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Crooked River Cast Show 44
59 Plays1 month ago
Crookedrivercast.com
Crookedrivercasgt@gmail.com
- Trump to strip federal funding to sanctuary cities and states.
- RFK to end the war on saturated fats. CLIPS
- US has net negative migration.
- Prepare for more ICE raids in Ohio!
- Ohio fraud update. CLIP
- GOP House member betray their constituents. CLIP
- Moreno outlines Senate’s ACA plan.
- Stroke email - Norton data center follow up.
- The IX Centers last dance.
- Cleveland fire chief gets an easy out.
Good things:
- Football Hall Of Fame developments set to continue.
- Erin Stoll Homecoming.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Crooked Rivercast
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crooked Rivercast. I'm Robert. Joining me every week is Tom and we are two guys from Northeast Ohio just trying to figure out what's going on in our state.
00:00:23
Speaker
This is show 44 recorded on January 2026. We've got some stuff to discuss.
Impact of Severe Snowstorm
00:00:28
Speaker
Let's go.
00:00:41
Speaker
Not bad. It was quite a week. Oh, was cold. No. Snowpocalypse again. Yeah. It wasn't that bad.
00:00:53
Speaker
you know i i You know, I went into work on the well was bad Thursday was the bad day. Yes. And I looked out the window when I got up and I was like, oh, that's not too bad. There's only a couple of inches.
00:01:08
Speaker
And So I didn't rush. i Usually I get up and I have a cup of coffee and um I practice in the morning guitar. And then I go out there and I start up my car and I leave around 15 after, 20 after. And i I was like, well, I'm going to go brush the car off, the truck off, before i um and come back in and warm up a little bit.
00:01:37
Speaker
And I went out there and I was like, oh, wait, there's a lot more snow here than thought. It little deceiving from the window, wasn't it? It was. It was just the way the drift was. You know, from my window, i was it didn't look that bad.
00:01:49
Speaker
And then when I stepped out, I was like, oh, there's a good six inches here. So i was like, my wife had to go into work. So i was like, I'm going to snow blow the driveway real quick. And I did that.
00:02:01
Speaker
I left... Bought my normal time, 15 after 6, and I still got to work on time. Okay. Yeah, which which which on the radio, oh my God, if you listen to the radio, they're like, give yourself a half hour more, everything's slow. and Ah, panic, it's snow. Yeah, and it was slow.
00:02:19
Speaker
you You couldn't, you know, I was able to do about, 35 wasn't a problem on the Highway 40. Yeah. A lot of people were trying you know doing the putting their blinkers on and yeah gone and doing 25.
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i had I ran into that too. that's Oh, you were out that day? ah Yeah. Like the last time we had a big snowstorm, I had to drive to Columbus. Oh. But I would keep doing this when it snowstorm, but it wasn't as bad this time. And last time it took me almost four hours. It took me probably another 15 or 20 minutes.
00:02:48
Speaker
Because once I got to Medina, it was almost like clear roads. I got to work on time, but it did take me an extra, because usually I get to work about 10 minutes before start, and ah I got there right on time. I mean, I i punched in it at at the buzzer, basically, so...
00:03:04
Speaker
But ah there weren there weren't that many cars out. I think, you know, people didn't leave the house. So they traffic there was no traffic. They officially scared the crap out everybody stay home. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
Well, i I found out something kind of interesting maybe that during this because, of course, the kids were like, no school, no school. And I'm like, no, we're always – regardless of what I always – like, you're having school, no way, blah, blah. always bust the chops about it. Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
They said, no, dad, the website said there's a 98%. I said, wait, what? They got a betting line? Well, I think it's more like put in your area and we'll give you the probability of what, of your school being closed tomorrow. And they do, I don't know, whatever they do. I'm sure there's an algorithm somewhere.
00:03:46
Speaker
yeah AI doing something. ah But yeah, I was like, oh, so that says 98%. Okay. and then. Right about the time they went to bed, so probably 15, 20 minutes after of them ended up going to bed, the texts start coming from the schools. Okay.
00:04:02
Speaker
And I thought, hmm, nah, just let them sleep thinking they're going to school tomorrow. Yeah, of course. They'll wake up, they'll be very surprised. They were already pretty convinced they weren't going to go. Yeah.
00:04:13
Speaker
Well, you know. Nowadays, they're, you know, they're. they're Well, that's what I was going to say. I would have had to walk to school. Yeah. i be in one day a lot of them. Yeah. I think so. i yeah I think the only thing that may have changed that I know when I was a kid in the you know late eighties, early nineties, what would really do it was cold.
00:04:32
Speaker
If it was under like 20, 20 degrees, 18 degrees. If it was really cold and if it was icy. Yeah. Now I think they go with, let's keep, let's keep people off the roads. And then they, this first thing that goes schools.
00:04:47
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I guess so. Because but there ain't many kids that walk anymore. I can you that much from my my experience. if Yeah, no kidding. I don't see kids walking too. Because I drive by the high school ah probably around the time they let out. i don't i don't I see a handful of kids walking. I see a couple, but I think they live across the street from the school, literally. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:10
Speaker
But, you know, like, yeah, I guess if it was icy, super cold, or if it really dumped a lot of snow, then we'd have a snow day. But like what Thursday was, no, I'd be in i'd be in school.
00:05:22
Speaker
I measured 12 to 13 at my house. Inches. But a couple different spots. So we got get hit by quite a bit up here at least. Oh, that morning, I think there was a good six inches by... it And it didn't stop until four o'clock. probably Oh, I had to snow blow the driveway again when I got home. So
Mail Carrier Rescue and Snow Plowing Rant
00:05:40
Speaker
yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah. Pretty good. Pretty good day of snow. We haven't had that in a while, it feels like. Yeah. and And the other thing it brought to my attention is yesterday, Friday... I'm driving home, coming up, pulling on my street after picking up one of the girls from school. And i see the mail lady person, the mail carrier. I didn't know her gender at the time I pulled on the street.
00:06:06
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, that's okay. She's got the, okay. So I drive past. And as I'm driving past, I hear this and I'm like, oh, so I look and she's stuck.
00:06:18
Speaker
Oh, so I'm like, oh crap. And I look now here's my, hair here's my complaint. Here's my observation, which becomes a complaint. She's driving a fricking minivan.
00:06:30
Speaker
Oh, one of those. Okay. It's for wheel drive. the the tech No, it's not. It's rear wheel drive. It's not a minivan like a mini. It's like a delivery minivan. It's actually a little smaller than like, say, your sister's.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah. same It's real wheel drive. Say that three times in a row. No. oh ah um Really, that that surprises me. Okay.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah. So I stopped. I pull over and I was like, well, I got to my good Samaritan for the, for the, for the year. It's already January. i got it out of the way. um So i I, I walk over to her door. Of course, she's on the passenger side cause it's a mail truck.
00:07:07
Speaker
Right. I walk over and I said, I said, you know, I looked at her. She's just frustrated, frustrated woman. She's just not happy. I said, you know, there was a reason they used to give you guys four wheel drives.
00:07:19
Speaker
Jeeps is basically what they used to mail carrier was basically a Jeep. It was a Jeep with, with pretty, um, i remember the tires being pretty aggressive. Yeah. They would switch them out. And I've seen, you know, in summertime they'd have one and they put big, big old knobbies on there in wintertime. Yeah.
00:07:33
Speaker
And she is stuck because in my city, they like to plow my street, but they like to leave, i don't know, five feet from each curb. they They just go down in the center or what? Yeah. They, they send one of the small trucks. They live on.
00:07:48
Speaker
So they send one of those small trucks down and then every once while, they send a big truck. But ah so, you know, there's literally four or five feet easy of no plowing. So when she goes to pull up to the, to the, you know, to the mailbox, her, her van or whatever that thing is, is in like,
00:08:03
Speaker
at least two feet of hard slushy compacted snow. Yeah. And, yeah and I was like, let me give you a push. She's like, Oh, thank you. So I pushed her just a little bit backwards and it kind of got her away from the curb and she was able to get out. And she's like, I was like, man, that's like, she was all effing day long. And she pulls away. I gave her a fist bump and said, have a good day. Cause every, and I went by mine. I looked at everybody's mailbox. You could see the tracks of her getting stuck and backing out. And it's like, Oh,
00:08:30
Speaker
That's what she's been doing all day long. That's a long day, man. How how about an inefficient use of the mail mail carrier's time? Who runs the mail service? I don't know.
00:08:42
Speaker
i have no idea. The government. Yeah. Oh, I take my person. Like who's in charge of it? Like, oh yeah. Yes, of course.
00:08:52
Speaker
That's where they decided. That's where they decided to cut corners is on the trucks that deliver the mail. Go figure. That makes sense. So there's that. That was, that was my rant of the,
00:09:03
Speaker
My rant of the week. um So I guess i guess that's that's all I got. You got a rant for this week? Anything you want to complain about? Floor's open for you, Tom. No, I'm good. Okay.
00:09:15
Speaker
Well, I guess we'll get... Oh, wait. No. You thought I forgot, didn't you, Tom? You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday, too. Don't do that, okay?
00:09:27
Speaker
Happy birthday, Tom. It's Tom's birthday today, recording on January 17th. He thought I would forgot, and happy birthday. one can hope.
00:09:38
Speaker
Thanks. Hey, I did you a favor and didn't sing you happy birthday. Thank you. You're welcome. um You can count. you can you can If you want to guess how old Tom is, you can use coins to do that.
00:09:52
Speaker
Put the proper two coins together, you'll get his age. Proper two coins? Yeah. Okay, there's two coins, but that one is kind of rare. Not rare, I guess. I don't know. no double nickels.
00:10:04
Speaker
Oh. I was thinking of a 50 cent piece and a nickel. Nope, double nickels. Double nickels on the dime. and don't know what that means, but somebody will email us and tell us.
00:10:17
Speaker
Anywho, back onto the important stuff. Not
Trump's Sanctuary Cities Funding Cut
00:10:19
Speaker
Tom's birthday. That's not important at all. um but appear It appears, it appears, tom that The evil president Donald Trump is going to strip funding from sanctuary cities.
00:10:34
Speaker
ah Do we have a cheering section here? Nice. um Yes. so Trump announced that he is going to at least attempt is my opinion. Here's my two cents already. He's going to attempt to strip funding from sanctuary cities.
00:10:56
Speaker
And we'll just hear it right. Let's hear it a little little bit right from the president so we can get it exactly what he said. Because ive I have questions. Additionally, starting February 1st, we're not making any payments to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens. And it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come. So we're not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities.
00:11:28
Speaker
Okay. Is that every sanctuary city and every sanctuary state or every sanctuary? Cause I'm kind of worried here in Ohio. I'm kind of concerned. I mean, I think this might be, this would be a good thing for Ohio in the long run, but in short term there's going to be a whole lot of crying.
00:11:44
Speaker
So I started digging. I'm trying to figure out, did you get any idea of what he's talking about? Which cities in particular? Cause the only thing I got is that the letter they sent in August or the, um,
00:11:57
Speaker
executive order which they sent a letter, it looks like, to 32 jurisdictions, Panamani sent, ramping up the pressure on those to telling them, hey, if you don't if you don't cooperate, we're going to cut your funding.
00:12:12
Speaker
i think I think they sent them to the cities that are
00:12:18
Speaker
Being egregiously yeah yeah negligent, So on August 5th, it appears they sent a letter to one to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, but also counties of Baltimore County, Cook, county Baltimore County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, San Diego County, California, San Francisco County, California,
00:12:46
Speaker
But then cities of, so yeah, so it's kind an ace of all these making 32. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Berkeley, California, Boston, Chicago, Denver. Let's see, East Lansing, Michigan, Hoboken, New Jersey.
00:13:01
Speaker
that jersey Jersey City, Los Angeles, New Orleans, ah Peterson, New Jersey, Newark, Portland, Oregon, Rochester, New York, Seattle, San Francisco City, Philadelphia. Nothing from Ohio on here.
00:13:14
Speaker
Right. Nothing about Ohio. So because Cleveland and Columbus and I think since city they are sanctuary cities, but they're not like actively like oh breaking laws, I guess.
00:13:27
Speaker
And that's where my question comes in is, ah the second question would be, will this expand since with the recent situation going around the country after the ICE incident in Minnesota and then more of them later, you know, this this ah last week and everybody coming out and saying, you know, Columbus mayor basically came out saying we're not, we're not helping the Cleveland police chief, Cleveland police department basically put out a statement saying we're not really going to cooperate. Now, this is nothing generally new.
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah, they've been doing they've been saying that for years now. And yeah, so basically they don't... I think even... Sorry to stop you there. I think even in his first term, they were saying they're not going to help with anything like this.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, so for the city of Cleveland, for example, they just came out, kind of put out their same old statement, which we're not going to ask you about your immigration status when we pull you over. We're not going to enforce any immigration...
00:14:26
Speaker
warrants or whatever they call them, or they want to want to want to detain you for for, to wait for ICE to come in and give you and question and take you away and send you back. ah So that's kind of normal.
00:14:39
Speaker
e The Columbus mayor's getting a little more feisty from what I can see. Yeah. Just getting a little more um because of the Somalia, because of the focus on the Somali population. So I'm wondering if that will change and we'll talk about more of that maybe in a minute, but, uh, uh, once the fraud starts coming out, we'll see. yeah And, and we've got some updates on that too.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. Later on. Uh, yeah. Hard, hard one to separate this. I could have totally put this in the beginning, but I figured we'll, we'll separate this a little bit cause it, it has to do with it, but not really. I'm just curious what the new, it new evidence is, has been put to light Tom.
00:15:13
Speaker
And, uh, I'm thinking this, this list may grow. And with with everything that's going on tied into Minnesota, I think we might see some some problems for for Columbus. Oh, wait till they get to California. and I've seen a couple. they're already They're already starting to look into it Yeah, this is going to be big.
00:15:33
Speaker
Well, I saw a, who was it? It was a comedian. A well-known comedian. He's Joe Dirt. The skinny guy from Joe Dirt. Is it...
