Do you want to be an Americans?
Got flown back on seven hundred wlw welcome to it. We are out of the deep freeze into just the regular freeze right now, starting off today, the city has reversed it's a controversial eleven PM cutoff for food trucks. I know, not too many people lining up for a slice of pie at two o'clock in the morning when it's thirty five thousand degrees below zero. But nonetheless things have been right I guess wrongs have been righted here. Initially you may recalls a public safety issue because of crime.
It was a city manager office just issued an edict and declared that's it. You got to shut everything down at eleven mean on the bar's rubble at two o'clock and if you want something to eat when you're leaving at closing time, your sol The complaint was that too many people were gathering and causing problems and having street beefs. And again that sounds like an enforcement issue. Why punish
the vendor. But at least a little bit of common senses have been restored, and she's been leading the charge on this. Council. Member Anna Alby, welcome back. How you been good.
Thanks so much for having me this spire.
It feels like a win, doesn't it.
It does. No, I'm I'm glad that, you know, working with the administration, we were able to hit this kind of compromise to move the the end time go back to one am on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays.
Yeah.
Great.
It seems so punitive too that and it was sure a long city manager just simply said this is the way it's going to be, you know, kind of like an executive order almost. And that's the part that struck me is awful is the fact that there was no input. There was no input from the food truck vendors, There was no input from businesses or people. They simply move forward as like an emergency order. That was the troubling part about this because none of it made sense, but only to share a loan.
Yeah, I totally agree. And and right now we're in a phase with the administrations having active conversations with the Food Truck Association, which is something that it comes to
member Mark Jeffries, Vice Mary and Michelle. When McCarney and I were all like, hey, have you talked to the food truck and Initially, when this edict you called it came down at the eleven pm cutoff, they hadn't they hadn't yet talked to them, and in fact, it took a handful of weeks in coordination through City Council to actually get the administration and the food Truck Association in contact.
They even have these conversations, so they are chatting now, and my understanding is there could be more changes coming. But to me, it's this open dialogue and looking at this holistically and not just coming down with this like big eleven pm cut off without the broader conversation.
Yeah, and it makes sense.
Did you look at any did you have any data or analysis that convinced you eleven o'clock wasn't justified?
Yeah?
Absolutely. So that was another thing that I really hounded administration on the very first time they showed up the Council, because they came and gave kind of an oral presentation. I said, hey, where's the data. So they did come back to us with some data points about a couple hotspot areas where food trucks typically gather. But I'll be honest,
the numbers were not compelling. They kind of compared a year over year before and after this, eleven PM was into place, and at best it was kind of a neutral implementation, and that was really what led me and couple member Jeffares to continue to push back to say, hey, the data is not supporting that this is making it different. Now, there could still be issues you mentioned at the top here that you know there were some issues of people gathering. Great,
let's look at the enforcement and what's actually causing that. Right, Something I've been interested in is is there something happening at the bars nearby? Is there over serving? Are there other things happening not that are separate from the food truck?
Right?
And bars can hopital two o'clock, but the food trucks can't. And I guess this this compromise is a little bit better here too. So it's one o'clock as opposed to three am after the bars closed. But what happens if all of a sudden, hey, we start having fights and problems around the food trucks. To me, that seems more whether it's one am or three am, that's a criminal enforcement issue shouldn't be on the food truck vendors.
I agree, And the one am the concept there is that gives the CPD and everyone about an hour to clear out before the bar is closed, right, right, So get people home because part of the issue was people were getting out of the bars, going to the food truck and then hanging out for hours longer, well into the morning time. So this actually has that cut off a little bit before the bars get out, so people
can go home and kind of clear out. So hopefully that will, you know, handle that issue with the crowds. But if there are issues going forward, to your point, let's look at what's happening, what's causing it. You know, since time police, we pride ourselves on being problem solvers, and to me, this just takes a little bit more problem solving and investigation to really figure out what's going on. If there are issues, I'm not convinced there will be
knock on work. Yeah, hopefully everyone will be on their good behavior and we can enjoy everything food trucks bring to our city.
Right you mentioned, you know, maybe there's further discussions here with the food Truck Association specifically, could could you wind up extending hours at some point?
I think every things on the table right now. One of the questions even to who's responsible to kind of the areas around. You know, how do we make sure we understand where food trucks are setting up, who's responsible in the perimeter of the food truck, you know, trash or litters left behind, So all those things are in conversation now and again at the end of the day. My goal here is one absolutely ensure safety, but two make sure these small businesses have an opportunity to grow
and thrive. Right, our food trucks are often the first step into getting a brick and mortar and these are a lot of small businesses, very narrow margins, right, They're independent operators who are just trying to get a leg up here. So I'm hoping that in these conversations we can figure out for both sides here, right, public safety, the public side, but also say the food truck you know, what does this industry need to grow and thrive while still making sure everyone's safe.
At the end of the day, and Albi, we're still going to have crime, and it's a big city, so you will have that. But I think by any metric, any measure, and any you know, it doesn't pass a sniff test. As how, We've been a approaching crime in the city for a long time now, and it looks like the things starting to turn to the right way as opposed to giving people, you know, enough elbow space and free birth to do what they want. The problem
is it just victimizes business. I bring this up because in Madisonville, I don't know if you hear the story not, it's a place called the Cheese Kkery and Liz Field is the owner there. She started her business looks like a nice little shop in that she said she's gonna have to close now. And the reason she has to close is because of what we're talking about here, and that is an element that is causing her employees to quit and drow. She can't stay open now. Part of this,
of course, is the economic climate. We can't ignore the fact that their sales are down significantly because of the economy. But it doesn't help when largely female workers there are being harassed by teenagers who are running around, screaming, throwing things, stealing from the store, leaving trash around, threatening employees because they're not giving them free items. You have homeless people or homeless man confronting employees and customers makes them feel unsafe.
And it's not just her, it's other businesses on the street there in Madisonville, let's see the same thing.
So it's not isolated.
And I bring this up because Lumpika by Jeff Ruby is closing and part of the concern there was safety downtown. So whether it's downtown in the Central Business District or right next to the aeronof Center or in Madisonville, it's part of a bigger problem here, and that is crime that is helping destroy business. In the food truck thing didn't help relative to Madisonville. I'm sure you're aware of this, and if you're on only informed you that's not a good look for the city.
You know, this is Liza the chief Sakries is a neighbor. So when I saw her do her initial post on Facebook, I reached out immediately and we had CPD in contact with her. And you know, I think with the Sunday night, by Monday morning, they're reaching out, and you know, I think ultimately she posted last night or yesterday, I think that she's been working with a mentor and the decision she's making is frankly, to simplify her business. So they need grow, so they're going to focus on their one
storefront and Anderson. You know it is to your point, is it tough economic climate right now for small businesses, So expanding having to deal with two storefronts is obviously going to be a bigger lift than one. So the post she put most recently on Facebook was all around kind of focusing their efforts in that one store and Anderson and really kind of simplifying their operations. So I hope the best privilege. Like I said, she's a friend,
she's a neighbor. I love the cheese cakery. My parents live and Anderson, so I'll still be able to enjoy her products when i go down to visit them. So you know, I'm hoping the best for her. And you know, ultimately, you know, Cincinnati, we are tackling you know, all public
safety across the board head on. And we've actually in Madisonville, our crime stats have looked really good for the year, and I'm actually very proud of kind of what our neighborhood has done over the past you know, decades plus where we are a safe neighborhood where people are out
and about. And really what I'm excited for in our business district is actually more businesses in the vacant storefronts, because that's really what's going to activate the Madisonville business district is getting more people into that space, more businesses, more vitality. And that's what I want in every neighborhood right when I picture kind of what a city is, right, you want to stay kind of people bustling around, going into storefronts and.
All of that.
So that is my goal for here in Madisonville, but across the entire city.
I think part of the problem too, talking too CPD officers there and you may know this as well, in particular, one homeless person individual is causing a lot of the problems as well in cops quite honestly because of the iris rawleys, because of the homeless coalitions and the like. If they start running those people off, individuals like that off, then you bear their wrath. And the administration seems to lean on the side of, you know, the homeless and
the indigen as opposed to business owners. That I think that's also part of the problem. Is that starting to change. Are we starting to have more balance or is that just simply incorrect from police officers.
Well, let me just talk about so we have a gentleman in our neighborhood and he struggles with mental health. He's a known person in our neighborhood and frankly, many of the neighbors, residents, store owners here take care of him. He frequented other places like mad MoMA and they'll get coffee, you know, keep them warm. He'll often go into our public library that's right there. They are the staff, They're
familiar with him. He is a part of our community, and frankly, having mental issues is not a crime, right Like I am not here to criminalize people who are struggling. We need to make sure we're connecting them with the care and services they need. So again, when I contact the CPD in the city administration about this whole chiefcake free thing, I made sure that we understood that this gentleman it was put in touch with the people he needed to to make sure that he was on his
care plan and getting what he needs. Because again, at the end of the day, we want to make sure everyone is safe in our community and those who are struggling with mental illnesses, so we got to get them into the care that they need so everyone's faces and feels comfortable.
I'm fine with what you said was getting someone in need care. I mean, we just saw what happened with Rob Reiner and his wife was just terrific. Mental health looks like a significant mental health crisis. There are issues for sure, or we don't know the full story yet, but uh, at some point we will uh in getting the people, you know, and there's a whole separate topic about mental health, which is a big deal for me.
And you know, I focus some some of the portion of the show on that weekly because it is a problem in America. But you know that that attitude is great, but at the same time, you have to look at it and go, well, if they're harming and they're threatening people, they don't feel safe and workers are quitting. To me, that crosses the line and there's got to be more strict intervention on that. But it doesn't mean you're cruel because you're segregating someone or punishing now or whatever it
might be. I think you also can you know, have two two kid glove a feel where I mean, it's not entirely the reason why the Cheese Cakeery is closing, but make no mistake about it, but it's a it's a part of the reason you can't keep employees because they're afraid of this one individual.
We can't have that.
I agree, And you know, in this situation, I don't know all the reasons. You know, it's made her decision. It sounds like she's working with a mentor.
Now.
Like what I can say is there are other businesses and organizations in Madisonville that are familiar with this gentleman and have not had the same issues and he and frankly, I'll be honest. I the next day received many calls from Madisonville community leaders, community council, the business chamber, the development corporation, many of them who were worried about this gentleman safety himself because posts online were so threatening towards this man that people were going to hunt him down,
that people were worried about his safety. So you know, again, we don't want to create any hype of environment where anyone put.
