And a lot of folks just staying in today, So grab a second or third or fourth cup of coffee, enjoy me. Why don't you outside of snow and bitter cold here, We also had that in Minnesota. Vigils and protests continued yesterday in Minneapolis after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretty by a federal officer. A Border Patrol officials said, it happened when they're targeting a person for being in
the country legally. But what happened to mister Pretty is almost unbelievable, and especially so when you put in the context of the United States Constitution. He was a thirty seven year old icu V A nurs and shot ten times by federal agents while recording protesters and police interaction on the street.
He was carrying out his body a handgun. Never do the weapon.
He was a licensed permit carryholder and well within the second Meenment rights to be carrying at the time of his death. Joining the show this morning to put this in the context talk tactics and all that is, Betsy Branner Smith, the National Police Association.
Good morning, Betsy, Hi, Ben, Hey.
Good morning.
Great to be with you.
Yeah, thank you.
The whole morning.
Yeah, what an awful topic. I mean I initially saw it go okay, protesters getting the face of cops.
It never runs well.
We had another shooting and then you see the video and there's about three to five different angles of this thing. And I watched it a lot because I had nothing else to do yesterday, and I could not help with some conclusion, knowing what I know about police tactics and intervention that the tactics are poor. We had not the first time we saw that, but it ended in the death of a thirty seven year old man who was
well in his right to do what he did. Let's begin there and talk about the tactics that you saw during this interaction, Betsy.
Well, let's talk about that. Was he within his rights? He was there to interrupt and arrest and that's exactly what he did. You are not allowed to do that, so he was not within his rights. And this is the problem that we have in this situation. These Border patrol and ice agents are trying to do a job, a job that they have done in in every state in.
The Union, in countless cities, these large.
Scale operations, and yet in Minnesota you have politicians h and activists telling and media telling people listen, you need to interrupt this. And now you have two people, Renee Good and Alex pretty are dead because they believed they were doing presumably doing something right, and they were not.
All let me interrupt the second say, so, you're saying it's illegal for someone to record police. Now, granted, standing inside of a street in Balka, that's not what I'm talking about.
He wasn't there to record. He was there to interrupt. And it's exactly what Renee Good was doing when she put a federal agent in the hospital.
They're not there to record.
You can do that. Nobody. Every cop has a.
Body camera now and you know, you know, so nobody cares if you're recording.
What they are doing is they are trying to stop arrests, and they have been successful at stopping some of these arrests. Now, remember on the same day we had a federal agent where an arrest was stopped and the federal.
Agent lost their finger because a quote unquote observer.
Did it off.
This is the problem that we're having.
This has become an absolutely untenable situation.
Urged on by local politicians, by the media who are not really telling.
The truth about what happened. Now we're these poor tactics. I'm going to wait for the investigation for more official video because when I look at this video, and again remember.
I was a cop for twenty nine years. I stood on those lines.
These cops are so on edge, they are so scared to death now of what is going to happen to them, and not just to them, but to their family. I have no doubt that as soon as the agents you know, who were involved in the shooting I identified, their families are going to have to flee, They're going to have to abandon their homes, They're going.
To have to move.
There is no reason for any of this because again, Order Patrol and Ice are engaged in lawful activities, the activities that Congress has told them they need to engage.
It that that's true.
And I think the other side of this for protesters is, you know, the individual that they were after was someone who is not not only in the country legally, but someone who was a criminal, so who committed other crimes as.
Sold the life, elastic abuse, domestic.
Abuse, right, so you know, everyone protests like we're just sweeping innocent people up, and that's not the case. Sometimes innocent people do get caught up in the system, and that's also part of the problem. But relative to the death of mister Pretty, I'm sorry as a citizen, as a Second Amendment rights holder, I got a big problem with what happened, Betsy in a sense that, yeah, I get it, you're interfering with police business. It shouldn't have
resulted in his shooting, especially after the d armed. They took the weapon off the man and then fired a bunch of shots. And I know it's going to be I'd love to see, you know, did they get a second weapon off them?
Was you're reaching for another gun? Did he have it on them?
I think not, simply because they already displayed the gun that they took off him at the press conference, showing the weapon he had had there been a second one, they already come out with this one.
There was no reason to shoot that man.
Now you cannot say that because you weren't there.
I wasn't there.
And again, well, if the circumstances changed it, I'll say, yeah, Okay, now there's new information, But based on what we know right now, that was a bad shooting.
Batsy. That was terrible.
Now, I absolutely disagree. And here's the thing.
You know why I carry a gun all the time. In fact, the National Police Association is the biggest Second Amendment supporter as a police association. Most of the police unions don't like Second Amendment olders. We love them and we our Second Amendment rights people. But here's the thing. You know why I've never been shot by the police since I've been retired, because when I am approached.
By law enforcement or pulled over on a traffic stop.
I immediately let them know I'm carrying a gun, and I don't get involved when my local law enforcement is trying to arrest someone. Alex pretty introduced a gun into this situation. If you're gonna go quote unquote be an observer, don't carry a gun.
But he was not.
And then you're allowed to carry a gun, Betsy, it's a second mind.
But you are not allowed.
You never took it out, he never brandished it.
And you know, we don't again, we don't know that. We have a limited amount of video. We have a limited video and almost no audio. We don't know what the verbals were except for we can hear an agency gun gun gun. He was not a protester. He was an interrupter. He laid his hands on law enforcement, he got in the way, that confrontation got violent, and he got shot. We also have to look at now again,
nothing against sig Sur. I attended the Sigsur academy. But this is a pistol that is known to have unintentional discharge issues. So we'll see what the forensics say on this pistol. There have been over a thousand unintentional discharges with this particular model of sig salars police.
Then if that's the case, why are agencies still carrying these weapons. You tell me it was in the officer's hand and it could have just went off without them touching the trigger.
Because law enforcement who carries those have had them retooled. There's a very easy fix to that. We don't know if Alex Pretty did that.
Look, you have to look at what's happening here.
These people like Alex Pretty, like Renee Good, and like thousands of others, remember mostly paid and imported whys and interrupts.
These people are there because.
They think that they are doing something good, because the irresponsible media, politicians and other activists have told them that they need to go in and save these poor black, black and brown people who are being well maybe.
Sad, okay, but maybe a couple of things here, Betsy Branner Smith. Number one is Alex pet Pretty does not seem to be a paid interloper here. He's an ICU physician or I'm ACU nurse for the VA in Minneapolis.
Nomber.
Of the people who have been caught in this have been all local people. I'm not saying there haven't been paid. But the de mantra, though, is that everyone there is somehow a paid protester from George Soros. That's insane. Of course that's not true, especially in the case of mister Pretty. But what what did he do? If if you watch the video and I watched them, I'm sure all the angles and you have, well, Betsy, what what did he
do to warrant getting shot? Did you see something where he's been a I mean, I certainly saw him in the street, and that's a that's a punishable fence. But the fact that he was pushed, he was pepper sprayed, he was looked like he was grabbing on to someone. That woman who was pushed over to try and get back up. I don't know if he was resisting and technically I suppose just disobeying an order might be resisting.
But man, actually he committed a felony.
He committed a battery on a police.
Well, they put his hand up too, like, hey, I'm not a threat. He's holding the phone in one hand, clearly a phone, and he's got his other hand up saying hey, listen, I'm not I'm not threatening you, I'm not pushing it. Of course, he's being shoved and pushed back, and as he's trying not to fall, may have reached out. But to me, that looks like the aggression of the part of the federal agency.
They look poorly trained. To me, Betsy is seeing there.
There's another mantra that the media is media.
I know what I saw.
I'm not watching NBC and I'm not getting my marching orders from the media. Betsy, I know what I saw A portion.
Of video, and you were Remember Remember the Supreme Court says, we have to look at this y from the position of a reasonable officer. You have no idea what was said. You have no idea what happened before that video. Correct, And again those angles are just a small part of what happened. We have to perceive what the officers perceive. And again, remember those officers are there being told that
they are going to be killed. We're going to kill you, We're going to rape your wife, We're going to do all these things.
Again, you don't know that. You don't know that they You just told me. You don't know what they said.
But now you're telling me that they told it that people are yelling they're going to be killed in rape.
You can't have it both ways.
All of the Ice agents and Border Patrol agents that are there every day in Minneapolis trying to do their job, this is just a cop. It is a constant the cophony of absolute hate.
Again, this is part of the part.
I'm not disagreeing with that point, But when it comes to the point of a man who doesn't seem to be a threat to a number of law enforcement officials are getting shot when his hand is up and not putting his hand on his legally held weapon. As an American, as someone who's a constitutionalist, I don't know. I watch that and go, that's a bad shoot. That's and I think the Fed's got to reexamine their tactics. They look like poor tactics, and they're the ones who escalated the situation.
I get he's out in the street. You shove the guy, he's back near the sidewalk. At what point do you need five people jumping on this guy and then shooting him.
As a constitutionalist, he don't lay your hands on law enforcement?
You sure don't. But it does.
But again, you know they shoved him, pushed, and pepper sprayed him. He's falling backwards, he's moving off the street. He has his hand up in a phone. Where's the threat.
The threat is that he has a gun.
And he has laid his hands on law enforcement, and.
We don't know he had a gun until he was on the ground.
Though, here's the problem. You and I are sitting here because we have we have hindsight bias, so we already know the ending of the story.
So I want you to think about that.
If you've ever watched Star Wars the first Star Wars, hand Solo is a bad guy and you all hate him until the end. Then when you watch Star Wars the second time, you see him differently because you know he's a hero. Because we know the ending.
Of the story.
We are all acting with hindsight bias, no.
Question, But yeah, this is the story that's out today. This is why we're.
Talking about I'm finished, let me finish, because what this discussion does to people listening to this is they're going to say, man, I need to get involved, I need to get out there, and I need to sacrifice because what ICE is doing wrong And these agents are poorly trained, and I know better than them, they're not poorly trained. And the problem is they're trying.
To do a job that they have been told to.
Do, but they are being interrupted and attacked and assaulted, and it's gotten to a braakking point where we probably need the Insurrection Act so that our military can protect our law enforcement. And you want to talk about constitutionality. That is not where America wants to see itself, but that is where we were headed. That's where we are headed because of Jacob Fry, because of Tim Walls, because of the media, and because of the hatred. Let's just
throw it out there. It's because of the hatred of Donald Trump and the resurrection of the hatred of the American law enforcement officer.