00:15:44
Speaker
ah
00:15:47
Speaker
I can't remember his name now. Blonde-haired guy? Yeah, David Spade. I saw a quick clip on an ex, and I only saw a part of it. I saw the tweet, so forgive me if I'm misconstruing this. But it seemed like he was complaining because they put in a ah they passed something in California to investigate...
00:16:04
Speaker
what happened to $20 billion homeless funds, homeless to help the homeless. Yeah. And he vetoed it. Right. Gavin Newsom vetoed it. And David Spade's pissed. Yeah. He was complaining about it. Which is kind shocking that somebody's coming out. I like David Spade a lot. I think he's really talented.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yes. But he hes he stays pretty quiet. You never hear... One way or the other. right That's why it stuck out to me. I think he's just worried about dating. i think he's just too busy doing that. And, uh, yeah, for him to say something, he, I think, I think that's just the tip of the iceberg of what, how people are feeling there.
00:16:46
Speaker
It's gotta be massive. If, I mean, how do you veto that bill without knowing that you're going to make yourself look very guilty, very guilty. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.
00:16:59
Speaker
Anywho, so that's that's the next threat. Now, question I have is will he be able to do anything? Will he actually be able to stop any of the funding?
00:17:10
Speaker
Is this going to go to the Supreme Court? Because I i know he's been blocked, sort of. yeah and they that's see been Is it scheduled? is I don't think it's scheduled yet. I think there is a...
00:17:22
Speaker
a There was a lawsuit from the April or the August... executive order. And that was actually, thanks for reminding me because that was one of the things that the the judge said that they think it might be unconstitutional.
00:17:41
Speaker
Oh, okay. so that's here's the quote. An Obama judge, right? Yes. The latest move comes after a federal judge ruled the executive order, which would have paused federal funding ah ah funding for more than 30 sanctuary cities, was...
00:17:57
Speaker
Likely unconstitutional. U.S. judge, District Judge William Orrick, who was appointed by former President Obama, extended his preliminary injunction in August after the administration did little to object. So he came and put an injunction on it. I don't think the administration did anything.
00:18:15
Speaker
Right. So he extended
Political Integrity and Rand Paul Debate
00:18:17
Speaker
the injunction even more. So now they're going to push back. So it may go. This is probably the the start of it. Yeah, okay. So in a year from now. i'm I'm curious too, because i don't know how though how this works actually. And nobody else seems to know either.
00:18:35
Speaker
No. He also barred officials from imposing conditions on grant programs that provide funding for very ah for a variety of critical needs, unquote.
00:18:47
Speaker
So that's kind of where they're at. So I think they put this in And it got blocked, which they probably figured it would, and they haven't really done anything to it. And now I think with all this new stuff come to light, they're going to push on it even more.
00:19:00
Speaker
And I'm all for it. I just don't think he's going to be able to get anywhere, at least initially. and think he's going to have to rely on the Supreme Court to hash it out. Right.
00:19:13
Speaker
Again, that's not not really ah not really the system that that we put in place, but it is what we have now. don't think it should be up to the ah the judge ah some appointed judges. Maybe of those um you know those critters over there in Washington just kind of sit there all day long and eat milk Milk duds.
00:19:37
Speaker
Maybe they should do something about it. No, no, no. Why we want to put ourselves out and and and lose our next election? We're just going to let. You know, it was ah a friend of mine.
00:19:48
Speaker
I listened to ah Joe Rogan with Rand Paul was on Joe Rogan's show. And he kind of made me a little nauseous because I like Rand Paul. I think he's got a lot of integrity, you know? Yeah. um But just the way he goes about, like, well, I'm putting, you know, my friend brought this up ah a day or two later because he was ah he listened to it a couple days later. And he's like, man, and I agree with him. He's like, these guys just promise all these things but never do anything.
00:20:19
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, no kidding. they all they All they want to do is just get reelected. So they can't really do much. They can say they're going to do something, but they never really do. It's just sick. And it's it's even more disappointing when ah somebody you respect is is like that. is Is he like that? I don't know.
00:20:41
Speaker
he said he's going to put a bill. I forget what it was for, but he was going to put a bill out there. And... um
00:20:48
Speaker
Okay, so he puts the bill out. Does he actually try to sell it to the other congressman? Because ah you know it's just not going to pass. So it's like, does he even try or does he just write up a bill and he knows it's not going to pass?
00:21:05
Speaker
I think he writes up a bill, he knows it's not going to pass, and he tries maybe a little bit. I don't know. At this point in his career, youre you might be right because he might... I see Rand Paul. I do respect him. i My issue with him is, I mean, i've I've seen myself this way too, so I shouldn't criticize too much, but he's a congressperson and I'm not.
00:21:27
Speaker
He is so principled to a fault. He's principled to a fault. Yeah, there's a couple guys like that, right? Matt Massey. Yeah, and I get what you're saying, but if you're looking... Oh, I forget what the saying is. you know when you're trying when you're When you're only...
00:21:43
Speaker
When the only thing you accept is perfection, like you're going to miss out on a whole lot, I guess. Yeah. You're not working with anybody at that point. You're just, you know. Make a step towards perfection. You may not get it in one step. It may take you 15 or 20 or 30 or 40.
00:21:56
Speaker
Right. So, and, in with and, with, but on the other hand, with as corrupt as Congress is, i I get there's in every bill, there's something that you could say, no way I could vote for this. But what about all this other stuff?
00:22:08
Speaker
It'd be great to have like 400 of these guys because nothing would ever get done. Yes. Yes. ah So i i do I do, I understand that. I just don't know.
00:22:20
Speaker
ah so what else, I mean, going to do then? Yeah. Put bills that nobody's going to pass. I understand. yeah i don't I don't know. it But that's what I think to your point, we need.
00:22:32
Speaker
We need people that don't care about whether they get reelected or not, which is counterintuitive to what Congress has been congress has been for the last, I don't know, 100 years. But I think we're seeing some of that because i keep, oh, the poll numbers, there's poll numbers, there's poll numbers, poll numbers are down.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I keep i keep reading and going, do they think he cares? du Does Trump think he cares about the poll? Now, the only thing you could consider is, the midterms obviously, and then the next presidential election. But this is what I've been craving. This is what I've been screaming for. We need somebody who doesn't care about getting reelected.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, you know i't I think he cares about the midterms, but I don't even think he cares all that much. I think he would, obviously, he would want to win the midterms, you know, have the Republicans win, because you're going to get a couple, maybe a couple more bills passed.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah. But ah I don't even, he doesn't, he really, Trump really doesn't care about getting a impeached again or anything like that. It's just... No, you could tell he's on a I don't give a crap a campaign right now, a tour, whatever you want to call it, because such a stark difference from the first his first term.
00:23:44
Speaker
I still think he could be more aggressive. yeah but i think i Yeah, I think he wants to be. I just i think you know you have to delegate it to other to other people, and they're going to do it kind of how...
00:23:57
Speaker
and what i So hard decisions are needed right now. And ah as the sign used to say, no long haired freaky people, let's just switch it to no long haired freaky pussies allowed. How's that?
00:24:09
Speaker
We need, we need people with balls and people who are going to, who are going to do what we've put them in office to do, regardless of the consequences to your political career. Like RFK.
00:24:23
Speaker
Oh yeah, he's kicking ass. As we'll slide right into ah RFK's promoting a war on, ending the war on saturated fats.
00:24:35
Speaker
RFK says. Yeah, it's a good thing. Yeah, he is,
00:24:42
Speaker
he's flipping the script, I guess, on Housecare. Well, he basically flipped the pyramid. Oh, he did. What I heard, here's what I heard. i don't know if he flipped a pyramid or Trump, because what I heard was Trump wanted a steak with some butter on top. And the whole White House staff, health staff, went crazy. Scientists, doctors, and everything. And they had to call RFK to get this, you know, they like looking at the food pyramid. It just doesn't work. So they called RFK and ah there's ah some audio from the, I have, i I got a clip of it. Here you go. The pyramid doesn't work. We've already tried it.
00:25:21
Speaker
It's upside down. What? Sir, the pyramid is upside down. Turn the pyramid upside down. can't be serious. That would put butter and fat the top of the damn food pyramid.
00:25:35
Speaker
Have some steak with this butter.
00:25:49
Speaker
have some steak with this butter So that was a South Park release that with RFK in there. That used to be their original clip was with Cartman saying flip the pyramid.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah. South Park put RFK in there. and I thought that was pretty good. ah Yeah. It saturated fats are not, you know, he ah they they say in this article, they're,
00:26:11
Speaker
Animal, animal saturated fats, by the way, or, or yeah, animal, because there's a lot of saturated fat in ah potato chips and stuff. I hope people don't. So what is a saturated fat? I had to look it up. I had to figure out what it
Saturated Fats and Dietary Guidelines
00:26:23
Speaker
was. Well, I think it says it in the article.
00:26:25
Speaker
Saturated fats can be identified as those that stay solid at room temperature Ew. And these include butter, lard, coconut oil, beef tallow, cheese, and palm kernel oil.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, I use all those. ah palm I don't know what palm kernel oil is, but I you know i have i cook with the you tell beef tallow, lard, and I do a clarified butter because of the high smoke point, and i in olive oil. Those are the things I cook with, and those are all good ingredients.
00:27:01
Speaker
Fats. Here is the, uh, here's a quote from the article that I pulled out. It says, this is Stiber. I don't know who that is. Stiber, Stiber. They always put a quote in there and they don't tell you who it is until some other time in the article. Anyway, this person says,
00:27:20
Speaker
even health Even in healthier populations that are at risk for cardiometabolic disease, in patients that are overweight or obese, living with obesity, all of those have the lower have the lower the saturated fat intake, which is a weird quote. I think that's misprint.
00:27:42
Speaker
The better the outcomes. so So in patients that have a higher risk of cardiometabolic disease and patients that are overweight or obese, yeah, is is it the saturated fats that it a problem or is it the fact that you're fat?
00:27:59
Speaker
Is it the saturated fats in potato chips or is it the saturated fats in a steak? Did you get... Go ahead. No, that's, you know, they're they're not making a good distinction there. And the thing is, okay, so you, let's say you're having a lot of saturated fat. Are you also eating a ton of bread? Because that's not good.
00:28:22
Speaker
These people are not fat and obese because they ate too much steak. Yeah, they're fast food. they put too much butter on their steak. Right. No, it's because of the McDonald's. It's because of the Burger King. It's because of the chips. It's because of the Twinkies and so on and so on. Exactly. Exactly.
00:28:40
Speaker
Oreos.
00:28:43
Speaker
Love Oreos. Well, I noticed whenever I start packing on weight, it's because of ah carbs. it's it's I could eat two steaks a day with butter on top of them as long as I'm not having a ton of carbs or sugar you know sugars, then I'm not gaining weight. I'm probably losing weight at that point.
00:29:05
Speaker
So we've talked about the food pyramid before and and how it came to be. Yeah. yeah I don't know. As far as my research. I can't go into depth about it, but I know it's ah basically the, wasn't it the the grain industry and also margarine.
00:29:23
Speaker
ah but Margarine was a big thing in the 40s, margarine are industry, which was Crisco at the time. They really had a big push of...
00:29:35
Speaker
telling people saturated fats are bad. So you got to go with margarine or Crisco at the time, which was basically an industrial lubricant. Industrial waste, basically. and Yes, that's when we got a hold food pyramid, but it didn't start here from my my research I've looked at over the years.
00:29:53
Speaker
it It started, as far as I can see, in Europe after World War II because during the war, during the last two wars, World War I and then like 10 years later, they had another World War. there is a There's no cat there is no livestock, basically. Everything had either been eaten or or destroyed.
00:30:09
Speaker
The quickest way for them to get food into the population in Europe was grains because you can grow it. It'd take you years to get a cattle you know before you could slaughter it all that stuff. So in order to help you know encourage more of of that, ah eating the grains and stuff, they came up this food pyramid. That's why grains are so huge.
00:30:26
Speaker
and then it came And then it migrated over to United States. And then it got captured by lobbyists and all that stuff. Okay. And the food business. That's that's what I've i've done, ah you know, little bit of research, at least.
00:30:38
Speaker
I did some Googling, okay? It's got to be right. It's got to be right. But as far as I understand, it did start in Europe, and that was the main reason. because they had, you know, wheats and breads and pastas was the easiest thing they can get to the feed. So it's probably it was probably a temporary suggestion.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yes, it was. For the times, you know? It was. And they got yeah captured by corporations and flipped all around. And then maybe we had... ah During Obama administration, you had the they went from ah from a pyramid to a food plate.
00:31:08
Speaker
And they had all the you know kind of the similar a breakdown on the plate instead of a food pyramid. But then all of a sudden, a couple years later, they had this side dish of dairy.
00:31:19
Speaker
was like, oh, so the dairy industry... That's right. they did They finally put enough money in somebody's pocket to get that little side dish put on there. That's a derriere. Well, they didn't didn't Michelle, like, wasn't she, didn't she start out doing something and then it just ended pretty quickly? I forget how this went. Yeah, that was her and it was her deal as as first lady was a child school lunches and all that stuff. Yeah, but but they reversed it basically and it was after lobbyists got a hold her. I forget what it was.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, this is probably the reason why my kids used to complain they wouldn't eat the school lunches. ah Remember, when I was a kid, all I wanted was school lunches. I didn't want to bring my lunch, but my kids don't like school lunches because the food is crap.
00:32:02
Speaker
I thought it was crap when I went to school. I don't know. I guess it was pretty, are it was maybe crap for a different reason. It wasn't healthy. and' It's healthier than it is now.
00:32:13
Speaker
Really? i think so. I mean, i remember that pizza day. That pizza was like a grease pit. Yeah. Yes. I don't think it was a good grease. Is that better than the greasy pizza they get from the delivery place now?
00:32:28
Speaker
I have no idea because I yeah i don't have kids. So i I don't think either of them are good. This point is, I don't, i don't think one's much better than the other, but I think the food now, if you just go 30 years in the future, the food now in general, I think is worse than it was back then. It's much more processed.
00:32:43
Speaker
And I said, so I pointed out, I said, but it's chicken nugget day. Like it's chicken nuggets. You're like 10. Yeah. yeah No dad. I don't like those chicken nuggets. Why? is it Because they're empty. What?