Yeah, she is a council member, an I'll be on the show. We have a new food truck law in Cincinnati. They have eased back on the restrictions closing stuff down eleven o'clock and where you can congregate, and like, is that also part of the issue too, is where the food truck set up because it seems to me the whole person of the food truck is putting the parking
the truck where people are. We talked about different zones and areas, but you know, I think, you know, within reason, it should be up to the person who owns the truck or I've detructed, determined where the crowd is to feed them.
Yeah, and right now, the ordinance that council passed right before I got on opened up those parking to kind of anywhere there's a parking space food trucks can go. They still congregate in places where you would sink right ear bars in your activities, right, you don't want to
be off, you know, far away from everything. But I do think it's worth a conversation with the administration because if one of the questions is how do we make the areas around food truck safer, well, do we need to consolidate and come back to food truck zone that are in those you know, fun area areas of the town to make sure that we can have you know, maybe extra patrols in that space, or that we're actually providing additional safety with a well list spot. So I
think there's probably a middle ground here. Right somewhere between go wherever you want, and you can only be in this one spot that somehow gives us a balance into Hey, we want you to be close to where all the fun things are happening, but we also want to have an idea of where you're going to be. That way, we can make sure that you're in a spot that has, you know, good lighting cameras. Maybe we have an extra
officer patrol nearby just in case. So I'm hoping the conversations with the city administration, the food Truck Association can talk through all this because I think that is what will hopefully get us to the best outcome at the end.
Well, ultimately, once you right size the police staff, right, we're one hundred and fifty officers short. Now we're working. We're behind the eight ball, working to try and get more on the street. But that's part of the problems. You don't have patrols out there to saturate areas where people congregate, and so you just respond and you chase
calls as opposed to having a visible presence. Every time I'm downtown, I do see more mark units, whether it's CPD or sheriff's vehicles that are just simply parked there, and that's a deterrent I would think for a lot of people because they think, you know, obviously an officer is close by, and so adding more patrols and officers is going to help remedy the situation and everyone can have fun again in our city and that's what it should be about. And I'll be a council member. Thanks
so much for joining on the show this morning. Great to talk to you. And happy holidays.
Yeah, thanks so much, Happy holidays, Take care.
All the best.
I got to get a news update in in just minutes on the big one seven hundred WLW when we return here on the Scott's Loan show. Just made me think of something. How this is related to what happens Sunday at pay Course Stadium? Wait, what what do food trucks have to do with pay Course Stadium? I'll tell you coming up after news on seven hundred WWT.
All right, d freeze is over y'all.
Onward and upward till Saturday and we'll get more snow a winter, baby winter. What you're doing well Scott's Loan here on seven hundred WLWT. Thanks for checking out the show. We can take you anywhere. The iHeartRadio app follows around, will follow you as that sound will stalk you. You may need a restraining order. Council member Anna A'll of be minutes ago on the show talking about the peeling
back the rules regarding food trucks. It makes a lot of sense now, you know, as cold has been with winter, certainly not a big a deal as it is in the summer. But fortunately the city and the administration listen. You know, initially I was extremely critical of the city manager share Along when she you know, rolled his edict out and just simply said, I'm dictating this policy with any thought or input whatsoever. Is the problem is the food trucks. No, the problem is the criminals, the problems.
You don't have enough cops, the problems. You haven't taken it seriously for so long that people just feel empowered to do what the hell they want. Get in fight, start trouble, make noise, make a mess, shoot at one another. Around ninety nine point nine percent of people are just out there to get a slice of pizza or a burger or a hot dog or whatever it might be. After they went out and had a good time at the bars. That's all this is and those are the
people that need to be taken away. I you know, the mentality that I'm going to get in a street fight and the street be even to shoot people strangers in front of food trucks is insane.
Is insane.
As the guy convicted yesterday for shooting a customer and a worker at the Walmart and Fairfield. God, dude got twenty six years stealing some crappy Walmart electronics and there were some resistance. He pulls out a gun and Walmart shoots two people, kills one or a thirty five year old man.
Day.
There's people like that out there in society that you know. That's why we need more cops on the streets. That's why we need to take this stuff seriously. And I go, well, you know, they're victims. To know, when you pull out a gun or you assault someone, you're now a criminal. You're not a victim. Quit watering down what victimhood is. The thirty five year old man who died and the guy work in a Walmart, those are victims.
This guy.
I'm tired of the everyone said, well they're victims. No they're not. You're predators. That's the difference. And that was kind of like the mindset for a while. While we're just going to punish good people, then that would be the food truck vendors who have very very thin margins and you know that extra a few hours of being opened may wind up ruining their business. How does that help us? How does that help the tax base or
anything else? And us to grow and thrive. And so fortunately council got together and reapproached this whole thing, and it was a communication issue. It's like, okay, we communicated now with the vendors, with the business, with citizens, We looked at data, we talked to the cops, we wait everything and came up with a fair compromise. That's how you do things. And I said, you know, how does this relate to what happened Sunday at pay corps Field. Well,
it leads down. Granted it's a little bit lagging here with sheerlong did and maybe she learned from this, Probably not, And it made sure learned from this going on, maybe we have to be more thoughtful and talk to people involved before we make rash decisions. But there was an effort to communicate that there's some communication going on here. They talk to people who were involved in this thing.
That's what you're supposed to do. What happens Sunday at Paycorp is just part and parcel for what problems alde Bengals, and that is the absolute lack of communication letting people know what's going on. And it's just it's so basic, it's so grade school, and yet time and time again, a lot of the problems that pop up involving this football team, this organization, this franchise gets back to communication.
You know, we're here stories.
In addition to the seats is the fact that I guess because of the cold weather, possibly because not enough workers showed up because it was so cold, I don't know. But for people who are lined up cue up at to get into the stadium at twelve o'clock, I guess there are people who couldn't get their seats at like one thirty because some of the scanners are down or there are enough people to scan the tickets to get you to the stadium. And so you missed it. Fortunately
for you, good good part of the game. And you know, at some point you issue a message of going, hey, here's what happened with the Here's what happened with the scanners, we apologize, We're sorry. No communication whatsoever. No, there has been no statement whatsoever about the Bengals relative to snow removal from the field of in the fact that the NFL looked and said, yeah, they did the bare minimum,
bare minimum. Bengals did the bare minimum required to remove snow from the seats, the cold, hot chocolate, all that other stuff. Never address. We don't talk about those things. And it's not like other franchises don't have problems.
Well they do.
They apologize, but there's season ticket holders, their core customers, and go, hey, we may have to stay. Hey, here's what we're working on. No communication whatsoever. We just simply ignore things. And when you do that, you lose control the message. But more importantly, you act like you don't care.
And maybe they don't. But you know, there's an easy way to make it look like even you know, again it's about money, but make it look like you give a damn, and that is to actually acknowledge that we weren't good this time. But you know, the only one who's allowed to talk is the head coach, z Act Taylor. And that's a huge problem with this football club. That's a huge problem with that franchise, there's no no one takes any account to accountability, responsibility.
No one from the front office talks. That's how they've always been, that's how they do business.
And this day and age where we expect instant, clear communication, they failed to do that. It's like they're living in I don't know, the nineteen fifties or something like that. There's no communication. What's horror, I'll be honest you and you see this elsewhere in the world. The Catholic Church, for example, what the scandals and problems that they've had. Horrible about communication. And if you don't get the word out there, people are going to make their own minds up.
And it's not good for the product, not good for the bottom line when you're you know, especially when you wear Cincinnati on the front of your jersey. So again, I look at what's going on with the food trucks. A wrong was righted, a compromise was made. The food truck vendors seemed not completely pleased about this, but you know, staying open till one am is far cry better than eleven pm. And also where they can park, and all these the restrictions that were just picked out of the
ether by the city manager and made a rule. Now, it took a while for this to happen, but hopefully no one went out of business lost their jobs because of that poor knee jerk decision to try and you know, rather than address a criminal issue, we're going to punish the people who are doing the right thing. But in the case the Bengals, there's you know, it's a communication thing, and there's just they simply don't see it.
It really is incredible.
It's something else and it just goes on year after year after year, and it's easier than ever before to communicate. You have social media. You could put something out on the Twitter feed. You could put out something on social to let people know what's going on or apologies. There's nothing wrong with that, but they act like, hey, you know, if we ignore it, then it's not a problem, and that, of course is simply not true.
That's insane, I know.
But also moving on today, Nick Reiner in custody for the murder of his dad and his mom, Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner both dead. He is the prime suspect. He's in custody. He has been I believe charged. We do know that mental illness and self medication are the top motives here. He struggled with mental health for a long time, but the subject of a movie and also had a drug problem, was actually homeless for a while.
A horrible story because you know, to go to show you that that mental health knows no socio economic boundaries, that people with extreme wealth and have all the access to the best care in the world still can't get that. And of course if you're poor, you have less of a chance doing that. But the Nick Reiner in custody for the murder, it was most likely mental illness and maybe self medication. Their drug problems the top motives certainly
not politics. And I think it's really interesting the focus of this is now not on Nick Reiner in the Rhiners, but rather on President Trump, because he's now doubled down in his comments that his death was a result of Trump derangement syndrome. They described Reiner as a tortured and struggling individual who suffered from massive, unyielding, incurable affliction with
Trump de rangement syndrome. It seems like the more we progress into the second term here that President Trump himself suffers from Trump de arrangement syndrome more than anyone else in this country, I think. And for those who I guess the boot lickers who will always apologize for him, saying that, well, why would you expect he was Rob Reiner was always targeting Donald Trump and simply doesn't like
Donald Oh, he doesn't like all Republicans. He's a died in the wool leftist liberal, as a lot of people Hollywood are. But you know, when you take the job as commander in chief, and you take the job as a representative which president is, you're going to have people shooting arrows at you. I mean, you know, when Biden was president, half the country didn't like Biden. Half the country doesn't like Trump. That's how it is. Just kind
of goes along with the job. And I think it's also especially difficult because we had the shootings at Brown and what happened on Australia and the three Americans in Syrian. It's been a steady drumbeat to this and the thing coming out from the President was well, it's because he hated me. I'm not quite sure the connection there between him disliking Donald Trump and his death. And also i'd
point out Charlie Kirk you know. I mean, there are a lot of influencers out there who said we're not going to celebrate or mock the death of a political opponent, and everyone got that mount maybe a lot of Mega supporters got that message, except for President Trump. A surprise
that Rob Reiner is a leftist. But I think overall, I mean, the bigger issue here is, you know, you're trying to sell an agenda, a controversial agenda at that, with a lot of things, whether it's ice and immigration or whether it's terriffs, and you could go on and on. It's certainly a novel approach to things, and you're gonna upset a lot of people because you are rocking the appl card. And Donald Trump most assuredly is very anti status quo and that is a reason one of the
big reasons why he got elected. But if you're trying to sell your agenda to I don't think you'll ever convince a Rob Reiner of the world. And I went in Hollywood that you know, your agendas is good. There are a lot of people who are in the middle.