And that's a problem.
I don't know, Betsy, I've been around a while. I see more blue flags than blue line fags support for first responders and the like ever since nine to eleven. And granted this is a community. I don't live in Minnesota, nor to you, I don't know what the community standards are. They're clearly they don't support federal agents and ice and the roundups and all that stuff. But you are allowed
to protest the actions of your government. At what point do you simply go, Okay, well we got a lot of them, do what they're going to do and stay out of the way.
That's not how it works.
Yeah, protesting your federal government, of which I have done, does not mean laying hands on their law enforcement officers.
And this, well, the officers put him in a situation on an icy street or he's falling over and reached out. He wasn't like punching it. He wasn't punching cops. I mean, I watched the video one hundred times.
I never saw that es Sir did not put Alex Pretty in that situation. Alex Pretty and whoever radicalized him did, Remember his parents begged him not to go. They begged him not to insert himself in this situation.
We didn't deserve to get shot. Betsy, Betsy, It's indefensible.
But he no one deserves to get shot, but federal agents, like local law enforcement, do not deserve to get shot either. Here's the problem, and you and I are even doing it right now. We are separating out. Oh I love my county deputies, in my town cops and my stay caps, but those federal agents are bad. It's that is not true. It's all law enforcement, and we've got to stop.
You a lot.
I'll say, bet, Betsy, Betsy does does does what the actions of ice and the federal agents that appear to me to be poorly trained, and not just me, other cops and use of force experts I've talked to, does that make it harder for local cops to do their job.
I'm one of those use of force experts. I'm one of those police trainers. I have trained federal law enforcement for nearly thirty years. They are not poorly trained. It's easy to be a big, fat retired cop sitting on your couch and saying, oh, I would have never I would have never shot him, I would have never done this, I would have never done that.
Again, we have to look at this from them.
That doesn't make you right in them wrong. You have an opinion.
Just like they did offer.
Yeah, I do have an opinion, but I'm going to hold my entire opinion until I know the facts.
This spouting off of oh was a bad shoot.
They're poorly trained. Out of these are lies.
I said, it appears to be a bad shoot, and I'm certainly open to changing my opinion based on other evidence that comes out, But so far it looks awful, Betsy.
Use of force is never pretty. And here's the problem. Remember, for the last ten years since Michael Brown, we have been told police officers they're road they're badly trained, they hate people.
Of color, etc.
Etc.
Few people believe that, though I think most people are like, hey, listen, cops make mistakes.
Too, so wrong about that.
It depends what city you're in. Cincinnati, we don't do that.
I have trained tops in Minnesota.
Okay, but that's Minnesota. This is what we're talking about here in Ohio. We appreciate our law enforce.
What he got shot in Cincinnati. We're talking about Minneapolis. People have been shot here for law enforcement. Yeah, and what does your media do? What does your.
Community do when you talk about the media, What are you talking about media?
Now?
Was on your phone?
It's social lots of Cincinnati and Ohio media where the police were blamed for rights to shooting.
Yeah, and that's the reaction of the public. It's the media made a report on that, and people may have opinions on it. But I would say ninety nine times out of one hundred, it's a justified shooting, even when people are outraged about it. I have no problem calling what it is in this case. I don't see it that way. Betsy Branner Smith, National Police Association. I always appreciate the viggorest debate and discussion, and I hope you say well talking on soon.
Thanks again for having me.
All the best.
Let me get a news update in your reaction all this thing, you with her, you with me? What did you see? Five three, seven four nine, seven thousand saloony? Back in the right after news here seven hundred WW sploding here, seven hundred WLW frozen toware seats as it were?
All right?
So Betsy Brantner Smith of the National Police Association, just on the show, couldn't disagree with him more. She seemed to she I don't know, it's kind of a hard position to take to say what you witnessed was that a justified shooting in Minneapolis, as the case was with the thirty seven year old woman with the car. Initially I thought, okay, well, she's moving. One guy's telling her one thing and others doing another. That's part of the problem. That seems like a coin toss. This to me not
so much. The idea that she kept referring to was don't show up to her protest with a gun. But did this could have played out even if it hadn't been a protester, like if it had been a business owner or who knows, right, somebody comes out on the street and man, now, yeah, was he setting up a start a legal peril because he was quote unquote interfering with a law enforcement operation? And is that driven by
the culture in Minnesota? Sure, but that's Minnesota, right. There are a lot more liberal and progressive Minnesota than we're here in Ohio. So I think you got to put it through that lens, and you know it's being ginned up by the news media, and.
You know what the way we know what we all saw.
And as someone who is an ed an art and support of seconmendment and all the con social modments for that matter, I got a real problem with this, and you know, the idea that somehow this is going against the wishes of the Trump administration, hold on, Just so, what bizarre world do we live in it?
If that's you?
And I know you have your right to your opinions, as Betsy Branner Smith did, but are you more loyal to the office or the party than you are the constitution?
Because that's a problem for me.
You are allowed to say at any point, I can't support this if you're on the fence. Before he said no, this is way across the line. And then when Christy Nome comes out and says, well, he's a domestic terrorist. He was going to kill and shoot agents. I didn't see that because you know what, he never put his hand on his gun as far as we know. Again, now again this is all mitigating because more evidence could come out. I don't think it is, but it might. It might, and at that point we'll go with the
information we know. But we know what we all saw. I know what I saw, and as a citizen of this country, didn't like it. You had to say, he's, well, he's there to murder agents. Well, he would have shot them already if that were the case, Why would he wait till they're on top of them all five that to pull his gun out and try to threaten and
shoot agents. Now, of course not if you're if you're a terrorist and held about on shooting people, you would have done it earlier in that situation, and you do have a right to carry.
He was a licensed to carry that weapon. He was not brandishing it.
This wasn't this is what we saw in Cincinnati with an eighteen year old and a gun and a dumpster. Whole different situation. And if that's the case, you know, we don't have a Fourth Amendment right if agents without a warrant can come crashing in your house. Now, if you're in pursuit or there's imminent threat, sure, but we've seen that happen. I don't agree with most of these protesters,
but I support their right to protest. You can't really get in the way and interfere with law enforcement operations, you know, and that's that's certainly a crime. But based on what I saw yesterday or basically I saw this weekend, I mean, he's out there recording stuff and had his hand up and they pushed him on the ground. They're like five or six agents on top of him, took his gun and then shot him. What threat did he pose at that particular moment? And you know, I said,
you have you're allowed to say, you are allowed to say. Listen, I can't support this. I voted for this, but I don't support this. And if you don't, I would question that and go okay, hold on to second. A lot of the people who are quote unquote conservatives, Republicans, magae even aren't Second Amendment fans, huge fans. I see the we the People T shirts and the tri Corner hats right, and they were right to keep in bare arms.
Okay, if that's the case, why do you know?
The question is typically is when we have the progressive left wanting to take the guns away, we got to you know, we need more laws.
We need more laws.
Now we don't we got laws now that people ignore, the bad guys ignore, why do you have guns? Well, we have to defend against tyranny. Well, what the hell is this? Doesn't that fit the definition?
I would say yeah.
I would say, yeah, you can agree that we have an immigration problem and we have the right to go after the especially those who are predatory criminals. Maybe not so much so, and you know, Lord on the list would be individuals who have been here or brought you know, the uh anchor babies or those who are brought here as children. That's all debatable, and we should abate all that stuff. But you know, rounding up people who are here illegally and violent criminals, yeah, we should be going
after those people. But if you think that that's in a front that you have a right to protest, I support those who protest that.
I wouldn't be out there myself. I think now.
A lot of the individuals who are rounding up need to be rounded up, but we are also catching because of I think some of the incompetents here catching rounding up people who shouldn't be And I suppose that may be a reason why people are upset in protesting. But it's Minnesota. This is not happening in Cincinnati. It's not happening in Louisville. It's not happening in Indiana. It's happening
in Minnesota. Different mentality there. But to somehow say that, you know, you shouldn't show up to a protest with a gun, That's not how it works, man. They work for us. I got a problem with this, how about you five one, three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand. Let me go to Jimmy and Cleaves on the Big One morning.
Jim Hey, soloony, I totally agree with you one hundred percent. Couple things. I support local police, I support the military. I'm a conservative. I voted for Trump. However, if I got to hear one more administrative person, the person you've had on talk about you don't know what these ICE agents are up against. We have sympathy for him.
I do.
But and if we have to wait for let's wait for everything, let's not make let's not rush to judgment. We see what we see on these videos, right, and and for one more person to say, well, you don't know what they're up against, it doesn't.
Give you the right to shoot an American citizen.
For God's sake.
I am fired up about this because I think it is creating so much more of a divide between well, you have to be on that side or this side. Yeah, how about how about where we used to be on the side that this is a wrongful shooting.
Yeah, we have because of these political alliances, because of these walls, because we've my side's got to win and your side has to lose. We have now painted ourselves in the corner of being it things being indefensible, indefensible for crying out loud.
You know.
Uh, the same people that believe that Ashley Babbitt who was in the Capitol illegally and went beside the fact that agents were on the other side goblet of Place, had guns drawn and she decided to climb through one who got shot that some shot. He's a martyr, She's a murdyr. I don't understand what the difference in this case is.
Then.
Isn't that guy a martyr for the progressive left? In regardless, I think this guy didn't have that coming. I mean, when you go through a window and guys are saying stop and they're pointing guns at you, it seems to me they mean business. I don't understand how you could wrangle that into her being a patriot and a martyr and not be supportive of going now this is this is this government, this is way over it.
These are bad tactics. I don't know what the hell they were thinking.
It's really sad it's come to this, because it is. If you watch the videos and you see what happened, there is no way in hell this guy should have been shot and killed.
No way.
And now we have the Trump administration, Christy nom and and every you know, the ICE commander and everybody else have to make excuses.
Well, let's wait to see what comes.
We can see what we can see.
It's pretty it's all right there in the videos.
What else do we need to see?
BRONI, I agree one hundred percent. Thanks for Carul.
There's an element of this thing too that you see. I'm sorry I kind of cut off there. I must be the cold cold well that it's effect and everything, headphones, all that stuff. Yeah, and how much does he go? Well, I know what I'm being told, but I know what I see. I know what I saw. I also know that, and I'm reasonable that I would look at that and go okay, if there's an extenuating circumstance as to why
they shot him, I would love to hear that. I'm open to know what what, what threat, what perceived threat you had at that moment. But based on the video evidence, not just one, but we have several camera angles of this thing. I saw a guy who had his phone out, I saw a guy who put his hand up at one point and hey, I'm.