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. When you get them and you put your fork in and there's nothing inside.
00:32:59
Speaker
So that tells me when they go to fry them, whatever pink ooze they have in there, it all escapes because they may be over. it It actually, what popped in my head was, you know, when you overcook a, um,
00:33:12
Speaker
mozzarella stick yeah and just oozes out the side i'm thinking that's what happened to the the pink goo that they made the chicken nuggets out of i yeah that's i wouldn't anyway i wouldn't even let my kids eat that stuff i didn't know i you know what you're like oh yeah i know it's school food it can't be that bad no yeah okay because a they're on a budget and b they uh they gotta go they got all these standards no salt and it hasn't any taste and it's horrible Um, so anyway, yeah, our war on saturated fats has ended and, go eat a steak people. Eat a steak, put extra butter on it. Maybe some blue cheese.
00:33:49
Speaker
What you do is you cook that steak and when it's resting, you put a little, couple ah dabs of butter on top of it. Let it melt. If you're smart, you can have, you can make some compounded butter with a little garlic and rosemary in there and let it melt all over. It's delicious.
00:34:06
Speaker
I wish I had porn music. I would have started playing
Podcast Promotion and Listener Engagement
00:34:08
Speaker
it right there. That sounded delicious. Sounded delicious. right. So there we got those two national stuff either the way.
00:34:17
Speaker
If you like what you hear, we really would appreciate it if you share the show with your friends or family, anybody you know that think would be interested in knowing what's going on in Ohio and their area, please send them a link. Leave us a comment.
00:34:30
Speaker
Leave us a review on your favorite podcast app or system. Tell us what you think. Send us a note. Go to our website. crookedrivercast.com and uh check out the blog at every at the end of every show or when the show is dropped that's when the blog comes out monday mornings you can follow along check out the links look at a lot of the clips that we have the full full videos or clips of what we pull from yeah you can listen on the website too i mean and listen on the website yeah it's actually a pretty good player
00:35:01
Speaker
Okay, good. Yeah. Check out if you don't want to don't know how to subscribe. Well, in that case, you might not be listening to this, but anyway, you can listen on the website if all else fails. How's that?
00:35:11
Speaker
And if you're, if you're, if you're good, you can find me on X mil love cook guy and send me a note. Tell us what you think. Really appreciate listening. We know, ah we know your time is valuable and the fact that you give us any of it is just crazy, but thank you.
00:35:32
Speaker
right, on to the next.
00:35:35
Speaker
I mean, we got to start with this again, Tom. I'm just going preempt it and say, the U.S. has, for the first time in 50 years, have negative miration migration.
00:35:47
Speaker
Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Yeah, baby. That's what we're talking about here. That's what we've wanted to hear for a while. So story basically is, if I can pull it up here, there it is, that for the first time,
00:36:03
Speaker
In nearly 50 years, 2025, we had a net negative people coming into our country. and not exactly sure how much. could it be It's a typical U.S. government fashion. The net migration of negative 10,000 to negative 295,000.
00:36:23
Speaker
Just a little difference. A little bit of a range there. Due to a combination of deportations, self-exits,
00:36:31
Speaker
get the hell out and significant drop in illegal immigration resulting in increased border security. No kidding. um And according to new booking, a new booking Brookings Institute analysis, these numbers represent a significant victory for president Trump, whose successful campaign focused primarily on, on his vow to reverse record illegal immigration numbers facilitated by president Trump.
00:37:00
Speaker
I don't remember my name. Give me some ice cream. And it's lax border policy. So first time in 50 years, less people are coming in to our country. or there's There's a negative. there people are leaving the country, which I mean, i was on a couple construction sites over the week.
00:37:20
Speaker
And yeah, you better speak Spanish. And these are union guys, so pretty confident they're they're legit. because i don't think the union's gonna risk that, right? they have to go through a lot of They have to go through a lot of paperwork and they literally need to show all that stuff.
00:37:40
Speaker
ah From what I'm told at least. So... I'm sure there's no way around that stuff. There is, it's just a lot harder. It's just a lot harder. And the unions are not, I don't think they're big fans of it, but it's the only labor they have right now. It's really all they have. And mean, yeah, going around these sites, there's a lot of Spanish speaking people, which is cool. I mean, all good. It's just, you know, I look at it as, hey, at least I'm somewhat confident that they've come here the right way, at least.
00:38:13
Speaker
ah It's a better chance, at least. um So yeah, the U.S. removed between 310 and 325 illegal immigrants, a lower figure than the Trump administration publicly estimates, but also a lower figure than they want. And I can't and imagine why.
00:38:31
Speaker
Why was it so low? Huh? don't know. Anyway, so ah enforcement reports, the data, immigration overflows can also appear in the form of voluntary self-deportations in response to a heightened, heightened law enforcement effort.
00:38:51
Speaker
Slightly heightened. Slightly heightened law enforcement. What you think? Oh, I keep going. Do you wish you had a cheering button? Sorry to interrupt something. you need some You need some tissue or something, Tom? I think, I'm curious to see what 2026 ends up like, too.
00:39:12
Speaker
I think it's going to be less. Yeah, that's what I think, too. But i hope it goes negative still. I think, I hope so. i think the big bulk of them was ah the self-deportations.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yes. So we'll see.
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I think with the news of the raids and stuff, it's definitely going to keep people away. I just think that the easy ones are gone. think they've gotten the easy ones, and it's going to harder and harder to find them.
00:39:46
Speaker
which is why yeah you hear complaints and then, dude, they had four guys went to to get one person out of a house. How efficient is that? Like, yeah, that one person is definitely has a criminal record.
00:39:59
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah. That's why that's how they know where he's at because he's got a criminal record in a sanctuary city. So that's why they're going after him. Uh, well, ty there's a bunch of retards trying to stop that.
00:40:11
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think another one got shot in Minnesota. Yeah. Cause he came out with a shovel, started hitting an ice agent with a shovel. Okay. You're going to, you're going to get shot. How are you going to spin that Well, they're goingnna spin it, but are you going to spin it?
00:40:25
Speaker
I don't like to hear that. um'm from from From boots on the ground, I can't really tell. People really aren't upset with any of this except for what you see on the on the networks covering it.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I mixed results when I talk to people. Well, i people who don't pay attention very much don't like don don't like what they see.
00:40:54
Speaker
Exactly. because Because of what's on the networks. if If you're paying attention, if if you're even paying a little bit of attention, I think yeah i think you're a i think they're okay.
00:41:07
Speaker
i I strongly disagree. I think that's the worst part. i think I think if you pay attention a little bit is the problem. Oh, i when I say a little bit, I mean a little bit more than the average person. Oh, see you're saying. Yeah, I guess i I didn't articulate that too well. I'm just talking about the person that maybe checks a ah couple of different but resources you know resources. What do you think the majority of the country is? You think they're the the headline chasers or you think there are people that are like you're saying, like take a at least dig a little bit?
00:41:41
Speaker
ah Headline chasers. Yeah. that That's in my, in that's yeah yeah in my view, part of the problem. Yeah. Maybe I just, just even we have an personallyly no electorate me personally knows ah more people that, uh, yeah, you know, dig a little bit more.
00:41:58
Speaker
But if you're on the edges and all you see is the headlines, it doesn't look good. I, unless this turns around in some fashion where,
00:42:10
Speaker
I don't know how. ah does Again, I think it's a matter of like not caring. let's Let's get this done and not give up. Oh, yeah. But if you want to continue doing this after 2020, after this midterm election, and you don't if you don't win it you're not doing any of this. Everything's going to come to a halt once he loses the House.
00:42:33
Speaker
Once sort they lose the House. and he lose Because he's not losing shit. It's the GOP's what's going to be losing it. Okay, we'll see. i mean I don't know. It it is it would be a ah would be a a tremendous feat in a normal political situation to win ah midterm after winning the presidential election.
00:42:55
Speaker
That's never happened, right? ah I think... I don't think it's ever happened. No, i don't think it's ever happened. You're right. yeah Maybe once, maybe, maybe once. I don't even think that though. I think you're right. I think it never happened. So the, to me that would, that would not bode well for, for the Republicans.
00:43:13
Speaker
Cause right now the sentiment does not, you I don't know. Polling is polling. It's always skewed, but don't know. People are so fickle with, they go, Oh, the poor. Oh, oh my gosh.
00:43:25
Speaker
I mean, we talk about the white liberal women. Um, so it's onto that. Speaking of, raids, we've got an article here from scene that, which they are both complaining and saying, watch out because they the headline is in the wake of ice shooting protests in Ohio, uh, ice shooting and protests in Ohio.
ICE Raids and Community Reactions
00:43:49
Speaker
Prepare for more raids.
00:43:52
Speaker
So again, go, go check out this article. it's from scene. It's, they got some long articles. Uh, And they go on about the killing of of the, you know, of the woman in Minnesota, um on and on how how horrible Trump is, but it's going to continue.
00:44:14
Speaker
It's going to continue and there are going to be more raids. And that's sort of that's kind of what I've been saying. Yeah. It's so obvious to me that what they're what they're doing here in Minnesota and in Columbus and those places, they're they're just egging on. they're're They're poking the bear to get a reaction.
00:44:29
Speaker
And in this case, I don't think Trump cares. He's going to give them their reaction. And don't What do you have to say? Anything about this article besides it's way too freaking long? ah Yeah, no.
00:44:44
Speaker
Not really. Yeah. they Sorry. No, no, that's fine. They, they, they go on about, Oh, there's, uh, the safety part is where, is where I'm getting caught up in says, she said, this is, uh, this article was so skewed yeah to the left. It was hard to get through it.
00:45:06
Speaker
It was hard to get through it seriously. It's like, take it seriously. That's why I'm stumbling. Cause I had, so I tried three or four times and I couldn't get through it. Yeah, I got through it, but it was hard to take it seriously. So I just kind of... Yeah, so I figured we just put in here to try to make fun of him a little bit. So the safe... is This is her... I think this is Tremonti, some person in us in Minnesota. Tremonti is...
00:45:33
Speaker
It doesn't matter. ah The safety and safety is part of where I'm getting caught up, she said, because it's supposed to be safe. But we're seeing federal law enforcement and act in ways that if local police acted that way, they would they wouldn't be able to get away with it.
00:45:49
Speaker
Pulling people out of cars, walking up and shooting people in the face safely, the part where I'm getting caught up. um No, police do the all those things.
00:46:03
Speaker
when you don't cooperate, they do all those things. That's part of the things you guys complain about when you protest in other areas. Like, oh, you're just you just pulled him out of the car cause you know because he's a black teenager. like Yeah, you saw that part of the video. What you didn't see was a 10 minutes beforehand where all he said was, no, no, screw you, no, no. And then they pulled his ass out of the car.
00:46:28
Speaker
Not all the time, but most of the time. So that's kind of, check out the article. It is, there is a couple, um they yeah they're targeting parents, she said. Yeah, yeah, they're targeting parents.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah, this was written by Marty Schladen from the Ohio Capital Journal. And every everything from the Ohio Capital Journal that I've ever seen is like really skewed left.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yep. ah They're targeting parents. shes She said, yes, they are. i sit Then she goes on and says, they're targeting kids. hu Right. No. No. No, I'm not targeting kids. So that's, and that's what we had. I mean, this is what we're dealing with here. This is the things. Now, after I read this article, I should have just taken it out.
00:47:14
Speaker
It's just making me mad. And, ah and one of the reasons that they're going after the parents, one of the reasons that we continue to have these ice, ice raids.
00:47:25
Speaker
And I think they, i think part of this fraud is getting because in this shooting and these ice raids. And this is the sad part for me because they're, the left is using it as cover while they uncover all this extra fraud. Cause I don't know if you've ah kept up with Nick Shirley cause he's got part two out of Minnesota.
00:47:45
Speaker
I haven't watched that yet. Yeah. He's got part two. There's a whole nother industry that they're doing this with. And it ties in with, with a couple of the things that we talked about in the past, just in Ohio.
00:48:01
Speaker
And that's okay. So you got the daycare fraud that we talked about, which everybody's looking into. Got a clip on that coming up. And then the next transportation fraud.
00:48:15
Speaker
So they, what he's uncovering and they started uncovering it in Ohio too, cause it's all, they're doing the exact same in thing in Ohio that they're doing in, and in Minnesota. Like I said, maybe at a lesser degree because we have a slightly more stringent standards when it comes to publicly funded daycares, but they're still doing it. And the transportation thing is medical transportation.
00:48:37
Speaker
So they're hiring, they're starting medical transportation businesses and they're billing Medicaid and Medicare.
00:48:45
Speaker
Millions of dollars a year, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, there's they're finding so far. and And I just wanted to, before we any further, I just want to make sure that we bring up, because last week we did not talk about Mike DeWine's spokesperson, ah Dan Turney.
00:49:01
Speaker
easy He responded, his this his first response to the fraud allegations from early last week was, um Said, if if people are out there who could not who could not contemplate that people were trying to defraud the public through daycare centers, I don't understand i understand it's new to them.
00:49:22
Speaker
But it's been known to the state for decades. Attorney said. So therefore, we have robust anti-fraud measures to try to stop this.
00:49:34
Speaker
This is something that is unfortunately the cost of doing business.
00:49:40
Speaker
Okay. So the cost of doing business. I wonder what, what he thinks is the cost of doing business. Cause here's this, this little tidbit that I pulled from, uh, see from John Solomon. Yeah.
00:49:55
Speaker
Let me pull up my clip. There it is. John Solomon on the fraud that they're finding that's from
Somali-owned Businesses Investigation
00:50:02
Speaker
Ohio. That's tied to Minnesota. Well, so that what they found in Minnesota was where's all this money going? And he kind of expands on that and ties in Ohio. So here you go meanwhile we're seeing the flow of money it wasn't just minnesota so two weeks last week we talked about this steve 700 million bucks in suitcases flies out of minnesota often headed to either amsterdam or amsterdam to dubai it was a foreign um atm machine moving money out of the united states from the somali community we now know that it was being this money was being staged in multiple locations this morning The transport Transportation Security Administration confirming they tracked $136 million dollars from Columbus, Ohio.