There are a lot of independents who are hearing these words and going, well, you know, it just makes it tougher to sell your agenda to the undecided or the middle part of the country, Like, I don't know why you would hurt yourself so and I get you know, before it was about getting attention, getting elected you kind of the brand. It was in the first term, it was really refreshing. It's like, wow, this guy is completely unschained. It's interesting to hear a president's or a presidential Kenyoway
speak in those terms. But by two terms now, it's kind of exhausting. And you know, in this world of everything shocks you, it is awfully difficult to say things that top the last statement, and he has a pretty good track record of that. And it's unfortunate because I think, you know, he does bring some good ideas or different approaches to things that, given time, may work, and too numerous to list here. But the problem is, you know, you, when you do this kind of stuff, it makes it
awfully difficult to like the man. And part of whether you like it or not, part of being a pologist, there's got to be a likability quotient there. There's got to be an empathy. And I said, you know, one thing that is missing from his his arsenal is the empathy genie, he just doesn't happen. And sometimes, as commander in chief, as leader of the free world, you have to engage in empathy. He's just not empathetic at all
to anything at all times. And that that really, I think that, really, above all else, hurts his agenda.
I really do.
Five three seven four nine seven thousand, The Big One. It's talked back on the iHeart Radio app. You for listening on the stream this morning. Let me roll to, uh, where're we going to? Jerry and Mercer County on the Big One. Good morning, Jerry.
Hey, I disagree with what Trump did, what he says, but he could have used it as a leverage point that guy Nick was hooked on cocaine or whatever. I wondered if he could have got an idea of what Ron Reyer thought about him bombing on drug boats.
Yeah, I'm sure Rob Reiner disagreed with that, and that is that's a great connection right there. And we don't know if he was on drugs at the time. I mean, eventually that's all going to come out. It's pretty clear he's the one who did this this atrocity. But you know, killing your own parents and someone is revered. I mean, I'm not a fan of his politics, but any stretched the Rob Reiner, but his his resid of me is iconic.
Let's put it that way. The films he's made and the things he's been and it's absolutely in cred incredible streak of movies. I appreciate Rob Reiner as a talent, but the same time I look at this going wow, it's you're making Donald Trump is making it about him
when it's not about him at all. And my point is, I think it just turns off a lot of people to a lot of a thing, well hearing anything in his agenda at all, because he just overshadows it with dumb stuff that comes out of his mouth or off his fingertips.
Well, I just wonder what Rob Ryner would have thought about drug if he made any comments.
I don't know.
I don't know, but yeah, I mean you know again, I and thanks with a call.
I don't you know. That's just so I don't know.
A watch of award shows, I really don't care what celebrities think about things. Yeah, I don't know bout it. I don't know whose influence. Maybe if you're younger, you are and like, hey, what's Taylor Swift's take on this? Because you know that's your that's your world. She's iconic. Uh, if you're older, I think I don't know me anyway, I look at I got. I don't really care what Rob Reiner thinks. I really don't care what any actor, actress, whether they're on the right of the left, I don't care.
Rob Reiner is certainly in titled his opinion, and he has a platform that's pretty large. I get that, But I don't go around going wow, well, Rob Briiner think I gotta think the same way.
You know.
They're all sorts of opinionists and influencers out there. Sure, but I don't spend a lit I don't know about you. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what Rob Reiner thinks. I worry about the direction of the country. I worry about policies that may or may not be working. Some of them do, some of them don't. That seems to be in play if you criticize that. But again, there's so many people afraid to step out of line
with Trump for fear. I think, on the end, I think Marjorie Tayl Green is right about that there's so many people that follow the company line they're afraid to step out and say, yeah, this is wrong and speak up. It's starting to happen now because while the president is approaching lame duck territory at this point, and I think you're going to see a lot more of this as well.
But then there's still people that will defend everything that comes out of his mouth or fingertips or just simply ignore, which is the same thing.
At five.
Bethel and Joel High on the Scottsland Show, What's up.
Going, Scott. I don't know if you heard what Rob Reiner said about Charlie kirk whin he was assassinated. He just he he was on with uh Piers Morgan and just said how how awful it was and it was horrific, and uh, no matter how you align politically, it's not correct. And you know, obviously mister Ryder he was a he was a big left that's like many in California and Hollywood. It was just a very dignified and you know, dignified
way what he said about Charlie. And it just shows, you know, I'm a millennial and uh, you know, Trump has just destroyed the GOP. In my opinion, I think the GOP's only hope is to get behind people like Thomas Massey.
Uh that that really value.
This country because at the end of the day, Trump's ego is just the size of a grave of sand. And it's it's just it's so exhausting.
It is indible how he had made the murder of Rob Ryin or his wife about him. I mean, that is that is such a different That's like four D egotism. I've never you're looking at that, go what and and you know what? What he tweets and what he says is often outrageous, and that's part of his brand. Do you know how hard it is to continually top yourself from the last time.
It's got to be exhausted.
Oh yeah, it's it's awful. And I voted for Trump three times. I'm a big you know, in my opinion, I might true make America great again conservative and Trump is that. I think He's always kind of been a Democrat, you know, New York conservative. And I think just as true colors are showing it and the only one it's turning is JD Vance in twenty eight.
Yeah, and I think that the Trump's shadow and these these are the things are just because of such a shadow and tarnished the brand. And what I fear is as voters, and you can see it already that they're holding them responsible for those actions and what he's doing,
what he's saying. And if you think it's bad, if you think it was bad under Biden, uh, the next term after Trump is going to scare the hell out of me, because unless something desperately changes, it is gonna be like Rob Reiners running the country, for God's sakes, but the commander was just slaughtered on those own bed by son, for God's sakes. Just shut the hell up. You're not helping anybody. You're not helping yourself for sure.
News on the Way, Scott's Loan Show. This is seven hundred ww Cincinnati.
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You may recall, let's go back to last spring, remember when we had those two dog attacks and consecutive weeks in Chlorine Township. Yeah, it was horrible. The one woman was attacked by two large dogs in front of her kids, trying to profict your kids, and she said she felt
like a human chew toy. And then the following week, another pack of dogs killed a couple of chickens, threatened a bunch of neighbors, and we learned about Ohio law, the nuances of Ohio law that the only way to destroy, to euthanize a dog in Ohio is if it kills a second time. Let me run that back a second. So you kill someone if you're a dog, and okay, well, just as long as it doesn't happen again. Well that's insane, right, I mean, we don't do that with other crimes. I
would do that with a dog. Well, good news is that looks like it is about to change. It's called Avery's Lots on Mike dewinesess right now in A co sponsor of Avery's Law is Ohio Representative Adam Bird out of Clairemont Conye.
I'm welcome, Harey Scott.
It's great to be with you this morning.
Thanks appreciate it.
Boy, that's just such an asonine law and how that stayed in the books for so long that you mean to tell me that if a dog kills someone, you pat it on the head and go, okay, just don't let it happen again. But if a human being does that, they go to prison maybe for the rest of their lives. That that's insane that we can make it to twenty twenty five with that law in the books.
Like that, absolutely, And I'm very thankful to be a part of this bill, and it has a lot of support among my colleagues, and it is on the governor's desk right now. My report is that he will likely sign it by the end of the week, and thankful for that because we've got to protect young children. And you mentioned that it's named after a young lady named Avery from Central Ohio that was viciously attacked twice by
two different dogs. And you know, she's scarred and maimed for life in her face from from the attack.
Horrible, absolutely horrible, and someone has to suffer like that, and it took this law to get those laws changed. As I recalled during the Coal Raine tragedy as well as Avery, that there's criticism aimed towards dog wardens and a dog wardens showed up, it didn't take the dog or didn't destroy the dog. Does this new law empower dog wardens?
Absolutely? It gives the local dog warden the authority the see is a dog immediately following an attack. And you know, it also imposes criminal penalties on it dog owner if the dog owner negligently fails to keep the dog from
committing you know, an attack on someone. So you know, I think we're making some legitimate steps here that people will appreciate, especially and light of the fact, Sonny, I don't know if you know this or not, seventeen thousand dog bites across the Ohio or reported every year and I think Hamilton County gets about a thousand a year.
Wow, a thousand dog bite. Now, granted you're not going to about all thousand dogs are are going to be destroyed, but it goes to show you how pervasive the problem is.
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know I don't have the data for surrounding counties, but you know that's a lot. And now, now, this bill, which is soon to become law, is not going to mandate the termination of the dog just for biting someone. It's only if it kills or seriously andrew someone.
Yeah.
I talked to the sponsor this I remember this is probably right after the the attacks, and I suggested that, you know, here's the thing. If you have a vicious dog or dangerous dog, it's bit someone in the past. I think at that point you need to start carrying some insurance policy. It has to there has to be either money, an escro or a liability insurance involving a owner of a dog if they you know, not all dogs bite. I mean, the majority of dogs aren't going
to bite someone. But if you have a bier, you should be forced, I think, to have to carry some sort of insurance because in the past people have just simply ducked out. We had a horrible cases where an elder lady was mauled in her garden in the back of her house. Her husband in a wheelchair to watch his wife of like I think forty years fifty years mauled to death by a dog that got out and killed her. It wasn't the first time the dog attacked
her or someone else. And then later that afternoon they're like, okay, well she killed the neighbor. They were at the casino gambling, like how hartless is that it was a horrible, horrible story. And I know that the suggestion that we have liability insurance for those owners of vicious dogs is part of this as well.
How would that work?
Well, yeah, I mean they do have to carry insurance. And I think the real takeaway here, Scott is that you are responsible for your animal, and you're responsible for your dog, and you need to keep your dog in a muzzle if required, on a leash and behind a finch. In fact, if you've got a dog that can climb a fench, you've got to put a top on top of that so that they can't get out. You, as a dog owner, are responsible for any vicious acts of your dogs.
And the liability interest, as I call it, you'd have to carry one hundred thousand dollars liability policy.
How would that work?