Not a threat. They start pepper spraying and pushing people.
His reaction was to help a woman who got knocked over, helped her up, and then all of a sudden, like a bunch of guys are on top of him, pepper spraying thing. And I've never been pepper I don't want to be in a situation. I've been tased or pepper spread, neither one of those things. I'm good, thank you. And maybe he was warned get back, but they shoved him pretty good. They shoved a bunch of people over as well. They're trying to get back up. That's not attacking in
a law enforcement officer. You know, did he put his bet Betsy said, you know, he put hands on them. I don't know if it's because it's icing, he's slipping and they're spraying, pepper spraying, lots going on there, but it seems to me that they escalated the hell out of that situation when they didn't have to. And just the multitude of federal agents on him, pummeling him, pepper spraying him and punching him, and an agent takes the
gun off of him, so the threat is stopped. And then at one point, the guy with the gun out shoots at the same time. So I wonder if he said somebody said gun, gun, gun and meaning that, hey, I'm taking the gun off off of him and the officer who fired the shots I think ten shots in five seconds. Thought it was a active threat of miscommunication. But again, that's on training, and how could it not be training in tactics At that point, the guy.
Was exercising his Second Amendment.
Right, This is a tough one if you are in the Maga corner right now, going oh yeah, but okay, second Amendment. Yeah, well I got shirts, I got guns, I believe in all that stuff, and we're to fight against tyranny. Well it was your guy that did it. Well that's not tyranny, that's we have terrorists out, the domestic terror I mean right away, to call him a domestic terraces like there's a many people domestic terrorists. I
didn't see him as a domestic terrorist. Now you may question his sensibilities, going, well, you're thirty seven year old ice, you nurse at the VIA. You seem like a good guy. You got to permit legal to carry. Why would you put yourself in that situation? Why would you video the law enforcement officer. Well, you know I would do that. You probably wouldn't do that, but in America you have
a right to do that. And did I see someone laying in front of you know, trying to trying to pull the agents off of the person they were detaining for what seems like reasonable cause. It's not our determination as a reasonal but you can stand there in video and protest and you know they're trying to move him off the street. Sure, he's got his hand up, He's like, I'm not a threat, and they shove him backwards. I don't know if they need to do that. I don't
know if that's I'm saying. I don't know, I don't know if that's an acceptable tactic or not. But it seemed like people were videoing it where they weren't really in the way I've seen, you know, local protests for example, where people have done much worse than police have been more restrained than that. It seems like they just escalated this thing beyond all reasonable levels. At the end of the day, the constitution says you're allowed to do things
like this. You may disagree with it, and you go, I think it's a stupid idea. I think it's a stupid cause. But that's how the constitution says. That's what I care about most. Seven nine seven thou over to uh. Let me get to Nick in Prebble County this morning on seven hundred. WW How you doing, Nick?
I'm doing good, good, good good. What's up?
Good morning.
I'm just wondering, do you think the ICE agents should leave a Minnesota them since they're having a mob ruled up there.
I don't think so. I think it's more.
I think it's like like like coagitation, like the more ICE agents do what they do, the more protesters you're gonna have. I don't and I don't know if Trump is certainly it's not in his DNA to back off and go, hey, we're going to withdraw agents because of you know, the shootings that have occurred at this point, and I think it might get worse before it gets better. But I mean, if you're there to enforce the laws
and you say, hey, listen, we're going after individuals. This guy was wanted for domestic assault, which is a legitimate reason around them up. Also the fact that you're illegally that that's within the rain of ICE I'm not saying they're incorrect and doing this. What I'm saying is shooting that guy was wrong.
So do you think the officers should be put in prison or she What do you think should happen to him?
Since he since you're saying he illegally.
Shot the guy, Well, again, he has an affirmative defense, he has an opportunity to defend himself and as to why he was in that position. But if everything plays out is what we saw yesterday, there's no new evidence that this guy had a gun who was making throw our second gun, I guess I should say the threat was neutralized. Why they have to shoot him? That that burden should be on the on the agents.
Yeah.
Another thing is when when they go up there and stuff and they're all blown whistles and like, if you're trying to your job right now, once you were blown whistle, they say they were going to kill you because there is threat against them, their signs out there and everything else.
I mean, if you.
Were an eate, if you were an ICE agent, I mean you would be.
A little fearful for your life.
I would I would imagine somebody else's gun.
Definitely, Yeah, I'd definitely be on edge. But the same time is me and you are not trained to be in situations like that. We don't insert our situation ourselves. In situations like that. The training says, Hey, there's going to be protesters, people blowing whistles, people saying things to you, maybe throwing stuff at you, and that's where the training comes in. And if that's the case, well where's the training here. It's reasonable to go. We expect better from
federal agents from local agents for that matter. There's nothing wrong or disloyal about that. That's how the system works. They technically work for us. I have no problem with them doing their jobs and rounding up people. They're rounding up. That's what we voted for, Okay, But when you get an individual out there who's exposing a threat at all other than just recording and you shoot him, I can't stand with that.
How about you.
Well, the thing is, once the gun was in play, you know, I don't know why I would have done.
I mean, there's a gun in play.
I mean I hope I would have made the right decision and not shot the guy.
But the same sense, everybody's.
Yelling gun, gun, and well maybe I really don't know.
They took the gun off the guy and then shot him. That's the problem. It's not like he pulled the gun.
Out the gun.
Yeah, I agree, you know, it's just I mean I took concealed carry here in Ohio. When I took it, the first thing they tell you is, yeah, well the police officer shoots you. And they said, well, you know, telling me you got a gun, put your hands on your steering wheel. I don't know if you have you
ever taken the cecil carry? Yeah, yeah, I have, right, yeah, And I mean they pretty much tell you that you know you got a gun, and the police officers don't know what you're going to be done with a gun, so you better make sure they tell you, tell them
they got a gun. So that was one of the things that my wife and I took the course, and she was like, she wouldn't even take she wouldn't even go up and get a permit till she talked to the sheriff here in the county and he says, nobody's gonna shoot you.
You'll be fine.
Well, I got to go into news here, but I'll interject and say that that lassin's changed. Of course, since we changed the second amendment of the carry laws. In Ohio, you don't have to tell a copy of a gun anymore. And that's that's what people on the right wanted in the state. So I don't know if that's the same in minnesot I don't know what the laws of Minnesota
with that, if you got to identify or not. But I know here's like, well, if you did that in Ohio, it's like, well, I don't have to tell you I have a gun, and that's what conservatives wanted. And God, and now you're telling me, well, you gotta tell me I have a gun. I'm not saying you. You're saying that. But do you see the disconnect here and the problem because I do. Hey, listen, I had I guess I want to talk about this more. Everyone wants to talk
about this. Uh maybe one line open at five, one, three, seven, four, nine, seven, eight hundred, the big one, talk back, a heart rate up?
What else you can do?
It's cold, you know, we're in the levels three S no men emergency for the next few minutes here, can't really go in or doing anything.
Might as well talk about this.
And I'm just curious where you stand on this whole issue. I support law enforcement, as you know, I support what ICE is doing to degree, you know, get the real criminals. I'm talking about people who are predators, who are here illegally. Not just snarily legals, but predators. Yes, yeah, we we should be doing that. However, However, what I saw yesterday, or so I saw Saturday, I guess that ain't that.
I can't stand with that.
Because you are allowed to say I can't support this, and I'm saying I can't support this.
How about you?
More of your calls right after news update on the home of the Red seven hundred WW Cincinnati, say what if you're prepared? Yes, it was a great to stay in. You got a good excuse not to do nothing, watch some football.
I'm with you. I'm with you. I know this is not a popular stand.
I shouldn't say. I don't really care. I'm going to speak my conscience in my mind here and I've been saying for the last hour, we'll continue this conversation about what happened in Minnesota. Not allowed to say about the cold and the snow. We'll wrap up that. I've got a little few guests on that a little bit later on. But right now, the story in Minnesota taking center stage here. And I don't know about you, but you are allowed to say I saw what I saw. I can't support this,
I thought, okay, I support our law enforcement. I support our police. I understand the mission of Ice and Customs. And that is the promise fulfilled by the time up administration too weed out not only illegals, but particularly illegals who are caught up in crime, serious crime, predatory crime,
like this individual that they were arresting. As the story goes, a narrative goes allegedly on Saturday that they're rounding up a guide who is here illegally, but also someone who is a commits acts of domestic violence.
Okay, can't have that, all right. I'm with you there.
I can be supportive of that, and at the same time, you can also be supportive of what you saw, not what you're told, but by what you saw. And I know what I saw, and you saw the same thing. Did you look at that and go that's over the line, because I did. I sure did. And what I really don't like. What I don't really like is the constitutional violation going We have the second, the fourth or fourteen amendments of prohibitive officers from shooting citizens merely for possessing
a weapon that is not an imminent threat. Now let me make that clear. This guy that was shot on Saturday did not brandish a weapon. Okay, this wasn't Ryan Hinton. He had it on his person. I would think the weapon is secure in either waistband, pocket and probably a holster. Not sure that was not an iminent threat. And the video is very clear, the three to four to five videos very clear that Kyle pretty was holding a cell
phone and not a firearm. And at one point prior to him being you know, pepper spread, he had his hand up in the fashion of not like shoving the up, but like, hey, I got my cell phone, I'm recording this. I'm not a threat, and the officer saw him as a thread. Furthermore, when I hear instantly the Federal Gunment Christy Nome come out and say this guy was a domestic terrorist and he was poised to murder agents with
that gun, that is a lie. I don't think what he was doing falls into the guy's the very broad term of domestic terrorism, and I certainly don't think he was poised to murder agents because if that were true, wouldn't he have already shot the agents. If you had the gun, you had ample opportunity before they're in front of.
You to shoot them.
He didn't do that, he didn't draw it, he had it on his person, he was not brandishing, and yet he was shot to death. If you're able to justify that in your mind, and I'm just curious, how do you do that? Because presumably one of the great things about mag and Republicans is the fact that they are aren't supporters of the Second Amendment. I'm a big fan of all amendments of the Constitution, particularly one and two.