00:50:51
Speaker
Columbus, Ohio has the second largest Somali population after Minneapolis. The money is in suitcases in um Columbus. It flies to Minnesota. It goes to Minneapolis. Then the couriers in Minneapolis pick up that money, combine it with the money in Minnesota and take it overseas. Now, why are we we have banks, we have remittance centers. Why would the Somalis be doing all of this in suitcases, keeping it off the books? and out of the radar. Why wasn't the Biden administration stopping it or raising questions about it? And where was that money ultimately going? Was it going to Al Shabaab? Was it coming back into the United States and political donations? Was it just moving money out to help poor Somalis in their country? there you go We're just starting to get a look at that. But this was a sophisticated money courier system. And Somalis are at the center of it The same Somali communities that were defrauding the government were moving money out of the country.
00:51:47
Speaker
So by what they've counted so far as $130 million dollars in taxpayer dollars, went from Ohio to Minnesota, cash, suitcases full of cash.
00:52:00
Speaker
So they're flying, and they were letting letting them fly it out of the country. They were flagging it just as of, hey, by the way, this is happening, but they let them take it, which...
00:52:10
Speaker
Now that I say that out loud, how the heck is that possible? If I go through airport with $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, do you think I'm just going to get waved through? ah You know, what the we the the the thing I heard was they were actually declaring it.
00:52:26
Speaker
Okay, yeah, you do have to declare it. That's true. Yeah, they were actually declaring it, and nobody was questioning it. Okay. Which is bizarre. I mean, like...
00:52:38
Speaker
Is it because there's so many Somalian working the TSA?
00:52:44
Speaker
No, I think i think they they declare it and they flag it, and then it goes from there. It doesn't go anywhere. Yeah. I think the people yeah in the airports would be doing their job and flagging it. because if you As long as you declare it, I guess. But ah my point is, like if i go to the try going to the bank and getting $10,000 in cash out.
00:53:04
Speaker
It could take you two weeks. I don't know about that, but I i don't know about 10,000. I know you get up into higher, bigger numbers, you'll have to wait.
00:53:15
Speaker
but i think it's 10,000. Anything over 10,000, you got to get a we got to ask to go through Department of Homeland Security or something. You have to fill out papers saying that you're not a drug pusher or something.
00:53:26
Speaker
i never I never heard that about 10,000. But okay. I mean, it might be might have changed since I've last heard anything about that. But ah yeah, yeah you know just letting it happen.
00:53:39
Speaker
Yeah. it's And and and there's all a sudden, there's more donations for the Democratic Party. Yeah, and you wonder where all these micro donations come from, hundreds and hundreds of donations. And thats that's part of the fraud that you know they've been... um There's so much of it. You can't keep track of it all. One, one pops up and then two more will, will just monopolize.
00:54:02
Speaker
You know it'll push that one out of the, out of the view of, of the public with or these other two ones. And you, you never get to the bottom of it. For example, they started, you saw articles over the, over last year or YouTube videos or whatever.
00:54:16
Speaker
People going to houses, I can't remember who it was, going to houses of Democratic donors and saying, hey, we have a record that you gave 600 donations, 200 separate donations, 100 separate, whatever it is, 50, 60, a total of $6,000, total of $3,000, but in very small increments, hundreds of donations from one elderly person. And she never did that.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah, that person knows nothing about it. Yeah. Just a registered Democrat. Where are they getting that money? um Yeah. Yeah, it could be from funneling from all kinds of sources, including this crap.
00:54:50
Speaker
And then everybody's getting paid along the way. Everybody's getting paid along the way. Oh, yeah. Got to line your pockets.
00:54:58
Speaker
I was just trying to see if I was right on the thing because I thought I heard that anyway. um So yeah, i think I think that's where you're seeing it. They're flagging it going, oh yeah, we're doing our job. Somebody's going to catch this. And then everybody goes, huh, what what happened?
00:55:13
Speaker
I see nothing. Well, in Ohio, and and that's what um Nick Shirley's found in more in Minnesota, phase two, which is the transportation fraud. And they're also finding this in Ohio.
00:55:28
Speaker
And here is a, so a post that I pulled from X. Oops, that's the wrong way. That has come to light. They're they're starting to dig into some of this stuff.
00:55:42
Speaker
Start to look up transportation companies and seeing, you know, four or five or six transportation companies at one address. And sometimes it's an apartment.
00:55:52
Speaker
Sometimes it's a residential house. Sometimes it's an empty building.
00:55:57
Speaker
And they, so this, I got this from Rachel Lane. She's on X, her, her at at sober in Dublin. So she's from Dublin and she says, so I've been digging into why this is happening.
00:56:10
Speaker
to some doing some digging into why this is all connected ah with other types of Somali owned businesses. I've, I've seen involved, I've seen involved in fraud.
00:56:21
Speaker
us i can't read today. Sorry. For starters, I found it. I found estimates of 6,500 to 7,500 Somali owned trucking firms in Ohio alone. wow
00:56:34
Speaker
So we'll put this in the show notes. She pulls from the, it looks like from the Ohio Attorney General, Secretary of State's website, some of the potential fraud they've been finding. um bill They're fraudulently billing companies, might be billing government programs or Medicaid or medica or medicaid or dhj's fund DHS funded transport for non-existent ineligible or inflated services.
00:57:00
Speaker
Trucking firms could have served as fronts to launder proceeds from other frauds like daycare, like housing, COVID relief, and on and on and on.
00:57:11
Speaker
And there's no oversight. This is easy. And I think they were explaining a Nick Shirley video in Minnesota. It's a great scam because you get paid by the hour to pick these people up, take them to a, if you actually do pick them up, pick them up, take them to a doctor appointment and wait.
00:57:30
Speaker
And then you drive them back. they're They're doing that with ah another business's translators, too. trans Oh, yes. It continues to snowball. Yeah, I think Nick Shirley was talking about that or somebody he had on there. that they They have translators for when they go to the doctor, when they go to the courts. when they Wherever they go, they bring a translator with them, which is also using the transportation system.
00:57:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Scams, too. so And they get paid a handsome fee, but why do you need a translator if you're going to a Somalian doctor? Or a Somalian daycare. or smell what Yeah, exactly. so But those are the scams that they got going on, so it's crazy.
00:58:10
Speaker
So why...
00:58:14
Speaker
Why are the taxpayers paying for your translator? How about this? Can we pay for English classes instead?
Social Safety Nets Debate
00:58:23
Speaker
I'm thinking that's cheaper.
00:58:25
Speaker
One teacher, 30 people. i talk I say that's efficient. Very efficient. What the hell? Who approves this crap? who oh Who approves it? I'm done.
00:58:39
Speaker
i no safety net. Period. I'm sick and tired of it. I've been this way for, and over the last few years, I've i've softened up. You've gotten to me, Tom. I've softened up. You've gotten to me, actually. What's that? You're in favor of a safety net. I've always been not in favor of any safety net.
00:58:57
Speaker
I'm in favor of a safety net, but I didn't. god Gosh, you have to be or you have to be a citizen. i mean, i don't think i don't think there should be a... It's not a safety net if somebody comes to this country and all you know the first thing they do is give them a you know food stamps and and welfare. or you know they don't yeah That's not a safety net. That's... ah that's
00:59:23
Speaker
this is This is one thing that, ah ah by the way, he Rand Paul was talking about on Joe Rogan. He he wants people to come in. like Like in the old days, my parents, my dad had to be sponsored to come here. And if you don't, if that guy doesn't get work, you have to take care of that person.
00:59:43
Speaker
Yes. So they, know, there was no, there was no safety. I think, I think there should be a safety net for, you know, well let's say there's a family that all, you know both parents lose their job and they just need to get by for ah three, four months until they get back on in their feet. I think that's, that's a safety net.
01:00:06
Speaker
I get it. I know where you're coming from, but my feeling is no, we we we don't deserve one. And this, and these, this is why, because it is so,
01:00:16
Speaker
It's not is not a safety net. It's bribery. Well, okay okay, when it's corrupt. To me, cut it all off. Cut it all to zero. Listen, I think it all should cut off for a while. Yeah, and then start again. That's what I mean. Cut it all off and start again. The problem we're going to have is when we start it back up again, liberal women with all their freaking emotion...
01:00:41
Speaker
this is how we get to this. Oh, you you just increase a little bit more, increase it a little bit more and just include a little bit more people, include a little bit more people. And then before you know it, 55% of the country is taking federal funding or state and federal funding. It's something to that effect. It's over 50%. It's been that way for a little while.
01:00:59
Speaker
And now who's going to, who's going to campaign on cutting it?
01:01:06
Speaker
Nobody. Yeah. Almost no, I understand you. I just, yeah, I'm ranting. what I do. and I'm done. I'm done. I'm just so sad. I've been trying to understand, okay, I get it. People want, people get in hard times, you know, but no, I can't do it anymore. I'm, I'm, i'm I've just. So what are you supposed happen to those people?
01:01:30
Speaker
Looks like they're gonna to figure it out. Aren't we? How about churches? How about family? How about community? Figure it out because here's what's going to happen. Nobody's going to have anything when the whole system collapses.
01:01:48
Speaker
Nobody's have anything. You're not going to have, you're not going garbage pickup. You're not going have all, you know what mean? You take it to the extreme and we default and we lose our status in the world.
01:01:58
Speaker
And you think it's bad now? You think you're going problems getting healthcare now? Oh, you have problems getting healthcare insurance now. You're going to have problems getting any healthcare at that point.
01:02:10
Speaker
So that's, if you bring everybody here, there's no place for anybody to come anymore. If this is if America leaves and goes, where are you going go?
01:02:22
Speaker
Okay. Onto the, onto the next infuriating thing. but That's what I mean. Like you're, you're, you're pushing it so hard that there's going nothing for anybody. So what do you want? You want a little bit for a little bit, or you want nothing for anybody?
01:02:37
Speaker
Okay. i All right. Next. Speaking of another infuriating. Oh, I actually do have a clip on these. don't know why didn't put clips there. um Is our next.
01:02:50
Speaker
Our next story, which is, um you know, a typical, typical story we've seen many times. Three Ohio Republicans joined Democrats to restore Obamacare subsidies.
01:03:04
Speaker
So we have three Ohio Republicans that sided with the ah Democrats in the House Representatives.
01:03:15
Speaker
They are U.S. Representative Max Miller, Mike Carey, right? And what is the third one? What the hell?
01:03:27
Speaker
Oh, was it was Joyce. Representative Joyce, Dave Joyce, were the three yeah yeah
01:03:35
Speaker
the three. Everybody should be writing them and asking them why they did this. Yep. I think, uh, I think we're a start, I'll start with this clip here because, so this is from News Nation. This is Katie Mayer she goes over kind of what there were, I think it was a week or so ago, Trump stood in front of the GOP, talked to him about the midterms of what they needed to do. and one of the things he talked about was healthcare.
01:04:03
Speaker
And here's what he said. So I'm traveling with the president for News Nation today and we were over at his speech to House Republicans rallying them ahead of the 2026 midterms. And what he told them he wanted them to focus on was health care. He says that that is their issue. He wants them to own it. He's talking about lowering costs for drug prices. He also wants to lower the cost of and insurance, saying that he wants the money to go directly to the people. So that is what he's focusing on for this midterm. this is what he had to say.
01:04:32
Speaker
We own the issue. But now I understand they're trying to make a case on fertilization. You can't let them do that. Very important issue. All of these issues are very important issues. ah But you can own health care.
01:04:45
Speaker
Let figure it out. Let the money go directly to the people. One Republican congressman that was inside told me that the president laid it all out. And now what they have to do is so execute it.
01:05:01
Speaker
All they got to do is execute it. You know how good the Republicans are in execution, Tom.
01:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, they're great. They won't get nothing done. Yeah, they they literally just did what they shouldn't have done, which was push this a little farther through instead of fixing the problem. so So the good news, I think, though, with this whole story is it's probably not going anywhere.
01:05:23
Speaker
Max Miller keeps... Oh, good. Max Miller keeps... ah disappointing me more and more and he's he's my rep so yep ah ah he kind of disappointed me I think it was last year I my man i forget what it was But ah it really bummed me out.
01:05:42
Speaker
And that what really bums me out is we got rid of, I think his name was Alex Gonzalez, who was our rep who voted to impeach Trump. So he got primaried out. Max Miller got in there, but he seems to be the basically the same thing.
01:06:00
Speaker
Let's ah get a little background here from News Channel 5. This is our dear friend, Morgan. who The further we go along, the... less attractive she gets. So here you go.
01:06:11
Speaker
Our Columbus Bureau reporter, Morgan Trown, joining us now live in Morgan, Ohio, played a significant role in that vote. That's right, Katie. Yeah, three of the 17 Republicans that helped get this bill passed were actually Buckeyes.
01:06:28
Speaker
The clock has been ticking for Congress to address the affordability of health care. They can't just rip stuff away from people. As insurance premiums are already increasing for some Ohioans on Affordable Care Act plans. Despite Democrats fighting for Obamacare subsidies, which led to the government shutdown, Congress let them expire at the end of 2025. will have to go into savings. But on Thursday evening, a group of Republicans broke with President Donald Trump and helped pass a Democratic bill that would revive the tax credits for three years. and For last year, we've been telling our House leadership that we need to address this because it's going to be a problem.
01:07:07
Speaker
And they refused to address it. One of those Republicans who joined the Democrats was U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce from Geauga County. He said that it wasn't his ideal plan, but wanted to help provide stability. All we're doing is keeping our failed system down the road for a little
Healthcare Subsidies Debate in Congress
01:07:22
Speaker
bit longer. Really? We can't punish the people at home just because the people in D.C.
01:07:27
Speaker
can't come to a decision and fix the problem. Republicans Max Miller, who represents Cleveland's western suburbs, and Mike Carey from central Ohio also broke ring. But Democratic Rep Amelia Sykes was grateful to her colleagues for their support. to The majority of the Ohio delegation in the House voted for this. And so hopefully that helps our senators.