What is the trigger that the dog has to bite someone first before that policy, before you're forced to carry that policy?
I believe that's correct, and so you know, it is one hundred thousand dollars, you've got to you know, I mean that's a lot. And you know, one hundred thousand dollars doesn't go as far as it used to. When it comes to medical bills and requiring someone's face that it's been damaged.
Yeah, the woman in col Ray, Emily Renchler was your name. I believe herb medical bills were in excess of two hundred thousand dollars for that attack in Chlraine.
That's crazy, And you know it's just so, I mean, that's that's our good first step. Yeah, one hundred thousand dollars. And as you know, we do things often incrementally here in Ohio. And if we find out that one hundred thousand dollars isn't it up, I'm sure we'll be looking to consider change on that in the future.
Yeah.
And for those people I think it's breed specific. It's not about punishing breeds. It's about holding the owners of the dogs responsible because the dogs aren't you know, it's not up to the dog whether or not they're in a yard or restrained, or if you let your dog roam free, if you let them be untrained or go put themselves in unsafe situations. That's not the dog. That's a dog in the dog. That's up to the owner to do that. That's a difference.
Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know anything about the dog breed either. I think we all know that certain breeds that are a little more likely to do something. And so you as an owner, if you're going to take that hants and you're going to want to keep a breed that is more likely to do that, you have got to take legitimate steps to protect your neighbors and to protect And it's not just other people, it's it's your neighbor's dog. You know, sometimes they'll they'll attack that,
the neighbor's dog or whatever. So if it's incumbent upon the owner to protect protect others from from harm that their own dog might do, what is it.
I think that's an important facet of this too. And I want to get back on the one hundred thousand dollars policy to begin with. But let's say someone just simply disregards as law. What is the tooth of the law no pun intended towards the owner of a dog. If they just like, oh, I'm not getting insurance and my dog's out and bite someone and kill someone who cares, what does the what kind of power do authorities have to detain, arrest and charge that person.
Yeah, there's criminal penalties for the dog owner that increase in severity as you continue you to ignore the law. So, uh, it's a it's a misdemeanor at this point. And but but if you continue to ignore it, it the charge is climbed. So you are you know, you're going to be charged if you don't take care of this with your dog.
If you have that, a dog escalates, it starts biting people, biting in the in the taxi, and you don't pay attention to it. And let's say I don't know a kid or in this case, this lady Emily gets mauled and they'd wind up dying. Could someone in that situation face a murder charge under this icide perhaps?
No, No, that's that's not true. But you you know, I mean if that, if that were to continue, I guess we would have to consider change. But right now, if that dog attacks one time and and and kills or severely injure someone, you know, that's uh, that dog's going to be put down. And that's that's a requirement in this bill, that that the the dog warden sees the dog immediately and that following due process, that the dog would be humanly destroyed.
Yeah, you mentioned the one hundred thousand dollars liability insurance. And I point out to Emily Wrenchler's bills were in access to two hundred thousand dollars. Does that number need to be upped in the future? Why is that the insurance or criminal level that wouldn't cover the cost?
Wow, you know, that's that that might be something that we have to consider change in the future. But that's that's where we're at right now. It's a big step forward from where it is currently. And and so if one hundred thousand dollars isn't en up, I'm sure, sure we'll consider change in the future. But I hadn't heard that the person in Cole Rain had had experienced two hundred thousand dollars worth of medical bills.
Yeah, yeah, I mean some of these are so severe and the you know, it's it's also about not only of a wound treatment in traumacare, but it's also about the rehabilitation and that could be extremely expensive. Unfortunately, you know, the law now until the governor signs is saying it dollar Doug kills twice before mandatory euthanasia under this bill, what a dog that severely mul someone. Let's say, I mean not kills him, but life altering injuries, but not death.
They'll be abowed to live. I mean, where where's the line there? Does it have to be the death before the dog's destroyed.
No, it's not depth, it's severely injures. And so I guess, uh, you know, the judge will have to decide whether that standard is met or not. And so I guess I guess it could still cause controversy if if we're trying to decide whether you know, the damage that's been done to someone's face or whatever, you know, meets that requirement or not.
He is from Claremont, that's Ohio. Represent Adam Bird on the Scotslan Show seven hundred w BLW on Avery's Law, it's on de Waine's death, past the Senate, past the House Representedve Bird is a co sponsor of this soon to be law hopefully here and it has to do with vicious dog attacks. We had the dog attacks too in two weeks in col Rane Township. There's been others across the state. Represented Bird just mentioned there's a thousand in Hamlin County alone, different types of dog bites in
a t as well. And the law up to this point said that a dog can't be euthanized until it kills a second time, meaning it kills a person, so the first one, if your dog is free. Humans don't have that kind of leeway. Why would we allow that with a dog. The law is finally changing in twenty twenty Smith looks like probably twenty twenty five here almost at twenty twenty six, are almost there and fortunately we know we're cooler has there prevailing here and we are
getting some good law in there as well. Up to this point, dog wardens, I think when there was testimony given in the Colorine attack said look, we don't have any authority whatsoever. We're underfunded and powerless under Colonel Law. What power and also do we see any funding issues that are addressed by this.
They're no funding from the state of Ohio on this. But you know, like I said, the dog warden will now have the authority to take such a dog immediately in that situation, and it definitely empowers them because we want to keep people safe and it's outrageous that a dog that has killed in the past is not immediately taken by the dog warden. And you rightly pointed that out, Scott, that we had that situation where the dog can kill somebody and it doesn't have any impact. So I'm thankful
that we've made this common sense change. I think people will appreciate that. I really have not heard many complaints about this at all, even from dog owners, and people understand that if you're going to own a dog, that you're responsible for for the actions that your dog might take.
I think most all dog owners are that way. Of course, there's people out there that have dog or dogs and they just simply don't care. They you know, may chain them up outside during inclement weather like this said, they don't give a damn. I mean that used to be conventional wisdom, you know, years and years ago. But dogs and cats to some degree have become family members. We're not dog owners anymore. We're pet parents, right, It's the
whole narrative has changed. We're feeding our dogs better food than we put in our own bodies. Put it that way, the farmer's dog looks better than what I had for dinner last.
Night myself at.
Yeah, there you go, go.
Adam bird one of the other things. And we mentioned the powerlessness here of the dog wardens themselves sound like a cut out there for just a second, and the funding thing has to be dressed probably at the local level there too. But what happens to a dog owner can't aford one hundred thousand dollars liability insurance after the dog attacks.
Someone whoa You know, I'd say that if you can't afford that, I don't think that there is a The failure to obtain liability insurance is going to be a
fourth degree misdemeanor. So you're going to be charged if you don't have that, And you know, I would think that people would would take, you know, take that to heart and would would you know if you're not going if you're going to get if you don't have it and you get a charge with a fourt of mcgreen, that's remain or you're going to you know, it's going to start racking up on you here soon.
Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe you should not have a dog if you can't afford the insurance. I mean, if you have a dog, presumably you can afford vet bills and the food that dog, especially bigger dogs are going to need and all things go along with it. Maybe, you know, if you can't afford the gas, don't buy the car.
There you go. So you know, and honestly, I'm not sure what the cost is to one hundred thousand dollars in liability. What is you know what that might be.
Scott, I have no idea. That's a that's a great.
Question, good insurance question for one of your insurance agents. Probably a rider on your homeowner's insurance.
I would think.
Also, you know, an umbrella policy would cover that as well too, and that's those are fairly affordable. But again, you know, if you don't have that kind of money, maybe not that. Maybe a dog is a bad idea for you, you know, unlike you know, kids might be a different thing simply because of the nature of it. But you know, you choose to go and fish get a dog or procure a dog, and it might be a free dog, but there's costs associated with the care, feeding,
and maintenance of the dog. And it's not fair of the dog either because you know, they're not born vicious, they're treated that way or bred that way. That's completely up to human beings, not the not the breed, or not the animal itself. And you know, given that it looks like the house and sent the past different versions. I think there's something in here, the playful behavior protections, I think is interesting. Uh that their protections are dogs
exhibiting what they call age appropriate behavior. And I'm guessing that has to do more with puppies.
Yeah, yeah, there you go. And and so you know, because sometimes little puppies are gonna, you know, kind of chew around on things, and uh, we you know, we don't want we don't want that happening. But I don't I do believe that both versions Scott have been approved by both the There's been one version approved by both chambers, and and that's why I get sent to the Governor's death So I don't think we have to have any kind of conference committee or to agree to changes. And
we have one bill. It's been approved by both houses. It's on the governor's desk, and my sources say that he'll sign it by Friday.
Of course, there is always the law of unintended consequences, things like this Adam Bird years ago. Our good friends are next door neighbors have a Chihuahua dog and dress it up Halloween. Kids are coming over and kids will get trick or treat. They come up and she say, hey, listen to know the dogs the dog's cute now, but don't don't get too close to the dog because she gets a little protect if she may nip at you. And of course everyone listens except one kid who decides
to go over and you know, mess with the dog. Well, sure enough, the dog nips them. The kids fine, doesn't cry, his parents get all worked up. The kids starts crying. They take them to the emergency room. Skin's not broken. It's a whole thing. I just wonder does that law protect people who are innocuous in this thing?
That's a lot of dogs.
It's you know, you're not going to destroy you take a dog or you know, go after someone's house and one hundred thousand dollars in damages because you get nipped in your repul stay away from the dog. Are there protections there for those individuals?
Yeah? Absolutely there. Their due process is required here and and so there is a hearing and uh, you know it's it's the dog. Warden can take that dog immediately. That doesn't mean that their dog's going to be humanly put down right away, but there is going to be a due process hearing, and you know you're gonna you're going to have an opportunity if if to make sure that that in the case that you just described, a dog wouldn't be put down for that.
Right, I got you, all right?
So are we one hundred percent confident governor to why who's going to sign this as it?
Well, I'd like to think that he is. And I say, you know, if Scott Swoan thinks it's a good bill, and Adenburgh thinks it's a good bill, he probably should sign it. And uh, he's running out of time, as you know, He's got ten days discounting Sundays to sign
a bill. And I think this is one that's that's worth worth doing because you know, the governor often speaks about his desire to protect kids and protect families and you know he's Ohio's first grandpa, yep, And so you would think that somebody that cares about kids and families with tiny belle like that.
Now, this is good law and long overdue. So congratulations and thanks for that. He is Representative Adam Bird out of Claremont County, co sponsor of Avery's Law, awaiting the governor's signature and some common sense dog vicious dog laws in the state of Ahio. All the best Merry Christmas, and thanks for coming on.