To me, the reason why they're one and two the second one though, Okay, you're allowed to have you're allowed to protest, you're a lot, and you're allowed to have a gun on you. He had a legal permit to carry that weapon and he got shot. Why, Well, because he's at the meat he was poised to murder agents.
No, he wasn't. I don't know why he was carrying the weapon.
We don't know what led him to going there, and all the circumstances that will come out at some point. Also troubling to me, it is the Minnesota Bureau of a Criminal Apprehension said during a news conference Saturday, Federal officers block the agency, the local agency, from the shooting scene. They came back with a signed warrant from a judge, and we're still blocked. That's not how it works, man, that's not you know. At some point you go, okay,
hold on just a second. All the stuff that I support. If you're you know, mag if you're on the right, and I lean to the right, obviously, I go okay, I'm all about the constitution. I'm all about why do you have a Why do you need guns? Every time we have you know, progressives come out and go, well, we need more gun. We gotta get her all these guns. Get rid of the guns. Get rid of the guns.
Well, what do you what do you need?
All those guns were well to prevent to protect myself from government tyranny, government tyranny. Don't you think that this is government tyranny? Because because I sure do you know when you have them saying yeah, I know what the federal I know what the law is. Yeah, you're not new. You can't come into our scene. No, no, no, no, you're the Feds. Where we but by by lah By the constitution. The local agencies have a right to go
to that too. Shooting scene. Shooting someone for simply possessing a weapon that's not in them in threat is also a constitucial violation. And so when you say I defend the Second Amendment, do you or do you defend this administration? Because those are two different things. Five win, three, seven, four, nine, seven eight are the big one. Talk back on the iHeartRadio app to Tim and for Thomas on the Scotslon Shoogar, Morning, Tim, what's up?
It's him. It's got a couple of things that have not been brought up that I need something on. In the photo, it showed that the gun was cocked. When you and I am a concealed carry owner in Kentucky. When you carry a gun, you do not have it cocked. It doesn't fit into a holster.
What do you mean, Kyle? It looked like I did.
I saw it, but I didn't really look closely at the gun that they held up in the press conference or a picture of on the seat. It looked like a maybe a nine millimeter or a six hour. I'm not quite sure what brand it was, but that didn't look like a.
Revolver to me, No, a revolver. No, you're talking about cocking the hammer on a revolver. In order for a nine milimeter to be cocked and ready, you've got to pull the entire chamber back the slide. It locks back and it shows the barrel.
That's the way it.
Yeah, but hold on a second, hold on, hold on.
So what you're saying is the barrel was sticking out, and there was because there's no round in the chamber. When when law enforcement takes a firearm from a scene, they render it like that. So it's probably law enforcement that did that, necessarily him, because what they want to make sure is that when in handling it in the chain of evidence, they don't want it to go off. So what they do is they secure it. They cleared
the magazine, and they leave it in that condition. What you saw, So it probably wasn't him, it was law enforcement.
Well, I realized what you're saying, But you don't.
Know that for sure.
Well, we don't know a lot of things for sure at this point. I know what I saw. Did you what you saw? What did you agree with?
I would have preferred to have a whole lot of audio to fill in what was occurring. Holding a hand up doesn't necessarily mean you know, I'm not a threat. I don't know what the hand up meant. But the other point I wanted to bring up was even though he would be entitled to bring a gun anywhere as a concealed carry permit owner, it was a bad idea. But why would you have also too fully loaded cartridges with you?
Magazines? He had two magazines on you. Okay, well, but that's not if you have a permit, that's not a crime. You could carry ten of them, so what it's not.
It's not a crime. But to say that that's not an issue is wrong.
I don't know.
Well, they didn't know he had two mags on him until after they killed him. And not only that they took they took the gun away with They took the gun away from him and then shot him. That's not a problem for you.
If I put a crogress to go shopping and I have my gun in my holster in a concealed position, I don't take two magazines with me.
Okay, that's not you.
But other people how I've seen people go into March's Second Amendment marches that carry a lot more than that, did they deserve to be shot?
I never said anything about deserving to be shot. I think you're taking some things that appear to be facts from what we've seen from the photos.
And you're making that absolutely.
I'm one hundred percent doing that because that's that's what we have right now, and it's natural. It's also logical to now. I've said before, I can't say it enough. If more evidence, exculporate evidence comes out that it leans towards the ice agents or law enforcement, I'd be more than open to hear that. But based on what you see right now, do you or do you not have a problem with it? If you had to make a decision right now, what would it be.
Well, I wouldn't make a decision now. Like I said, audio, I think is going to give a lot more information. If this was a bad shoot, it needs to be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.
Yeah.
And I think that's the other problem is that you know who's doing the investigation, the people who did the shooting. That's a problem because we have that in local law enforcement. Right Let's say Cincinnati, I don't know Evandale, whatever it might be. The state comes in, they take the investigation over you're a criminal investigation comes in Kentucky. Every other state does that. It's like, yeah, okay, you guys are in we're gonna investigate this. That ain't happening in this
case so far. That is also a problem. And so the question is do you trust the government that much? Because I don't. I don't trust the government if it's a Democrat. I don't trust the government if it's a Republican. And we got to a point now in this country where a lot of people will simply side with the government because that's my horse because I got that you know what, I got that red shirt on, or I got that blue shirt on. I don't care what that I I'm with them all the way because we're afraid
of a couple of things. One of them is being thrown out of the group that somehow you know you're a rhino or you know you're actually a conservative when you say you're a progressive, and I don't know. We need to be in I guess that community right now because we've turned this, you know, into sports is what it is. We have a team, were rooting for a team, and my team can never I can never be wrong
because it's a reflection on me, and it's not. And I think the reflection on us is like, instead of siding with what the truth is and what really matters and that we are the people and we run the show simply because it's who I voted for, who I support, I got to look the other way. And that just
gives them more license to do nonsensical stuff. And you think it's bad right now, it's the experts and I'm not one of them, talk about the midterm elections and now there's gonna be a big blue wave and there's gonna be hell to pay. And then that's gonna maybe translate to three years from now, which just seems like a held a lot of a long time. There's gonna
be this big progressive backlash against conservatives. You think it's bad, now, imagine the imagine when another side, the other side, gets in power. They're gonna go, Okay, well, hold my beer. You thought you thought there's some egregiou stuff happening. Watch this, But I'll do the name of progressivism. And then in four years we'll do it all over again. It'll just get worse and worse and worse. Unless we stand up. We gotta listen. There's some immutable laws at play here,
namely the constitution. Don't care if it's Donald don't care if it's Joe Biden. We absolutely can't allow that.
Now.
Can things change? Can there be new evidence coming in that exonerates the cops. Sure, and I'm open to hearing that, But right now we got to go. If we go, If we waited until, you know, judges and juries decided things, it bede awfully boring world. We all armshare quarterback. That's what we're doing right now, and there's no harm in that. It's human nature. Let me get to John in Westwood on seven hundred. John, you're a retired cop. I am all right.
What'd you see?
Well?
I saw a criminal and interfering with the lawful arrest of an illegal alien, okay. And then I saw not only did he interfere, but he resisted arrest once he was told he was under arrest. And then I saw him fighting with the cops, fighting that legal arrest. And then during the course of the struggle, the cops shouted gun, gun, gun. Right now, if they took the gun off of him and the cops had it in his hand, there's no way in hell they would have shot him.
So I have to disagree with they did.
John.
That's that's what the that's what the video shows. The video shows very clearly that the I.
Think was the agent a video I did not see that I.
Thought is the guy in gray had I think gray shirt sleeves on. He pulled the gun out, had it in his hand, and then the shots. Then then the shot gun in his hand. Scott, come on, No, the video shows the guy holding a gun in his hand that he took off the that's already in the timeline.
It did not, And you're you're jumping to conclusions. And the other thing is this is in no way a Second Amendment issue.
House. Sure, he had the right to have a.
Gun anywhere he wants to go. You can't take him the or you know, bars and stuff like that if you drinking. But that that goes out the window when he interferes with lawns.
He didn't.
I don't know the window.
Okay, I don't know where you're coming from on this, but it's very clear that you are. The constution prohibits officers from from shooting people merely for possessing a weapon when it's not an eminent threat. It wasn't an imminent threat. He didn't have it drawn, he wasn't reaching for it. They took the gun off him. What amendment says that, I'm sorry breaking up?
What a.
Second amendment? Fourth amendment, fourteenth amendment, a lot of amendments? Law enforcement is that you know him interfering is a felony. I believe in this particular case that's sorry. But two things can be right. He can be breaking the law by protesting, but law enforcement agers you shot him could also be breaking the law because this looks like a bad shoot. Well, it looks like a bad shoot, but
we don't know all the facts. And for you to jump to conclusions and get people routed up, you're just playing into the handle of the.
You're hold on a second, hold of the second.
In your world, you wait until the til the case goes to court, till a jury. Here's in the judge's side. We're not allowed to talk about anything until that point. Is that what you're saying a.
Lot of times that happens because if you talk about it, it coul jeopardize the case.
You know that, No, no, no, no, I'm talking about the citizens. I'm talking about people like me and you who have nothing to do with Minnesota talking about this. You're saying, you you wait until the wait until it becomes history and not news to talk about things.
No, no, no, no no, that's kind of what you're saying, that we can we can discuss it. We are you up to say that the cops did wrong?
You don't know that.
Okay, hold on a second, did you not just minutes ago, tell me you said that he was interfering with the criminal investigation and he was resisting arrest. How do you know he was just saying, how do you know what he was saying to those officers. You don't know that anymore than I do. So you're doing the same thing, are you. Well, you're you're saying that the video shows the cop took the gun off of him, had it in his hand, and then he was shot.
That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about.
That's not according to those who researchers who went through this frame by frame, and I watched it myself, that's what I saw. Now again, you're you're a welcome to your own opinion on this thing. But it's pretty clear that the officer had him taking the gun off of him and it was shot at the same time. You can't have it, but you can't also, I mean, if you saw five guys on top of one, what caused what caused him to be in such a situation where he'd be shot?
For that?
Scott, I'm afraid that when it all comes out, you're gonna find that you were wrong and you should issue and I will.
And I'll say I will.
And here's the thing, John, if I'm right, I'll never hear from you again, will I No.
No, no, I'm enjoying you will not.
No no I'm saying is you won't call back and say you know what I was wrong about this?
I will?