01:07:47
Speaker
support this as well but basic The bill now goes to the Senate, where Republicans have been more vocal against it. But Senator John Husted's team told us that he remains willing to consider any good faith negotiations that include a crackdown on the fraud in the system.
01:08:03
Speaker
While this bill is extremely unlikely to ever make its way to the president's desk, House Democrats are hopeful it will inspire some bipartisan solution from the Senate.
01:08:15
Speaker
So there's the good news is it's ah very unlikely to pass it in its current form. And I think, I think when we hit, well, there's already Bernie Marina we'll talk about in a second. He's got, didn't, didn't Trump just announce a a new healthcare, the great healthcare plan.
01:08:37
Speaker
Two days ago, I believe. I have not looked into it at all. Yeah, I haven't looked into it. I heard part of his presser, and it sounds interesting, and I think that's going to go to the to the Congress next week.
01:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. So we'll see what happens. I'm not holding my breath, because I will die. I just... What the heck? What has happened to us?
01:09:05
Speaker
Listen to that woman in that clip. Her only choice, she only has one choice, is to rely on the government. Why is it the first place we look?
01:09:16
Speaker
Well, I it's because we're lazy and stupid. That's the way the schools have been training us.
01:09:24
Speaker
And there there are the other options. We've talked about it a little bit before. Go out and check. There's other group options you can get out. you ah No Agenda talks about it, about the stuff that Adam's done and the money he saved. that They're on their own. They don't have anything. And and he's saying it's it's something to definitely look into. There are other options. There are some great options for ah especially yeah self-employed.
01:09:48
Speaker
of yeah like Kind of like crowdfunded almost... um options where it's it's basically a savings account with a group of people that all are participating in this. And I i forget what it's exact i forget what it's called, but man when I did the photography business, they were um I would meet with these people that were in in business and that um were, you know, we were part-time, so it didn't matter to me too much, but they were full-time. They talked a lot about the different healthcare care options, and there were some really good options out there that nobody talks about.
01:10:31
Speaker
It's kind of a shame. there's really there's There's options out there if you lose your job, and nobody talks about that either. All they talk about is go get go get ah go get in line, And and and get get your government hand up.
01:10:43
Speaker
That's all they about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's the easiest thing to do. Stupid and lazy we are as citizens. and And I guess, which kind of, this is kind of the same story. Now that it's passed the House, the Senate's opportunity comes out. And we've got a story here from Bernie Marino.
01:11:03
Speaker
And this kind of ties it together because now so they're proposing some some things in the Senate that they can get passed. And what he's trying to get is let's get something passed that we can get 70 votes in the Senate.
01:11:15
Speaker
been Wishful thinking, in my opinion. But he's trying to get 70 votes. That way they can pressure to the House to conform to their... to their bill.
01:11:27
Speaker
And a couple of the differences as he wants to trim federal spending through a shorter extension. So instead of three year extension, a two year extension. So a estimated $83 billion dollars over three years, it would be 55 billion over two years.
01:11:43
Speaker
And so that's one thing. Okay. That's helpful. Extending enrollment to give families time to adjust. So they want to extend the enrollment after they make these changes to March 1st, capping subsidies for higher earners.
01:12:01
Speaker
Just going let that sit there for a second. If you're a higher earner, why in the hell do you get subsidies on your fricking healthcare? Okay, a key reform would estimate would eliminate enhanced subsidies for households earning above 700% the federal poverty level, for a family of four,
01:12:27
Speaker
effective immediately upon passage If you and your wife with two kids are making $220,000 in most places in America, why the heck can't you afford healthcare?
01:12:40
Speaker
i'm I'm not saying it's not expensive. Insurance is out of control, and I'll get to that in a second. I still think there's great options that aren't, I mean, they're expensive, but they're not as expensive as your as your mainstream ones.
01:12:55
Speaker
So these have to be, most of these have to be uh, entrepreneurs, because if you're making, let's say you're making 150 and your wife's making 70 or vice versa, I wouldn't to, wouldn't want to, but want to but if, if you're, if you're split that way, one of you has an insurance plan in through work.
01:13:12
Speaker
Sure. Sure. So these would have to be families that are entrepreneurs or one of them an entrepreneur or something like that. Um, uh, it says people who are making 600, 700, $800,000 year are getting these enhanced subsidies. right?
01:13:31
Speaker
None. No more. Cut it all to zero. oh Now they want to so they want to cap it at 700%. 700% of...
01:13:42
Speaker
up Okay. That could help. Yeah, that could help. Someone who's making $750,000 a year should not get any subsidies for healthcare.
01:13:53
Speaker
I think you're good. Even if you live in like New York, Chicago, you should be fine. Wow. um it It's like, how did that ever get through? Oh, it was COVID. That's right. Because, you know, people making $800,000 during COVID were really hurting back then.
Combating Healthcare Fraud Plan
01:14:10
Speaker
ah Crack down on fraud with minimum premiums and fines. Okay, so combat widespread fraud, the plan includes a $5 monthly minimum premium for subsidized plans. So no plan would be free, sounds like.
01:14:23
Speaker
every It would be at least $5 a month for an annual $60 a year to ins ensure enrollees are aware of and and enrolled and are aware of and engaged with their coverage.
01:14:36
Speaker
This would eliminate ghost accounts? What the ghost accounts? Get out of here. Even as people signing up for healthcare that aren't alive, get out. That's what is Marino coming? At least freaking hallucinating.
01:14:51
Speaker
He's smoking some of that, some of that wacky tobacco. think So let's see. It is estimated about 40% of enrollees are either ghost reci ghost recipients or just flat out fraudulent.
01:15:09
Speaker
Let that sit there for a second. 40%. All right.
01:15:17
Speaker
right Oh, that's tens of billions of dollars. Okay.
01:15:25
Speaker
Cut it to zero. You lost, we lost the privilege to have these subsidies, these safety nets. We are not responsible enough. We don't have the balls to run these kinds of organizations or or programs.
01:15:41
Speaker
We don't have it anymore. A whole bunch of wusses going, oh, what about their feelings? They might have to work hard. They might have to work with a limp. I don't know where I got there from. actually I do know where I got there from. I used to...
01:15:53
Speaker
I used to know a guy, not gonna tell you why I know him. I used to know a guy, I used to go to his house every every so often, and he was an old biker, and he had a like a gimped foot. ah He had he had rolled his his had laid his bike down, it messed up his one foot, so he had this a limp, you know, he had like ah ah a boot that was higher, because it was, you know, all this other stuff happened. He was on disability.
Federal Health Savings Accounts Introduction
01:16:17
Speaker
ah ah on on On regular occasions, he would ride his Harley to the fricking bar, But he couldn't work.
01:16:26
Speaker
He worked in other ways. Let's put it that way. yeah um Introducing Trump health savings accounts. This is this is one thing I like because they they want to ah they want to do like a federal health savings account, which I think would be great.
01:16:38
Speaker
Pre-taxed, put it in account and you could save for emergencies. It's a forced emergency fund. Something I can get behind.
01:16:48
Speaker
Um, so that's one ah slashing premiums by 11%. The plan's sweetener Marino said is ending silver loading.
01:17:00
Speaker
Okay, what is silver loading? Silver loading is a practice where insurers inflate silver plan premiums to maximize subsidies, resulting in in in an 11% average premium a reduction across all ASA plans while saving the government billions.
Ending Silver Loading to Reduce Premiums
01:17:18
Speaker
So the, and this is where we get to the, to the bottom of, we get to the actual point of this. Why are we going after, why aren't we going after the insurance companies?
01:17:28
Speaker
I mean, I know why it's a rhetorical question.
01:17:34
Speaker
So here, here you got people. ah Let me, let me, let me be sympathetic here. Empathetic, whatever you want call it. You have people here that can't afford a health insurance because it's fricking crazy expensive. So I get it. They're relying on the government.
01:17:46
Speaker
One of the reasons it's expensive is because the insurers are inflating. So they're inflating the silver plan, which I would be the middle. I've never been on the ah HS or the healthcare savings account or whatever it is, website.
01:17:59
Speaker
So they're inflating the middle plans so that people pick the higher plan, which gives them better profits. i don't That's what I got from it. potential savings and premium drops in this range, bolstered Marino's assertion combined with fraud reductions and transparency. This could stabilize the insurance market benefiting
ACA Subsidies and Abortion Clinics Concerns
01:18:21
Speaker
providers. Oh, cause I really want to benefit the providers cause they've been getting no benefits at all Marino and enrollees alike.
01:18:27
Speaker
Oh, cause it makes me mad. Cause he's stop worrying about the insurance companies Marino. Maybe that's, maybe that's your problem. Well, who's going to donate to him?
01:18:44
Speaker
I think he's addressing some pro-life concerns about, because some of these 12 states ah use federal funding or or at least they use some of these funds to fund abortion clinics or to cover abortions when you get them done because that's healthcare.
01:18:59
Speaker
It's healthcare for one half of this, of but not not really healthcare for the other half. So, if you want to call it that. Oh yeah. it's I know it's, it's, that's what I said. What, so what about women's healthcare? I said, yeah, what about the healthcare of the woman that you're killing in the womb? I always wondered about that. Uh, or the rights or the reproductive rights of, of the woman in your, in the womb or the man, cause we have, do we have reproductive rights? i don't think we do. I don't think we do.
01:19:25
Speaker
No. Um, let's see here. What's, what else? Anything else? Oh, yeah so there, so how,
01:19:34
Speaker
For Ohioans like the $80,000 a year family, Marino cited, whose premiums might jump from $2,500 to $7,500 without any action.
Insurer Action and Premium Increases
01:19:51
Speaker
Why aren't we looking at the insurers? Again, I know why. Why do I keep asking these dumb questions?
01:20:00
Speaker
You know what? I deserve this. ask it I ask that too many times. You big dummy. Thank you. Thank you, Fred. right. I think I got enough off my chest on that one, but I just, this is infuriating.
01:20:16
Speaker
How does, how do people not, this is the problem. Nobody reads past this part. Nobody reads past this headline. Oh, good. San Marino is going to put outlines to push Senate reform and the ACA subsidies aiming to cut costs and fraud while averting political chaos.
01:20:33
Speaker
In the meantime, For how many years has 40% might be fraudent fraudulent people on on the healthcare savings website. Wow.
01:20:46
Speaker
And ah i guess, i don't know. I took up all that time. Fucked all the air of the room.
01:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, I have nothing to add to this. This is just, ah I mean, i'm wherere wherere like it seems like today we're a little bit too much on the same page. yeah Yeah. I don't know, mean man.
01:21:05
Speaker
It's crazy. It is. It is.
Defunding National Endowment for Democracy
01:21:08
Speaker
And it's it's like, okay, thank you for trying to help, but you it doesn't go anywhere near far enough. Cut it to zero.
01:21:17
Speaker
On that same note, we had this tweet that you pulled in.
01:21:24
Speaker
Which is a more Republican BS. So this is Mike Benz. Who's Mike Benz? I've heard that name before. What it say on here? Executive Director FFO Freedom. Oh, Founder of State. he he's He's like an expert in all the slush fund stuff.
01:21:42
Speaker
I don't know how he... eo Former State Department cyber author of Unpublishable Monstrosity, Weapons of Mass Deletion. He's kind of, for years, he's been on this kick of what we call the swamp. He calls the blob and ah and basically all the corruption humanity.
01:22:07
Speaker
and In politics, basically. Yeah. So he posts this, ah remember the name of every Republican member of Congress who votes no today against defunding the National Endowment for Democracy.
01:22:23
Speaker
That list of names is your primary, the shit out of them map for 2026. twenty twenty six In the comments, this Midwest mama posts a list of what she's saying are the people who voted.
01:22:39
Speaker
These 81 House Republicans joined Democrats to reject the defunding of the of the National Endowment for Democracy. so this And what is that, Rob?
01:22:53
Speaker
There's plenty plenty of people from Ohio on And that is, in my quick search, the National Endowment of Democracy, the NED, is a private non-profit foundation established by the U.S. Congress in 1983,
01:23:13
Speaker
Sorry, it started out pretty good. So Congress started in 1983 to what? To do what? What could they do with it? They need to strengthen democratic institutions and values worldwide.
01:23:23
Speaker
h How would they want to do that? By providing grants to non-governmental organizations. What do they call those, Tom? NGOs. We love NGOs. Like USAID was the biggest NGO. USAID was the one of the places is funding these NGOs. Yeah. He was, ah i when that was defunded or you know, closed down, he was really happy about it, but he knew there was going to be a lot more work. He think he thinks there's going to be, it it's going to, it would take 50 years of us making cuts and whittling out all the corruption in politics. Yeah.
01:24:05
Speaker
i mean he doesn't He doesn't think like, you know, I recommend anybody. His name is Mike Benz. If you haven't heard him on, ah he he'd he's been on Joe Rogan a couple of times. Go check out the interviews because he really knows his stuff. And it's it's really difficult to...
01:24:25
Speaker
absorb everything he talks about. um But he really, you know, he's really happy the way things are going, but at the same time, he knows this is not even... It's not even scraping the surface. Yeah, this is like the USAID thing was just... ah blip tight yeah blip that's what we're finding i figured that wasn't the only one it might have been the biggest one but i doubt that was the only one so can you once get finished going through this because it gets better national endowment for democracy like you said is uh providing grants to non-profit or non-governmental organizations or ngos working for democracy in over 100 countries focusing on political in inclusion free media rule of law
01:25:10
Speaker
and civil society operating in as an independent body with bipartisan oversight. It serves a key u S initiative to provide democracy, uh, funded by annual congressional appropriations, but controlled by its own board, making it a unique blend of public funding and private governance, key functions and activities, grant making,
01:25:35
Speaker
over awards over 1900 grants annually to who local groups like media outlets, trade unions, human rights organizations to support democratic development.
01:25:48
Speaker
This is select, this is USAID on maybe on a miniature scale. And we just had 81 Republicans move over to continue funding this. Yeah, it's it's the he calls it the blob. We, you know, Trump called it the the deep state or or the swamp, probably a better term.
01:26:05
Speaker
Just like the previous story. Yep. This is just exactly this. That's why i i put it in there, because i I was like, oh, these Republicans are voting with the Democrats to ah continue the subsidies for Obamacare. They're just part of the swamp.