Merry Christmas to you and your family as well. Thank you for the honor of being on your show. And and you know, let's let's keep our family safe and and let's make sure we're taking care of our dogs and not putting our dogs in a position where they.
Might arn somebody.
Amen, brother, gotcha, Thanks again for the time, appreciate it. Have a good one. Let me get to a news update. Scott'slan continues after this seven hundred Wtlon on seven.
Hundred all hard to believe, to believe it was five years ago? When at all?
And I'm talking about COVID, the score on COVID five years later. What happened here? How did we get to this point right now? In history? Arguably we suffered more COVID deaths than all during all foreign worst combined. We have the largest employment loss, some twenty two million people essentially went on layoff or got fired, completely lost their their career, biggest number since a great depression, greatest increase
in the national death since the Second World War. When you stack us up to all the other developed nations in the world, no one had it worse than we did.
And I love the.
Historical perspective on this because often, you know, you get Congress, you get political hacks that often infiltrate shows and we'll try to spin things, is in mistruths, and I just want the facts from history, history perspective, and Ronald Grunner provides that in COVID Wars.
Ronald, welcome to the show. How are you.
I'm just trying and thanks for the invitation.
Yeah, thanks for coming on. Yeah, this is a unique I lived through nine to eleven. You did as well, I'm sure, and we remember we're like united them by a common foe. America came together, albeit briefly, but we came together. This was even more fleeting than that there
was here in Ohio. We had wine with the wine the governor, and snacking with Acting Amy, acting the Ohio Health Director, and all of a sudden, within literally a couple of weeks, everything turned and the hatred and vitriol for Mike, the wine changed on the dime, largely by Republicans, same for Amy Acton, and we saw us going at
each other's throats. We didn't district, we distrusted healthcare disinformation ran rampant, and I'm just I'm curious as to how we got to that point in history where we didn't believe anything anymore.
Well, Scott, I think it was primary due to so many conflicting sources of information. I mean, I'm not familiar with them, all the issues in Ohio, but I mean we had on a number of cable channels of people claiming early in the pandemic that it was all a democratic plot to demonize the president or undermine the president President Trump.
So that was one aspect.
But there's information coming at people from all different directions, from the Internet, from social media, from cable news, indicasion from newspapers. So it was a very confusing time and people tended to polarize early in the pandemic, as early as February March of twenty twenty, and they never really changed their minds about the situation, unfortunately.
But the scientific method has never changed since the scientific method became a thing, and that's long long before we came here. Right, is that you have an hypothesis you tested, if it's proven a scientific fact, at some point it can be completely endermind. But this thing happened so quickly. And also the vaccine, the Arna vaccine was developed so quickly we didn't have that history, and so we know
much more today about RNA. We know much more today about the vaccines than we did when they were first developed, and rather quickly, for that matter. Instead of celebrating, we start attacking them. I think that's a difference.
Though.
The scientific method we looked through that out the window, going now, well, yeah, you know what we thought we knew about. It is tested and either it passes or fails to test. What am I missing there?
Well, what you're missing, I think is that the scientific method depends on the reliable data. Reliable data, and so a lot of that data was missing. Things were moving so quickly, people didn't have the data or didn't trust the data to really say, okay, I can draw some
solid conclusions about the data I'm being presented. Either wasn't there or was considered unreliable, and that was one of the factors I think that led to so much disbelief about the vaccines, and even if the covid itself was a real virus as opposed to just a bad case.
Of the flue.
We also learned too, that we had known about this the country, and those scientists and even the president as far back as two thousand and five knew about this. But again, we're one of those things where okay, well, if we know a super pandemic is coming, how do we prevent that from knowing about it or having in advanced warning and what it might look like very vague at that is one thing, But doing something about what you don't know is about to happen is entirely different.
Well, that's a good part. You're referring to George W.
Bush.
President Bush. In two thousand and five, I identified the risk of a pandemic and actually had Congress authorized seven billion dollars for a pandemic funding. But over the next fifteen years that got spent, you know, fighting that swine flu and ibola in Africa and other small epidemics, and there was no money left on the equipment left on the shelf. When the COVID pandemic app actually hit, Congress never renewed those funds.
Unfortunately.
That's why we had no mass, no personal protection equipment in the early stages of the pandemic.
But George W.
Bush, he had the insight to in two thousand and five to say, a pandemic will come eventually, we need to be prepared.
To his credit, Ron, remember that day when the president came on. President Trump came on and said, hey, we're in a global pandemic. We're going to basically shut lock things down, and he introduced Operation Warp Speed to develop a COVID vaccine, and then all of a sudden that became an attack on the same vaccine he wanted to develop.
Take me through that, well, I mean, it's Trump's tremendous credit. He authorized in mayor twenty twenty, Operation web Speed to develop vaccines for COVID as quickly as possible. But the thing that's really still not understandable is why once the vaccines became well coming out, he never really promoted them.
Every president that went to a pandemic or epidemic, like Eisenhoward, George Gerald, Ford and Obama were the first to get vaccinated and were very clear about their feelings about the vaccine. President Trump didn't do that. He got vaccinated silently, with no publicity and never talked about it. His one interesting data point is that during twenty twenty, President Trump issued over twelve thousand tweets. As you know, that's how he
communicated with the public. Of those twelve thousand tweats, only a few more than one hundred, like a one hundred ten tweets even mentioned the word vaccine, which is astonishing to me.
Yeah, if you're helping develop that, and Trump is the best self promoter we'll ever see, you think you would take advantage of that. What happened to the point where he decided not to do that? When did it become toxic? I guess for Trump to attach himself to a vaccine he put on the fast.
Rug that I can't answer. I mean, I've done a lot of research and that's really not clear why he didn't support that.
More.
I think that part of it was his base was turning against the lockdowns and were opening up and even declaring that the pandemic was over. As you may have read in my book, Vice President of Piss did a major Wall Street Journal editorial saying that pandemic is over, there is not a second wave. So if there's not a second wave, if the pandemic is over, what do you need a vaccine? And perhaps President Trump was supporting that viewpoint.
Yeah, I mean I get the need for a vaccine, so it doesn't happen again, Although we will see it mutate and do other things as often as the case when it comes to viruses, But relative to the lockdowns themselves, it became pretty clear after a period of time. Initially, I think most Americans are like, Okay, we're going to lock this down, and you know, we're gonna get subside from the government, which I get because no one can go to work.
But at some point it big game clear.
There wasn't gonna be the big second wave, and yet we continue doing Now, how look at Biden's policy of continued to hand up COVID relief money long after the long after COVID wasn't a problem.
Yeah, and of course it led to a tremendous inflation inflationary wave we're still suffering from.
That's true.
But no, the as I'm sure you know, there was a second wave of the COVID starting in November of twenty twenty that was even more deady than.
The first wave.
And part of the problem was that virus was mutating through different strains, through six different strains in the last five years, and we had a hard time chasing that with vaccines. They had to be updated continually to go after the next strain, and that's one of the reasons the vaccines were not as effective as they thought they would have been. Early in twenty twenty.
We also when it came to response, we didn't do well. There the a lot of confusion about the severity of the virus that the public health emergency was to called I think the last day of January twenty twenty, but everything else after that was I mean, really, the government once again, those people who want more government in our life, I questioned you, because look at their task with doing the CDC. The test kits didn't work. I remember that
there's really no national strategy. You could certainly lay it on the hands of Trump, but we had infrastructure that was built in to make sure that that was handled by the CDC, FEMA. When it comes to natural disasters, these agencies that are tasked with making sure that when a major, major crisis hits were at least a little
bit prepared. It looked like they had no game plan whatsoever, and I think that also helped to the public perception like we don't know what's going on here, why are we doing this?
No, that's correct, there was no game plan, although they had done significant war game planning in twenty nineteen and they didn't follow those plans that was done at the administration, and for some reason, it just was an area of total confusion with the federal government for the first six months. I think later on they began to get better work, but the first six months were very confusing. Of course, it was a movie target that was part of the problems,
and people lost faith. People lost faith in what they were hearing from the CDC in the federal government.
Well, the mixed messages. I think Fauci had a very interesting role on this. I think come to the conclusion most well. I think if you're on the right, you absolutely despise Fauci. I'm not sure where those progressives and LUNs of the left stand. What's his legacy.
Well, I think time's going to have to sort that out my opinion, which may not be a PARTA. And I think Fauci was made a bit of a scapegoat personally, and we'll let the historians up later on sort that out. He made a lot of mistakes. He should have gotten a good public relations course before he'd been talking to two hnd and thirty million Americans about things that could affect their lives. So he talked way too much off
the cuff and confused people. But I don't think he was malicious intentionally as some people believe, and I don't believe he should be jailed.
Yeah, I look at him and as soon as a character because he is a doctor, but I think he more of a policy You're a politician at that point too, and I think that's the thing. You look at someone always a physician, you know, as you're talking about it's different when you become a political being. That all goes by the wayside. I don't care if you're a doctor or a general.
Well, that is certainly true. And he had been in the government, as you know him for forty years, so he had become mighty politicized. He was a political character and he tended to behave that way. But I think most of the fact that he just was he saw himself as a public health official, and that was all he worried about. Effect on the economy, the effect on jobs and businesses. That was all secondary as opposed to
his view of trying to protect every possible life. Honestly, that was where I believe he was coming from.
Ron Gerner's on the show COVID wars America struggle of a public health and personal freedom. He's not a politician, he's not a physician. He is a historian. And it's always interesting seeing historical perspective on things like this to change our live and certainly a seminal moment in our lives was five years ago when we had the COVID outbreak. Hot was handled mishandled in some cases, although at the end of the day, the fact that they developed that
vaccine in such record time is something else. There's still people say, well, the vaccine is killing people, it's not the virus. And I got friends that believe that the facts that the virus didn't exist at all. I mean, you get so many different alternate forms of reality out there competing in the space of I don't know, maybe of common sense, but of science. That's that's really the problem here. I think social media added so much more to this h and made it more detrimental than necessary.
Well that's the true now the advice I give to people then they asked me what should we turn to if this happens again. What the advice I give is that we've got We're blessed in the United States with some of the best medical institutions in the world. We have the Male Clinic, for example, in Minnesota, Massachusetts, General Boston, Stanford,
and California Cleveland Clinic all over the country. So if you don't trust the government, and that's understandable, then I would go to those top medical institutions and take their advice and follow it. So if they say the vaccines work and a minimal in terms of risk, didn't trust that because they're the best institutions in the world and I believe they'll be honest with their medical advice.
