidized healthcare, the healthcare without a subsidy. Those are great solutions and maybe ways to prevent future generations from me dependent on health care. But it doesn't fix the here and now, even temporarily. So I don't think that's much of a plan. It's a platitude, It's what it is. Why not just come out, let's say we're gonna blow the healthcare system up.
The problem, of course, is it's going to be the lobby groups. It's going to be the healthcare insurance lobby, the doctor's lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, lobby, lobby lobby that gets in the year of lawmakers, both on the left and right, and make sure that we have this crappy system because whether it's you know, single pair, double pair, triple pair, whatever, they're fat and happy, and so let's
not rock the apple cart. The other thing I think, too, is that we don't fix the system simply because if there's any fallout whatsoever, the party that's responsible for enacting the changes, even though they may wholly be better than what we have right now, they're going to wind up paying in an election if somebody gets sick or somebody gets left out, or what about that. And you don't have carve outs either, So what's the point of having
a politician. Whole goal of politics and politicians are what is it? Get carve out subsidy and relief for your voters, not the other guy, but your voters. And so I just don't see a system or healthcare changes anytime soon.
The simple solution would be to go you're no longer allowed to provide healthcare in your workplace, I take an executive order, take some big stones too, and it's pretty ballsy to go all right, you're not in the business of supplying healthcare, go find it on the free market, and that would incre competition, it reduced costs, transparency, other
government nonsense of go away. And then the people who really fell between the cracks, which is a lot of people, by the way, we could afford to pay health care for them and I and still have money left over to put towards the deficit. It's an easy solution. But the problem is lobbyist, it's Congress, it's politics that are ingrained, and this is why we'll have more of the same.
And for most of us, it's just frustrating, a frustrating exercise in a sense that you know, we can see a way to make a change here, and that is make more of a libertarian kind of argument and going you buy your health insurance on the free market, as you do your current insurance, your renter's insurance, your life insurance, whatever, insurance, insurance for your dog. It's all on the market. It's transparent, it's easy, you pay for it out of your own pocket.
Used to be that way, and then we attach it to employment, and that's a whole nother thing, especially the gig economy, because now people want to do their own thing and not have to do a nine to five, which is a huge boon for our economy. On top of this as well, save money and grower economy. Sounds like a plan, but this is where we stand right now.
So the No Kings, Little King's protest, whatever it is, again, it's just more of the same, more noise, a bunch of a grieved people with the only commonality between them is a fact they don't like Donald Trump because he's a fascist, although he's really not. And when our guide did the same thing with executive orders, we just turned
a blind eye, which is the hypocrisy of politics. This is a perfect leading for Bill Conningham coming up at twelve oh six right after news here on the home of the best Bengals coverage, seven hundred WW Cincinnati