01:26:21
Speaker
And these guys are doing the exact same thing, basically. They just don't want to give up the ah easy money. Yeah, it's a cash cow. Yep. It's a cash cow. and nobody looks, I mean, these grants go to these NGOs and nobody's over so nobody knows what what happens the money.
01:26:40
Speaker
There's no, there's rarely, there's not, I don't say there's no oversight. There's, in my opinion, barely any oversight. But this is, I don't think there's any oversight. oh well I'll push on that. I don't think there's any oversight.
01:26:56
Speaker
Yeah. i If there is any oversight, it's it's quote unquote oversight. Yeah. They're turning a blind eye. yeah of course. that's what Yeah. Okay. They're turning a blind eye to her to things.
01:27:09
Speaker
And like the president said, some of these solutions... Why do we think it's a good idea to give huge companies, insurance companies, massive banks, right? We've learned that from listening to No General. They're basically just banks.
01:27:26
Speaker
The way they put it, you're like, oh crap, they are just banks, aren't they? That makes sense. Yeah, they're just big banks. But insurance companies, they get a what a perfect, just give me, give me money.
01:27:37
Speaker
It's kind of reminds me of, um I'm just trying to think of what other system is like that. Oh yeah. College student loans. When you have the government guaranteeing loans, you can't, and they can't figure out why a student or college tuition has gone up 600% in the last 20 years, whatever it is. I think when I looked at this five, five or more years ago, it had gone up 400% over 10 years.
01:28:03
Speaker
Dude, man, i I went to check out my school. I yeah i went to music school. It wasn't a college or anything like that. But I think it was the tuition right around $6,000 year.
Education Costs and Student Loans
01:28:20
Speaker
When you went. When I went. Yep. And now, yeah what? Is it 60? Yeah, about that. Is it really 10 times? is I don't know how they're getting students. I don't know. the Like, how do you go to them? I mean, you're literally going to a school not to work.
01:28:37
Speaker
To not find a job. it's I mean, yeah it's ah it's a great school. Don't get me wrong. It's an awesome school, but it's not a school where you're going to really make your money back for from. it's so highly It's highly unlikely. You know, I've done, I've made my money back, but that was... Well, yeah, that was... But but but ah for for what they're charging now, if oh my God.
01:29:00
Speaker
And plus plus the living costs out. it would This was in a ah Hollywood, but ah it was like... I can't, I can't, I don't know how they're doing that, how they're even getting students. It has to be some kind of government loans for that.
01:29:12
Speaker
Well, yes, it's all student loans, a government backed student loan, not all of it, but there's a big, large portion of it because who can afford 60 grand? Most people can't just ah a year, a year.
01:29:23
Speaker
Right. But Tom, they so they solved that problem. Now you have to start to figure out how to pay for that 60 grand, but all you got to give your a kid is a tent and he could sleep anywhere. I guess so. i get In LA, you know, it doesn't get that cold at night. so You just, i mean, you may need to find a place to plug your amp in to practice if you see still i have an amp. The sad part is I lived in a decent apartment. It was expensive for the time. It was just the studios. I remember it was $5.50 month.
01:29:50
Speaker
And, you know, most students had, I didn't, it was a studio. Most students did live with roommates in like a one bedroom or two bedroom apartment. Yeah.
01:30:00
Speaker
But, uh. That's normal anytime. I was able to walk to school, which I, you know, didn't have to worry about parking or anything like that. Was it uphill both ways in the snow barefoot? No, no. The only thing I had to fight was tourists because I was right in Hollywood.
01:30:14
Speaker
I was, I was two blocks away from the, uh, a man's Chinese theater. Oh, nice. So I had to, I had to walk through all, you know, all the tourists during the day.
01:30:25
Speaker
And, uh, where was I going with this? Oh, I just, spen it now it's a yeah case I don't know what apartments run now, but yeah I don't think you can do a tent thing because I, they don't let, they don't let people sleep in tents in Hollywood.
01:30:40
Speaker
They don't. That's, that's on the, that has to be on the outskirts. No, there's no way. There's no way because it's a tourist ah spot. You know, they're not going to let that happen where there's tourists.
01:30:53
Speaker
you may You might be right. I don't know. I heard when I heard somebody like,
Homelessness Issues in Hollywood
01:30:58
Speaker
what's his name? um Ben Shapiro. He lived, so Ben Shapiro does not live in a cheap house. You can imagine his wife's a doctor. He makes great money. He lives in a multi, multi-million dollar house. One of the reasons he left is when he walked out of his front door on his tree lawn was tense with people shooting up.
01:31:16
Speaker
I'm thinking they're almost anywhere, but you might be right. They might. Well, you know what? not not in Not in San Francisco. They're freaking everywhere. Yeah, but yeah okay. Maybe LA's different. You might be. I don't know, but i mean the San Francisco's not. I'm not even thinking LA is different. I'm thinking Hollywood. Hollywood, Hollywood. You're right. It's not LA. You're right. So maybe there are... depend mean but Maybe there are... Yeah, I got to look into that. ah Because maybe on the...
01:31:38
Speaker
In the ah residential areas that they might be camping in that area instead of like right on Hollywood Boulevard. ah Because between La Brea and Sunset Strip, that's where the tourists hang out.
01:31:51
Speaker
I can't imagine them letting letting them camp there. i just can't. quick A clue quick Google search. yeah The first one is is a YouTube video from somebody in LA. Hollywood residents tormented by nearby homeless.
01:32:07
Speaker
Okay, so the residents are, where there are a lot of side streets, you know, it's yeah you not Yeah, they might do that in front of the Chinese theater or something like that. You might be right. But more than the point is,
01:32:20
Speaker
Like college, let's pull it back here. Like college. you're You're shocked that you started writing checks directly to the insurance companies and the the premiums are going up.
01:32:32
Speaker
Shocker. Oh my gosh. When the money's guaranteed, they keep increasing it. i don't, what, what kind of craziness is going on in this world?
Impact of Government Market Intervention
01:32:42
Speaker
and You know, Tom, it's so crazy. It's almost like it was planned. Huh?
01:32:49
Speaker
Anyhow, so there's that. That's more infuriation. You know, it's back to the Hollywood thing for just a second. know funny is I want to go visit my school and ah where I want to see what the my apartment building and all the streets look around like around it because it's been, i graduated in 91.
01:33:09
Speaker
So it's been a while, but I would like like to visit and see what's going on over there, but I don't want to go to California. Yes. Just because of what a crap hole it's become. Yes. My, my daughter the other day mentioned something about going to New York and I just looked it, I go, never going to happen.
01:33:25
Speaker
Not probably not in my lifetime. She's like, why? I go, because ah because I said, honey, I'm sorry. There's no other way to explain it. It's a shithole. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of parts of New York that- Oh, it is a shame. I'd love to go there.
01:33:38
Speaker
There's so many great things to see there or in in ah in California and stuff, but you just, I just sit there and go, man, I'm not going to deal with. It's probably on its way to being a crap hole. It's probably not technically all the way there yet, but it's working its way back to pre-Giuliani days really quick. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah.
01:33:57
Speaker
Really quick. So yeah, so they're shocked because we start writing writing checks to insurance companies, the premiums increase exponentially, like possibly three three times as much as they were last year.
01:34:10
Speaker
And when you, or you could even go to this, let's just take the insurance companies out of it. when you When the government puts their thumb on the scale of the market, And then they let it off. Oh my gosh. There's shock.
01:34:22
Speaker
There's, there's huge spikes. I can't imagine. Like, like it's never happened before. Almost like, almost like they, nah, it couldn't have been planned. Of course not. Any who,
01:34:37
Speaker
thank you for listening. Thank listening to me rant for the last 10 minutes on, uh, and, and to get it off my chest, I feel a little better now.
Listener Engagement Encouragement
01:34:45
Speaker
Let us know how we're doing. Subscribe to the show. Send us an email, crookedrivercast at gmail.com. Check out the website, crookedrivercast.com. got the blog there. drops every Monday morning right as the show drops. You can follow along.
01:34:58
Speaker
You think, no way they said that. They're crazy. That ah article doesn't say that. You can go check it and call us out on if we're wrong. We'd love to hear from you. Please send you send an email, crookedrivercast.com.
01:35:11
Speaker
And speaking of emails, our next question, Our next follow-up is actually from a listener. Well, is he a listener, Tom? Or he might he might be our first producer.
01:35:25
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's he's he's become a producer. Yeah, he's he's been throwing us some stuff. And in we started looking at this Norton Data Center as it was
Norton Data Center Project Cancellation
01:35:34
Speaker
starting to come up. It was going through...
01:35:37
Speaker
going through the motions of getting approved or not approved and Sir Commodore J Strokes sends us an email, all ones gives us some information. And as we're looking at it, the week he sent it to us, all the information on the data center and who was involved and all this other stuff, they stopped the data, the county commissioners or whoever the county board said no, they voted no on it.
01:36:01
Speaker
which was great, I think, for the for the for the city of Norton or the area of Norton for many reasons. But one, as so the story came out and I kept had this question. I said, what? what did they they They said that that the citizens brought...
01:36:16
Speaker
ah brought something that the representative of the company said to the board commissioners or or the council and that wasn't true that they said wasn't true the citizens did then they they so they they checked with the company and the company confirmed that it wasn't true and they fired the spokesperson No one ever said what it was that this person said that wasn't true.
01:36:39
Speaker
and And as far as I could see, and no articles that bring any of this up. And I even have, i have a clip where there's Norton data centers. This is, Part of the clips, I think, I don't think i we actually played this on the show, but it was one of the clips that I had thought about doing as we talked about the story. Because again, i wanted the details and Jay Stork helped us with this, but let's see a little background here is what what I heard and the questions I had.
01:37:06
Speaker
Norton Data Center project is no longer happening. In a new letter from Norton City Council, they say the developer for the site made comments during a recent meeting that were later found to be untrue.
01:37:18
Speaker
Because of that, council says it's not going to move forward. Council members thanked residents for sharing their concerns before that project got underway. I'll give this one for Norton, the the area of Norton in that but part. they did They did a good thing, so...
01:37:35
Speaker
Because as it turns out, as it turns out, so Sir J Strokes sends me an article from the, sends us article from the Barberton Gazette and Norton News, which is a little bit about the Norton Data Center proposal that was withdrawn.
01:37:52
Speaker
And couple of the things that I pulled out. was um they asked in one of the city council meetings, so what was the thing that was said that wasn't true that they brought up to the city council and made them vote no on it?
01:38:07
Speaker
So at a meeting, at the meeting, Norton resident James Hymeck asked Hobby, founder of Quantum HPC, which is a company that was building the data center that would own the data center as far as I can see, asked them about a project in New Mexico and whether he had he was a defendant in a laws in any lawsuits, Javi said there'd been no New Mexico project and he'd not been sued.
01:38:37
Speaker
In fact, Javi said, a company called Diversified Global Systems LLC and Arch Insurance had been sued in New Mexico by Integrated Control Systems Inc.
01:38:50
Speaker
and somebody named Steven Chavez 2023. in twenty twenty three They'd been contracted to develop land in the Mesa del Sol area of Albuquerque, according to required industry specifications.
01:39:05
Speaker
It never happened. And the judge concluded the defendant willfully misled they're in their ability to do so. The day after Norton's town hall meeting, where they ah turned down the proposal, the court handed down a $2.9 million dollars judgment against Hobby and the company, according to court documents.
01:39:27
Speaker
And as you go farther in this article... You will see, this is not the first time this guy's done this. He's done this a couple of times. It sounds like he comes in he gets he gets funding, and then the project doesn't happen.
01:39:40
Speaker
That's the way I read it. Wow. And there's more, there's ah ah project a Nordic project that disappeared like smoke between then and 2024. Javi had floated his data stream in Greece and Australia, and again in Norway.
01:39:57
Speaker
but to finish ah But the Finnish article caused investors to back away. but yeah there's So he's well known, I think, that, I mean,
01:40:12
Speaker
i congratulations, Norton, because think may have dodged a
Community Involvement Uncovers Developer Scams
01:40:16
Speaker
huge bullet. And what this is what happens when you go to your city council meetings. or your county council meetings or whatever it happens to be. When you get involved and you ask these people questions and pin them in the corner, the guy screwed up. I mean, i don't know what else he was going to say.
01:40:31
Speaker
he says yes or no. That's probably bad for his business proposition. But um this is what happens when good people get involved in your community. Well, when the when a community comes together, things happen. so Yeah.
01:40:44
Speaker
Yeah. Congratulations. I think ah think that was a win for them. And i think that probably probably saved them from mean who knows what could happen. You can have a half developed building for for years on end before you can get anybody else in there.
01:41:00
Speaker
If it falls through, it you see some of that in in some area. I've gone past places that, you know, in 2020, in 2008, during the financial crisis, they stopped building a ah strip center and it's still sitting there rusting, you know, ironing above the ground, but rusting because because of that. Well, actually, it's funny. That's our next story.
01:41:24
Speaker
Next story, is speaking of that 2008 strip mall, and ah by the way, thank you, J-Stroke, for the continued support and and sending us sending us your, ah what's going on in your area if in your area. If you want to be like Sir Common or J-Stroke, send us an email.
01:41:42
Speaker
Let us know what's going on in your area because we can't get everything. There's so much on a weekly weekly basis that if it it doesn't, doesn't rise to the surface as they say lot times it just gets pushed right past us because there's so much stuff going on so you see some shenanigans going on think uh I think send us an email and we'll look into it see if it's something we should bring up appreciate all the help from Jstroke and uh
01:42:10
Speaker
Whoa. Did I, think I left a story out of lineup, Tom. What's that? I did. I did, but we'll, we'll touch on it real quick. Cause I just want to rant it real quick. You got a link to it? Yeah. It's it's in there.
01:42:21
Speaker
It's above the one you're in now. It's above the Ike Center one. It's a Cogga County considers. Oh, no, we didn't. What do you mean you skipped it? You missed it. it's not in ah It's not in our little.