Well, you will, okay, I will, all right, And I know what I'm going to do because it's like, okay, if there's more evidence coming out, let's see it. I'm fair, but I'm also a citizen and what I saw bothered the hell out of me. I didn't like it at all. I'm not afraid to say that. But we have a lot of people to going, well, well, if the if and when, Okay, then Kyle Rittenhouse, Ashley Babbitt, what about that, Well, that's different.
Now it's not really. You're allowed to do that.
You're allowed to care a weapon on you. You shouldn't be shot for that unless you're brandishing it or about to reach work, which Cordnell the video in the timeline so far, which could change and there could be more evidence, doesn't appear to be the case. We should all be
outrage of that. And you know what if your pro Second Amendment, if you're how hard I guess I should have made How hard does that make your job if you're a cop, because you have federal agents that appear in my citizens perspective that have not have good tactics here, doesn't that make the local jobs, the local cops jobs harder. I think it does, because you know, people tend to I don't, but people tend to lump them all together, going, oh, you know a bunch of cops like that makes me hard.
It makes harder for the Minnesota police or Cincinnati police to do their job.
In my opinion. Yeah, we speculate, we talk, we armshare cords. That's life.
You can't you can't speculate on the things that you want to speculate. And when someone brings up that goes against your already preconceived notions go, well, we shouldn't talk about it until yeah we should. We should because well, these are our rights. This is our country, after all, regardless of who you voted for, who you support SEC Amendment. Baby, I'm down you. We'll get to news and we'll switch
it up here. Julie Hattersh're share mental Health Monday. Good time to do this next seven hundred WWD.
Since Monday with mental health expert Julie Hattershire.
Yeah, after the cold and snow and ice and of course all the news, it feels like we need someone to talk a little mental health these days. And this is why you do it on Monday Mornings with Julie Hattershare with Beconnected dot Care here in Cincinnati. Welcome, Julie. How are you you're digging out? Are you just staying and waiting for the snow to melt?
We dug our way out over the weekend. Yeah, shovel several times?
All right?
How long did it take you?
The first time we were out there for just under an hour, and the second and third times were less than that.
There was a lot less snow to do after, you know.
The great when a husband and a wife can do something. I have to together unlike me were.
My bonding experience.
But my knees, my knees.
Oh well, oh, I've got to do everything. I'm exhausted, Julie. I need a vacation.
I don't know how.
I don't know how full time caregivers do it. I really don't between, you know, just trying to keep all the all the plates. But yeah, that's that's the way it is. But uh, all right, she's mending, and none too quickly, by the way.
Let's go.
Let's go, Let's get these knees heeld and get on with your life, because I need I need what Julie has right now.
It's a partnership. It's a partnership.
Well, and I'm sure she feels that way too.
I know, Michelle, she would not like to be down for the count for as long as she had with both of these knees.
Because she's annoying when she's down and she can't do anything, and so it's even more frustrated that she can't and that it's more demand. It's a whole thing. So what you're saying is, Julie, I need to be more resilient. How do I be more resilient.
You need to be more resilient. I'm saying you need to be more resilient. You need to bounce back better.
All right, let's talk about resiliency. How does that work?
Even Well, so we all know people who something bad happens to them and it really takes them down and they have a very hard time getting back up again. And we also all know people who's something really bad takes them down and they take a deep breath and they dust themselves off and they pop back up again
and keep going. And those are the people who are who are skilled in being resilient, And those are the people that we're going to be talking about today and what makes them resilient and how we can be resilient because life is going to throw us curveballs, whether it's your health or economics. Life is going to throw you a curveball, and how you respond to it is.
A mark of how resilient you are. So we're going to talk about what makes that happen.
Well, let's do that, because I'm fascinated with this topic because it's about me. I think about you. I'm a survivor, I will I'm like a cockroach I'll find a way right. It may take me a long time, but I envy people who can go okay, shake it, Like you know, professional athletes, Well, they'll go okay, I a bad play, I'll come back and they wind up winning, as opposed to you know, mean, I hit a bad golf shot. I'm pissed off about that for the next three holes.
I need to be more resilient. I tend to hold onto things, and I think that's part of my DNA. My folks are like that. I'm like and I've been trying to shake it for all these years. I don't know if I'm doing a good job or not.
Well.
So you say your DNA is like that, and you're right that resilience is somewhat linked to your genetics. So some people are more resilient than other people. And some people are more resilient physically, like they just they bounce back from illness or injury better. Some people are more resilient mentally and emotionally they sort of regroup and get
back on the horse better than others. But innately, though those may be your qualities, we all have the ability to increase our resilience and to increase our bounceability when things go wrong, and so you know, if you can, if you can hit a bad shot and it only takes you a whole and a half to get over it, that's better, right, So we can increase that to some degree.
I've been golfer for like ten years. There stuff I still hold against myself from the first year I learned how to golf.
Is that bad?
That's really bad?
A long line. I come from a long line of people hold on it.
My mom, for example, when I would she would remind me of stuff I did when I was five years old that she still holds on to.
Oh, my mother does the same thing. She'll say something to me and she'll say, you told me this, And I say, Mom, I was thirteen.
That was a really long time.
Hang on you.
That's not resilient, is it. That's not being resilient.
So positive attitude, optimism, able to regulate emotion, viewing failures, feedback, and not not a indictment on yourself. That that's essentially what resilient. And we can use a lot more resilience in this world, couldn't we.
We could use a lot more resilience in this world. Part of it, too, is what you attribute the challenges too. So if you attribute then to things outside your control, that you are just unlucky, that there is nothing you can do about what happened to you and don't take ownership for your response to it. That tends to make you think more like a victim and tends to make
you be less resilient. Whereas if you say some things are in my control, how I respond and how I behave some things are outside my control, the weather, for example, or what's going on politically in the world that is outside your ability to control.
But you can control how you show up, how you.
Think about it, what you do about it, what actions you take or don't take. If you focus the locust the focus of your control on you and what you can do versus the things that you can't control, that gives you more agency and tends to make you more resilient. So it's about looking at how you can show up, what you can influence your control, not focusing so much on the things that you can't. Because again, life is going to throw us all curveballs.
Yeah you've got the curve balls are coming, there's no doubt about that, and you've got to learn how to let that roll off your back. But and I think you could be too resilient where you just let yeah, I don't care about anything.
There's an extreme on both sides of this whole thing.
Trauma servisor sure that would be resilience, that that would be that would be apathy. No, I'm not sure that would be resilience. That would be apathy. That the concept of resilience is Okay, you are, you are impacted, and you overcome the not caring, the apathy.
That's not resilience.
That's something different, and it's not necessarily bad in every situation.
It's just not quite what we're talking about.
Trauma survivors seem to be really good at this.
Tr trauma survivors, well, trauma survivors are survivors.
By by definition.
They don't always thrive in the in the aftermath of the trauma though. And so there's this concept we've all heard of post traumatic stress disorder PTSD, but there's this concept in the psychological world of post traumatic growth, where the trauma happens and as a result of it we
grow and learn and change in positive ways. So I saw this repeatedly when I was just out of grad school and working with cancer patients and their families as a counselor, and I would see time and time again that my clients would talk about the gifts that came with their cancer diagnosis, the deepening of relationships, the clarity of prioritizing their lives, the reorganizing of what mattered to them, the recognition that chasing money and fame and success didn't
necessarily make them happy. What made them happy was their relationships and the meaningful things in their lives. And so when faced with this life threatening illness or life impacting illness, they very often would talk at some point point in time after they sort of got over the initial shock, about how it changed their world and changed their priorities for the better. You know, they knew who showed up for them and who didn't. They knew who was there
for them and who wasn't. They knew what mattered to them and what didn't, and it helped them shift their thinking about the world. And they considered those the gifts that came with cancer. We would call that post traumatic growth.
Okay, as opposed to postmatic stress, which you normally think about, all right, Julie, when it comes to the topic of resilience here, how do you how do you lean into it?
How do you make yourself more resilient? What steps do you take?
Well, First of.
All, you can take some risks and recognize that they may not pay off, and going in knowing that they may not pay off. If they don't pay off, you can then figure out how to group after that, so you can control the risk, control the reaction, and learn
to build your resilience as a results of that. And the more you put yourself into positions where you're walking on the edge of your case abilities in whatever situation that is, the more likely you are to stumble or fall or fail, and the more practice you can have in picking yourself back up and figuring it out again. Scientists, for example, often fail, and that's part of their process is they try this, it doesn't work.
They try something else it doesn't work in some way to get to the.
Right answer, and every time they fail they learn something new.
So another thing.
Is recognizing that failure is good information to have. If something doesn't work out, that's good information for you to have because now you know something that doesn't work, which allows you to do something different and perhaps better than next time, versus I failed. You can think, oh, I learned that this doesn't work. Let me try this instead.
All right, Yeah, that makes sense, So you try. But again, you can't be risk averse. You have to lean into you guys. Hey, you know, I may learn something, it may work out, but I'll take something away. I think a lot of people, especially in this day and age Julie had to share, to look at any criticism and any failure is the worst thing in the world that we should be avoided at all costs. And when it comes out of criticism is how do you not take that personally?
You know a lot of people in the world take criticism personal as a personal front as opposed to being constructive or you know, looking at help and am minutely you get defensive, going wow, how dare they belittle me? But that's not what's happening? What kind of character flaw is that? And how do you change that?
Well, first of all, I would say that sometimes criticism is delivered as if it's personal, not you did that wrong, but you are wrong, Not you screwed that up, but you.
Are a screw up. So sometimes criticism actually.
Is delivered personally, And it makes sense then that we would take it that way. Sometimes it is delivered in a constructive, helpful, kind way, and we still.
Are primed to take it that way.
And people who are resilient, it's not that they don't take it personally.
It's not that they don't feel the sting.
It's that they recognize even if it is, there's something they can learn from it. They can grow, they can change. It's good information to have. So after it stings, after they say that coach that hurt, then they say, okay, what if this is true and valid and applicable, what can I learn from it? How can I grow? And is there anything that I can do better or different next time to prevent this from happening. So it's not that it doesn't sting, it's that they don't stay with
the sting. They move past that into growth, change, knowledge, information, and understanding.
Gotcha as opposed to shutting down and going to a shell because you feel like you've been affronted, Which is true. I mean we've you know, we live in a society day where we've kind of poisoned our kids against any criticism as a direct attack on who we are and our psyche and of course any any type of risk or any type of failure is to be avoided at all costs. It seems we probably are less resilient than as a result of that, than more resilient these days.