Yeah, but there are people don't distrust them as well because they see it as an extension of Anthony Fauci that they're just simply not going to believe. You know, we had a lady here in Ohio as an example. I don't she was a doctor. I'm a physician, I forget, but she said the VACU She's the lady who said the vaccines were causing her body to become magnetic and put a spoon on her nose that didn't stick during
testimony at the state House. But it became a meme obviously, because you know, the vaccine's not making you magnetized.
Well, I discussed her in my book. I do have that there's a couple of pages discussing her in her testimony before the Ohio one of the commissions there. But no, I don't think Anthony Fauci has enough political power to affect the Male Clinic, which has been around her seventy five years, or Massa Chuttus General, which is just as older.
These tough top hospitals, I mean, they are independent, private organizations and they're going to do what they think is right for their for their patients, and so I think they're absolutely trustworthy. They made be wrong occasional because they had they interpret the data wrong, but they're trustworthy and in terms of trying to be honest with their opinions.
I agree on those sources. I also trust my physician. And if you have a good relationship with your general practitioner and you mainly see them once or twice a year, as I do, maybe see them more often, and you like that person, that'd be the one I asked, because they know you and they know your conditions, and you know I would think your values and also that is in line with them, and so that would be my go to resource. Hey, what should I do Should I
get the vaccine? I was told, yeah, absolutely, get the vaccine. I did, got the first booster, and after that they're like, Okay, you're probably pretty good for a while. Don't worry about it, and so here and here. I am never really suffered too badly from COVID maybe other stuff. The flu, that's a different story entirely. How do you explain the medical equipment shortage that was also part of the plot, We're going to kill Americans here because we don't have enough PPE.
I'd contend that we didn't see this coming and it came, and you don't. You don't we eat PPE and masks and gowns and all that stuff For an event like this, you know, you got to get caught up. And with industry being shut down supply chains, that also added to it. It's not like you have all this stuff laying around ready to go in the event you had some unforeseen virus breakout.
Well, that was George Bush's objective. I mean, he spent seven billion dollars to buy PPE and masks and all kinds of equipment for handing a pandemic, and then that got used in three specific incidents in the next fifteen years, and Congress never reapproved funds. Obama tried to after Ibula. Obama tried his best to get those funds replenished or at least partially replenished, and we were in sequestration cutting budgets,
and that money never got funded. So PPE never got funded, and those shelves were empty when Trump came on board, like he said.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we didn't. We used it, never bothered replenishing it because oh well, we're good.
We got an.
Unlimited supply of this, and we really didn't. I think the thing that's emitted for most Americans, too, Ronald, was when you know, you saw folks in nursing homes that couldn't have contact with anyone from the outside world except you know, their nurse would be on loading dock, smoking a cigarette and hanging out with people and then go back and treat your love, and meanwhile you can't make contact with them. And of course they saw people being hauled out in body bag from them same kind of
facilities that those images there. I think that really stuck with Americans, and not in a good way.
I think that that may well have been an overreaction. Thank you point out I'm not a position, but I think that they surely could have found a way when people were passing on their family and elders could see them in their last moments or before, you know, shortly before that, there must have been a way of doing that. If nothing else, they would get completely dressed up in PPN wear masks as opposed to doing that over a zoom call.
I think we've learned from that, hopefully. Yeah, and just so much.
You know, the misinformation out there was certainly a cause of this thing, no doubt about it. But when this thing came down pretty clearly the political divides and it was politics over science. What surprised you the most is in your recent about that divide and about that part of level partisanship.
Well, it surprised me is that politicians supported it. Just in my opinion, they weren't necessarily representing the interests of their constituents in terms of their health. And I'm ashamed to say this, but there's a huge difference in death
rates between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats tended to open their schools more slowly, in the communities more slowly, and were much more highly vaccinated as opposed to Republicans who had much much lower vaccination rates which affected death rates, and the data is all in my book, which is just a tragedy.
Well, well, I would say Florida seemed to do. Everyone pointed to Florida's being while we opened back up, we didn't lock stuff down, and then we were fine.
Well, Florida had slightly below average death rates, so that's true. I mean that they were fine. But in terms of the states that were you can compare what I can have a strong comparison between Vermont and Florida. Vermont's got a sniffeting out of population in Florida, which is surprises, as does Maine. Yet they had death rates compared to Florida,
roughly one third the death rate of Florida. So there's a lot of interesting comparisons that are yet to be done to understand what actually happened.
Do you think we'll ever have a total grasp of what occurred and why?
I think eventually I think that data would come out, but it may take a couple of generations. It's interesting, Scott that the first really in depth analysis of the nineteen eighteen Spanish fluid didn't come out until nineteen seventy eight, almost fifty years later, and that was what motivated being right in my book COVID Wars to try to get a solid history of what happened much much sooner.
We'll see if that actually worked.
And the final point is as a historian, Ronald, do we ever learn from this? I say no, we never ever ever learn.
Well, that's funny, a realistic view, but I like to think of myself as optimistic. I think over time, I think, Scott, when the emotion washes away. There's so much emotion right now, when that washes away, and what's left to the facts that people do look at and come get some conclusions. Yes, I think we'll learn from this.
It's Ronald Gruin a COVID Wars, America struggle or a public health and personal freedom. He's a historian, so not a political book or a medical book, but rather from a historical perspective on this, which I love.
Ronald all the best, Thanks again.
Thank you, good chatting with you.
Seconds away from news on seven hundred WW then we return. If you get that hot libertarian streak and you're like me, you're gonna like this one. We've talked about this in the past. And it looks like maybe it's coming to a head. Finally, you're not sure. Bob All from Buckeye Institute on an Ohio man facing prison because he makes
his own alcohol. You can make pretty much everything else as long as you consume it in your own household, whether it's beer, wine, you know, vegetable garden, bakery at whatever federal law says. You cannot make your own alcohol. You cannot distill a beverage. Otherwise you're looking at five years in prison. Whiskey tango, foxtrot. We'll get that next seven hundred WW Do.
You want to be American? Good?
Marty Scott Flows Show on seven hundred w W question, would you be willing to go to prison for your hobby?
Now?
Unless your hobby is being a Bengals, I don't want to go down. That's a little dark. But your hobby guy's name is James Reem, and mister Reem lives in Newark, Ohio's up the road from us, and he wants to distill small qualities of alcohol. He likes bourbon, he likes rye, he likes whiskey, and he has fascination with brewing. Owns a bur mini broad microbur as a matter of fact, and he wants to make some alcohol own home for
his personal consumption. If he decides he's going to do that, he is subject to felony conviction ten thousand dollars in fines. We're talking about five years in prison, longer than a murderer might get, simply because he is making his own distilling his own alcohol in his own home for his own use, not giving it away, certainly, not selling it, but of his own use. That is a crime in America,
and I think that is a crime overall. Robert Alt is President and chief executive officer of the Buckeye Institute in Columbus, where they have taken up this case im and fighting for James Rimm for a while. Robert, Welcome to sunny Cincinnati, which I think. I think you're warmer today than we are here in Cincinnati.
Yeah.
No, I think we're enjoying a balmy couple degrees warmer than you.
Yeah.
Yeah, the bald met too. Civil Ohio. This time let's look warmer than it was yesterday. Let's talk about John Reams case here. He lives in Newark, Ohio, retired engineer, I think, and he owns a micro brewery, and his wife said, well, you know what, here, here you go. Here's a home brewing kid. He does that making money. It's great. It's called truck brewing, by the way. And now want to get into home distilling. Why is that illegal?
That's a darn good question. And the answer is, there's a there is a law.
On the book.
This is a federal law. This isn't the state law which prohibits you from distilling any alcohol for sumption in your own home, even if you don't sell it, even if you're just doing it as a hobby. So you can you can make beer in your own home. That's perfectly legal. You commit find in your own home. I don't necessarily advise it. I don't know if I've ever had good homemade one.
But you can do it.
But if you make any amount of whiskey, it's a felony. And not only you lifted off these penalties. On the website for the enforcement agency, they make clear not only can you get fined, not only can you get imprisonment imprisonment, but they'll go after your house, They'll go after wherever it is that you were engaging in this unlawful conduct. And potentially try and seize that as well. The penalties
here are absolutely draconian. But the real issue here is how is it that the federal government has the authority to go ahead and regulate what you do in your own home as a hobby. If they can regulate this, there's literally nothing that the federal government can't regulate.
It's a victim of crime. Now, if you sell it distributed to get maybe something there. But if you make something, whether it's alcohol, whether it's bread, whether it's a pie, then the only person you're gonna harm is yourself if you get it wrong. Does this law let's go back in history, is this Does this stem from prohibition when people were literally poisoning others but with things like bestub gin?
This actually the law I believe actually predates prohibition. But you know, if we're concerned about regulating the production of alcohol for public safety, you know who's actually really good at do it at handling these sourtces of regulations are the states, and in fact the Constitution of the under the twenty first Amendment, the states have you know, special authority to regulate in this space. And if you take a look, I mean Ohio regulates in this space. But
Ohio actually doesn't have any prohibition on home distilling. There are some states that do in addition to the federal government, but Ohio doesn't, And so there's really just no purpose for this law.
You know, maybe there was a time where people would get sick in poison and maybe that stems from this, but now it just reaks a protection because we have science. You know, you could learn how to do anything really in the comfort of your own home, if you're going to use it for your own consumption or if you're you know, if you're a neighbor like, hey, I'd like to try some of your whiskey. As long as money's
not changing hands, there's no violation. But if he wanted to do this, would he then have to go through the process of getting a federal license?
And what does that look like?
So he would have to get a federal license, he's actually lawfully prohibited under the statute. It is not permissible to distill in your own home, and the statue is written in a very bizarre fashion. If you happen to have a large piece of property and potentially had a shanty way out in the woods, perhaps that would be lawful.
But if you're trying to do so where most people are going to actually try and engage in this, if they're doing as a hobby, you know, in your own home, say in your basement or in your garage, that you can't get a permit.
To do that.
And if you if you engage in distilling without a permit, that will rack you up felony felony charges. As I go to this, the big question here is, you know, you take a look and you would ask the question, how is it that Congress has the authority to regulate this? To begin with, Congress only has limited and enumerated powers on the Constitution. They can't just regulate anything willy nilly. And so the big claim that they make here is
that they're regulating interstate commerce. But this is a situation in which they're regulating something which is neither commerce nor interstate I mean literally, what's happening in the confines of your own home. If they can regulate this, they could regulate bread baking, they could regulate your having a home garden. It really doesn't matter how local, how non commercial it is, it would be within the ambit of congressional regulation. And that's just not what the Constitution said, yeah.