01:42:33
Speaker
Oh, the notes, you mean? The notes. My bulletins to check off as I go, because otherwise, as we found out, I forget. I go right past stories sometimes. well Well, we'll touch on it real quick. So we talked a little bit in the past. One of our first shows we talked about this is the Caga County...
01:42:50
Speaker
wants to move their jail from, from downtown to somewhere. They need a new jail. And I don't, I think they're probably right. That jail has been there quite a long time. It's a high rise jail, which is, I can only imagine the conditions in there, but it's been there so long. It's, it's in the middle downtown. So they want to move it.
01:43:06
Speaker
So we first brought to you this story because one of our first shows, I think they, They bought land. ah It's at 480 in, what is that? Is that there transportation over there?
01:43:18
Speaker
I think transportation Boulevard, right? believe so, yeah. Yeah, when you come from the valley, to the top of the hill there. And it was a strip center that they started building in early 2000s. And I think the 2008 financial crisis killed it.
01:43:32
Speaker
I thought it was sinking, wasn't it? Well, that's across the street. So across across the street, across 480, there was another one that they built in both of these. I've, I think, especially the one that's currently built, there's a documentary on it on the one that's still there that they built on the, if you go, it's on the South side of 480 because it they built a all thing. And then it's built on landfill.
01:43:55
Speaker
Yeah. And they, surprisingly enough, they had problems with radon gas. And they ended up at one point, everybody had to leave the shopping center. And they did all, and that's the one that was sinking as well.
01:44:05
Speaker
Right. That's still there in it operating. There's people back in it, in that, in that section. um And so on the other side, on the North side of 480, they started building a similar, like almost like a matching one. And, and then i the financial crisis hit it stopped. It'd been, there was iron sitting there for 10 years at least.
01:44:22
Speaker
So the County decided to buy that property for like 30, 30 or $40 million. dollars With COVID money because, you know, what? That's what, that's what, that's what, you don't remember that
Geothermal Energy in Jail Project
01:44:33
Speaker
story? no.
01:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, that was, I think it was one of our first shows and and that they, the the the the story for me was how much money does the county still have from COVID? This was from the COVID rescue plan. I think Obama, or Biden signed.
01:44:47
Speaker
Biden. That they didn't use. It's money is sitting there. So it was a double whammy for me because they took COVID money to buy land because that helps somebody and then, but they they bought this land before the project was even approved. If I remember correctly, they hadn't gotten approval yet of the pro of the program, of the pro of the project. And they bought the land anyway, which I mean, if you're investing, maybe it's not a bad investment, but that's not what they were doing.
01:45:14
Speaker
So the the project is approved. It's 800 and some million dollars, uh, scheduled to start this year, 2026. twenty twenty six And the story here is leaders in Cuyahoga County are considering a $20 million dollars addition to the cost of the future jail for um in Garfield Heights.
01:45:39
Speaker
So they want a $20 million addition. What is the addition they want? The council members are reviewing a proposal to include a geothermal energy to so to the site. The project would call for the installation of heat pumps that would circulate fluid through wells or boreholes several hundred feet below ground, if you don't know what how geohydro works.
01:46:00
Speaker
A lot of people don't. And so basically you pump fluid into the ground, it pulls the heat out of the fluid or adds heat into the fluid, and then you circulate it back through the building. And that's how it it is a very efficient way to heat supposedly up to a certain point.
01:46:12
Speaker
Right. Once you get to a certain temperature cold wise, it doesn't really work too well. So that... They want to increase the project by $20 million dollars to put this highly complicated and expensive system in. And quote from Katz, which is one of the committee members, which is the quote of the month. Okay, let me see if I can do this, get through this He says, quote, it's that fluid that extracts the heat from the ground in the summertime and delivers it to the building.
01:46:48
Speaker
And in the wintertime, it extracts the heat from the building and stores the heat in the ground.
01:46:57
Speaker
No. if If anyone didn't follow that, you don't want to take the heat from the ground in the summertime and deliver it to the building. That makes the building hotter. In the wintertime, you pull the heat from the ground and deliver it to the building. You do the reverse in the summertime. Well, yeah, because there's no heat in the ground in the summertime. So he doesn't know what he's talking about.
01:47:20
Speaker
And I guess the big... You sure that's a he? um man it sounds like something a woman would say. Valerie Katz. Damn it, you're right. i didn't even i didn't even know. I just, when you said that, I was like, oh, that just sounds like a woman.
01:47:38
Speaker
That's, I mean, I guess that gives her it gives her some credit then. I mean, it gives her some leeway then because she doesn't know anything. So, but why do you think?
01:47:52
Speaker
Did you read, did you read why they want to? Oh, emissions, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. They want they want to, they want they want to do this because climate change.
01:48:03
Speaker
Yeah. Climate change. Uh, yeah, that's, they want to spend $20 million dollars preliminary, uh, primarily because of, um, I would think global climate change. And I'm thinking Valerie has ah some connections in the HVAC business. Maybe. Yeah.
01:48:25
Speaker
I don't know. I think she's just a dopey woman. Well, yeah, she wants to be virtuous and propose this. And even if it gets turned down, she proposed it. Look at me. I proposed a geothermal site. It would have saved so many carbon emissions.
01:48:39
Speaker
Uh, Ketz told council members it would be 20 years or more before any savings will be realized on the geothermal system compared to natural gas. Just in time to rebuild a new section.
01:48:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah. the though Yes. I'm not looking necessarily for a financial gain. I'm looking at the future of the planet. when we look Stop butting your head into this business. that That'll help.
01:49:06
Speaker
When we look at financial gain, when we look at these systems, that's not always what the value is. Oh, okay. Geothermal systems work, I think, to a point, but if you get cold enough, they don't work very well, and you've got to have supplementary heat pumps and stuff like that. Yeah, of course, yeah. and you see that I do see ah occasionally homes that are for sale that have geothermal systems.
01:49:31
Speaker
ah Very efficient, very efficient. They're they're very efficient, and i a lot of times they've been put in by a... um it It must be some type of program out there. A lot of times it says it's designed by, a it's like Ohio State or something, like, you know, some university. Yeah, I think you get tax breaks if you have geo-system. So it might be a selling point of our house in some cases. that i don't know. Yeah, it's weird.
01:49:58
Speaker
and ah i ah often I guess i what I'm saying is I often see a university tied to the installation of one, or usually it's probably put in when the house is built, right?
01:50:11
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. you Yeah. It's hard to do it. You can do it, but, and you have to have the space for it. I mean, and that every place is um, is designed. You can do it. You could pull it off in, but most places you can nowadays.
01:50:22
Speaker
According to County spokesperson, the cost of the project is eligible for up to a 30% federal tax credit. If they do. So it could reduce the cost from $20 million to $14 million.
01:50:36
Speaker
Oh, thanks. Currently, ah prop proposals a proposal is... Oh, they still have they still to review their proposal again and on January 27th. Nearly $900 million dollars remains the estimate budget for the jail.
01:50:51
Speaker
it will go It will go over a billion.
IX Center Transformation
01:50:53
Speaker
almost Almost positive. Oh, yeah. opinion Easy. When you're that close, they already want to add $20 million to it. It's going to be $920 million and then overruns in budget and budget.
01:51:02
Speaker
Sure. enough So anyway, that's that. Let's keep moving forward. And we have, I think this is a sad story. This next one.
01:51:13
Speaker
The IX Center just finished up its, for the last ah RV show. Is it, why is it sad? Because the IX Center is cool. It's just part of our history, I guess. It's sad because of what it's becoming, I think.
01:51:32
Speaker
what's just like it's becoming a data center right yeah here's a here's a um channel five little background on ix rv show at the ix center just wrapped up ball a few minutes ago this year's show is the closing of a chapter with the ix center news 5's caitlin hunt explains the future of the ah rv show and the ix center it's bittersweet it's the beginning of the end for cleveland's ix center there's Not a whole lot we can do about it, so we're just going to be thankful for the memories that we've had at the IAC Center. The RV show is a part of the final group of shows to take place at the IAC Center as the exhibition space transitions to something new. The IAC Center has become a destination place for a lot of events and venues.
01:52:16
Speaker
So you're telling me there'd be nothing out there ever again? In June of last year, the Cleveland City Council approved an agreement to amend the lease at the IX Center, allowing for a Fortune 100 company to take over. you guys That company has not been named, but the company has over 200 jobs with an expected payroll of $23 million. dollars Great Lakes RV Association director Amy Saffel says numbers for this final show were definitely up and she hopes those numbers follow the show this fall to its new location at the Cahohoga County Fairgrounds. Well, we're ending a chapter here at the IAC Center. We're going to take everything outside and we're excited about ah our new beginning. but there's still a whole slew of shows coming here to the IX center. The boat show will be here this week at the end of the month, the home and garden show will be here. And then the final show will be at the end of March. That's the piston power autorama for news five. I'm Caitlin hunt.
01:53:06
Speaker
First question is where's Kayla hog a County or whatever she said. was She mispronounced it a little bit. Uh, it, i To me, it's yeah, it's part of my childhood. And also, where else in the country, there's not ah that many places in the country you could put that much under one roof.
01:53:27
Speaker
So that's kind of, I don't know. Now they're taking the RV show to the Calga County Filegrounds.
01:53:37
Speaker
Do you think the stadium's going to have any of those shows? They could, but they don't have anywhere near the space. It's not even close.
01:53:46
Speaker
from all the reports I saw during the the whole talk about the stadium. It's like, yeah, you could have some of them there, but the RV show, the boat show, that they're bigger than and they could fit in the stadium, apparently.
01:53:58
Speaker
No kidding. Yeah. Really? I was shocked too, but yeah. i said they said every every Every time I went to the one of those shows, you know, the boat show, where the but it just seemed like you're in a big empty cavern.
01:54:10
Speaker
yeah I think the RV and the boat show the only two that fill it up. Everything else, even like the car show, it's only like half or 75% of it. if But also, most most people don't know, there's a basement to the IAC Center.
01:54:22
Speaker
Right, right. A friend of mine ah brings his car there for that Power Piston show. That's to be the last event at the IAC Center is a Power Piston show. He goes there every year. he's got a... um it ah like a hot rod.
01:54:37
Speaker
No, he's got oh got a van, he's got the hot rod. He's got like a kind of like a Munster's hot rod. Yeah. Yeah. Like a bucket ah open. forget what they call them. Rat rod. Okay. Yeah. He brings both. He both are one. um Just depends. But now they have to fight. I don't know that you probably could do at the stadium or something like that. It's going to be way more expensive. I'm sure.
01:54:57
Speaker
ah I just it's that's a unique thing. I think for Cleveland that most most communities don't have something like that. and Except like Vegas or, you know, LA or those kinds of places.
01:55:10
Speaker
It was kind of unique for Cleveland, but now it's going to be a data center for fortune 500, a fortune 100 company. I see. I can't imagine who that could be. think our choices are Amazon or Facebook.
01:55:22
Speaker
Right. Better than building a new one. True. True. And as far as the city, cause the city controls that. So I guess,
01:55:34
Speaker
maybe it'll actually bring in some revenue so they can squander it somewhere. i guess. See me tax breaks. They get probably not. No, no, but i bet I would imagine. I wonder if it's, if that building's a draw, you know, is there a tax negative instead of a tax positive, you know, or negative?
01:55:51
Speaker
Is it, does it, do they have to put money into it just to keep up with the building? Do that? Do they make enough money in a year? It's so big. It's so big. there's the The maintenance has got to be tremendous on it. Right. So maybe it,
01:56:04
Speaker
Yeah. We'll see. But again, $23 million dollars in payroll and over 200 jobs. but We'll see about that. I guess when it, when everything settles down, we'll, we'll take a look and see how many jobs are actually there. Cause that's pretty high for a data center.
01:56:18
Speaker
Or as I understand it. Well, they still got to maintain the building. So maybe a lot of that is from that. Yeah. True. You know, I don't know. Yep. And one or last on our list of stories is ah another followup from, uh,
01:56:33
Speaker
From our good old friend at the Cleveland no ah fire chief cleveland Fire Chief, Anthony Luke, who who was put on paid leave after a ah just coincidental social media post.
01:56:46
Speaker
um Right after Charlie Cook got shot, he posted, bring on the next sacrifice. And some people didn't like that. Called for his ah called for his resignation. So Bibb put him on paid leave.
01:57:03
Speaker
And now he's retiring. and he's got a I'm sure he's got a big fat pension too. Yes. So here's here's here's how he made out. He gets to retire. it was Here's how they punished him for or being a douche.
01:57:21
Speaker
He gets to retire with all of his benefits and the city's paying $10,000 to his attorneys.
01:57:28
Speaker
Yeah. So it's kind of what you were thinking Nothing's going to happen to him. And we wanted to follow up to see how long it took before he's reinstated. Right. ah This is the same thing in my opinion. They didn't reinstate him. He decided, eh, let me just retire as long as I can get full benefits and i't have to pay any of my lawyers anything.
01:57:47
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. No, he got off easy. Yeah. where Where did the city go wrong? Did it, was this, why? That's a, that's just a hand me down or hand, a handout, hand me down, a handout. Uh, Hey, thanks for your service. Thanks for the tweet.
01:57:59
Speaker
Here's 10 grand. Yeah, he was probably close to retirement anyways. Oh yeah, he's an older guy. He's and definitely an older It doesn't say how old he was, but yeah, he will remain on paid leave until his retirement, which is tomorrow, 18, I believe, yeah and will receive full benefits for an employee retiring from his position, settlement states.
01:58:17
Speaker
So he didn't lose any pay. He got a vacation, a long vacation, and now he's going to get his full benefits bits and doesn't have pay his attorneys. The city sold this like it was their fault. Yeah, okay.
01:58:30
Speaker
which I don't think they they think it was their fault. I just think they're, well, it's how to make this go away. We can't, we don't restate them because that would bring a bunch of heat for bibs. So I'll just give you a, a um an early retirement present for 10 grand to your attorneys.
01:58:44
Speaker
Yeah. Probably like his uncle or his kid or something. ah So that's that. He's out. And, um you know, the next woke fire chief, it'll probably be some overweight woman who's a fire chief of seems to be the going for all kinds of chiefs. Oh, nice.