Absolutely, And I'm glad you brought up children, because I think that resilience is something that our youth today are
severely lacking. And partly that's her parents' fault. Partly that's because parents have paved the way, snow plowed, helicoptered, managed their children's lives to ensure success and not allowed them to have the experience of turning in an assignment laid and getting a failing grade, or doing something halfway and getting a lower grade than they need, or pushing themselves to try out for a higher level sports team and
not making it. And when that happens, they don't learn how to overcome, how to regroup, how to learn the lessons that they need to learn as children and young people. When they've got a lot of safeguards and a lot of safety nets in place. Oftentimes then they hit their first real failure in their twenties or their thirties, and they're completely undone because it hasn't happened to them before, and they don't know what to.
Do, all right, They don't know how to regroup.
All right.
Before we go wrap it all up, joining talk about resilience and how to be more resilient or life, what.
Do you do?
Put yourself in situations where you can take some calculated risks and if it doesn't go well, figure out what you need to learn from that to move on. So practice being resilient, Feel the sting of a criticism or a failure, and then figure out what you can do differently next time to.
Help prevent it. Try to focus.
On keeping what you can control and influence within you and not worrying so much about the things you can't control or influence. You can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it, what meaning you make of it, and what you do with.
It in the future.
Easier said than done, Julie, that's the nature of your job. You're just easier said than done.
It's easy for me to say, people just figure out how to apply it.
Yeah, I got it all right.
She's there for a Julie how to share our licensed mental health expert here on Scott's Soland Show. She is at beconnected dot Care. That's a letter b Connected dot Care. If you want to reach out, maybe a topic for future show. Something you heard to reach out and we'll discuss at a later date. Every Mental Health Monday with Julie. Thanks again, have a great week.
Thank you, by bye.
All right, we'll get to news in about five minutes here on seven hundred WLW on this day of days where we have what's going on Minnesota kind of exhausted that in the first hour of the show. Make sure listen to the podcast. I had a great guest done at nine about this from the Police Foundation, Betsy Brentnor Smith from the National Police Association. Disagreed with her. We had different takes on this whole thing of what I
saw I had a huge problem with. But I'm sure we'll be talking about that in the coming days because this story is not going of course, the biggest story local to us would be the weather. Had that huge snowstorm move through. Hopefully you're digging out or have digged out already, doug dugged out, dugged out, digging whatever, you know what I mean. Hopefully you cleared your driveway. Let's
put it that way. Now, we got to face bitter cold, full forecast, traffic, all that on the way and when to return on the show, Speaking of which we'll talk electricity, namely the one million people of our power after this storm. Is that a sign of things to come? With the grid the way it is right now? We'll talk energy with David Holt next Home of the Red seven hundred w WT since that this is why everything shut down level through snow emergencies and alike, and that brings us
up too, is the aftermath of this. So we had over one million without power in the region. Kentucky one of those eleven states hit by snow and ice taking out lines. Nashville, just south of US had a record breaking event with almost a quarter million homes without electricity and that continues in through today. And of course we've had this competition many times. Experts say it's failing infrastructure.
You're you know, as the result of that, you're gonna see more widespread outages during snow, ice and wind events, and we're going to power is going to fall easier than it has in the past, according to the experts. One of those is David Hole he's the president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, joined on the show this morning on seven hundred WW David House Today, find you, you know, warm and safet.
Hopefully that's the majority of your listeners as well.
Good you're down? Are you in Texas?
I am?
You am?
How did the power because last time, remember we had that ice event and it was an unmitigated disaster, literally had the disaster because so many people without power. How do y'all do this time?
So, so far, so good. It's you know, a few scattered power outages, mostly from you know, down trees and things like that. But for the most part, Texas is I guess weathering the storm pretty well good. Today will be the coldest day for us. But I think so far so good. Fingers crossed prayers for everyone.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think it's not unexpected at all when you have an event like this as wide and big and deep and awful as the storm was over the weekend. Fortunately, is over the weekend too. I'll point out you're almost going to have power.
Edgers and the like. But are you surprised? Is it?
Is? It?
Too little?
Is about?
Right?
I mean a million homes and not only that, especially what happened in Nashville. Is that indication this is a it's been a problem with our power greater or is this just simply what they expected because of the bad weather.
You know, you know, these extreme weather events like this, you know, a tornado, hurricane, extreme cold, extreme heat, they're always they just said that the big esters of the grid, of our our power mixture. For the most part, Scott, I think the nation is showing, uh, pretty good resiliency of the grid, pretty good resiliency for power.
There are power outages.
Around, Uh, there has been a little bit of a loss of loss of life.
I don't want to understate all this, but.
From what we've seen in the past so far, it's better than it's been other years other times that's shown good resiliency. That shows the grid operators all across the country, you know, saw this storm coming prepared. Did we learned lessons from other weather events that we've already had, uh in previous years. So for the most part, you know, in a national generalization statement, it it hadn't been too bad.
All right, So we did pretty good.
And yet experts, maybe not yourself, but others in the field say hey, listen, yeah, we're we're at a tipping point here.
We can drill, baby, drill. We can extrue.
We can get all this energy out of the ground, but we still have to put it in a plant to convert it to usable energy. And then we've got to get that from the plant to homes and businesses and hospitals and retirement homes and nursers and all that stuff as well.
And that's where the disconnect is. People. Here's you go.
Hey, listen, we just had a big storm, one of the biggest ever. And yeah, some people are a powero gunning back online. But no big deal, so we kick the can down the road?
Is that?
Why is that? What's happening here?
You know?
I'm one of those guys that keeps saying we have to do more, and I think we have more time in this storm. It's not over yet, but so far, so good. But don't let that. Let us rest on our laurels. We are way behind, and grid development way behind and expanding our transmission. Some states have gotten I balanced with too much renewable energy and not enough always available natural gas and dispatchable base load power. We still need to have some serious conversation among all the states
and develop more nuclear power. What we're going to see over the next three to fifteen years. Scott is unprecedented in US history with new demand for electricity and for power for data centers. Industrial development across the country is really also quite expanding quite a bit.
We also have more natural gas.
For LNG and other global applications. So all these things mean we need more pipelines, We need more transmission lines, We need to develop more of our own natural resources. We need to get more serious about natural gas. Demand is going up. The strains on the grid are real, and states, local and federal policy makers all need to
get serious about it. We're also scott still seeing a lot of protesting and nay saying and opposition to developing pipelines and transmission and other energy projects around the country. We really got to get to a place where citizens have their say.
We want everyone to have their input.
But we need to be as a society able to make decisions and build out this infrastructure relatively quickly at this point because we are behind so states, the local communities need to weigh in, but we need to build it.
Yeah, we had this Duke pipeline fight not long ago here in the Cincinnati area residents, and now I get it.
You know, it's like, oh, we don't need this in our schools and our homes and like.
And not only that, the pipeline's not even coming to Sency, it's going somewhere else. Well, yeah, that's how it works. It's a pipeline.
You know.
I wonder if somebody said, hey, listen, I don't want the pipeline coming through our neighborhood because well, let's going to Cincinnati. I don't live in Cincinnati. I live in Iowa or whatever. It's well, yeah, it doesn't work that way. It's a it's a network, and it's far cheaper and easier and safer, generally speaking, to transfer stuffvia pipeline than it is on trucks and freight. It's also better for the environment for that matter. But you know, we want
to use it, we don't want it. It's the same as you pointed out, David Holt, president of consc Our Energy Alliance, the ongoing demand for data in AI. You know, here in Ohio we are I think we're number top five, uh for new data centers in AI, and they're putting more in. I think we've got a battle here locally over three or four I believe, uh, facilities where neighbors are questioning, and it has to do with a couple of things. One of them is water and the amount
of water that they need to cool things. But also it's a tremendous amount of energy and resources these things take up, and that that's straining our system here to the point where, well, you know, people are out there fighting it, but I don't know if they're going to wind up changing anyone's mind. At some point they're going to go in uh And and the amount of power
that these things need is an incredible amount. We're still getting them from larger the same the same source, the same power plants aren't and that's the problem.
Yeah, we are, and we need to expand some of those. We need to build out new power plants. Some of these data centers are looking at their own power that's kind of not on the grid, maybe loosely connected to the grid. All these things are moving very quickly, you know. One of the things I do I am a little concerned about. We have a lot of federal leadership in
this area. We have a lot of state leadership in Ohio and other states on data centers, but that conversation at the local level about what the benefits are, the tax benefits, the long term job implications, what it means to the United States, all those things.
I think.
I think industry and governments and policymakers could probably do a better job of explaining some of this to local communities and let them know what the benefits are for them. And so that's something that needs to occur, needs to occur quickly. Everyone kind of needs to get on the same page because we don't have a choice. We really don't as a nation, we do not have a choice.
We absolutely have to expand our power generation and our infrastructure in order to get that power where it needs to be, or days like today and yesterday and tomorrow might not be as good stories next time through as they were hopefully as times well.
Additionally, where it's really hitting is at our wallets. You know, weren't a really bad cold snap again here in our area as we speak right now with all the snow behind us. Now we get bitterly cold temperatures way till that Duke bill comes, will that energy bill comes, people lose their minds because it is so high and rightly so, that is all because of what we're talking about here.
Absolutely right, absolutely right.
Affordability, energy affordability and reliability, which to really talking about both of them, and we're what we've actually seen, Scott, is that there's a big difference between you know, I hate to put politics on this, but there's a big difference between how the Red states and the Blue states have handled their energy policy over the last you know,
ten to fifteen years and on. By and large, we're seeing Blue states California and New York, Massachusetts, Illinois are paying more for energy than Red states Ohio, Texas, and others. Those states that have adopted a kind of balance all the above approach, making sure that we're cheaping up as best we can with grid expansion and natural gas pipeline expansion, things like that, those states are seeing their customers paying left for energy than some of those.
Big blue states that have adopted kind.
Of you know, draconian mandate restrictions ban certain forms of energy, you know, kind of picked winners and losers. Uh, those states are finding that their energy is more expensive. So that's a that's an interesting development we're seeing. And we're also seeing some of those blue states start to correct their uh, their their their their pathways here a little bit and add natural gas back to mix and make sure they have enough.
Well, it's funny.