Not at all.
And if you're selling it, different story. There's no commerce going on here, so you said interstate commerce, but there's no commercial enterprise.
Doesn't it fail that test? Absolutely?
And to the extent The interesting thing here is to the extent that there are some court decisions that have had more expansive interpretations of what that means. Congress still has to be regulating the interstate market. It has to be necessary and proper to regulate the non commercial market. In this particular case, the home distilling prohibition, it's not regulating an interstate market. This really is getting to non commercial activity.
Okay. The argument from the government on this one basically is it's the reason why this is prohibited. It's uniquely dangerous. Unlike home bread baking or vegetable gardening or whatever it might be. No, no one's died. People may die if you don't do this right. It probably could say the same thing about beer or wine. I suppose taste good, and it's why, but someone can get sick and die
from a poorly made homemade whiskey. However, I would say, if you grow vegetables and you have a surplus of vegetables, a lot of people like the can my mom used to do to make your own pickles and put up tomatoes and stuff like that as well. I'm sure it's very rare, But what about food born botulism? What about
food borne illnesses from poor canning techniques? If I gave my neighbor a can of i don't know, pickled beets or something like that, and it turns out that I didn't do it right they got sick and died, how much How is that any more dangerous than we're talking about here.
Well, and here's the other thing. Ultimately, that doesn't give the federal government anymore authority. The fact that they may come up with, you know, and they really haven't crossed too hard on the health rationale. But even if they do, there isn't a general protect health clause in the US Constitution. They're protecting health and welfare that is traditionally a set
of powers which belongs to the state. And so if we're concerned about that, the states have the ability, they have the authority, and they do regulate actively in that space. And so if that's our concern, there are other governmental eneities that can do that. The fact that the federal government might be able to point to some justification that doesn't create a fount of new power for them.
He is a Robert Ohl, President CEO of the Buckeye Institute. Interesting story about your hobbies. Guy named James Reem and New York, new not New York, Newark, Ohio. He wants to sell small quantities of alcohols on home, make his own whiskey, basically for his own personal consumption, not for distribution, not for given away, just because he's into it. That's
his hobby. If he does that, though, he's looking at five years in prison, He's looking at a felony conviction and up to ten thousand dollars in fines just for creating alcohol for his own use. We allow home brewing with a home wine making and a whole bunch of other things you can do in your house. Why is alcohol so dangerous that you need a federal exemption and
a license in order to do it? That is the argument before the court, and the Buckeye Institute is leaning into it that as a friend of the court and a friend of mister Reim. And he's on the show this morning to discuss here on seven hundred WLW. You know you mentioned earlier about Article one and the authority to criminalize home distilling. If you go back to prohibition, the federal government needed the eighteenth Amendment to ban alcohol
production and consumption. Does that show that Congress lacks the authority to criminalize home distilling?
You know, I think this goes to, yes, the limitations on government power, the fact that you couldn't just simply have Congress go ahead and restrict it across the board. You needed a constitutional amendment to actually get to a flat prohibition broadly.
On this.
And if you take a look in this particular case, I mean, the other argument that they make in this case is that it's somehow necessary to the taxing power. But it's it's interesting in this case, producing alcohol is potentially subject to an excise tax, but the prohibition actually
prevents the federal government from collecting any tax. As we've said in this case, and we actually not just a friend of the court, we directly represent mister Reem in this particular case, mister Reim would be willing to pay a tax on producing the alcohol, uh, if they would just let him actually produce the alcohol for his own consumption. So the interestly that oddly the federal government is preventing itself from getting the tax revenue.
I mean, what would cost for a LICEI. I'd imagine it's a lot of them. It's like a federal firearms later to distribute firearms or something like that. It's it's exceptionally expensive to do that. Yeah. I look at this and it's like the same thing. And this guy's willing to do it to pay the tax, and they still won't let them. There's no, there's no, that's unreasonable. I guess that's a great exist I think that's a helpful illustration for your case.
Don't you.
Oh?
Absolutely?
Uh?
Well, and you know, we we just had oral arguments down there in Cincinnati last week before the Sixth Circuit Court Appeals and I'll tell you it was I felt like it was. It was a bad day to be the federal government's attorney. The the the the government actually had tried to just argue a very narrow set of issues in the briefs. The court asked the government to be ready to discuss the constitutional arguments beyond the narrow
standing arguments. Uh and the government essentially refused to do so.
So the court.
The court was none to please there was some test the exchanges, and the court actually went ahead and sent an additional order to the government to provide additional briefing responding to the Bakay Institute and mister Reems constitutional clients.
I'm not an attorney. I'm a simple layperson with a simple mind. But I would read that as they don't even have an argument as to why this is the law.
That's what it sounds like.
Well, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll see what We'll see what they come up with. But but suffice it to say it was it was. It was a better day to be representing mister Reeve. I'll leave it at that.
Well, I guess the question would be is if their job is to enforce the law and fight for the law in this case and they can't even come with a reason why making your own alcohol for your own consumption and your home is illegal, is that indicator that the state should just give up?
Well yeah, again, as someone who's arguing on behalf of mister rehim, I will say, I don't think that the government should be regulating in this space. I don't think they've been able to articulate a good reason. You've actually articulated stronger reasons for why it is that they might be able to regulate in this space I think than the government has.
That's that's frightening. Either I'm in the wrong place or the government's really stupid. Anyway, Bob Alti is here, President, Robert Hall, President, chief executive for the Buckeye Institute. So what's next before the Sixth Circuit? It sounds to me like and you never can read the tea leaves when it comes to court and a judge obviously or judges obviously, but it sounds like they're going to side with you. What happens if that's the case, and moving forward?
Well, right now, the government actually has a brief due next month. The court has given us a very short one week time to respond to that brief. If the Sixth Circuit were to rule in our favor, as we hope that it does, presumably at that point the government might appeal the case to the US Supreme Court. So we will see. But I have a feeling that whoever loses this case, it's likely to keep on going up through the courts, and the next stop would be the Supreme Court.
You recall, there's an argument in all your years as an attorney in studying the law, Robert, that there's been an instance where the government has no solid reasons to watch something as banned or is the law, and yet they continue to fight for keeping the status quoe.
Why is that?
If they represent the people and it's in the people's best interest, going, yeah, I mean maybe there's a time in America where we needed that, but clearly that time has passed, especially when you look at the deregulation of things like marijuana for example, and guess what, you know,
gay marriage, whatever it might be. You know, the earth is still spinning and we're just fine despite all of these horrible things going to destroy the fabric of our country and our makeup, and yet we continue to march on forward. Alcohol home home distilling of alcohol seems to fit into that category as well. So, if they represent the people and are fighting for the people, because that's the state the people versus in this particular case, why they continue to fight.
For this, you know, that is an excellent question, and it's one that uh, you know, at times I do think sometimes the government just you know, there there is this there is a practice within the Justice Department to defend any statute that's on the book, so long as there's any conceivable legal justification for doing so. You know, and and I this is this is the policy, regardless
of who the administration is. But this is one of those cases of that I think really makes you scratch your head as to why is it that we're spending government resources to defend a statute that really doesn't serve any good purpose and for which the government really, you know, lacks the authority to have regulated here to begin with.
If you start distributing this stuff and selling it, we know that, you know, there will be federal agents. It'll be breathing down in your act, and you're facing rightly so stiff finds penalties, jail time if you're selling and distributing your alcohol. We have a law in Ohio that says I can grow up to you know, twelve pot plants and do with it what I believe. And yet somehow home distilling is is.
Something worth fighting for.
It makes this argument makes no sense whatsoever, which tells me this argument will continue to go on for years to come.
Unfortunately, sometimes it seems like the things that are the most common sensical those are the things that are the hardest to actually succeed on in government.
This is what we're fighting for. Robert All, President, CEO of the Buckeye Institute, representing James Reim out of Newark, Ohio. I'm definitely on team Alt and Tim Reem. Thanks again for the time, Robert, Thanks for having me appreciate it all the best. It's maddening and think of like, Okay, well, these are government employees that work for us, and they're
supposed to protect our interests. Why is fighting against and spending millions of dollars trying to prevent a guy from making his own alcohol and his own home for his own consumption worth all of that effort, one may ask. It's a good question, and that is the core problem with our government. Scott Flums Show seven hundred WW.
Time to talk about money, how to make it, how to keep it, and how to keep others off your stack. This is all worth advice with Andy Schaeffer Andrew.
Good morning, has life.
Everything's great, Scott, how are you doing?
Everything is fine? Thanks for asking. We will jump right in this morning. We've got some job numbers, who've got retail sales numbers coming out earlier this morning, and I'll begin with something I saw. I always love throwing a curveball as the first pitch. Here Ford an ounce there, discontinuing the much hyped but very slow selling electric pickup truck, the F one fifty Lightning. I remember a couple of years ago in to KM and they rolled this thing out.
I'm like looking at it, going, look, i'd drive a I have a two fifty service truck for you know, with all my remodeling and rentals and all that stuff.
I got my tools in.
I look at that going on, how many contractors are going, wow, I really need to be an electric truck now. The Tesla, I guess that pick up sells fairly well, but again that's more of a vanity, you know, luxury kind of thing. If you're driving at one fifty, two, fifty, three, fifty, whatever it is, you're looking at that going yeah, for
what I haul, the battery ain't gonna make it work now. Granted, F one fifties, you know, the entry level regular passenger pickup truck not sarily a work truck, but it's a big best selling pickup truck of all time. And I think the lesson there, correct me if I'm wrong, is that when the government decides, hey, we're going to have to mandate and push these cars because this is what
we want, not what the consumer wants. You're gonna wind up costing everyone billions of dollars automobile companies like Ford and the rest, because we the consumer eventually pay for those mistakes.
Yeah, this was really no surprise to me.
I did see the headlines on it, but I haven't had a chance to dive in too deep to it. But I did notice that, you know, they were ending the production of the all electric F one fifty lightning, you know, over the next few weeks. And I don't think it's really much of a shock if you've been watching the market shifts since the elimination of the seventy five hundred dollars federal ev instead of this year, right, And so that's the big thing, and that's starting to
decrease demand. You know, Ford's shifting more to higher return opportunities, you know, more I would say, hybrid trucks and vans and that.