01:58:59
Speaker
That's going to be fun. Yeah. to Keep an eye on that. See how much she she'll say it's your fault if you're in a fire. Yes. it just That's what the L.A. one said. No, it was big Cincinnati, wasn't it?
01:59:11
Speaker
no Was that L.A.? Oh, that was L.A. Remember when the, yeah. one yeah Well, the no, the Cincinnati chief blamed the media. Yeah, the no, the police chief. i'm um I was thinking about the fire chief. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big fat fire chief. Oh, that's right. Yeah, she did. Yeah, yeah. i know not Her face just popped in my head when I thought. All right, well, next, I guess we'll get into the last segment of the show.
01:59:35
Speaker
bring good things to life.
01:59:38
Speaker
Bringing good things to the show. i think I kind of screwed up a little bit on this one, but we'll we'll get into it. So I so pulled this story because I drive past this on occasion and when I go down south and around the area.
01:59:53
Speaker
If you haven't been down to the Pro Football Hall of Fame over the last you know five years or so, they've made some big changes.
02:00:02
Speaker
They've expanded the football hall of fame many times over the years. It's actually pretty good. There's a lot of interactive things. I've been there. It's been quite a while actually. And they've add added more since I've been there, but I spent a good two, three hours there easy. Could spend a little bit more.
02:00:16
Speaker
So there's a lot to see there. So that's nice. But it was always like, that's all there is in Canton. Like you're going go to football of fame. What else? im mean, sure. There's other things to do, but what else are you going to do?
02:00:27
Speaker
Tourist wise, So what they've done over the last five, 10 years or so, they've expanded the area. They actually took, speaking of IX Center, the Ferris wheel that was in the IX Center is currently outside the rock Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.
02:00:41
Speaker
They assembled it, put it over there. Somebody bought it.
Hall of Fame Water Park Funding Issues
02:00:45
Speaker
Football Hall of Fame, assuming, bought it, put it over there. But they've built shops, restaurants, and part and they've got like a little field over there. They've got all kinds of stuff you can do events. And...
02:00:56
Speaker
One of the the, I think the last phase of the project or another phase of the project was a water park in a hotel. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. But the only problem is the water park is like half built and it's been that way for at least a couple of years.
02:01:11
Speaker
Really? Yeah. It's, it's big concrete structure. You can see it. I mean, there pull of pro the pro football hall of fame is right next to the 77. If you've never. Yeah. It has that. you I'm sure many people have, but so you can see it quite clearly from the freeway. It's literally directly next to the freeway and there's a big concrete structure where the water park is and half it's covered in plastic because they're in the middle of building it and they stopped.
02:01:33
Speaker
and then just sealed up the building. They apparently ran out of funds. Well, here's a little background on on what's going on. And they've got, the good news is ah they're going to and they're gonna start moving forward with the project again, which is nice.
02:01:44
Speaker
Let's hear a little bit from channel eight, I think, or no, somebody. IdeaStream, IdeaStream. Construction of an indoor water park and hotel at the Hall of Fame Village in Canton could soon resume after being in limbo for more than a year. I'm IdeaStream Public Media's Anna Huntsman.
02:02:04
Speaker
Atlanta-based Peachtree Group, an investment and hotel management company, is providing a $70 million dollars loan for the project. It's a commercial property-assessed clean energy, or CPACE, loan that that will be repaid gradually through a special property tax assessment rather than monthly payments.
02:02:19
Speaker
The transaction comes two weeks after the Hall of Fame Village went private, now under the control of longtime investor Stuart Lichter. Crews broke ground on Game Day Bay in 2022, but halted work on the water park two years later due to a lack of funds. Construction on a luxury hotel, which will be a tapestry by Hilton, according to Peachtree Group, has not yet begun.
02:02:40
Speaker
Anna Huntsman, Ideastream Public Media. Stuart. like What you did he do? He licked her. That's weird. That's kind of gross, actually. If you walk other people, just du right in side the face. It's kind of gross.
02:02:52
Speaker
So I like i think that's good news because it's kind of an eyesore. Yeah. And so as as I started reading down the article, started thinking, okay, $70 million dollars loan.
02:03:04
Speaker
So the now the Rockwell Hall of Fame, I knew I was going to do that at least once. The Pro Football Hall of Fame was publicly held? It sounds like it's so, so many articles they say
02:03:18
Speaker
shareholders voted September to go private Hall of Fame resort stock was delisted. it was publicly traded from the NASDAQ. So it's now a privately held company is not publicly traded.
02:03:30
Speaker
And where I stumbled on and their article is they've got a $70 million dollars loan. Where are they getting a loan from? So the loan is a So I'm not sure this is a good thing segment. That's my point.
02:03:46
Speaker
The loan is a is is a commercial property assessment clean energy loan.
02:03:55
Speaker
so What? Yeah. So what is a commercial property assessment, commercial property assessed clean energy? C-PACE. C-PACE.
02:04:06
Speaker
You always got to have an acronym. It is a financial program allowing commercial property owners to fund energy efficient water conservation.
Green Energy Loan Confusion
02:04:17
Speaker
I'll say that again, water conservation and renewable energy upgrades like solar HVAC through a voluntary assessment on their property tax bill. with long-term payment long-term repayment terms, often 20 to 30 years, that transfer with property during a sale, making green investments accessible with no upfront costs.
02:04:45
Speaker
um You know how inefficient it is to heat water? It's not very efficient to heat water. What are they going do at the water park in the wintertime? How much water they would they go through at the water park?
02:04:59
Speaker
How ah green is a water park?
02:05:05
Speaker
its like what' the How the heck did this get passed for a green renewable energy project? It's a water park. It's like the reverse of that, isn't it? i don't.
02:05:16
Speaker
How are they? ah i don't know. ah Is it going to open year round? Yeah. It's indoors, right? It's indoors, right? Seven days a week? i Like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah.
02:05:27
Speaker
It's weird. In the wintertime, you have keep all that water. Are there going be enough people this? It's Akron-Canton area, so it's not just Rock Hall Fame football hall of fame but i don't know i don't know at times yes and there's a hotel though that will help because it will bring people in but ah my my thing is i think it's cool because if you're gonna if you're a sports fan a football fan and you're gonna go to the football hall of fame you could spend a whole day there or more yeah you could spend a couple day hours maybe you know and yeah well there's restaurants and stuff that you can eat there and there's no hotel yet but that's the other part of the project is the hotel which is not part of this 70 million dollars i don't think it's a separate deal because it's separate
02:06:06
Speaker
um Then I looked up, where does the money come from, from the commercial property assessed blah, blah, blah, clean energy? ah So according to ah Google AI, it says it's it's from a private, it's from private capital like green banks.
02:06:22
Speaker
What? Yeah. They get private capital from places like green banks. Oh no. This is like, this is part of the, oh, this is not good. What's a green bank?
02:06:33
Speaker
Cause like, I think, uh, what's the name of the bank that, is green. There's one bank around here is green. I can't remember the end of it now. Are the banks that have their, their colors are green.
02:06:47
Speaker
This is like a whole, a whole part of that whole, uh, is it, wouldn't you call this like the social credit system or whatever you want to call it? Well, call this, I think this would fall under the slush fund.
02:07:00
Speaker
Oh, there, there is something these banks are getting from the federal government. This is, they're not just giving you money for no reason. Yeah, but they're getting the money because they're green. Yeah. but like there's Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes, yes.
02:07:12
Speaker
I forget what it wasn't. As far as business goes, it wasn't called social credit system. It was. Oh, different um yes. ah um I forget what it was called.
02:07:24
Speaker
ESG. Yep. yeah Environmental social governance. Yep. Yeah. That's what this is all about. That's where you get that. Yes. Also, third party, third party financers and private investors or.
02:07:39
Speaker
Some public funding. ah some Some public funding. Some public funding. So if you give the green bank money and then they give it to this, that's privately funded.
02:07:50
Speaker
No, it's that's government money. No, this is a sham. Yeah, because then it says with local governments collecting repayments via property taxes, making it a so a secured long-term loan attached to the property, not the owner. Yep.
02:08:08
Speaker
So, I mean, it's good that they're doing it. I just, thought what I mean, it it doesn't seem like, I mean, actually to your point, Tom, did it may not be, there may not be enough people for this project because they can't get any funding for it.
02:08:21
Speaker
And if people aren't willing to invest in it, it's probably not a great investment. Yep. So there's that. I always wondered how how busy is the, I haven't been there in years, but how busy does the football hall fame really get?
02:08:35
Speaker
i haven't been there in years either, but. the The two times I've been there, I don't remember there being a lot of people in the in the museum and part of it. There's a few times a year when it's, you know, they have events there. though Yeah, yeah. I know that. I know that happens, but.
02:08:50
Speaker
yeah Mainly once a year. Do they want someplace where people can drop off their kids and the adults that are interested in going to see the Hall of Fame go there? i like Yes, that's a good possibility. I mean, the wife and the kids, the wife and the girls, yeah you know, that kind of stuff. They have something else to a little shopping, little stuff. And the boys can go to the Hall of Fame. Yeah, that's a possibility.
02:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. The expansion to me is not- You're right. People would be investing in this if they thought they, if there was something there. Yeah, to your point. Is it really worth it? Maybe just more for, I mean, I don't know. They're trying to make a destination out of it. Boy, this good thing really turned into something else. I said I screwed up from the beginning. I'm sorry.
02:09:34
Speaker
I saw it i went, woo-hoo. I've been busting the chops of anybody lives in Akron. I'm like, what's wrong with your city? why guys you Why can't you guys just build a water park? And they go, I don't know. We suck. So the good thing is they're they're working on it. Bad news is, I mean, they had to pull from some slush fund to get it done, guess.
02:09:50
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway. Not cool. Not cool, but let's at least get that eyesore out of the way. It's just embarrassing. Yeah.
Aaron Stoll's Homecoming Tour
02:09:59
Speaker
Yep. An actual good things segment is a something that you pulled up, Ernie Stoll. Aaron Stoll, excuse me. Aaron Stoll.
02:10:11
Speaker
a local musician. ah She's a country artist here ah from, I think, I believe she's from Akron, somewhere a little south of Cleveland, Cuyahoga.
02:10:23
Speaker
Anyways, she's got a little homecoming tour coming to Wadsworth Square. or i it's called the Celestia Theater. Yep. It's on February 28th.
02:10:36
Speaker
And you if you go to, we'll have a link on the website, wadsworthsquare.org. You can get tickets there. You can find out more info. She's... I found out ah about her on Facebook. We connected on Facebook a couple of years ago.
02:10:52
Speaker
She was looking for a guitar player to tour at the time. And um I was kind of debating it because I was like, should I give this a try? But i she wasn't looking. I'm wrong. She was looking for musicians to tour.
02:11:04
Speaker
And she never stayed guitar player, but I was like, I kind of threw my name out there. Anyways, she wasn't... Looking for a guitar player. I think her and her husband or boyfriend are in the band. He plays guitar.
02:11:18
Speaker
They were looking for musicians. Okay. Remember how we were talking about like, you know the city Cuyahoga is trying to develop a music scene, right? ah Right. Yep. Okay. So this happened a couple of years ago and she was looking for musicians to do a little tour.
02:11:35
Speaker
She had, she put out an album And she wanted to go out on tour for probably you know a few weeks or whatever at a time. Anyways, I don't know, three, four months later, she's announcing she's she put her house up for sale and she she's like, i'm moving to Nashville.
02:11:53
Speaker
And she moved to Nashville. You have to. Yep. that's That's where she couldn't find the musicians to do it. good enough yeah i don't know if she couldn't find good enough musicians. Probably couldn't find a dedicated enough musicians to go on tour with her because she probably, first of all, she probably couldn't afford all that much to pay.
02:12:15
Speaker
And just you just don't have enough people to pick from. I mean, anyway lead delete the the thing that sticks out in this whole story is tickets are $9. $9. Isn't that awesome? That's awesome. And she she moved to Nashville. she This is like a little homecoming tour here. And she won...
02:12:35
Speaker
Uh, Nashville Josie awards. She won, she won 2025 songwriter of the year. And which is awesome. She's right for here from Cleveland. I'm going to play a little clip from the song that caught my attention.
02:12:47
Speaker
Cool.
02:13:00
Speaker
Used to drive my daddy's chef in bright reds to little heels. Nails and hair hauled out, like pulling bass with a zip code reel.
02:13:12
Speaker
I'm a small town homegrown, 45 smoke shawares up in the food docks. I love church bells ringing, crickets singing and dancing on a trumpet or a bus.
02:13:25
Speaker
Nice.
02:13:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think she's right. She's he's kind of a smoke show. Yeah. She's definitely a smoke show. She's, ah you know, it's so funny. Another little thing about her, she's, i see pictures of her and she's this little itty bitty thing, but she's got these massive legs. i was like, man, this girl's really got to watch herself.
02:14:18
Speaker
And here to come find out just a couple of days ago when I went on her site, she's a, she ah competes in um bodybuilding.
02:14:31
Speaker
Okay. So she, she, she's a competitive bodybuilder also. So she's a, she's got a lot of talent. I think she's going to do pretty well in Nashville.
02:14:42
Speaker
Seems like it at least. Sounds good. Yeah. I like this. Yeah. That was definitely catchy. like that. and And that's from her older one. She's got a new record. You could find her on Spotify or wherever. Aaron Stoll.
02:14:54
Speaker
So definitely not Ernie Stoll. Aaron Stoll. Aaron Stoll. That was good. I like that well little, little, uh, musical good stuff for today. And, uh, and, and on a ah nice smoke show moment, smoke show moment.
02:15:08
Speaker
he Yeah. That sounds good. I like to catch you I'm going check that out. And, uh, I think that concludes the show for this week. you know, check us out at crookedrivercast.com.
02:15:22
Speaker
Check out the blog, check out, listen to the show there. Send us a comment, crookedrivercast.com. Let us know what what you think of the show. Let us know where you can help. You got anything going in your area? You need us to talk about, send it our way. We'll take a look and thank you for listening. We appreciate your time.
02:15:43
Speaker
We'll talk to you next week. Peace.