As much as the Blue skates States scream about diversity, they they don't have it when it comes to energy.
That's that's correct, and we really need diverse energy is really showing itself to be uh, the path.
Forward for us.
All.
Yeah, whatever works for you. On that note too, This always is a head scratcher to me. Is everywhere else in the United States. You know, it's electric, it's natural gas. New England is still i think dependent on like a third of them still oil fire jit power generating people like still doing heating oil. What is it about the Northeast and heating oil?
You know, it's it's just kind of a vestiage of a day gone by. I mean there's a lot of those heating oil tanks that are still attached to homes all over the Northeast that that you know, they go and they fill up their their big tank with heating oil once a month or once a quarter.
Uh. And that's that's the system.
Like, I think it's a old less than a third now it is declining as new homes are being built, but some of those older homes are still using that heating oil.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, it's funny because the house at my son and my daughter now rents, and initially when we bought it, this is where my workshop is, about a mile from my house. It's all good, but it had heating oil. Like, oh okay, we'll give this guts kind of whole school at the tank in the basement, had that bad boy filled up one winner and said nope, we're I'm gonna go. There's no natural gas there, but we're gonna use electric because it's even electric as expensive is is still cheaper than heating oil.
I think that's one of the cases. And you know it's yeah, it's it's.
Harder to move around, it is more expensive to really hit that pocket look at one time, you know, and you want to balance out some of the environmental considerations and other things. So it's it's one of those things that's slowly, I think, being transitioned out. But you know, several million folks still use it.
I suppose maybe you live somewhere in the rural areas where you don't do that, that'd be the way to go, I guess, But you know, most of us are kind of on the grid. Right now he's David Hole, President of the Consumer Energy Aligance. With the big storm and now the big cold coming, we're talking about the stress on our power good at this point I've mentioned the
other guests, maybe yourself. It doesn't seem like we're going to have a I don't know, like a moon shot type of thing like Kennedy did in the nineteen sixties to get a man on the moon, and we're going to are pushed for, you know, the COVID vaccine right away. We got to get our best minds on things. It seems like we're waiting for some sort of either climate or energy nine to eleven to occur, some sort of
major outage catastrophe before we do anything in this country. Well, we solve this problem before it comes to that.
Well, you know, I think the interesting thing is that the president and this administration did declare a national energy emergency on day one when they took office. So there's already kind of I think a recognition that listen, we need this country runs on energy. Let's get at the time, we had high inflation, we had a very high gasoline prices, we had a higher energy prices. When the president this
administrations of office. So they've really worked at removing some regulatory red tape, getting development going again, starting to get the infrastructure situation under control.
But more needs to be done.
There's a lot more state authority over this needs to stay needed to get serious about it.
And yes, I.
Certainly see a situation where we can find ourselves well behind the curve. We kind of already are scott Yeah, but we don't want to get in a situation where it's a dire emergency and you have forced brownouts, force blackouts and these extreme weather that's just because policy and
development is not keeping up with the need. And that's very much a situation we can find ourselves in if our political leadership doesn't just kind of figure out ways to get rid of the red tape, get out of the way, let development occur, let energy resources come online, making sure that we're able to meet this basic demand, which is unprecedented. It's unprecedented in our history. So we are we are in a situation where, like you said, we need to make sure we're paying attention to this
and we don't let it become this dire emergency. And sometimes this nation, our political leadership seems to function in an emergency.
I certainly hope that doesn't have.
A crisis management. But yeah, what are the areas that we went heard in some while? Like California is known for the rolling brownouts because the grid, hey we go, We're gonna turn your electricity down. Haven't heard that much lately about that. Is that because they've changed it, or is it simply not news anymore? What's going on there?
You know, they've done some things to improve their grid. They had some situations where they for so called environmental reasons, they weren't clear cutting some trees around power lines and things like that, so that was creating somep some fires with power lines, and that then forced some rolling brownouts and blackouts.
We haven't heard it.
We certainly, knock on Wood have not heard that situation during this storm. But the prospects are real. The strain on grids in the Northeast in New York and the Pjam, which is kind of the mid Atlantic Midwest area, parts
of Ohio, Urcott Handles, Texas. All these grid managers are crying for help, crying about the strain on the grid, crying about more needs, more needs and limited demand, our limited supply and capacity also has an impact on that price situation, particularly in some of the states that have not been as thoughtful in their interview qualify together.
Yeah, the generation is one thing, but the transmission that's a hard part, right is getting it from point A to point B. You mentioned pipelines, but also utility lines for that matter. Overhead underground wires has to do with going across land and eminent domain, which people fight against them like. It takes a long time to do that. You know, back in the day you could just string string lines up all over the place, and there's easements
of course built in as well. That's also part of the problem too, is getting new networks up and getting new wires in the sky, so to speak.
Yes, yes, and what you know, there's there's a pretty robust pipeline and transmission line system in this country. I think we have about five million miles of pipelines in the country just for natural gas alone, non including oil, gasoline, diesel, some of the other pipeline. So a lot of these areas already have rights of way, and you can expand on those current rights away or ad transmission to an already existing pipeline right away. So a lot of that is,
you know, in play. But yet you still have these groups, these you know, professional agitators out there that protests energy development, protests kind of any sort of industrial development, and and that needs to end the days of the professional protester where they're just out creating fear, creating obstacles, creating situations where we're going to have limited supply or higher prices.
We've got to get past that and kind of call out these groups for what they are while at the same time listening to legitimate concerns of local citizens and communities.
You know, that's balid.
We're doing that now with the AI and data centers. Listen to the local community going hey, we're worried about our ground water and running out of water and put natural resources and they stress and strain, and those are legitimate if they're going to put it in your community, be for sure. But we all demand these things. I guess that's the NIMBI part.
Uh.
But it's kind of funny the environmental protesters, as you mentioned out there, they're grandparents are the ones who fought against nuclear and now these people, now this generation is saying what about nuclear. It's well, you know what, let's quit fighting on's lean into this stuff?
Shall we exactly?
You know?
The funny thing is it's not your grandfather's nuclear industry or either it's it's very different. These things called small modular actors. It's part of a whole advanced technology, uh nuclear industry. That's that's that that doesn't really create any weight.
Uh.
If they're they're they're modular, they're smaller. You can stack them next to each other to kind of build out more capacity.
UH.
Really interesting fascinating technology now and a lot.
Of states, a lot of local communities.
You're looking at it, you know, and it's clean, it's always available, what to build it out, uh.
To be around for a long time.
It's one of those things that we're we're gonna need because it's a dispatchable base load power like natural gas, so it's not intermittent like wind and solar. Wind and so over have good application pticularly solar, but you've got to have that baseload power, which is going to come largely from natural gas and pretty soon here nuclear.
And one hundred years will go on Amazon and buy a shoebox size and a replacement cartridge for your whole home power. You'll swap out the other one, send it in and it'll be in its own little million nuclear plant inside your own home, or at least in your own community. It seems like it's going to go and should go that way.
We're heading the days of the flex capacitor. Capacitor, absolutely capacitor.
If you get a doloreate, you get a Dolorian, and you get a doloren. He is David Holds, Consumer Energy Aligned. Thanks again, always appreciate the insight.
Be well.
Got YouTube they say, stay warm, talk soon.
All right, there you go, David, thanks again, appreciate it. Let me get a news update in here momentarily on seven hundred WW whin or return James Repeat is here. We'll talk little championship weekend action. The Super bo Bowl matchup is set. The second game was very very exciting first get me somewhat exciting as well despite the you know, the weather moving in too as well. But it is New England at Seattle and Rapine from Bengals Talk dot com. We'll talk about that matchup next seven hundred.
W WELW.
And of course digging out as we speak. And yesterday was a great day with the big store moving in to watch some flip. That was a perfect day yesterday, No excuse to go outside, you know, get you a bullet, ships or whatever.
Your jam is.
Made some sauce yesterday Littlefi's macaroni perfect and watched the two games. And now we're down to the Super bowls New England and Seattle. James Rapeena is here from SI Bengals Talk and Locked on Bengals Podcast. Bengals not in the Super Bowl, but there's hope for next year. We shall see. It's New England and its Seattle. James, welcome, hy Ben.
I'd been great.
It's got a little snowed in, but you're right, yesterday it was a great day for football.
Yeah, there's no excuse to guy like what I'm gonna do? I I said around watch football. Damn I hate my life. Yeah, it was awesome. It was absolutely awesome. And you know, between bouts and shoveling, Yeah.
I want some more games today.
The way you're.
Saying, I know, I know, it's like there's something to watch. This is this is wonderful. It's nirvana. Let's jump into that first game there. New England beats Denver on the road ten to seven in what turned into a blizzard in the fourth quarter. I've never seen that much snow come down that quickly in an NFL game.
I can't believe how quickly did that changed. And I tweeted something in the second quarter and and mentioned, man, why is it colder in Cincinnati? And why did it feel and look colder in Cincinnati than it doesn't in Colorado? Yep, like this shouldn't be the case, right, And then by the fourth quarter, it's like the winter gods saw my tweet and said, oh, you think it's colder there, and snow started coming down.
Now.
I thought it was a really cool way for the game. Go of all, think that might have been the most interesting thing about the game. No one scored essentially in the entire second half. It was pretty boring from a scoring perspective, but entertaining, no doubt.
Yeah, and two teams that are used to dealing with the snow, especially in New England, they thought right at home in this whole thing. And yeah, the weather did change things. The kicking game, for example, really really changed the outcome of this whole thing. But you look at the New England Patriots managing just four first downs, and I think seventy two yards. In the first half, they've kept punning, they missed the field goal, it was off.
He thought, man, they're going to get trucked by Denver and that did not happen. What happened in the second half. How did the Patriots turn it around?
Yeah?
I think a big thing that has sort of gone into the radar. I guess with New England and might going into Super Bowl sixty, their defense is real and that's where it starts. I mean, they can win these smash mout ugly games and if that's how they have to play, they can play it. And a guy that's looking back at previous Bengals drafts will be would look really good in stripes. And instead the Bengals traded down with the Patriots in twenty twenty one when Christian Barmore
was on the board in the second round. But he's a really good defensive tackle, and I think that day is they're like, Okay, well this is going to be an ugly game. The weather's change, and what we need to do is take care of the football with our young quarterback and we'll win ugly. And I do wonder what it would have looked like if bo Nicks were
able to play for Denver. But this Patriots defense, now for two weeks in a row, has done its job, and what it's done is then allowed or allowed as Drake May to play as these things as you can when you're on the road and you're trying to squeak out a victory and they only put up ten points, but it was enough, and I think the de defense deserves a ton of credit.
Yeah, and May what eighty six yards passing and that that weather, but sixty eight yards rushing that touchdown? You see that we were in that seven uh about seven yards when he needed five first down and they sealed the game at that point too. He won that game on his legs was all it was. As much the passing, it was him running well.
And that's it is when I mentioned the decision making, he's making really good decisions and not forcing it and not feeling like he needed to put on the superhero cape. And the reason he felt that way, I think it's just how this team is built and how they they're they're able to play, and that's that's the heck of the thing for a young quarterback, because he is capable and we've seen it. I think he's going to be
second in m VP. Maybe he wins it, but he is capable of winning these shootouts and putting up huge points in numbers and back and forth games. It wasn't that wasn't to be that type of game, and so they play the other way and they're capable of winning that way as well. But you're right, he made some good decisions, some big first downs that he puts up down the sheds to feel the victory.
Yeah.
Boenix breaks his ankle in the last game against the Bills, gonna last play. They put Jared Stidham in at quarterback and they were building him to say, no, he's our guy. He's going to be great. He's going to be great. He's the future. He's going to be great. Looked really, really good. I think he started oh for three, but then that past the Mims fifty two year bomb down the middle, he hits Courtland Sutland on the score, Denver's up.
The New England Pagers look into fishing like wow, the backup may go and wind up playing in a super Bowl at this point not to be, because he had that backwards pass and a turnover, laid eye and tea and this is why you're the backup. And it's also you know, again, he may be great at some point in the future, but you just can't throw a guy in with no reps in the season and expect him to beat a team that's fighting for Super Bowl birth.
Yeah, I think. I also think yesterday is why Sean Payton has struggled in the playoffs. Yeah, and that's what he that's what he's done.
Like this idea.
There are a lot of people today and you're didn't ask me about the Steelers, okay, that are laughing at Mike McCarthy in that fience. Mike McCarthy's been just as good as the playoffs as John Payton likes. This idea that Sean Payton, who they had a chance to go up ten nothing, they don't kick the field goal. There felt like a mistake in the moment. It felt like they were kind of scratching and calling to get down the field where you get a two yard scramble and
then a quick outpass and it's third down. You don't get it because your quarterback comes up short take the points and he didn't take the point. And I think that's where the momentum of that game changed. If it was ten to nothing at that point, it would have felt a bit different than that New England defense that I mentioned made a few plays and it was like, all right, well, where's our offense going to come from? And I know they had the missfield goal in the
fourth quarter. I get that, by the way, whether it was an issue, but it doesn't matter. I think winning coaches make winning decisions. And maybe Sean Payton needs to look in the mirror a little bit because I was just thinking back through his Saints days and he had a lot of heartbreaking playoff losses and they were in position yesterday to beat New England with Jarret Sidham, and I think the head coach needed to be a good better.
Yeah, all right.
So when New England advances to the Super Bowl to face the Seahawks in the late game, who beat the Rams thirty one, twenty seven and third meeting the camp, it's been it's been at that season, right, third time they met this season and Rams felt Seattle in the week sixteen, they lost the number one seed in the NFC. They fire their special teams coordinator Sean McVay makes the movie says well, you know what, We've got to fix this problem. We need to fix it right now heading
into the playoffs. But of course yesterday it was Xavier Smith's muff punt early in the third quarter led to that Seahawks touchdown. They went up twenty four to thirteen, I believe at that point and never looked back. So it did come down with special teams after all.
Yeah, it did.
And that's it's wild to me that we keep having these conversations with about the Rams and man for me, from my money to envy quarterback in Matt Stafford, Yvanta Adams, Kuka Nukua, Kobe Parkinson making plays, multiple running backs making plays on defense. This isn't the Bengals now on defense, they got some playmakers and so for them, it's been special teams all year and for that to be the case again, it's just that's a brutal way to lose.
At the same time, I think the Seattle Seahawks deserves so much credit because they they're winning with playmakers on defense. They have a lot of fun, explosive players on offense led by Jackson Smith and Jigba and yeah, I just two really fun teams. And now what's interesting to me it can Sam Darnold be the first quarterback from that twenty eighteen class of quarterbacks in that draft to win a Super Bowl.
No one would have thought that a few years.
Ago, and he's sixteen minutes away from doing it, which is just wild. It is it's a lot of the seton.
Yeah, it really is incredible.
And it looked like, you know, Matthew Stafford, he was just running the first half and they I again, tall the two halves, right. It was just it was that, well, he's picking up part. I mean, the energy was so much much better. But eventually the Seahawks top ranked scoring defense, top the Rams. They did that on what fourth and goal from the six yard line with about five minutes left. Witherspoon broke up that pass and Stafford passed in the
end zone and sealed the game for the Seahawks. You know, we always talk about, well, you know, it's a different NFL today, James. It's you know, defense doesn't win championships. I don't know New England and Seattle looks like their defense won championships.
You need your defense to be able to make plays, you know. In Seattle, I mean they gave up twenty seven points. It's not like they were perfect, but nicking and worry. You saw him that rookie Stacy is all over the field making plays and in that series is your right. You need guys that are going to be able to make plays in critical, critical situations, because that's what these games come down to. And if you think about it a few years ago during the Bengals run,
that's what happened. Jesseic Bates made a play. Logan Wilson made a play, Jermaine Pratt made a play like that, That's what it comes down to. Larry Ogan Jovi made a play like These are the games where it comes down to one thing here, one thing there, and it's the difference between winning and losing. And these are two really good teams with good, good, well rounded rosters. That's how I would describe it. Because I look at the Patriots and they don't have the most firepower, but they
have weapons. The Seahawks have a ton of firepower. I would say Tennis Walker, Jack and Smith and Jigwa, they cherry per Rashid Shaheed like, they have a lot of fun weapons. But both defenses are are about that. That play style as well and they can win with defense, which is certainly something the Bengals can't pay in recent seasons.
It will come back to the It won't come back to the Bengals. In just a second here, I'll close that, but I you look at you, guys. Matthew Stafford had an unbelievable game yesterday. Sam Donald even much better than that. But the other guy out there that was almost the single handed undoing of the Seahawks was Pooking Akua, second leading receiver during the regular season, one hundred and sixty five yards in a touchdown yesterday, and Seattle had a really,
really hard time stopping him when it mattered. It seemed like every big play he was a guy catching that touchdown was unbelievable.
Does does anyone to have a guy? I don't think they do.
I mean, he got Steph Diggs, you got Booty, you got Mac Collins. I don't see that level of player on New England. I think they have a much easier time with the Patriots than they did LA. Would you agree, at least when it comes to receiver.
Well, for sure.
Yeah.
With receiving talent, I mean Jackson Smith and jiglits so awesome. I mean, he's just he's one of the best in the game. And by way, so it was pooking Nakua because you got to deal with him as a blocker. He's Pookakua is like Jackson Smith and jiggu in a lot of ways, and Mac Collins. He blocked like Mac Collins, but he could run out and make plays like Jackson's a Jigits a really unique combo for Puka and so yeah, I think from a skill talent standpoint, the edge would
have gone to the Rams. And if you're Seattle, you're gonna look at that day all that's interesting. Now what's unique here is Drake May and his ability to make plays and his offensive coordinator in Josh Daniel. He's been there, done that with Tom Brady and so he's gonna have
Drake May ready to go. And yes, overall though on paper, outside of probably Hunter Henry, I think he's an underrated tight end that the skill guys, you would give the edge to the Rams, which means what it means that New England's going to have to win in other ways and including the trenches and their offensive line has gotten beat up a little bit really since playing the Bengals in November, and so we'll see if if the two week break helps them against a really good in talent in Seattle defense.
Well, I just don't see Seattle doesn't win this thing. I really don't. At this point.
Things could change the next couple of weeks. And of course he got Mike Vrabel has two weeks to strategize here. But man, Seattle just comes at you.
And the key would be Sam that you get after Sam Donald, you rattle head for him to not be able to dump it off to Kenneth Walker for eleven yards right on first and ten, like the key moment yesterday. The Rams they fail on that fourth down and Kenneth Walker breaks two tackles, makes those linebackers look like they're running in Cincinnati snow. And you get the first down
like that. That can't be your drive starter. And so that's what I would say is take away some of these easy answers, easy throws that Sam Donald has easier said than done. But him do that, then maybe maybe he gives you an opportunity or two for big turnovers.
If you're the Bengals, James, real quick, what are you looking at? What these the two teams that just played this particularly in the AFC.
I guess because that's our path.
You look at New England, you look at Denver, or what do the Bengals need to look?
Okay, that's the future.
How do we take what they're doing and move it up a level for next season because they're always leveling up season season.
Yeah, well.
You certainly need Like when you think of the Bengals defense, what do you think of, Like, it's either it's probably not good.
Awful is what I think of, just awful the worst.
And you don't think of like individual players, like any of the defenses that played yesterday, they are a specific guy that I think of like, oh, if they play well, this guy's going to be making plays or that guy's going to be making plays. And the Bengals they don't necessarily have that. But I think the first thing is you got to find an identity, find someone that you could build around. And maybe that's a safety, maybe it's
a linebacker. Ideally it would be a pass rusher. I think that's hard to find, but that's what they need, is to find a defensive identity and once you get one or two playmakers that you can start to build around then it does come together, right, and it's it's hard to do that at one specific position if you're just targeting one. The good news is, to be quite Frank Scott, if they suck everywhere, so they can take that playmaker at any spot. Safety, linebacker doesn't matter, right, So that would.
Be my boo.
The Bengals just find that playmaker.
Seems like a long way to go to get where those two teams are, but who knows. James Rapine always been a fun my brand. I appreciate you. Let's talk.
Maybe we'll talk about the Friday before the Super Bowl.
That sounds great to me. I what's a tougher task rebuilding the Bengals defense or shoveling the drive.
Shoveling the driveway. Shoveling the driveway right now? Is yeah, get some players over to your house and Cam the way he drives, Cam Taylor Brick could probably be that about four minutes, no comment. Check out James over Lockdown, Bengals and Bengals Talk dot Com.
Appreciate your brother, be well.
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