So it's it's not.
That Ford doesn't understand that, you know the future is probably more clean energy. We all want clean energy, but you're also running a business that shareholders rely on. And if you don't see the demand in the purchase of these vehicles, you know you're gonna see some cuts that come down the pike as far as corporate decisions are
being made. So this isn't really much of a surprise to me, you know, but you know, you have to figure out ways to make your company productive, and this just hasn't been very profitable for them.
Yeah, no question about it.
And I look at that and necessarily not everyone who drives an F one fifty or you know, maybe two or three fifty. Our contractors will worry people who are in the trades. But you know, I think there's a certain lifestyle element to that as well, that you're going
to haul stuff at some point. I just don't see that there's reliable and you know, years ago and they decided, hey, we're going to go and totally go all in on ev as opposed to hybrids, I think that's a mistake because you've got to you've got to make a transition.
If we all grew up on an internal combusting engines and you're trying to get off that, okay, but the hybrid engine where you have gas or diesel as a backup and then the battery kicks in and you can get you know, you know, seventy to one hundred miles a gallon. Who doesn't like that, Who doesn't like saving money in that regard and the costs built into the truck maybe a little bit more, but you're getting money back as opposed to just a straight electric vehicle that
you have to charge. There's no backup plan there, and I think that that's a turn off for a lot of people. And the government was way over aggressive with stressing going from internal combustion to straight battery.
Yeah, and I think you make a good point there, Scott. I think a lot of it does have to do with lifestyle. You know, I live out in the country outside of Cincinnati, and most of the workers all have pickup trucks up here.
They need for their job.
They need to all not only tools, equipment materials, and needs to start when they need it to start. You know, my father in law has a electric vehicle and he has an issue with his battery right now. Well, he was explaining to me how expensive it is to get a battery replaced in one of the cars. And so, you know, as far as your comments about the lifestyle.
I think, you know, the electric vehicles make more sense for smaller sedans and things like that to where you're you're traveling to and from work as opposed to hauling major materials for your everyday blue collar job. And so, you know, the market has shifted. We've seen players like Honda hedging its best with assembly lines capable of multi
multiple power plants. Tariffs have played a role into this as well, and that you know, manufacturers have been forced to rethink some of these long term strategies on the EV side. And I think we're going to see just you know, in the into the future on this.
Yeah, it's and it's not like people in the train. I hate this one as well because you know, knuckle draggers. Again, you diminish an entire group of people. And I'll fight tooth and dog tooth and nil for contractors because that's my line of work. Is that you know, Okay, well, I have a diesel truck, but all my tools, almost all my tools are battery operated. It's not like we're
afraid of batteries or you know what. You know, you can go and get a i don't know, like a miosot chop saw and run trim and casing and crown welding all day long on one battery. Just a few years ago you couldn't do They could do that now. So it's not like the you know, trades people don't like battery power stuf.
That's insane.
It's the fact that it's just not practical and the government and the decision makers to the top never got that. Let me pivot here. We have jobs numbers, retail sales numbers coming in. Give me the goods. Yeah, they all came out at eight thirty this morning. I've been able to, you know, go into the headlines a little bit. I haven't been able to deep dive and try to look under the hood. But essentially, the jobs report were fairly tepid. We saw the unemployment rate rise to a four year
high of four point six percent. The expectation was four point five. So that initially strikes me as, you know, something I need to take a look at. And so in addition to that, we saw retail sales be a little bit weaker in October as well.
It's about three point five percent month over month.
You know.
So I think what this tells us is that we are still starting to see some cracks in the labor market. You know, we did add about ninety five thousand new jobs in October. That was way better than we saw in October of one hundred and five thousand losses of jobs. But I do think, you know, the October numbers well had a lot to do with more seasonality.
We still had, you know, as of October first.
That's when the government furloughs, the job eliminations occurred, So I think that number was a little bit skewed. So as far as the addition of new jobs, that was a welcome site, but the four point six percent unemployment rate was.
A little bit of a surprise.
Okay, So sixty four thousand up, sixty four k after falling, Okay, I got it in October, still got some of those back.
Yeah, Yeah, And I think you know, this this kind of you know, gives kind of a blueprint for the FED moving forward. You know, we just got interest rate cuts of a quarter percent last week. You know, that puts the target range at three point five to three point seventy five percent. So that's the third straight quarter percent cut. I do think it's fairly noteworthy that there
were three descents of the Federal Reserve. There were two people that wanted to keep rates where they were due to inflation uncertainties, and there was actually one of the FED members that wanted a steeper cut of a half a percent. So there is some you know, conflicting ideas about where the economy is going within the FED. But it does appear that we probably will see two more cuts into twenty twenty six as well.
Wow, okay, and you know you look back at the September data and indicate that that is coming forward here too. So we're only going to two cuts in fiscal twenty twenty six.
Yeah, and I think you know, the announcement was one thing we expected that there was going to be a cut. But again, you know, I always look at the post meeting projections by FED Chairman Poowe, and he did paint a more optimistic macro picture. He looked at raising its twenty twenty six GDP forecast to two point three percent growth from one point eight and he also reduced their twenty twenty six inflation anticipation to two point four percent
from two point six percent. So you know, the FED right now does feel like moving into twenty twenty six that things are projecting in the right way. Now, we'll see what the data tells us as we move forward. But that also is in line with the fedes communication about not being in an hurry to cut rates moving forward.
They want to see what the data looks like, you know, into twenty twenty six, you know, see if there's some lingering impacts of the tariffs, to see if you know, what kind of industry that we've been able to drum up from the tariffs and bringing a lot of manufacturing back to the United States. So there's still a lot to be said, but I think right now the FED feels pretty good about where they are and what the optim is for optimism is for twenty twenty six.
So would you say, like the labor market, it's not collapsing, but it's kind of cooling off.
It's cooling off, and that's the reason that the FED, you know, wants to keep an eye on it and is prepared to cut rates even further, you know, Fed Shairman, Powe.
Excuse me, Yeah, it is very particular.
Sorry, you're right, very particular about Let.
Me talk for a second while you clear your throat, Andy Shaffer, is that's called a fill? Andy Shaefer is here from all Worth Financial. This show is simply Money. Theres at six o'clock on fifty five KRC weeknights, and maybe not fully tonight because Andy can't talk. Nonetheless, Andy, what do you feel like some don'nut stuck in air?
What's going on?
Yeah? I don't know.
I had a frog in my thur that happens, I feel But anyway, you know, Fedchhairman Power is very particular about wage growth and also the unemployment rate, and he feels like if wage growth continues to increase at a high rate, that will spurn inflation fears because people when they have more money to spend, obviously, that creates more demand and ultimately higher prices. Now, I've read a lot of economists that don't believe that is necessarily the case
and take a more dubbish approach to that. But you have to understand where fed Chairman Power and his leadership, you know what they're really looking at, and one of them is the unemployment rate. The other is wage growth. And we're starting to see the unemployment rate why rise a little bit, and also.
We're starting to see wage growth rise.
So what that tells me is there's a good chance that we're going to see maybe even more than two percent cuts next year.
Okay, gotcha.
If we add a third cut next year, it's probably because we're going to start to see the labor market really start cooling off, right, And we don't. It's one of those things you want to see a rate cut, but if it means that people are losing their jobs, you don't want that.
Yeah, And he wants to make sure that we continue to spurn a lot of more jobs and keep our labor markets strong. So you're exactly right. Furthermore, you know when his communication and you know, after the FED announcement during the press conference, he basically said, Hey, we're seeing the trends of inflation cooling down. We do think that inflation will get down to about two point four percent next year, and we think that the effect of taris
on inflation is going to be short lived. We are still seeing some lingering effects of that, but that will start to dissipate in the first part of next year and into the second quarter.
Okay, Andy Schaefer from all Worth Financial. The other numbers out retail sales, how we look at, Yeah.
Retail sales remained pretty flat about three point five percent, not really much of a change. I still think that you have to take the seasonality into it. I suspect that the retail sales after I look a little bit deeper into it in the different areas where you know the consumer was spending money is a little bit skewed.
Lot of that has to do to the holidays. Obviously, people spend more over the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas is you know, starting starting off honka, things like that, And so you know this November and December are really tricky to uncover what retail sales really means. And I think we'll get a better idea come January of next year. And that's another reason why the FED has a little bit more.
Yeah, it makes sense.
Wait until we get back to I guess normal or a cooling off here and see what retails comparatively. And I know you haven't had a chance to deep dig into the daity yet, Andy, but would you just compare November over November last year and maybe over the last three or four years.
Yeah, that's true.
But remember we just went through COVID not too Yeah, so there's you know, some of those numbers.
Are still skewed over the past two or three years.
I do think, you know, another bit of data that was interesting was the Joltry Report, and the joltryport is essentially, you know, the job openings and labor Turnover survey, and what that says is people that have a job, are they actively looking for a new job because they think
the prospects are favorable for them. And we're seeing those numbers continue to diminish because people that are currently in a job are really not looking for another position or a step up in you know, their careers, because they're fearful that there's not going to be out there. So that's another bit of the report that I found a little bit fascinating. That also also shows some cooling as well.
Okay, good, what are we looking forward coming up with numbers? We did jobs rates or a jobless we did retail? What's coming up next?
Yeah, Today's a big day and I'm looking forward to kind of unpacking all that and trying to, you know, make an analysis of where I think things are going to be. But you know, I think, you know, we're going to get some FED chairman speakers again. But Thursday, we're going to get the CPI, the Consumer Price Index that's the measure of inflation. We're going to get the core CPI, the feds preferred inflation measure when you strip out transportation and energy and food. They believe that they
don't really have an effect on that. So that's going to be telling as far as inflation is concerned. I do expect it will stay steady or maybe even tick down a little bit. And then we're going to get home sales on Friday, so that would be interesting as well.
Okay, good, all stuff to look forward to. So we're holding steady at this point, and that's all I got to answer.
Yeah, And I think that's the the you know, the lesson here is that, you know, I'm kind of in a neutral position right now. I'm trying to stay nimble, to be able to put the brakes on if I need to, and be able to accelerate if we need to as well. But right now things seem to be doing just fine, and not really a whole lot of big surprises, just you know, just some small changes that we didn't expect.
All Right, we talked next week. You in next week? Oh yeah, all right, all right, we'll figure it out then, Andy, have a great week. I appreciate you buddy. Thanks again, you too got to sloany with Willie on the way in just minutes after news update on the home of the best Bengals covered seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati,