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Crooked River Cast Show 50
63 Plays1 month ago
Crookedrivercast.com
Crookedrivercast@gmail.com
- State Of The Union.
- House Dem “misspoke” on Wexner claim.
- First Energy bribery trial.
- Akron tax payers are shocked they aren’t getting their monies worth.
- Lake County ”officials” warn the sky will fall.
- Cleveland school administrators get raises! LOL
- Ohio under quarantine.
- Cuyahoga Sheriff talks overtime.
- Were Ohio fishermen abducted by aliens?
Good Things
- Women sentenced to Medicaid fraud.
- The last car show a the IX.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Milestone
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crooked Rivercast. I'm Robert and that guy way down yonder, that's Tom. And we are two guys from Northeast Ohio just trying to keep track of what's going on in our state.
00:00:23
Speaker
This is show 50, the Big 5-0, for the week of March 2nd, 2026. And yeah, you guessed it, there is some stuff. Let's discuss it.
00:00:41
Speaker
In the morning, good sir. How are you doing today? I'm doing very well. How you doing? Well, you know, I'm doing okay. Thank you for asking.
Late Night Call from Arizona
00:00:51
Speaker
Although I'm a little perturbed at my father right now.
00:00:55
Speaker
He decided to call me last night from Arizona. On Arizona time. No, I mean, he's he doesn't. There is no such thing as Arizona time. There's just time for my dad.
00:01:09
Speaker
Uh, at this, at his age, at almost 80, he just, yeah, he just calls whenever he doesn't care. And, uh, he forgets, I think, I don't think he remembers all the time. And, uh, no, no, that wasn't the problem. The problem was he was complaining.
00:01:21
Speaker
it's cause it was 94 yesterday and it's just too hot for February. That son of a bitch. I know. That's what I said. i was like, you know, that's mean, mean crap you got going on there, dad. I said, what, how, how could you do that to your, to your favorite son?
00:01:39
Speaker
He said, oh, really? I just claimed it. It has to be true. Yeah, it's going to be, it's a heat wave. It's going to be 90, 94. They might, and Phoenix might hit triple digits.
00:01:52
Speaker
It's dry heat though. But yeah, it's a dry heat. I don't, I'm i'm being sarcastic. i don't Hot is hot. Hot is. Well, 94, it's 94 with low humidity. It's not crazy hot. It's not like 94 here, obviously, but yeah, yeah. But when you're in the sun, it doesn't matter. 94, 84. you're in sun in Phoenix or Vegas, it's, it's fricking hot. That sun's blazing.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I gave him the right act and, uh, I almost hung up on him. No, I'm just kidding. Wouldn't have done that. He doesn't mean, he doesn't mean, it's not like he's doing it on purpose either. That's the funny thing. He's not trying to, he just like yes, man, it's so hot. I go, really?
00:02:31
Speaker
go, yeah. Yeah. Still got snow on the ground, you know, it was a warm day yesterday, but not 94. No, but the end is there. See the light at the end of the a tunnel. Yes.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah. It is there. We are in the downside of winter. And let's just hold on for a bit longer. And before you know, it'll be winter again.
April Snowstorm Memories
00:02:55
Speaker
I think it's only like three more weeks until spring, right? Spring, yeah. Yeah. And then we get a really big snowstorm in April.
00:03:02
Speaker
Hey, it's happened. I got pictures. Yeah. April 28th, man. I don't know how many inches we got, but I couldn't get out of my driveway. it was ah it was a It was a hefty snowfall. It was gone the next day, but there was a lot. I think that's when we were in Vegas. Yeah.
00:03:20
Speaker
Cause you had, didn't your dad have trees that broke limbs and stuff like that? i remember we had a big snowstorm in April. We were in Vegas for the big snowstorm. Like remember work. were you in Vegas for? I had to see my dad.
00:03:31
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yes. That could have been because this is, I'm going to I'm going to go back to about 2004. Yeah. Because I remember the car that got stuck in the driveway. i i couldn't snow blow because this ah the snow was so heavy. Yeah, it was very wet. Yeah, everything was, lines were breaking and limbs were snapping. Yeah, it was april that was April 28th, man.
00:03:53
Speaker
It was one of them because it was, at the time your sister worked at a law or accounting firm and we took vacations like just after the tax season. couldn' She couldn't take them you know for a certain time before them because it's busy season. So we know we we took a lot of vacations that time in April. it It may not have been that one, but there was one that we definitely, we flew to Vegas and and all of a sudden we got hit with this like six or eight inches of super heavy snow. We're like, nice. We're in Vegas, baby.
00:04:20
Speaker
It was 112 here. Whatever it was. Yeah, but you're inside a casino. so Oh, yeah. We're definitely inside a casino and ah trying to keep my money is what I was doing. No.
00:04:32
Speaker
No, that that timeline kind of fits. Yeah, it fits. 2004, that's before my wife and I got married. and Yeah. yeah Yeah. I remember you went to Vegas. I think the next time was like about five years later for the conference, right? Oh, yeah, the photography thing. Yep.
00:04:51
Speaker
ah And then the next one that was we did a good timing was Sandy. When Sandy came rolling through Hurricane Sandy, we were in Florida. Well, we were on a cruise, weren't we? Was that, were you with us that time? That was the cruise?
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. okay yeah, okay, that was with the one. yeah Yeah, that's what, I came back, i was like, we were on the ship, I think, I don't know if it happened while we were on the ship, or, because my wife and I ended up going to Miami for a few days, too.
00:05:15
Speaker
So, whatever, but I was like, oh man, I hope our house is still there. And, ah We got back and all I see is like everything was all right on our our on our property. Our house was fine, but man, trees were twisted.
00:05:31
Speaker
They got twisted and pulled out of the ground. I had our work office I think that was, yeah, so we had no power for like four days.
00:05:43
Speaker
Well, know, nobody had power around it for four days. They stayed open. They hand wrote all the tickets for all the orders they were doing. And then once the power got on, they had to hand enter all the tickets into the system. And I'm thinking, damn, that was good freaking timing, man. It was really good timing.
00:05:56
Speaker
They were running off a generator with flashlights to get orders for customers. I was like, no, Florida was great, guys. But I think at the time we were worried that it was going to clip Florida.
00:06:08
Speaker
And it it pushed off and it went into the East Coast or something. I don't know. And what the hell were we doing going on a cruise at that time? I don't know. That was like February, right?
00:06:19
Speaker
Cheap. Hurricane season is cheaper. but it's not ah But it's not hurricane season. no Whatever. yeah Memories are... Get foggy. Yeah. Oh, yes, definitely. as The show might be getting a little bit foggy because it's already 50.
State of the Union Analysis
00:06:36
Speaker
the big five-oh today this show the big five-oh almost a year almost as old as me
00:06:45
Speaker
not really but you know in show years show years so we had a uh had a busy busy week as we normally do but even busier because we had state of the union state of the union and did you watch it live I didn't watch it live. i watched the I listened to it the next day.
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah. I did not watch it live either. I'm not sure why. I just don't and like watching those things live. Oh, I would have watched it. i just I'm in bed by that time. That's the other thing, too. I get up at four.
00:07:16
Speaker
By the time Trump gets in there and they do all the shenanigans, it's like, you I'm starting to doze off on the couch. But yeah I think this one would have kept us ah awake a little more than usual. It was good.
00:07:29
Speaker
I mean, where does he get the energy? My gosh, he was screaming. Was it an out hour and 46 minutes, right? He was out shouting the applause. he was over-modulating the mic. I mean, he the mic was cutting out on him. He was screaming so loud into it.
00:07:46
Speaker
They got that dosage better than they had it for Biden. Well, yes, definitely high-T speech, to put it that way. High-T speech for sure.
00:07:57
Speaker
So I figured we could start with some of the highlights and some of the things that people have seen before, probably maybe heard before, and especially this one, this first one we're going to, you know, we'll start with the the the big one, which is the the shouting match with with Omar.
00:08:17
Speaker
Oh, that was silly. And if you notice, if you watch the the video, you notice we're very early on in that clip or that that part of the speech, Johnson gets up from the back, he pulls his mic up, and he's about to interrupt and say andt tell her to you know get shut up, basically.
00:08:34
Speaker
But he never has to because Trump shows him how to handle these low IQ people. So let's see what he has to say. You know, I thought there were, and I was listening to it first, I thought, I thought there was something missing and you know, as well, maybe we'll you guys will see, ill I'll add, you know, i thought maybe we could have a little, a little extra production might've been good. So we'll see what I can do.
00:09:00
Speaker
Isn't that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens.
00:09:20
Speaker
In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country, they're blocking the removal of these people out of our country, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
00:09:38
Speaker
but There was something missing, I told you. It was much better that way. I've been waiting to use that sound effect for a while. For a
Rob Schneider's Immigration Commentary
00:09:46
Speaker
couple weeks. Like, this perfect spot. But,
00:09:50
Speaker
This is how you handle somebody who's trying to shout you down from, you just out overshoot, overshot them. And he definitely showed you how to handle low IQ.
00:10:01
Speaker
And I think, ah I think we can hear from maybe this guy here. this This is ah Rob Schneider, you the comedian Rob Schneider. Yeah. Yeah. I saw this clip come through and i'm like, you know what? This is this is true. look Look how great America is.
00:10:16
Speaker
This is how great America is. They can send even the worst. Starting to think Somalia is not sending us their best.
00:10:32
Speaker
Who is letting their kids be watched by Somalian? Didn't anybody see Captain Phillips, that Tom Hanks movie? They're f***ing pirates. We are taking over the and the childcare center. F***, we're doing both.
00:10:50
Speaker
That's how amazing this country is, though, think about it. Yeah, amazing. You can come over here from Somalia. You don't even have to be here, you know, legally. You can just marry your brother.
00:11:02
Speaker
want What an amazing country. And you can open up a childcare center, a layering center.
00:11:12
Speaker
You don't even have to have kids. It's the best part. You just get the money.
00:11:19
Speaker
Oh, Omar, that's a fool. You are. ah letter Yeah. it's a murderer That's what she was saying. it was It was good optics for the Republicans.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah. was I mean, because you're not going to change the mind of, you know, the ah far lefties. But the centrist is going to sit there and look at that and go, oh, wait, she's crazy.
00:11:44
Speaker
And that was right. you know So he comes up and says, hey, affirm or stand if you agree that the first job of the American government is protect the people, citizens of America. That was it That was awesome. And no nobody said that's, that was the, after that, after the applause, I mean like two minutes of applause from the Republican side and, and there are a lot of other places, but and you know, up in the rafters and stuff, they have all the people that the president invites and stuff. So, and then he goes into this thing where he's, uh,
00:12:19
Speaker
I mean, just complete, utter foolishness, I think, was how it, but then comes on. It gets a little bit better. Let's finish rest this clip, because he goes on to ah to pick on some other people and ah you know ask for maybe some common sense legislation.
Congress Insider Trading Ban Debate
00:12:38
Speaker
Let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information. This is good. This is good.
00:12:52
Speaker
They stood up for that. I can't believe it.
00:12:57
Speaker
I can't believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up if she's here? ah Doubt it. Pass the Stop pass Insider Trading Act without delay.
00:13:13
Speaker
Will it pass? I don't think so. Hell no, it's not going to pass. But I would really like to see a go up for a vote. Man, I'd like to see a go up for a vote. Just to see who's who's a yay and who's an a nay, because that'd be pretty interesting. but how do you How do you, I mean, like, how does that, how would that even work, though? It might even pass because there's no way to really enforce it.
00:13:39
Speaker
You can make it a lot harder. yeah I guess. If you can't use your name or your kid's name or your cousin or your sister or whoever, if they can't, and that would I mean, geez, could you imagine the hardship? Oh, this hardship.
00:13:55
Speaker
Your sister is now a congressperson and you can't invest in anything that she does. think that's pretty cool, actually Maybe not, but... No, I don't think that's right, actually. I know, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek, but it would kind of impede on some other people, but... It might make them get out of office quicker. Yeah.
00:14:17
Speaker
you know, there, before Biden got in office, there I can't remember the book now, it but it was basically about this. And it went through both sides, Republicans, Democrats, ah Mitch McConnell's wife is, i think he married her and she owns or family owned a shipping company in China. They do inter Chinese shipping, like from one port to China, another purchase, something like that.
00:14:39
Speaker
And his, his, this, this company has grown. um The Chinese government's given them loans and like give, you know, bought them or extended loans for they can buy ships, staff the ships with people, this and that. And all this happened right after he got in office.
00:14:56
Speaker
So this goes both sides. But Biden, from this from according to this book, he normal politician has one or two people, usually one person that you can kind of look at and go, ah they might be, I think they're buying off of what, you know, their so-and-so relative is doing in in Congress.
00:15:12
Speaker
Biden had five. a his brother, his brother was, uh, was a big one. I think he got appointed to a major construction company.
00:15:22
Speaker
And then three months later or something like that, they got a billion dollar contract to rebuild parts of Iraq. Yeah. So it, i don't, I don't think it's going to pass. There's no way it's like them not passing a race for themselves. Like, well, to be honest, to be honest, I mean, we bitch about like Democrats, but just as many Republicans are doing the same thing.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I picked on Mitch McConnell. Ah, well, okay. yeah I mean, that just, and Nancy Pelosi, look at look at her, look at how much she's worth. Well, Nancy, but I mean, I'm talking about some of the younger. Dan Crenshaw is like really profiting right now. There's a bunch there's a bunch of them. Yeah, it's both sides.
00:16:02
Speaker
And if you listen to somebody like Massey, I think he was on Tim Pool at one point when it went through, was it Tom? No, was was it wasn't Massey, it was the guy who got was going to be head of the DOJ. Oh,
00:16:19
Speaker
gosh darn it. He's in Florida. Anyway. He was my favorite congressman. Yeah. Why can't I think of his name? He was on pool and he basically went- Gates. Gates. Matt Gates. He went through the, know, okay, they sit you down as a junior congressperson and they say, Republican Party is on one side and lobbyists on the other. And the Republican Party tells you, you need to get on these committees, you need to donate to the party amount.
00:16:41
Speaker
Literally a shopping list was put in front of him, he says, and said, this committee is this much money. This committee is that much money. He's like, where am i I get it from? He goes, well, conveniently enough, the guy on your right or the other side of you, he's a lobbyist and he's willing to give you money to get on these committees.
00:16:58
Speaker
And this is how, so a lot of it is if you want to be a player, you have to play the game. Now, somebody like Massey said, and I think Gates was similar. he had, yes, I'm on committees.
00:17:10
Speaker
I went back to my donors and said, if you want me on these committees, you got to give me more money. And a lot of them did. And you need to get on some committees, but he still had to pay the party. That's the Republican party.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yep. Democrats are, I would only imagine, just way more just way better at it than the Republicans. Always. Always. They're just, yeah. there's So there's that. most That bill's never going to pass. But hey, we could always hope. One could always hope.
00:17:36
Speaker
Nothing's going to pass from now on. Oh, from here on out? Because of midterms and then after the midterms, depending on what happens, kind of know going to happen. But it's probably going to be gridlock for the next couple of years. Yay.
00:17:48
Speaker
In a way, that's... okay but not if you want done. It's just bunch of shenanigans. Shenanigans, you say? swear to God, I'll pistol whip the next guy that says shenanigans.
00:18:01
Speaker
swear. Go down to the next. This might be the my my favorite clip from the speech because... um
00:18:11
Speaker
it He speaks the truth and they'll by the look on his face, he was definitely speaking the truth. I kept a lot of this context in because I want to make sure that people listening, if they haven't heard the actual speech, know what he's talking about and how he laid it out and then what happened afterwards.
00:18:28
Speaker
you know After he laid it out and then the applause came and who didn't applaud. So think about, when you're listening to this, think about the bill we talked about. what was it last week, I think? a Bill 6-9-3. To protect parents from the state taking away your kid if if you affirm the kid's sex and not their biological gender, or but ah their biological sex, and not affirm their gender identity.
00:18:57
Speaker
That's kind of the bill we talked about last week. Well, this kind of goes to that.
Parental Rights and Gender Transition Debate
00:19:01
Speaker
In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy.
00:19:13
Speaker
A left wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because left they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all-boys, stayed home, and suffered terribly for a long time.
00:19:30
Speaker
But today, all of that is behind them because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full-ride scholarship to Liberty University.
00:19:41
Speaker
Sage and Michelle, please stand up. But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents' arms and transition them early to a new gender against the parents' will. Who would believe that we're even talking about this?
00:19:56
Speaker
We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately. Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. I'm telling you, they're crazy. Yeah. we're We're lucky we have a country. With people like this, Democrats are destroying our country, but we've stopped it just in the nick of time, didn't we? have
00:20:17
Speaker
Yes, he speaks the truth. These people are crazy. You know what New York came out in them when he said that? These people are crazy over here. I mean, that's Boston, but... Yeah. I don't know. As a parent that just infuriates me just a little bit.
00:20:36
Speaker
That's probably my favorite one. he just looked hit The look on his face as he pointed over there, it was like he was pissed. like I can't believe you didn't stand for that. my gosh. Surely we can agree, Tom. Surely we can.
00:20:49
Speaker
Not surprising though right? Not surprising. No, they can't stand for anything. I mean, did they stand for anything that was like, Would have been like 99% to 0% to 1%.
00:21:03
Speaker
No, they didn't even stand for the SAVE Act when he talked about the SAVE Act. That's like an 80 some percent. I think he even says it in his speech. That's like an 83% approval rating amongst the Americans.
00:21:14
Speaker
I'm even talking about like when he ah awarded people medals and stuff. Yes. when I mean, enough the I don't, did they stand for the, I didn't watch it. So I just listened to it, but I, from what I hear, they didn't even stand for the Olympic team.
00:21:31
Speaker
Some of them did. There was a mix. oh oh Oh, some of them. Yeah. Some would say, I think some of, some were saying it was about a third or so that didn't stand for the Olympic team. that That's pretty gross, man.
00:21:42
Speaker
But the sad part really is when they're talking about the the illegals or the the border stuff, you know, he's talking about a kid who got crushed by a semi who they didn't think would live or walk. And she's up in the stands with her father.
00:21:59
Speaker
talking about making sure the states like California can't just give a legal driver's license and they didn't stand for that. Okay. Yeah. They don't stand for, but the problem, what some people were noticing is some Democrats were kind of looking around, like almost for, if you're going to stand, I'm going to stand, you know?
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. They, some of them do do that. think that So they knew some of them could tell this was not good, but they weren't going to stand because they would get their nose cut off. The speech was pretty good. And actually,
00:22:29
Speaker
The, um, I guess you could say the, the optics were even better. Uh, the, the, uh, game plan, I guess was even better. was just to make them look like absurd people.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty obvious. Um, yeah, obvious that and a lot of these, it's just, man, they don't care. They just don't care. It's, I mean, TDS. It's so crazy.
00:22:55
Speaker
Next, let's try some, let's, well, I'm going to consider these kind of deep cuts from the speech because I couldn't find a lot of these. You know, you look on YouTube and stuff and you look for Trump's speech and you see a lot of what we just played, the the trans part or the heartwarming stuff, the Medal of Honor stuff. And, um,
00:23:13
Speaker
shouting it with omar and stuff this is this is like kind of a little little bit of meat there's a little actual policy here and and if somebody says oh well he didn't really talk about much well i think he actually brings up a couple things here that you know a couple of wins maybe some some stuff you've heard before but you know this a good chance to uh you know tell the the american people maybe some people who don't really pay attention much what's going on so deep cuts That's why I introduced the great health care plan. I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost.
00:23:54
Speaker
Under my just enacted most favored nation agreements, Americans, who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs, will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs. Anywhere. The lowest price. anywhere Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new Rate Payer Protection Pledge. you know what that is?
00:24:22
Speaker
We're telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs. They can build their own power plants as part of their factory so that no one's prices will go up.
00:24:33
Speaker
And in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community and very substantially down. Last month, I signed executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms from buying up in the thousands single family homes.
00:24:49
Speaker
We want homes for people, not for corporations. Corporations are doing just fine.
00:24:56
Speaker
I kind of like that. that of that That bill, talking about the making the data centers and tech companies build their own power plants, would be huge for Ohio. o It's a major problem we're having here. and as everybody's If you've listened this show more than a few weeks, you've heard us talk about it, and you've maybe we've heard about it in the news.
00:25:17
Speaker
And they're, yeah, they're showing up everywhere and they're not necessarily always a good thing. Never.
00:25:27
Speaker
But I think we can end it. He ended it very well. I just loved hearing this kind of stuff from somebody who, when they say it, i actually believe that they mean it. and like Maybe I'm just, maybe I just bought into all the propaganda, but...
00:25:43
Speaker
You could say a lot about Donald Trump. the The one thing that infuriates me the most is that he doesn't love America. There's there's you know there's people on the left that like he he hates the country. And I'm like, I don't know how, what in the last 50 years of Trump being in the public eye would make you think that he doesn't like America? it's He's the most pro-American person, almost to the point where he makes you want to puke it about it. but don't they Don't they say that because he doesn't love, um ah they they try to lump the immigrants in.
00:26:14
Speaker
Right. Well, yeah. I think that's what they're doing most of the time. I think it's i just always attest. I always make it to me. It's it's projection. It's just projection because they don't like America.
00:26:26
Speaker
yeah they They can't stand it. Yeah. So let's hear how it ended. and I just, just, you know, always good. Good to end it on a positive and, and kind of bring it back to what really matters.
Optimism in American Future
00:26:37
Speaker
And when God needs a nation to work his miracles, he knows exactly who to ask. There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer, no dream too bold for us to chase.
00:26:55
Speaker
no horizon too distant for us to claim. For our destiny is written by the hand of providence, and these first 250 years were just the beginning. The golden age of America is upon us. The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended.
00:27:16
Speaker
It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot. And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before.
00:27:32
Speaker
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America.
00:27:41
Speaker
Bravo. Nice ending. e
00:27:45
Speaker
So good speech. We we agree. we We like the speech. Had some good meat in it. Had some had some good planning and kind of, so you know, make the other side look pretty petty. I gave it a solid eight.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. Solid eight. I would say with the energy, don't know, in the way he kept bringing people in and just bring it. I mean, the bringing in the,
00:28:06
Speaker
Bringing men's hockey team was awesome. Just having them flood in there. And then, I mean, he he was just, he was so proud. You could tell he was just screaming. He was like, dude, you can't, you know, it's almost making it worse because you the clip isn't like you're clipping the mic. it was crazy. I couldn't believe it, but not everybody liked it. tom Not everybody liked it.
00:28:27
Speaker
Unfortunately, we got to bust some bubbles here and there's some people that, Had a different outlook on the speech and let's list this man on the street. I think this is the daily wire clip from X that I got.
00:28:40
Speaker
I just asked people what they thought about the speech, but maybe there's a kicker at the end. Maybe we can catch it at the end if you can. Here it is. Rate Trump, State of the Union speech, one out 10. One's the worst, 10's the best.
00:28:55
Speaker
Negatives. And why?
00:28:59
Speaker
I think we all know for lot of reasons. What about the State of the Union last night? One to ten. It was like one or two minutes on level of place. I'm gonna give it a one. And why do you say one? just, I don't think he's very articulate. How did Trump do at the State of the Union?
00:29:15
Speaker
I'll be didn't know why I said it. was a Zero. Like, yeah, I didn't really watch it much. I watched it for a little bit, but... The State of the Union last night. How how was that? One to ten.
00:29:27
Speaker
No, it's outside. That was tomorrow. No, you're good. You passed the test. Good job. Did you catch it? yeah Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's tomorrow. Yeah, I cut the beginning off. hey Oh, okay. College kids are telling us Trump's state the union didn't go so well. The only problem, it's tomorrow.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah there were there was there was another one. I think there was another one similar to that. Oh, sorry. I only watched it. It didn't have the music on there, which was, which is sometimes a little bit better because you don't know which way it's going.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Uh, yeah. That's, I'll tell you the truth i only watched a little bit of it. Oh, that's funny. And then not everybody was, was happy with the speech even before they, even before he spoke, they didn't like it. I can't, it's almost like they've got some disease, mental disorder.
00:30:19
Speaker
So tell us what you think about the speech maybe. Tell us what um but we missed. Are there any parts that we should be talking about? Let us know what you think about the show. Share the show.
00:30:31
Speaker
Comment on your favorite podcast app and tell everybody how great the show is. And ah tell your friends. Share the show. Really appreciate it. You listening and and send us some feedback. CrookedRiverCast.com. You can check out the blog.
00:30:45
Speaker
every Monday when the show drops and then send us a line at crooked river cast at gmail.com. You know, tell us, uh, tell us about shenanigans in your area for your, uh, for your local government. Give us some, uh, some boots on the ground reporting really help out.
00:31:01
Speaker
And then, uh, you could always find us on X. mil love cooker Try to find me an X. If you dare. And, uh, appreciate you listening.
00:31:14
Speaker
All right, next, let's click that one. State the Union, that'd be quite a lengthy one, but there's a lot there. It's pretty good stuff. Next, we've got to go, ah maybe follow up from last week's story.
00:31:25
Speaker
ah Dem, house I think it was a House member, yeah, House oversight Democrat, misspoke about Wexner and his claim that Wexner gave wexter gave Epstein a billion dollars or paid him a billion dollars.
00:31:44
Speaker
And you even brought up that. That doesn't sound right. It was like some a lot of money. And I said, well, I mean, it is a lot of money, but I think 30, 40 years, you'd think maybe, you know from the 80s, 45 years, it's, you know, you could, you could, print but that's a lot of money. It's definitely a lot of money.
00:31:58
Speaker
Now, I don't, he was wrong about giving Epstein a billion dollars or paying Epstein a billion dollars, but he might be right on about some of the rest of the stuff that we were talking about. But here's the, uh, here's the clip from them misspoke and it'll go into a little bit and maybe we'll hit some, uh, some points on it because they, uh, they do kind of shed some light into the deposition or the interview that they did with them. And what do you have to say? This is, this is from oh ABC six. I think out of Columbus.
00:32:31
Speaker
The only mention of a billion dollars we have found in the deposition was related to stocks Epstein handled. The report indicates that it was from the deposition more than or around $1.3 billion dollars of stock that Epstein moved around that way. Not that he kept all of that money for himself, but the total amount of stock sales was over a billion dollars. You have no knowledge or awareness of that.
00:32:59
Speaker
I don't know the amounts. Federal prosecutors talked about Epstein's wealth in a 2019 memo released as part of the Epstein files. and They wrote virtually all of his money appeared to have come from fees he paid himself for managing Wexner's money, along with money Epstein misappropriated or stole from Wexner.
00:33:20
Speaker
Wexner told the committee he was not sure exactly how much money Epstein took. Through all of this, Wexner has repeatedly said he knew nothing about Epstein's crimes. He told the committee he was duped by a con man.
00:33:36
Speaker
So why, if Wexner is funding actively, willingly funding Epstein, why is Epstein stealing from him? I mean, not that he couldn't do that, but it seems against Epstein.
00:33:51
Speaker
what they're saying about Wexner to to some extent. But they are they're prosecutors from back in, you know, whatever, 20, what did they say, 2019 or 2014 or something? They were saying that most of Epstein's funding came from Wexner's fees of his money that he was handling. him
00:34:10
Speaker
know. It seems like he was one of the ones mainly funding Epstein. Maybe not willingly, but he was handling a bunch of his money, wasn't he?
00:34:19
Speaker
I don't exactly know what he was doing. Well, according the prosecutors, they're saying they're saying what they found, again, I think it was at least 10 years ago, eight, 10 years ago, something like that, that he was funding most Epstein. he investing for Wexner? and Yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker
So Wexner, he gave him, that's the billion dollars. That's where the confusion comes. He didn't give him a billion. He didn't pay him a billion dollars, but he was... he was managing over a billion dollars of Wexner's investments.
00:34:48
Speaker
And then he was getting fees on that. and they're saying that was the biggest, the biggest contributor to Epstein was this investment or these investments that he was running. And he was also stealing or misappropriating.
00:35:01
Speaker
He's probably skimming. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. That's what we're seeing So I don't know. I kind of, and then once he found out, that's kind of when he pulled it in 2007 they're thinking maybe about a hundred million dollars.
00:35:14
Speaker
Right. was Was stolen or given or paid in fees or whatever. Hey, you want to come to Whore Island? I'm going to take a little extra here for you. pe Maybe.
00:35:26
Speaker
Might be. We don't know. I i don't, there's no, it might be guilty by association at this point, but I could tell you one thing. I was down to Columbus this week and I think I counted six buildings with Wexner on the side.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah. He's, he's given a lot of money to the, how much is he worth? and never really heard. I know he's a billionaire. How much is he worth? It's gotta be multiple bill. I mean, if he gave Epstein a billion three to play with, essentially, i always think he's worth multiple billions.
00:36:03
Speaker
Uh, and if he's given, and does not say in the, in the art, that that is interesting. It's gotta be,
00:36:13
Speaker
Upwards, yeah, it doesn't it doesn't say. How would you put that in there? I am checking in with Grok. Oh, what does Grok have to say? Robot? ah Estimated $9 to $11 billion.
00:36:25
Speaker
Okay, yeah, so theyre multiple, depending on which way the stocks swing in that day. Yeah, yeah, ah Forbes has them at $8.8 to $9.1. They're a little bit more.
00:36:39
Speaker
And Bloomberg ah puts them at $10.8.
00:36:44
Speaker
billion imagine Imagine being that rich, Tom. Somebody stole tens of millions of dollars from you and you're like, yeah, I'm not even sure how much he stole. Yeah, I, it's crazy.
00:36:59
Speaker
The guy can give, uh, give away like, well, he could give away a couple of billion and not even really feel anything. Yeah, I mean, he was, he was, skilled not that he has that cash. I mean, it's all, sure it's, yeah, it's all investments and businesses and what he's got four or five businesses that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars each.
00:37:19
Speaker
Right. That's a big part of it. But I don't know. There's plenty, ah plenty of stuff going on. i just I'm just not sure what this guy, I know. It's hard to, Again, if you're going to accuse somebody of this, I i really to hope you bring some evidence because right now there really isn't any.
00:37:37
Speaker
There really isn't any. But at least want to say they're trying to trying to get a hold of the congressperson, but he just doesn't want to talk. he's just going to say, we misspoke. i think they're they said I don't think they misspoke. I think they said exactly what they wanted to say.
00:37:53
Speaker
And hoping nobody nobody called them out on it.
00:37:59
Speaker
Enough of that one. i think that there's a clip of ah Wexner's attorney leaning over and saying, if you say more than five words again, I'm going to fucking kill you myself.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yep. yeah
00:38:16
Speaker
And the fact that he's willing to talk, I think would show, i don't know if he was, if if he had something to hide, i'm not sure he'd be talking, but that is a rosy outlook, I guess.
00:38:28
Speaker
Next, that the next story is one I've been looking at from afar, and i think I know why now. sir First energy bribery trial is going on. And here's all you need in ah here's one here's the first thing you did not all you needed here's the first thing you need to know about this trial.
00:38:46
Speaker
It's in week three, and they expect it to go five to eight more weeks.
First Energy Bribery Trial Overview
00:38:53
Speaker
Wow. Drag it out any longer, lawyers, can you? um So First Energy is um it's been in some hot water for the past few years since the, we talked about in early shows, HB6, because they're they were in the middle, I think when we started this show, they were in the process of repealing the last little bit.
00:39:12
Speaker
And honestly, one of the reasons I... Can you follow this story? No. Yeah, that's part of the issue. I know a lot about it, and I i know enough to just confuse the crap out of myself, I think.
00:39:24
Speaker
so first It's all over the place. When I read this, it's kind of... Yeah, it's it's it's such a convoluted... just so many players, so many names. and and That and lot of the... I think one of these ah write-ups... It's basically a smear campaign.
00:39:41
Speaker
If you ask me, I mean, it's just a way to smear youa Houston, Husted, whatever. Well, if you look at both of these, if you look at the bottom of these, so one's Ohio Capital Journal, the other one's News 5.
00:39:58
Speaker
So News 5 is, of course, Morgan Chow. ah And the Ohio Capital Journal is, yep, Morgan Yeah. And well, the one article is definitely, she doesn't say anything. i mean, it's just, it's just all just negative against Houston, but without any meat.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah. The channel five one is a shorter one. I think that that's really there. Cause the clip is interesting yeah to me.
00:40:29
Speaker
I mean, the text messages that you're talking about are pretty pretty damning. let's Let's hold on. let's Not damning, but they're interesting. They're they're they're curious. They make me think, hmm.
00:40:40
Speaker
Let's just try it. See if we can get break this down to 30,000 review. So... First Energy, this 2019, 2018, maybe, they're having problems. they're They're, according to the court records, they're hemorrhaging money, they're bleeding money for whatever reason, and they're looking for an out. They're looking at a hundred like $150 million dollars loss that year or in the coming year, and they're looking for an out. They decided, it seems to me, to try to influence the the pick for the regulatory committee that overlooks the utilities in Ohio, the POCU.
00:41:17
Speaker
um And they got this guy Randazzo put in. Randazzo was a consultant for companies that work for or with First Energy along with First Energy.
00:41:31
Speaker
So First Energy knew who he was and they pushed legislators and the governor to appoint this guy. Even though people were putting pushing it like, ah, there's some conflict of interest here.
00:41:44
Speaker
And they pushed and pushed and pushed. And what ended up, I guess, happening was there's some bribery going on. Now, apparently I've heard a couple of people say that First Energy as basically admitted to the bribery.
00:41:59
Speaker
But in this case, the jurors do not know that, or they they have not been told that whether they know or not, who knows, but they have not been formally told that in the case. But $61 million dollars went to, so now look at, it's interesting that these stories are slightly different in in kind of significant ways, like you're saying, but both written by the same person, Morgan.
00:42:24
Speaker
In the one, are in the clip, she says, well, we'll we'll hear it. Let's just hear the clip and see before we go any further. But there's there's been a bribery going on. They're saying it's like $61 million that went to householder who's now serving 20 years. He's two or three years into a 20-year sentence.
00:42:41
Speaker
There's another one that went to prison. I couldn't find his name this morning or yesterday, but he's already out. He had five years and he was out on parole. um Who's on trial?
00:42:53
Speaker
Mike Dowling, who's a senior who was the senior president of ah First Energy, and Chuck Jones, who was the CEO. They're the ones that were pushing to get Randazzo in as the ah the head of the the chair of the regulatory committee. And then they he can push...
00:43:13
Speaker
he can push for rate increases or if in some cases, if the, if the utility is making more money because of what, for whatever reason the raw energy went down or depends, they, the, the regulatory committee will say you have to lower your rates.
00:43:30
Speaker
You can't make excess profits. It's part of the regulatory. So it sounds like that's kind of what they wanted Randazzle to do was to look away from, he kind of dismissed the judgment that there were, that could have lowered the rates and that way first energy would not have made as many, much profits.
00:43:50
Speaker
And then what happens when you don't make as much, as much profit or if you, if you hit your, if you miss your, your profit outlook or your profit, what you claim your profits going to be that quarter or that year, what usually happens?
00:44:05
Speaker
your stock price goes down, right? Yeah. I mean, isn't it your duty
00:44:15
Speaker
you know, if you're publicly traded to meet your Profits. Yes. Yeah. So they, some of the text messages, one of the one text messages I saw, more than one, but the first one I saw was, think Chuck Jones, the CEO, sending Randazzo a text with a picture of the stock price saying, my mom always taught me to say thank you.
00:44:39
Speaker
As he's got a screenshot of the first energy stock going up. But when the stock goes up and if you exceed your numbers and the stock goes up even higher, usually the CEOs, those board members, their compensation is tied to those stock prices.
00:44:54
Speaker
That sound about right? Yeah. So yeah, yeah it is it is their duty and it's their in their financial, it benefits them to have the stock price go up. Their fiduciary.
00:45:07
Speaker
It is their fiduciary responsibility, but also it does line their pockets if it goes up even more. So there's... They're saying they paid Randazzo this money because it was a a payment for a consulting to pay an agreement or a settlement for consulting. And then when they, when they're, now they're looking at the consulting agreement and they're saying it was so convoluted. There's nobody can tell how this was actually supposed to go down. And they think it was intentional.
00:45:35
Speaker
Like this, this consulting agreement Randazzo was just a jumble of words and mess. It didn't make any sense. was just kind of there as a placeholder. think that's kind of of a rundown. i don't know.
00:45:47
Speaker
um Am I missing anything?
00:45:51
Speaker
Oh,
00:45:54
Speaker
so so Neil Clark was another. So just so like five people are indicted here, five or six people. Two of them already killed themselves. So Randazzo, he pled not guilty and then a little bit later he he yeed he committed suicide.
00:46:07
Speaker
Neil Clark is a lobbyist accused of bribery. He died of suicide after pleading guilty also in 2001. Householder has now been sitting in prison for two years of his 20-year sentence.
00:46:18
Speaker
Are we putting suicide in quotes?
00:46:24
Speaker
but Is there any type of weirdness there? i I don't know. i i'm I'm sincerely asking. oh I gotcha. I got what you're saying. I don't i don't know. um They are blaming Randazzo for everything. so yeah Are we at that level? I'm not sure.
00:46:41
Speaker
We might be. might be. Are the Clintons involved anywhere?
00:46:49
Speaker
If that's the case, that would totally change my mind. and the Does Chuck Jones, are they friends with Hillary or Bill? I don't know. They could be.
00:46:58
Speaker
Let's see what else. Then... um There's another guy, Borges, is on parole after serving half his term. And they, Chuck Jones and Mike Dowling, face nearly a dozen state charges, ranging from bribery to corruption activity.
00:47:15
Speaker
and And now a federal grand jury's indicted them for racketeering in January of last year. Let's hear a little bit from Morgan on this bribery thing. For years, we've been uncovering the close ties between First Energy and major political players, now playing out in a Summit County
Lieutenant Governor's First Energy Connections
00:47:33
Speaker
courtroom. He had access to John Hustedt, the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Ohio.
00:47:39
Speaker
Including now U.S. Senator John Hustedt's relationship with former First Energy executives Chuck Jones and Mike Dowling. and former Public Utilities Commission Chair Sam Randazzo. Jones and Dowling are currently on trial for corruption while Randazzo took his own life after being charged. Houston has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but Euclid Democrat Ken Smith points out their closeness. He's always been an advocate for First Energy and First Energy was perhaps the most poorly run company in the state of Ohio. Tax messages from our public records request show that the executive spent at least $3.5 million dollars through dark money groups to help Houston's campaign. He was also in communication with them about House Bill 6, where First Energy spent $61 million dollars to get legislation giving them a billion-dollar bailout. Early on Dowling emailed Jones that he had left the details of HB6 to Houston.
00:48:34
Speaker
A brand new records request shows us Houston's calendar from 2019. And two days before HB6 was introduced, Houston had a scheduled meeting with Randazzo, the bill drafter, and call logs showed dozens of conversations.
00:48:48
Speaker
Throughout the hearing process, Houston had reported more meetings relating to energy policy than any other topic or bill on his calendar. And when the Senate was holding up HB 6's passage, Jones texted Householder saying, Houston called me two nights ago and was supposed to get it in the Senate version. Householder responded, he's not a legislator. Jones responded, I know, but he said Senate leaders would listen. John Houston seems to have been...
00:49:14
Speaker
First Energy's elected official of choice. Husted also met with House Speaker Larry Householder, now serving time for bribery. Some of that communication happened during failed attempts to repeal the bill. We tried to ask Husted about this, but he hasn't responded. But back in 2024, when we discovered the test, this is kind of he said this. weird Why should people believe you that you didn't know about this scheme?
00:49:38
Speaker
Well, first of all, we'd be at an energy deficit today. So it's important that they were saved. But that has nothing to do with the text about the bribery scheme. i I don't know what you're talking about. Back to the trial going on now in Summit County. The defense called a meeting with Houston above four. This is a very typical thing that politicians do at the end of a campaign. They meet with their supporters and thank them for their support. John's always been a really good friend of First Energy. With friends like that, I don't know if you need enemies.
00:50:08
Speaker
Hold on a second, we pause that. There's one more ending. There's a kicker at the end here. ah is ah Is it marching orders or is it thanking them? Not sure. Could be either. So Houston, mom's the word for Houston.
00:50:22
Speaker
But listen here, DeWine's all for, you know, talking. Houston is listed and as a witness for the defense and he may be testifying in the coming weeks.
00:50:34
Speaker
right, Morgan, there had to be other names in there. What other big names have been mentioned? Who could it be? Yeah, well, other than him, the biggest is Governor Mike DeWine. And he is also set to take the stand if they call him. I asked him if he's ready, and he says that he's prepared to tell everything he can remember. Hey, there's something off-way school going on around here He's all willing to tell you you, know, what he can remember. He's old now.
00:51:03
Speaker
He's old. He forgets things.
00:51:08
Speaker
I mean, there's there's some smoke there. You think? I don't. I don't know.
00:51:18
Speaker
Do I think? I still don't. What were the texts? They're talking back and forth about Houston said that he could, who Houston's going to get it in the bill, but Houston's not a legislature. Yeah, but he said that they would listen to him.
00:51:32
Speaker
So they're pushing, they're pushing for HB6. And again, remember the context, First Energy has already admitted to bribery.
00:51:43
Speaker
So $61 million went Householder. to householder where did that money go? Why is it 61 million? Is it weird to me that I, that 61 sticks out?
00:51:54
Speaker
Like if you're going bribe somebody, do you like 60 million? No, I'm not going to anything less than 61. No, that sounds to me like they're trying to bribe a bunch of people and it added up to $61 million. dollars
00:52:05
Speaker
Where'd the money go?
00:52:09
Speaker
Now I will say, what does Morgan mean by dark money groups? What the heck is that? Well, I looked that up actually. And that's usually refers to like, oh, there was like, hacks i mean yeah, let me, let me go back to, uh, yeah, exactly. Not packs. Exactly. It could be charities.
00:52:29
Speaker
Like just, uh, hang on. That'd be nice to have an example of a dark money group. If you're just going say this, this, it did have examples. Dark money group. That's what I heard.
00:52:41
Speaker
Seems a little vague to me. Give me an example of one. And then, but I don't know. And then his reaction to her question was kind of, that was weird.
00:52:53
Speaker
ah What are you talking about? Oh, okay. So here's here's like dark money groups, what they can consider them. 501c4, social welfare organizations. 501c6, trade associations or business leagues.
00:53:10
Speaker
Sometimes 501c5, labor unions or similar entities. And...
00:53:19
Speaker
Why is it dark money? ah Because it's hard to trace. Because it goes into a fund, yeah. It goes into an organization. Yeah, it's hard to know what's actually going on because it's going through something else. Yeah, but that's a way of laundering, I guess, in a way. Yeah, well. Not really. I mean, not that, but.
00:53:36
Speaker
Not necessarily. It can, yes. You could get some, but then dark money groups. That's just BS, in my opinion. PAX. Yeah, no, it's it's just made to sound. Yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
Vague and sinister. vague and sinister. But you don't think there's anything here? Sound like you're you're not you're not buying any of it. That Houston did anything wrong or DeWine did anything wrong?
00:54:01
Speaker
mean, he DeWine appointed Randazzo. Did they do anything wrong with with... I think a lot can happen. I think you could do a lot without actually knowing the the the workings of it, you know? Like, do they know there's bribes going on?
00:54:17
Speaker
Right. So, when yeah. and And so the one story, I think the channel five story or in the clip, she says, householder was, was given $61 million the, in the Ohio Journal story, Ohio Capital Journal story, she says, or it's in there. i don't know if she's, it's in the article. I'm not quoted or anything, but the state accuses Jones and Dowling of paying Randazzo $4.3 million dollars in bribes, along with funneling another $61 million dollars in bribes to Ohio lawmakers to create and pass Ohio House Bill 6.
00:54:52
Speaker
Who else was there? That's a lot of money. That's what i mean. it And that, I'm telling you that. For Ohio lawmakers. Yeah. Yeah. You don't bribe somebody. I'm sorry. Maybe you do, but I've never been bribed with millions of dollars, but I don't think you bribe them with $61 million. It'd be like 60, 65.
00:55:09
Speaker
That's what I mean. i don't yeah I'm trying to think of like. um It's like a total of a bunch of people that you. That's still huge though. I mean, even if it's like, ah even if it's 10 people. Yeah.
00:55:20
Speaker
That's still a massive amount of briber bribing. yeah I don't know. i have ah I have a hard time wrapping my head around this because it's just so, it's kind of convoluted, right?
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. It's all over the place. It's, it's, um, lot of speculation. i don't see proofs of much. and i dont i don't know. I mean, yeah I guess that's why they're having a trial.
00:55:44
Speaker
So yeah, it says at the end of the article, the Capitol, the Capitol Journal, what's what's to come? Jurors will not be made aware that First Energy as a company has already admitted to this bribery.
00:55:56
Speaker
Yeah, they got good lawyers. in Which makes sense, yes. I mean, e that that just, that would that would kill you any case you had. So the company could be bribery, and it doesn't necessarily mean these two people bribed it.
00:56:06
Speaker
but Yeah, but okay, though those jurors, and wouldn't they know a ah bit about this? This is in Summit County, right? Yes. I feel like that's kind of like, ah it's hard to get a... Yes. You know, a fair jur a fair yeah fair jury poll, yes. And, you know, leaves a lot, that's why I say...
00:56:26
Speaker
you you you may not want to be judged by 12 because, you know, like it it it you put a lot of weight in those people and they have to, if they know it, they they're supposed to, they're told to set it aside.
00:56:39
Speaker
Can they really? I don't know. Some people can. I think some people can for sure. But I mean, i and frankly, I think it would be easy to find 12 people that don't know about it. True.
00:56:50
Speaker
This is, yeah, um especially this case. But 12 honest people that say they don't know about it, I don't know. Yeah. You know, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So another four to six weeks of this.
00:57:02
Speaker
So you should get at least one more story. I'm sure out of it before. Well, with definitely the, before the end, we'll probably get another, we'll see what else comes out. But you know, some of the, well, again, I think it's going to be a lot of hit pieces.
00:57:14
Speaker
I think that's like a hit piece. Cause I, I still don't. Oh, well, okay. We'll see as, as the trial goes. don't know. I, I've, There's something going weird here. Something going on. I don't know. Maybe, and maybe Houston's fine. Maybe he didn't do anything. Maybe he didn't know, but they're not. don't know if he would have been pushed to so ah been here. Here's my issue.
00:57:38
Speaker
it's It's like he, he, he was, ah well, he was a lieutenant governor, right? So I think it would be a tough thing to back, back him for Senate. If there was any type of,
00:57:56
Speaker
you know, shenanigans going on. or Or would it be harder because he's a senator now? I don't know. Or to get him in so he can get away with it? That he can be harder to prosecute or, you know, more um that because going from a lieutenant governor Ohio to a state senator is a step up.
00:58:12
Speaker
I don't know. It's my my tinfoil hat theory, but I don't know if he did anything wrong. He could just been an innocent bystander in this book. ah He needed a lot of money and he needed he had he got backed by the Trump administration too for Senate.
00:58:26
Speaker
I think that's ah there's a lot of baggage there if it's true. If it's not true, then like wouldn't wouldn't before you back somebody, wouldn't you do a pretty thorough check on them?
00:58:41
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe not. Maybe. You know, sometimes, you know. Yeah. um How thorough can you do? Yeah, I don't know. But were you like I said, we got 46 more weeks, so maybe we'll see. Yeah, we'll see.
00:58:56
Speaker
You know, I don't know. um not lot And I'm not trying to stick up for you Houston. this Is it Houston or Houston? Because I've heard it said said both ways. don't know.
00:59:06
Speaker
Houston. That's the way I pronounce Houston. Like Houston. But, uh... But, uh, something like that. yeah ah But, uh, yeah, there's just like, I'm not trying to stick up for him. Cause I mean, if he's guilty, you know, let him rot. No, and I'm not saying he's guilty. I'm just saying that I, and I have more questions.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. I mean, yeah, I'm not saying you you were saying he's guilty. I'm just, yeah, I don't think, I don't know if he is. I think I was, I'm i'm trying to be a little bit of a, um,
00:59:39
Speaker
kind of knock the reporting a little bit. Yeah. She only asked the Democrat. She didn't both sides. Exactly.
00:59:51
Speaker
There's that. and And she's always leaning towards one side and not giving you all the facts. You know, it's it's, you know, dark money groups. Yeah.
01:00:02
Speaker
I mean, unfortunately, when you look up Stuffed Out of Columbus, her name is everywhere, as we see. It's in two or three different publications. And then when they had this Wexner thing, I think there was like five reporters there.
01:00:17
Speaker
There's not many people doing it anymore. And this this makes even more important to see.
01:00:27
Speaker
fair. take Dig through this stuff a little bit. Well, yeah, but I mean, with only a few people doing it, we definitely got to keep bold questioning, honest questioning. You know, the issue a lot with a lot of this reporting is you have You have these people that like, like Morgan, who, who is definitely an activist. I think she tries to keep it fair, but her, she always leans one way. Right.
01:00:53
Speaker
And ah then the, the ones that lean the other way are definitely like, nobody's going to read those unless they're, you know, right wing or i don't like to use that word, but conservative.
01:01:05
Speaker
Right. You know, they're, they're not getting out to the general public. That's, that's the issue a lot of times. Yeah, and I didn't really find any different, too different of take on it, on these things. i don't know. It kind of all sounded similar. That could be a sign, too. You know, like if if if some if something like ah Ohio Press Network, is that the... Yeah, Ohio Press Network isn't digging into it. Maybe there's too much... That's a good question, because I didn't see anything on there, but they don't look on their website real quick, and it's not even...
01:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's not even mentioned. I mean, they've... They give them credit. They have pushed.
01:01:50
Speaker
Or it could just be a hit piece. Right. yeah there's there Yeah. Well, there's a bunch of them out there. I mean, there's something to report there. Morgan may be doing a hit piece. Yeah, I could see i can see where that's coming from. But there's plenty. of But they all kind of sound kind of similar.
01:02:04
Speaker
Text messages just kind of look a little shady in some ways. you can Why why why are you you know pushing so hard for this guy when there's conflict of interest there and you know all that kind of stuff? and then look what happened.
01:02:16
Speaker
Anyway, we'll keep an eye on it. whether we want to or not, I guess part of the, you know, it's what we signed up for. so we'll do it for you.
Akron School Budget Cuts and Community Reaction
01:02:25
Speaker
Not to you, but for you. um Moving on to the next is a, well, more shocking, more shocking stories about school funding. Oh no, more cuts.
01:02:34
Speaker
Akron taxpayers are shocked that they're not getting the money. They're not getting their money's worth. it They just can't believe it. Same story, different district,
01:02:46
Speaker
ah this this this next clip could actually be an ad for EdChoice. They should just like do a little little editing. and but But this is another article written from one view.
01:02:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah I'm more looking at the response to the people in these clips. But they're only showing one view. I mean, I didn't hear the clips, so go ahead. i yeah know they're definite well they're kind of Well, they're kind of only showing one view. You'll hear in the clip, it's Well, it's, um yeah we'll just listen the clip. You'll you'll hear it. I think we'll talk about it.
01:03:22
Speaker
As a taxpayer and a voter, you said that you supported the levies. How do you feel? Well, I feel kind of betrayed. I was told that we were gonna save millions of dollars and you know we wouldn't have to make as many cuts if we supported the levies. lied to One day, John Schaefer hopes to send his daughter to Akron Public Schools. But he is worried about the quality of her education now that the district needs to cut $11 million dollars from its budget.
01:03:48
Speaker
My property taxes have increased to, I think about $500 goes to the school each six months. So, you know, that's not a lot, but it's certainly it's the largest portion of property taxes. And I expect a good return for that investment. I'm very confused on where the money is going. That's why Angel Harris says her child will not be starting kindergarten next fall at Akron Public Schools. Where Despite the district's plans to attract families back after seeing a decline in enrollment. I would like my son to be somewhere that he's going to thrive and that he's going to matter. Where? Where'd you take him? He's just going to be seat number 32 in a classroom that is only supposed to have 25. During Monday's meeting, Superintendent Mary Outley told board members the district has to make staffing cuts, operational changes, and program reductions.
01:04:40
Speaker
While nothing is set in stone, Outley says 16 administrative positions, 13 college and career academies teachers, and five teachers could be eliminated. 10 and a half paraprofessionals positions would also be reassigned to other roles.
01:04:56
Speaker
Meantime, Outley says the district could let go of at least one substitute, an online mentor. um So overall for personnel, we're looking at just over 6 million in reductions. The superintendent also pitched another $4 million dollars in savings by asking every department to cut his budget by 6.5%, with exceptions to athletics, transportation, environmental management, and and maintenance.
01:05:22
Speaker
Some other proposed outleast plan could limit the purchase of new Chromebooks, revamp the district summer school programming, and adjust standardized testing based on student participation. i accept a challenge to try to stay away from the classroom. Please stay away. But I also know that by 2028, we have to reduce our budget by I believe our charges at 58 million.
01:05:50
Speaker
And so we have to make some tough decisions. why The board is expected to vote on the proposal next month. For News 5, I'm Remy Murray reporting. Why they cut so much?
01:06:05
Speaker
because the state's not giving them enough? Are they overstaffed? Seems like it. They want to cut 16 administrative level ah level of people from the district.
01:06:17
Speaker
Are they cutting schools? Closing? The Akron did not say, I don't think that's Cleveland definitely doing that. We'll talk about them coming up here, but yeah, and he's not, not really. i mean, this it's about Akron, but this is not really about Akron. This is happening everywhere in all the major cities, except for maybe a couple, maybe like Columbus, maybe Columbus is still growing, but most of all these cities, their school districts are shrinking. Their enrollment is down. Akron is one, not as bad as some of the other ones, but it's on the downtrend.
01:06:46
Speaker
They keep getting increases. This poor schmuck in the beginning who, I can't believe it. i just They told me they were going to cut and they didn't. Oh my gosh. You're still going to send your kid to Akron schools, aren't you?
01:07:01
Speaker
Him and his boyfriend got a daughter. her where're the Where'd this lady, they' that they're where are they sending her kid? to talk Talk about one-sided. So she's not going to Akron public schools. Could someone say ed Choice.
01:07:16
Speaker
I bet that's what she's doing. I bet she's used Ed Choice to send her kid to a private school. Because why? Because these the Akron City School District is not very good.
01:07:29
Speaker
I didn't even look up their graduation rate, but I can't imagine. It's much better than Summit Counties, which we... And that's star this is why you should never vote for a levy.
01:07:42
Speaker
Yeah, because I could just keep voting for them and they don't change anything. You know, it's amazing. I keep giving them more money and they won they don't cut. What am I getting for my investment? at At what he's paying for schools, what he says, $500 half. So $1,000 a year, he could afford a private school if he didn't have to pay that.
01:08:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That's about what they're, I mean, it depends where you go. They're, they're in as high school gets more expensive, but it, you know, you can go to a decent private school for 12 $15,000 ah twelve to fifteen thousand dollars a year And ah I, mean, what Akron's pay no we start connye was paying, student, Cleveland city schools well over state average is almost per student but yet you can get a a a education You know, but the some of those buildings are are more than 50 years old, Tom, at those private schools. How can the kids learn?
01:08:38
Speaker
How can they? Oh, no. Sorry, supposed to be this. That was slipped. I slipped the button. It could have worked. It could have worked. And, I mean, they could have said, yeah, well, she she chose Ed Choice and to get her kids out of a ah failing school district.
01:08:58
Speaker
This other guy's like, no, I'm still going to send them. I'm still going to send them. So $11 million dollars in cuts and they got to do 58 million by two, in the next two years, they got to do 58 million. they got They got to do 11 million times five.
01:09:11
Speaker
I did the math. Plus some. But to me, that sounds like it's going to close some schools. How do you cut $58 million dollars when every year you're asking for more more and more?
01:09:22
Speaker
I want to know why they have to cut so much. And I know they're going to cause the state isn't, isn't holding up their end of the bargain on the state funding part or the smart school funding plan or whatever the hell they had a few years ago that they agreed upon.
01:09:38
Speaker
Again, not really about Akron. It's just kind of, this is why... We need to get control of these these politicians, especially local. And the only way to do it, I think, is to cut and make them work for it, make them figure out a new system, because they're never going to do it. Like this schmuck said, I can't believe I keep giving them more money and they don't cut any spending. No crap, really? no And so the next story ties right into that, because Lorain County officials warn of catastrophic fate if property taxes are abolished.
01:10:13
Speaker
I'm using it way too much today, but it it fits like the um Lake County has had a meeting to inform people as air quotes, Tom, inform residents, not in a biased way, definitely not in a biased way, but, but it's going to be catastrophic, but it's definitely not. We're not, we're not being biased.
01:10:32
Speaker
Let's listen to our little clip here. We got from Lorain County property tax catastrophe. Filling the Riverside High School auditorium on Wednesday. Roughly 60 Lake County property owners looking for clarity on how the potential of abolishing property taxes would impact the community and what changes may be on the way. I feel like I'm being bled dry in some aspect. While Rich Armstrong says his latest property tax bill increased significantly, he doesn't want to do away with property taxes. I feel we need reform in in every level of the government, and know whether it be the school, yeah the the state. And schools like Riverside Local, if property taxes were dropped, would reportedly take the biggest hit.
01:11:23
Speaker
80% of our budget comes from local property taxes, whether they're residential or or commercial and business property taxes. So it would be catastrophic. Not only that, but the Lake County Treasurer says other public services will run out of options for funding. They go for roads, they go run out of options for safety services, police and fire. You're talking about Meals on Wheels.
01:11:42
Speaker
You're talking about in-home health services. You're talking about the Adams Board to help people reestablish their lives after do they go through something untra traumatic. Funding options. That's part of tonight's goal to kind of sway people into not voting against property taxes. No, it was really non-biased, just trying to show the whole picture. Noted in the publication, ways to keep from cutting property taxes. The backup solution, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 Ohioans, cut wasteful spending, increase in tax on marijuana, gambling, and tobacco, or impose premiums on luxury goods. Somebody's got to figure that out. As the campaign to abolish property taxes continues and the clock ticks on collecting enough signatures to get it on the November ballot. What would your message be to constituents, parents, Lake County homeowners as they kind of battle this decision in their mind of what do I do? we haven't seen a viable solution to the abolishment of property taxes to keep sticking you even some level of service. And I think that to me is, you know, education is, is, is the key to it. Make it, make it come up with one for news five year in Lake County.
01:12:48
Speaker
I'm Kaylee. There's no solutions. What are going to There's no solutions. Then come up with one. what the That's the problem. We can't abolish it, Tom, because there's no solution. so we just can't do anything.
01:13:01
Speaker
And the scare tactics are beginning. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I talked to somebody this week who said somehow it came up. I mean definitely don't bring it up. and Oh, that du man, those people abolish your taxes.
01:13:17
Speaker
Tax, property taxes. it's good We're going have a 30% sales tax. I looked over. I said, are you going to believe that crap? Are you going to literally believe that absolute garbage? And I started talking to him.
01:13:32
Speaker
And the T word came up. Well, did you hear Trump? And I just went, I'm even gonna talk about it. said, i'm oh, don't tell me you're a Trump. I said, no, I'm a Rob guy.
Property Taxes: Logic and Impact Discussion
01:13:41
Speaker
That's what, I'm not a Trump guy. i'm a Who cares?
01:13:45
Speaker
Answer me this question. I started going through the litany of stuff. Hey, when you pay your house off, what happens? Well, you gotta to pay, yes, you gotta rent from the county. I go, and if you stop paying your rent from the county, what do they do? They take your house away. Well, yeah, that's true.
01:14:00
Speaker
I said, when they when they raise your rates, what have you gained? Well, you know, my I said, no, when when your house goes up and your property, house value goes up and your property tax goes up, how much money have you made? Well, none. I go, then why are you getting tax on on gains that you haven't realized?
01:14:17
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's true.
01:14:21
Speaker
Key here is i avoided the the the the the TDS. I got them off TDS. And I push them on to the, you start talking about real things and they start going, yeah, yeah, that's yeah, okay, that makes sense.
01:14:36
Speaker
And then you go talk to them again in 30 minutes and it's the same conversation. Oh, it'll go right back. Yeah, I know, know. I think though, it's just that orange man bad. And so anyway, off off the topic kind of.
01:14:49
Speaker
ah Solutions, a thousand Ohioans polled. um we We get what we deserve. We get what we deserve because this is a cut wasteful spending. No, no shit. Really?
01:15:07
Speaker
oh you know, tax marijuana more. Oh yeah. That'll help. No, don't, don't worry about reining and spending. No, just worry about more taxes. This is why we're in this situation here because the voting, the people, who are these people polled?
01:15:21
Speaker
That's what you came up with. Just less spending. Yeah. we just Just less spending. Yeah. We've been trying that for, don't know, forever.
01:15:36
Speaker
They're idiots. Schmucks. That's the word of the day. Schmucks. And what do you think? What are you thinking? Thinking that's a good solution or no?
01:15:50
Speaker
I just heard that. I was like, good Lord. We get what we deserve. I mean, why can't have nice things. I was surprised you actually pulled that story when I first saw it.
01:16:02
Speaker
Why? Because it's just hyperbolic. Coming from a... Low info, unfortunate or unfortunately, a rep, right? From Lake County?
01:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, Lake County officials. Yeah. Not a rep, but. Yeah, a county or the, yeah, like the county board or something or other. i can't remember what it was now. didn't even want to bother saying who it is, but.
01:16:25
Speaker
But just low info, low info person and another, and just ah the usual person in government that doesn't want to do work. Lake County treasurer is who it was. Yeah. Well, and because I've been, so I looked at this next one here, I've been saving this one because I just kind of like to put these in in together together and kind of,
01:16:45
Speaker
you know, I don't know, just look at the bigger picture here, here which is, yeah, this is the scare tactic. It's only going to get worse from here. So I figured address it and make fun of it because it's fricking ridiculous. And all these people, and but that's part also part of that story. of That's what people listen.
01:16:59
Speaker
They hear this and that's, oh, we're to have 20%. DeWine said we're going to have a 20% sales tax. I've heard that like three or four times in the past couple weeks. Oh, Michael Zurn is actually, ah I guess that's a part-time job.
01:17:13
Speaker
Treasurer of Lake County. Yeah. Because he's he's also a cross-country mortgage loan officer.
01:17:23
Speaker
Huh. Hmm. Almost like somebody who would benefit from how higher property values, ah You think? I don't know. yes Lower property values would might help him more.
01:17:38
Speaker
i mean, not values, a lower property yeah taxes, get more people buying houses, pay a little bit more for them. He would make more. yeah I don't know. If you've got a higher property value, doesn't the bank make more money?
01:17:53
Speaker
Well, though i would or i um I don't know how a mortgage ah loan officer, how the pay works, but does he get does he is it a bit of a... um A shave? like ah like Kind of like the realtor gets like a percentage?
01:18:08
Speaker
yeah Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I don't know. Yeah, because because some of these guys make some really good money. Yeah, i have I have some people I know in the business, yeah, and when it was, times were good, they were rolling in it.
01:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah when they're yeah, especially when the times are good, but last time I talked to a guy, I didn't know him too well, but I talked to him and it was kind of, oh it was about 2021, 2022 when the house housing market's kind of slowing down a lot, and he was still doing good.
01:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, he was he was like he was worried that things are going to collapse, but He's like, no, people are still buying houses, not at the rate that they were, but he was still doing fine.
01:18:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, the good ones will we'll stay in it. And when things get lean, the the people who are just, ah you know, that' not not as sharp people will fade away and go do something else. but I did think it was, there was one other thing that, go ahead, I'm sorry.
01:19:08
Speaker
No, sorry to knock you off your rails here. I just, I wanted to see who this guy was. It gives me time. I wanted to point out something else, which was for fire and safety and police, they're going to run out of options.
Funding Fire and Safety Without Property Taxes
01:19:22
Speaker
They have one option. If you don't have property tax, what other options do they have? They've run out. That's what they said. with They will run out of funding options.
01:19:33
Speaker
Is there a finite amount of funding options that we there's only like two? there's There's many ways to skim this cat. It just happens to be, i don't think property tax is the best way, especially for schools. Maybe maybe for fire and safety, maybe that's a good good way to do it, but not for schools, in my opinion, at least so.
01:19:53
Speaker
And one of the reasons is, I think, well, let's go to the next one. We have Cleveland. That was Lake County. so and The sky is falling because if you abolish property taxes, you're going to die.
01:20:05
Speaker
Cleveland school administrators. Cleveland State School's doing good, Tom.
01:20:16
Speaker
then why great Then why are the school administrators getting raises? I wonder why why would that be? i When I read this, I i kind of laughed.
01:20:28
Speaker
But, at the you know, are they getting raises because schools are closing down and they're going to maybe are they having more responsibilities because other people are being let go?
01:20:40
Speaker
um I don't know. Not saying that's good. I'm just, no um because it doesn't say, but doesn't really give you much info here. they're closing so they're They're closing schools for money reasons, but I think it's deeper than just funding. it's There's no freaking students anymore.
01:21:01
Speaker
So why do you to have a school with in it So they've been consolidating. we Remember, we talked about this. There was a couple of catches in some of these stories where they're they're consolidating schools over the years. They'll put like one school, the nicest school whatever, biggest one whatever, take two other schools, make it one.
01:21:20
Speaker
But they're not really making it one. There is one building with three separate schools in it means three principals, three vice principals, three secretaries, three people answering the phone.
01:21:31
Speaker
That's what it's at least in the article that we alluded to. Maybe they didn't get that far, but they had three in a lot of these schools. They had multiple sets of administrators because it was different school in the same building.
01:21:43
Speaker
Maybe that's part of it. That's part of that's part of the reason why they're closing these buildings down because there's, they don't need them.
Cleveland School Closures vs. Administrative Raises
01:21:49
Speaker
Remember in the last 20 years they've gone, they've cut their enrollment cut in half. Right.
01:21:56
Speaker
At the same time, they keep building new schools and adding more buildings to the, to what this, the the district owns.
01:22:05
Speaker
um So while this, while this Cleveland city schools are closing and they're cutting the budget and they're complaining they need more money and the state doesn't get enough money, the administrators are getting raises.
01:22:15
Speaker
Maybe if we listen to this clip carefully, you can figure out where the problem might allow, might might arise or might come up in this whole system of Cleveland public schools. Let's, ah let's listen to old machine.
01:22:29
Speaker
This week, the I-Team reported most of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District the executive leadership team got raises. Plus, another school administrator received a raise of nearly $30,000. And we found the district paying a consultant more than $270,000 for seven months of work. Yet, the district now closing and merging dozens of schools.
01:22:51
Speaker
Facing massive budget problems, leaving teachers and parents furious. We aren't getting things that the students need. but administrators are getting raises. Our children are standing outside in the cold waiting for buses that never come. It just shows that do we have a system in place to actually hold each others accountable. Cleveland Councilman Richard Starr tells the I-Team maybe it's time for change. The school board members get appointed by star wonders. Maybe they should be elected and have to answer to voters for decisions. So it was like, where is the actual checks and balances to ensure that we are doing what we supposed to do and making sure we prioritize the children. Then you raise top administrators salaries. Absolute insult, absolute insult to parents and taxpayers in this city. Councilman Mike Palenzik also wants the school board members held accountable by voters. In 2024, voters approved a tax increase. Now, huge budget cuts and administrators getting raises. Just like Akron.
01:23:54
Speaker
This is what you do. Anyone who ever votes for another school levy in this city needs their head examined. We've revealed one administrator received a raise of nearly $30,000. And records show the ceo now earns just under three hundred thousand dollars a year by the way six other top execs now make more than two hundred thousand a year so The CEO, who they just said earns just under $300,000, they got a 5% raise. So that's not exactly a huge raise.
01:24:28
Speaker
No. And the most notable one was that went from $98,000 to over Director College and Career Readiness.
01:24:38
Speaker
executive director of college and career readiness Well, definitely. And that and say Cleveland, he definitely deserves a raise then because that's a let me finish. I got a few more seconds here.
01:24:51
Speaker
Okay. We tried for days to get someone from the district to talk to us about this on camera, but the district did not agree to that. The I-Team raised questions about big raises and spending, even in the face of big cutbacks. Now our investigation sparking backlash. Backlash. City officials asking more questions, too. Because right now you have everything ran just to a system that is not working. In Cleveland, Peggy Gallagher. Ed Gallagher, Fox 8, I-Team. I wonder who else is a part of that system. Maybe the councilman Rich Starr and then the other guy. I didn't get his name.
01:25:25
Speaker
ah Kind of interesting here that I got, um I asked, are there fewer administrators? And maybe that's why they're getting a ah raise, but it's not. It's a district remains criticized for being overstaffed and there's no announcement ah of cuts to central executive team.
01:25:45
Speaker
So I was off base on that. but Well, well, no, I mean, it's good question to ask. I don't think. but i that's kind of my, what's my point is you're closing schools. You should, you, you should need less administrators. why are they even still there?
01:26:00
Speaker
If for the last 20 years you've had ah enrollment drop by half, have you removed any of the administrators when you had twice as many students? Well, that was my question, it you know, and they haven't. So I didn't know that because the article doesn't say that. It just says people are getting raises.
01:26:15
Speaker
Yeah. Which, you know, you you have to question. But i I was like, at first I was like, oh are they getting rid of some administrators and maybe administrators are taking on a bigger role?
01:26:26
Speaker
Right. So that's that's all I was asking. I think they're cutting fat. That sounds like to me. I think they're cutting people. And I don't, I don't think they need to put any, ah any more responsibility on anybody else because,
01:26:38
Speaker
ah ah To me, it seems like they were overstaffed because they just haven't shrunk their administrative staff since, you know, they're closing all these schools and stuff. I don't Right, right. this No, I just wasn't sure if they did or not.
01:26:50
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, no, I got you. yeah I think, ah I don't, I get the whole thing that, well, some people need raises and this, i get get you but if your school, if your company were Cleveland Schools District, would you be getting a raise?
01:27:08
Speaker
Well, no, hang on a second. I don't mind the raise, the 5% raise, if they're doing a good job, but they're not doing a good job. They shouldn't even be there. That's my point. If there was a company, so would they be getting, no, they would be fired.
01:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, and they'd be they would be replaced. Right. And this person that got 30% increase, i you know, that's, ah that could be a, that's substantial right there. um
01:27:33
Speaker
yeah Yeah, who knows why? I mean, that's a big bump. Seems like a big bump, ah but if things drastically change or you like you said, maybe they consolidated, that could be it. It seems like a huge,
01:27:45
Speaker
a why would you give, I mean, you're under scrutiny, so why would you give somebody such a huge raise unless you can prove that he needed it, whatever, I don't know. But I don't think you they should be getting a dam raise. i should they should be getting get a pay cut.
01:27:57
Speaker
and they should be good Well, I think they should be replaced. Well, yeah. Okay. That's good point. yeah You know? I don't know when the last time they had a cleaning of the house of ah the Cleveland School District, but.
01:28:09
Speaker
It doesn't matter. It can use another one. i mean you know, so this guy got it. this The CEO got a 5% raise. And then it says at least six other top executives got, um are now earning more than 200. Well, were they earning 185? And not, you know,
01:28:28
Speaker
And now they're a little bit over 200. Okay, that's, maybe they suck and they we need to get rid of them, but that could have also been kind of like an automatic, you know, yearly 4% or 5% raise.
01:28:41
Speaker
to Because really what I kept looking at was these councilmen saying, who well, there should be checks and balances. Isn't that you guys? Well, somebody needs to be checking them.
01:28:53
Speaker
Yeah. You know, one guy's like, well, we got a system on this unaccountability. And like, yeah, you're part of that system. The other guy's going, ah you know, he's saying, well, he had great points saying if anyone...
01:29:05
Speaker
you know, votes for another levy increase or other their minds. Yeah, I think so. But they keep doing it like in Akron. They told me they were going to, they were going to cut spending and I gave them more money and then they increased spending.
01:29:16
Speaker
got to say, man, I, as you know, my wife ah got laid off a couple of weeks ago. So she's been looking for a job and applying to different places. And she applied to the school.
01:29:29
Speaker
I sent her a link to this job posting and the pay was, You know, it it was it was very good. It was like around $150,000 a year.
01:29:40
Speaker
And it was for a school. What are those schools? Are they called like satellite schools? They're public schools, but they're charter schools. Okay, so like it was a charter school, but it was inner city.
01:29:52
Speaker
And it's so it's basically helping inner city youth. ah Maybe somebody that has potential that You know, maybe maybe maybe the girl was... If you go to their website, i don't I forget the name of it, but if you go to their website, you're seeing pregnant kids, girls, or or troubled youth that maybe have potential and in education.
01:30:18
Speaker
But ah the the pay is for their role was probably a good, I don't know, 30% than another person. then another Really? A position like that in, pardon me? In another district or another school?
01:30:35
Speaker
No, no, I couldn't. I didn't look up other schools. I'm just saying that position. And if you go work in a corporation, you're going to probably make about 30% less. Oh, well, think I think the key there is inner city school.
01:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, she got turned down immediately. Like, i mean, she she ah she applied. and like yeah Exactly. That's what i I, because I didn't even know what the school was. So I just sent her the posting that I saw.
01:31:04
Speaker
She applied to it. And then probably like 20 minutes later, she got turned down. oh my God. And she has all the credentials and she has the experience to do what the, you know, what the job said. And then I went on their website and I was like, Oh, thanks for not wasting your time, I guess. I mean, yeah. yeah excited for not dragging you along Yeah.
01:31:24
Speaker
Yeah. No, that's true. But it was definitely like, no, they're looking for a certain demographic to work there, which is kind of normal. It's inner city, you know? Yeah. I have a family member that is a teacher.
01:31:37
Speaker
She used to be, i don't know if she still is in Cleveland. And yeah, she's, well, she's, she's very Italian or very, no, not Italian. Her mom was, I can't remember what Eastern European thing.
01:31:50
Speaker
um So they kind of have, she's she's very white, but she dark black hair, super straight black hair. And she said that the all the, all the girls love her straight black hair and they wish they could have straight black. They like, they asked her to touch it.
01:32:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And she loves it. she she She loves it to a point because, you know, a lot of the lot of the kids are very, very eager to learn, especially a young age, and to have somebody there that, you know, having people that are enthusiastic about it, maybe that's kind of what you're what they were looking for somebody. But, yeah, she has a very different atmosphere. And I drove past one the other day, ah Cleveland School, and it was right at a school time. Because I remember going, dang it, school zone. Oh, I should have timed this better.
01:32:36
Speaker
And I'm looking, I go, damn it. And all, there's, they have a, they have a ropes outside for a line for the kids to walk in. Uh-huh. Cause they're all waiting to go through a metal detector. Right. I'm like, damn dude.
01:32:50
Speaker
Damn. That sucks. I was like, wow. And that's not far from my house. Not too far from my house. Less than 15 minutes. Cleveland. Um, so next, oh wait, well, we got to stop because mid show break.
01:33:06
Speaker
Subscribe to the Crooked Rivercast at crookedrivercast.com. Send us an email, crookedrivercast at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. We do get the listener emails every now and again and love love hearing your feedback. leave us Leave us a review if you don't mind on your favorite podcast app or system.
01:33:26
Speaker
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Podcast Promotion and Listener Engagement
01:33:34
Speaker
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01:33:41
Speaker
Sometimes it helps us focus a little bit on what we should be talking about. Quick at Rivercast.com. Every Monday, the blog comes out on the website. Go check it out. has all our stories on it and links. And you can watch a lot of the clips or the full, actual full videos or or audio of what we put in there most of the time.
01:33:58
Speaker
And let us know what you think. Appreciate you listening. Share the show.
01:34:04
Speaker
and I'm about to say something very triggering. So if you're driving, just be careful. But ladies and gentlemen, Ohio is in quarantine.
Spotted Lanternfly Quarantine in Ohio
01:34:19
Speaker
For this spotted lantern fly. But so sorry if I scared you. Yes. I think we brought it. Whoa. why We've talked about this. Did you hear that? That's all of a sudden i got audio. We didn't hear that.
01:34:31
Speaker
um Avon Lake, this story is from Fox 19 news. We talked about, we talked about last year, spotted lantern fly. This thing's ugly.
01:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, i see so many of them at work. Yeah, I've seen a few at my house. They attach themselves to your car, and then they end up in your yard. i was like, my wife found one. I was like, and then I'm looking at my truck, and and there's like there's a couple of them in the wheel wells.
01:34:59
Speaker
You're not going to like it. Did you see the very first line ah like below the headline, what it says? About invasive invasive insects threatening 15,000 acres of oh vineyards. critical.
01:35:11
Speaker
this is this is critical Ohio vineyards. Yeah. I mean, wine is big. It's important to a lot of people. Well, I love grapes. i know.
01:35:23
Speaker
The fermented kind. You don't like to ingest them with after they're fermented. So yeah, they got a quarantine. I always wonder, that like what what how do they what are they trying to do? like What's the quarantine mean? and oh the quarantine. like Did you read it?
01:35:39
Speaker
A little bit of it. I didn't get to all of it. But it's basically, basically they can't, ah like if you have a... yeah a nursery that sells trees and yeah stuff like did that. So yeah, they want inspections and stuff. Yeah.
01:35:52
Speaker
Everything's inspected and same. i don't, why I don't think coming in, but, uh, anything going out of, uh, Of Cuyahoga, I'm assuming? or Because this is Lorraine. So anything probably Northeast Ohio has to be inspected before it goes out. Yeah, seems like a... I mean... It's a futile attempt. Yeah, futile attempts, exactly. Give it a good old college try, but it's kind of like they had... There was something I went camping a few years ago. My uncle was telling me,
01:36:19
Speaker
Cause he had a ah ban on bringing firewood into the campgrounds. I'm like, Oh, that's convenient. Like I can only buy it from the campground or around the campground, but no, it was a, some bark beetle or something like that. It was killing a bunch of trees.
01:36:32
Speaker
and And I'm like, can you really see, know, cause I, you know what? Cause he told me that I wasn't allowed to do this cause I had, I'd filled the van with wood from my word pile. And I was like, Oh, well too late. i already got a bunch of wood.
01:36:47
Speaker
So i like, how are they going to stop it? It's kind of hard, really hard. sucks. Is this a Chinese beetle? Is this a Chinese thing? Is this China? Yeah. Yeah. This is from China. Probably came in, came in on a tanker, probably held onto a tanker for six weeks.
01:37:02
Speaker
Yep. the side of it Yeah, they're off and they're they move weird. So like at work, and we have a blacktop parking lot and they cover the parking lot. so And you don't even really see them, even though they're they're kind of, ah you know, they got to like, you just don't see it when in the when the sun's beaming down.
01:37:22
Speaker
There's glare off the lot and you're just walking and all sudden these things start jumping around you and flying all weird. And you're like, ah man. Then they're trying to get in your car when you open up the door.
01:37:34
Speaker
that trying to hitch a ride. Come on. Well, they're hitching a ride by getting into your wheel wells and stuff like that. Well, this is even worse than I thought. Tom says the insects is an insect is native to Asia and is a pest to grapes and hops and hops. That's wine and beer. I mean, says something about apples too, but whatever hops in, in, in vineyard and grapes. Oh my gosh. Less people drinking anyway. So no worries.
01:38:04
Speaker
I'm not willing to take a chance on the hops part. i'm the um they they are I forget. i was reading an article. It was it was last year. but their ah cardinals are one. And there is another animal that is feeding on these things. And they love them. So cardinals love them, too. So we just got to have a natural predator. Yeah.
01:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, they do have natural predator. I don't know if it's enough to. It is to state bird. Yeah. Oh yeah. We should have more of them. I wish I would see more of them because they are cool. hey I had a blue Jay and a Cardinal in my backyard for many years. i don't know it was there. I'd see them all the time. Both of them.
01:38:41
Speaker
said, don't, don't, don't got you guys better not be talking to each other. Cause that's be, you'd get like a, like a purple bird. Weird. um All right. So under quarantine, watch careful, kill, kill the lantern fly.
01:38:57
Speaker
Kill it. Kill a dead kill it. And and look out look up the um what are the nest, the the egg. thankss yeah because right now Right now, you could look at your trees while they're bare and you could find the a nest of eggs and you could just scrape it off the tree into a into something you could just burn.
01:39:17
Speaker
i saw I saw somebody just putting them in a plastic Ziploc bag and throwing it out. Just burn the tree down. just Don't even take a chance. Burn the whole tree. Well, if it's dropping leaves on my yard, then burn it down. Definitely.
01:39:29
Speaker
My neighbors, be warned. If it's putting shade on my garden, put it burn it down. Oh, oh yeah. That's what we can do with your neighbor's trees at your dad's house.
01:39:41
Speaker
um So, yeah, kill the lanternfly. Everybody, make sure you kill the lanternfly. I did find a the nest of eggs on one of my dad's pear tree, actually. Yeah, yeah got it's got to scrape that off.
01:39:57
Speaker
right, let's get to the next one here, Tom, because the sheriff is talking.
Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office Challenges
01:40:02
Speaker
The Caga County Sheriff is actually talking now. Seems like he's had plenty meetings with his lawyer and he knows exactly what not to say. No, teasing, but he went on WTAM for and a lengthy interview, which I got a little bit of a clip from. So talking about overtime, we talked last week, last week. Yeah, think so.
01:40:21
Speaker
um County. Two weeks. Yeah. Caga County overtime is like $42 million. 27 million of it is the sheriff's department. Some, you know, some, some of the sheriff's deputies are making twice as much as, as, as the county executive or whatever.
01:40:36
Speaker
Three, over $300,000, $125,000 in salary and almost overtime. um and so now the
01:40:49
Speaker
Chris Renane, the county executive, I'm trying to wrap my head around this again, and he is trying to take over the funding or get a hold of the funding or review the funding, do some kind of um administrative work. And he's the one who appointed him, so I don't know who else could do it.
01:41:05
Speaker
The sheriff is now suing because in the chart account county charter, it says sheriff's department shall be independent. And now, like we said last week, mom and dad are fighting. And there's a couple of things on this clip.
01:41:20
Speaker
Let's just hear what Mr. The Sheriff has to say first. And we can talk about that. Where's my sheriff's clip? There it is.
01:41:31
Speaker
When you hear somebody say the sheriff's office has crazy amounts of overtime, what do you say to that? They don't realize that it's staffing driven and it's mandate driven. There are things we must do to maintain the safety, not only in the correctional facility, but in all of the functions that we conduct.
01:41:46
Speaker
You know, we conduct court operations, we control we conduct patrol operations, we conduct other undercover things, but the correctional center is the largest part of the sheriff's department. And it is the part that mandates 24 hours staffing and care for the 1500 or so residents in our custody.
01:42:03
Speaker
So you are basically saying that per the contract, You are mandated to staff at certain levels, to have people there. When it comes to your deputies patrolling streets and stuff, you're not doing anything above and beyond what is mandated by contract, correct?
01:42:21
Speaker
ah Correct. Two things. One is the Ohio Revised Code, which says the sheriffs have to maintain the public peace. ah run ah courts, run correctional facilities, and the and the litany of other things.
01:42:32
Speaker
But those basic functions must be conducted. And to run a correctional facility of our size, 24-7, 75 housing units, 12 floors, with a limited number of staff, someone has to work overtime, whether it's five officers working 10 hours or it's one officer working 50 hours within the like guidelines of the law and the union contract. what if he had six I have somebody within the county,
01:42:58
Speaker
Say that they feel that you and Ronane have valid points on this, but they did say that overtime is a horrible problem and no other counties have this problem. Is that true? and And if so, why is it this county is the only one that has that problem?
01:43:14
Speaker
Don't know if others have it to that degree. Elected, not elected. But do know that an underfunding of the sheriff's department caused that. And that's something that's not just now. It has been traditionally the case, even before the executive Rene and myself came in here, something that has happened historically at the sheriff's department.
01:43:29
Speaker
But the underfunding of the department and of these functions. Not fault. leads to that. So it's not like we were given the appropriate budget and staffing to execute the mission and went over that.
01:43:39
Speaker
We're given numbers which were significantly lower than what was historically the case the last few years with some ah leeway to try and and and put some innovations in place, but not enough to quite close the gap.
01:43:51
Speaker
Do you buy it? and No. Like I i ah get what he's saying. we have to, we have to staff. We have to staff per our contract, per county guidelines as far as you have to have people at the jail. You have to have officers at the jail.
01:44:10
Speaker
And that's what he's Well, we got to staff. What are supposed to do? i don't know. It sounds like you're understaffed. So he's saying part of the the reason we got here is because of underfunding. The reason they're overspending is because of underfunding.
01:44:27
Speaker
Okay. Are you not allowed to hire?
01:44:32
Speaker
are is some is it is it Is the county stopping you? Is the contract or whatever he's talking about stopping you from hiring more people? If not, then what the hell are you even talking about? What would be better?
01:44:43
Speaker
what would be What would be cheaper for the county to have more officers or more officers make working more hours? Which would be safer for the for the county to have more officers or officers working more hours?
01:44:58
Speaker
What's better? I don't know. it It doesn't, it's not clear but why they don't just hire more deputies.
01:45:06
Speaker
But then, we think about the deputies they have have hired. And maybe this is part of the reason why, because they're named Vajusi.
01:45:15
Speaker
And they like to roll down the street at 80 miles an hour, a hundred miles an hour with their AR-15 out the window. Are they included in the overtime? Yeah. Yes, it's the sheriff's department. Like the safety team? sheriff's department. Yeah, okay. All included. He blaming most of it on the county jail because their responsibility to staff it, which again, I get what he's saying, but it doesn't get you out of it.
01:45:35
Speaker
Well, it sounds like it would be cheaper to hire more people. Cheaper and safer. Yeah. Because you're not having sheriff's deputies working 70, 80 hours a week. probably making some double time. i mean, that's a lot of overtime. So there has to be over a double time.
01:45:52
Speaker
And he's talking about in the other parts of the clip, pay rate increases per the contract. I go, okay, so you're, to me that says the contract states, you've got to give a pay raise to, you know, some every so many years or every year, whatever it is.
01:46:05
Speaker
Okay. But how is that going to overtime? Like what that have to do with overtime? We're talking about them working more than 40 or 50 hours a week. How does it have to do with their pay rate increase? I don't want get it. It sounds like,
01:46:17
Speaker
and I don't understand something or he's just BSing me. but At least he came out and talked. I got to say, like I'm still befuddled by... They don't say how much overtime. How many hours? are Yeah, yeah. $27 million, but yeah. Right, but they're not telling you how many hours is the average guy doing in overtime or even the higher guys, the ones that went $125,000 to $300,000 in year to
01:46:47
Speaker
You know, $175,000 in overtime. What the hell is going on, man? don't know. It's got to be 20 hours a week. 20 hours a week. don't know. That's way more than 20 hours a week, dude. Could be. I'm just trying to guess off the top of my head. Way more. mean, I've worked 20 hours of overtime in a week. Yeah.
01:47:08
Speaker
And yeah, that makes a difference. It's not tripling my ah pay. I'm wondering for them on weekends, is it double time when it's overtime? I doubt it. Is it double time on the weekends and then you get overtime double time? don't know.
01:47:21
Speaker
Well, I don't. Well, okay. I'll give them the benefit the doubt. It's only 20 hours a week but that way, but you're probably right. It could be 30. No, i'm I'm thinking it's 80 hours a week. you know fort I think it's like 16 hour shifts and stuff like that.
01:47:34
Speaker
Yeah. It seems like they're understaffed. Question I have is why are you understaffed? Are you handcuffed by something or are you just... a crappy leader or, or you, you think it's better to have your guys work extra hours and pay them for it. Cause there is, there is some of that i can understand to a certain extent. You, you would like to give the hours to the people have been there for a while, but when you get to a certain level, you you got to start hiring people. The hell. I don't think like I, to me, 60 hours doesn't seem like a a lot. I think a lot of guys would, no, not for a cop. Yeah.
01:48:08
Speaker
even Even, you know, busy shop, I mean, it's a lot. I mean, trust me, when I did that, I didn't like it. I liked the paycheck, but I didn't like being there that many hours. But 60 hours, that you're talking 20 hours of overtime. I mean, that's a lot of overtime, but it's not... It's not ah not unheard of at all.
01:48:29
Speaker
That's not unheard of, because construction guys do it. I mean, that's kind of typical. But for a cop have to make two-thirds more, that that's that's a that's a whole other level of overtime pay there. I can't i don't i can't even wrap my head around that. Yeah, I i bet they hire a few more officers that cut that in half.
01:48:52
Speaker
Easy, easy. and yeah yeah but And you have more coverage, you'll have better coverage. you us you Ideally, you would, because you'd have more people who aren't overworked and burnt out. Okay, so you you get one guy who's working 80 hours a week, you hire one person.
01:49:06
Speaker
That cuts their hours to 40. Right. Maybe. maybe Maybe. Well, even if they were each worked 50 to 60 hours, you're still saving a ton of money. Oh yeah Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. I won't, you hire one. I, you know, maybe it cuts it and it's certain weeks you're working more and people take vacation, all other stuff. So I get all that.
01:49:23
Speaker
I just think it was kind of a, it's not a bad interview. I, I give him credit. At least he's coming out talking. It took him a while. Or somebody getting overtime and going home and sleeping. Well, they do bring that up that, know, he asked, is there any way to manipulate this? And he claims not really, I mean, anything can be manipulated, but they are audited.
01:49:41
Speaker
They've been audited. the The county sheriff's department has been audited. He brings it up in the meeting and the like his his initial statement is, you know completely pre-planned and read. Hey, George Costanza made a bed under his desk and he slept at work. I was, oh man, what envious I was of him.
01:50:00
Speaker
You know, well, that's what I'm saying. Okay, you're working third shift. There's really nothing to do when you're just napping. I don't know. Yeah, so his claim is they've been audited and it's an outside firm has looked and seen that this overtime is needed because of these these reasons. But again, it still goes back to then hire more people.
01:50:19
Speaker
It's not, youre go you know, going to get slow all of a sudden. It's just the way it is. I think you should... Really, i think the problem is... ah They say, why does Cuyahoga County, the only county that really has as much of a problem? And I'm like, well, I mean, selected, not elected.
01:50:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That is the, that is the big thing about this, right? Yeah. Yep. Yep. It is. Cause how do you get them out?
01:50:46
Speaker
You got to pressure Ronane to get them out. Right. I don't know. i don't even know what the county charter i mean Can you fire him?
County Charter Changes and Administrative Complexities
01:50:51
Speaker
Yeah. What's the county charter say? You got to be independent of the executive team, but how do you get them out? yeah It's got to be a way. I'm sure you got to, it's got to be put up for a vote somewhere. I'd imagine.
01:51:00
Speaker
A board? Yeah, the the county executive board probably had to vote him out, I would imagine. Right. That's my initial guess, but maybe we should look into that and see because it it it might be coming up to ah they keep fighting. And Ronay may push the lever on there. Who knows? Problem is, he's going to appoint the next guy that's the as Yeah. Yeah.
01:51:18
Speaker
yeah
01:51:21
Speaker
I don't know. We'll follow through and see what happens. Who's going to win the fight? And just so yeah everybody keeps is on the same page. You know, the only one losing is the people.
01:51:33
Speaker
The county executive has the authority to appoint and remove the sheriff. Oh. But post-2019 charter changes added protections to prevent unilateral firings.
01:51:45
Speaker
Public hearing...
01:51:48
Speaker
A super majority vote. So eight out of 11 county council members.
01:51:57
Speaker
And yeah they have to have a, like, ah they have to have a case, you know, to do it. Yep. i don't know if he has it quite yet, but.
01:52:08
Speaker
Maybe there's not enough, but I mean, i don't know. that That amount of overtime sounds like enough to me. Sounds a little bit like mismanagement, if you ask me. Again, not thinking ahead. Got to. Gotta be better with the money, man. It's just the way it is. but And then blaming blaming the lack of funding on the fact that you spent too much money is pretty funny, you ask me.
01:52:27
Speaker
um Oh, you ah citizens can... It's hard to do, but the most realistic citizen-driven path is for pushing for judicial removal by gathering signatures for a misconduct complaint.
01:52:43
Speaker
So, ah yeah, and yeah. okay There's ways, but i I don't know if there's enough to... gather signatures. Maybe. Probably not at this point. Not at this point. yeah Yeah. It's just $27 million, Tom. That's all.
01:52:56
Speaker
Just, just raise taxes. That's how you, that's how we're going to fix the school thing,
Unexplained Fisherman Encounter and UFO Theories
01:53:00
Speaker
right? I love my property taxes. We're going to raise taxes on my marijuana. It's going solve everything. You know, Moving on to this last story on our on her list of, before we get to our good things segment, is Unexplained, Ohio Fisherman's Strange Encounter.
01:53:21
Speaker
Let's, I figured I'd keep this, it kept popping up.
01:53:26
Speaker
And considering that, what did the president just do? Like release, like order them to release all the, something about all the alien encounters or something like that? Yeah, okay. no Was it something like that? Something like that. I mean, he announced it. Not that anything's really going to change, but ah I figured this is kind of fitting. But yes, I've i've been to software. After Obama admitted there are, and then he walked it back. that you I did? What are you talking about?
01:53:51
Speaker
That's classified? i didn't know that. I said, I just meant there has to be with the such a large universe. Yeah. What kind of accent was that? That was like a Southern preacher or something like that. Close to Obama though. was close. Chicago, Southern. tri ah Let's, ah let's listen to a couple of things that are strange in here. These are just regular guys.
01:54:15
Speaker
hanging out fishing, you know, in the middle of the night as you do. And, uh, I did that a lot. yeah Oh no, you do. I'm not in my, in my younger days. Yeah. No, if night fishing is lot, you can get some good fishing and the waters are calm. The fish are, they're night partiers. They party at night here.
01:54:33
Speaker
Uh, let's hear what they had to say. Some strange things i like to point out in here, like, um,
01:54:39
Speaker
Well, there's like clothing issues and they can't remember things. And then let's let's listen to this a little bit of this report here. They were scared. Two men night fishing at Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County, Ohio.
01:54:53
Speaker
Whatever they saw affected them so much. They didn't want to go outside the house at night. They were afraid something was going to happen to them again. Regular guys, so disturbed, they immediately contacted the Mutual UFO Network or As first thought, head on speed dial. Our goal is to do scientific research. They seem very, very credible.
01:55:12
Speaker
Ohio MUFON director Tom Wortman launched an investigation with anomalous findings. Could have been a UFO? Very likely. Very likely. The men don't want to be identified, but Tom says the encounter started with strange lights August 2014. As it always does. 10.30, that's when they saw something kind of weird in the sky, like a moon except smaller.
01:55:34
Speaker
An hour later, another light. Directly overhead. They stopped. They're watching light as it passes over. Then, between 1.30 and 1.45 they heard a shrill woman's cry.
01:55:47
Speaker
One's baiting his hook, the other one's sitting in the lawn chair. And all of a sudden, the one sitting in the lawn chair says, you know, something doesn't look right. So he gets his cell phone out. And it was 5.19 in the morning.
01:55:59
Speaker
He remembers absolutely nothing. Over three and a half hours gone in an instant. With no alcohol or drugs involved, he says. The other man also drawing a complete blank. Was still baiting his hook.
01:56:12
Speaker
Three and a half hours later, he's still standing there. Tom is still unable to find a scientific explanation for the lights and lost time. and In my research, there was no air traffic in that whole region at all that close.
01:56:25
Speaker
We did soil analysis, had the highest iron content. As you got away from that spot, it dissipated. Less magnetism to pull it up the soil with. Their clothing is even more peculiar.
01:56:38
Speaker
One man's shirt was inside out, like someone else had dressed him, and both sets of clothing covered in unexplained chemicals. The location these chemicals were found in, which didn't quite add up.
01:56:49
Speaker
One of the jackets had kind of a pink coloration to it. So do you believe they were abducted? Something happened, and all the indications are pointing towards something that is just beyond our realm of belief.
01:57:02
Speaker
In Guernsey County... Suzanne Stratford, Fox 8 News. Put his shirt and his sweatshirts on inside out and they've got chemicals on their clothing, Tom. Did you watch this video?
01:57:17
Speaker
I did not watch this video. Oh my God, he's been taking over. ah Yeah, if you watch the video, we'll put it in the, it'll be in the in the blog.
01:57:28
Speaker
You'll notice, ah i don't know, the chemicals. Nothing happened. I think i think and think they were sexually assaulted, Tom. Did the aliens sexually assault them because they got, they the clothes were on backwards, upside and inside out, and they got stains all over their clothing in strange areas.
01:57:47
Speaker
Hmm. Alien? Anything?
01:57:53
Speaker
No such thing. ah the Go watch the video because he shows pictures and it's, yeah, it's interesting. I think they may have been probed.
01:58:05
Speaker
We not probe. Oops.
01:58:10
Speaker
ah Go watch It's pretty funny. But its a why is this why is this this story on Fox 8? This is from 2014. Oh, is it from 2014? Well, the story isn't, but the the got what happened to the guys is from 2014. Really? Oh, because they didn't they didn't say anything. they just No, the first place in the think of calling after they couldn't remember what happened for three and a half hours was the the but alien people.
01:58:35
Speaker
oh Well, yeah, but they didn't give their names or anything. No, no, no. So it's kind of, it's it is weird. Yeah, they weren't, looking it sounds like they weren't really looking for, a you know, any publicity from this. No, no, they definitely, no, they definitely did not want their names published. Like, nope. No, thanks. I don't want anybody know. Yeah, so, I mean, me it makes you kind of raise your eyebrow.
01:58:55
Speaker
Yeah. Or it's somebody from the, from MUFON that just did it. Could be. You know what i mean? I mean, the pictures of clothing they had were quite telling, quite telling. I think they were abused in some way by aliens. I'm thinking for sure.
01:59:11
Speaker
Or by some MUFON people. I'm not sure. But they, yeah. So middle the night, all of a sudden there, he's baiting his hook. And then he looks at his, somebody, the one, the one guy looks at his phone and he's, it's been three and a half hours since he started baiting his hook.
01:59:26
Speaker
Like, whoa, dude, that would be freaky. Totally freaky. ah So that's going change my view of Salt Fork next time I go down there. did you ever um Have you ever looked at Ohio ufo sightings actually has a mut on YouTube? um No, i don't think so. But in this in this article or in this news story that I took out, they do mention Ohio as being hotspot.
01:59:51
Speaker
there's a ton There's a ton of things over Lake Erie that ah people see, like light orbs and stuff. it's candidates It makes you go, what the heck is that? Yeah, I was doing some research at the kitchen table with my laptop and my daughter was, you know, um she can hear the video.
02:00:11
Speaker
a She's boy, come on. And I go, i just looked at her and said, Because this usually gets people, when you because even me, when I'm like, oh, no. But do you think this universe, infinite amounts of universe, and we're the only ones here?
02:00:25
Speaker
She goes, yeah yeah yeah, that would be kind of, I said, it'd be a little bit arrogant to think that we're the only reason for this humongous, infinite amount of space. if it is We are the aliens, you should have told her.
02:00:38
Speaker
we are the aliens. The moon is a space ship. It's hollow. It's hollow. It echoes when it's struck by meteors.
02:00:50
Speaker
It's got a Nazi base inside, I heard. I watched a documentary on it. I don't know if it's a Nazi base. It's the dark side. think where we're from. Oh. I just figured was Trump's base. It's a Nazi base.
02:01:03
Speaker
Anywho. Go check out the check out the story. It's funny. No, I mean... We are all humanoids at this point. Yeah.
02:01:14
Speaker
and It's like ah Men in Black. If you blow somebody's head off, it's just this little teeny head underneath.
02:01:20
Speaker
gotta rewatch that. That was a good movie. I bet it still holds up. It's been a while, but I would imagine it does still hold up. That was at the time when the the CGI was getting pretty good. I bet it still holds up.
02:01:31
Speaker
Yeah. Moving along, Tom, we've got the final segment of the day.
02:01:41
Speaker
Lying down the show with some good things, stories. And this first one. Don't worry. I'll turn them bad things. No, I don't know about this. Maybe not this first one, the next one, maybe, but the first one, yeah I don't think it's good.
02:01:55
Speaker
The first one? Go ahead. that the Yeah. They caught somebody. and That's great. Then they're going make them pay. Not that we're ever to get it, but they're going to make them pay back $775,000 this ah woman,
02:02:09
Speaker
forty years game but they gave him ninety days in jail yeah big deal yeah well yeah meanwhile Meanwhile, somebody in, ah I think it was Lorain, not Lorain County, it could be Lake County, embezzled 470,000 and they got seven years.
02:02:25
Speaker
So half of what this person, not half, but um under 500,000 and they got seven years and this person gets 90
02:02:35
Speaker
Right. i I get that. I'm looking at it like, okay, 90 days in jail. Now you get to get out and make some money and pay us back because otherwise we got to wait five years for it. This one's not going to pay anything back. I think a court ordered that it's going to they're going to dock your pay.
02:02:49
Speaker
Okay. yeah You said, okay, well, we'll wait 50 years for that. Sure. this but this This one's not making a lot of money. Is the other the other person paying it back or is it just they just spend time? I don't know. I just saw how much jail time they got. Yeah. I'd rather them pay it back.
02:03:04
Speaker
I'd like to do both, really, but kind of can't. How much can they pay back how much can they skim off the pay paycheck? I don't know. good question. Yeah. Probably not a lot. I'm not saying i'm i'm not saying if we're going to get all of it back, but don't know. i'm I'm glad this person got busted. That's the good news, Tom. Can you see the silver lining in the story? But it's 90 days for $775,000 of Medicaid fraud. So to me, that tells me, oh if you do Medicaid fraud, you don't get busted that bad.
02:03:34
Speaker
So she was taking care of 12 people or something like that. Yeah. 12 Medicaid recipients in the Cleveland area, home health aides that she was. And according to or according to the court that no, she really wasn't.
02:03:47
Speaker
was brazen flawed or brazen fraud. Yeah. Um, and basically this is what we cover this a lot. They'll, they're going to say, they're going to send in billings to Medicare, Medicaid, for example, while the person's out of state in Florida for three months.
02:04:06
Speaker
I gotta say this, hit this had to be the low hanging fruit too. Yeah. Because it was brazen. I mean, literally, she was doing so much that you couldn't turn ah turn your head.
02:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, but I remember some of the stories we were seeing that there was even, the the totals were even more. So I think we're going see more because i I remember there were quite a few people that, was it Yost? Yeah, Dave Yost pointed out that they they caught a bunch of people and some of them were in the millions.
02:04:34
Speaker
I think there was only a couple of them. I think there was a whole bunch in the like the 15 to 20,000, you know. range. Yeah, just making a couple of 20, 30 extra grand a year. Oh, I guess if you if you took 20 grand a year or 20 grand over a couple of years that ah you're you're going to, they're going to pay you. Oh, you get probation.
02:04:56
Speaker
You get probation. I still i still think you should. If she took $20,000 and got 90 days in jail, I'd be like, ah okay, that's cool. But $775,000 but ah seven hundred and seventy five
02:05:08
Speaker
Come on. So why is it, what's, you know, that's a lot of times why they put mandated sentences on some of these things, but this is left up to the judge and he this judge, I guess, decided 90 days was good enough.
02:05:22
Speaker
But I do like your point. It should have been harsher. A little bit harsher, at least a couple of years. I like to make them sell off all their assets and rent an apartment in the hood. This one, ah well, I don't know what she did with her money.
02:05:34
Speaker
i mean, she got, if she bought a big house, then... Okay, take that house back. But when I yeah when i looked her up, she's she doesn't look like she was making a lot of money besides You do it for drugs. You do for drugs. If you can't prove that you paid for this stuff with regular money, not drug money, they take it. Okay. Okay.
02:06:00
Speaker
I'm kind of up for that. I'm just kind of curious what kind of house she has and stuff. Yeah. I mean, if her house is worth 300 grand, there's good chunk. It did save a chunk over how long she did this, $775,000. Yeah, that's true. i have to. i But even four or five years, you're still talking tens of thousands of dollars a year. so So yay. A little bit.
02:06:23
Speaker
A little bit of yays. Just just okay i'll distant one. little little one.
02:06:30
Speaker
A little muted. Just in the background there. Next one. Okay. Crap on this one, Tom. The last car show at the IX Center. Now, this happens to be a native ad for Buick.
Final Car Show Announcement at IX Center
02:06:43
Speaker
And Fox 8 is, I think they did one like every day of the week for different manufacturers. Oh, okay. That's that's what I was wondering about. Okay. I saw two or three other ones that are talking about Honda or Ford or forward of couple other manufacturers.
02:06:55
Speaker
But really just a place we'll talk about. Hey, check out the car show. It's the last week of the car show starting this weekend. This last weekend, as you hear this. And go check it out it's the last one at the at the IX Center.
02:07:10
Speaker
And they, that'll be it. i don't know where where it's going to after that. But their IX Center is becoming a data center platform.
02:07:22
Speaker
some fortune 100 company bought it. So it's gotta be Amazon or Google and it's going to be a data center probably. And, uh, no more car shows. The last show of the year will be the piston power show in a couple of weeks.
02:07:34
Speaker
Is that kind of like the old Autorama? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we bring your old cars in and yeah. So that'll, think that's the last show there. And then they're, um, closing it up and refit it to, uh, put a bunch of computers in there.
02:07:48
Speaker
I did watch a little bit on, uh,
02:07:52
Speaker
on the history of the ix center it's pretty interesting um but yeah check out the car show i think we're trying to go there this weekend and um one last time and check the place out and uh check out some new cars i guess not sure why because they're way too expensive and they're all plastic i looked up the cars that they're showcasing here on this in this article and i was like oh the buicks Well, that Buick Encore GX that they're kind of um saying was a big hit at the show. And I looked it up and it was it's a car I see it on the street. My wife's going to be looking for a car in a couple of years, probably.
02:08:32
Speaker
Well, she has to find a job. But um but ha i it's a sharp looking car, this little Encore. It's like a little SUV looking thing.
02:08:44
Speaker
a crossover or whatever you want to call it. But then I looked into it. It's like a three cylinder, like a 1.2 three cylinder turbo. And I'm like, nah. And then, uh, and then they're, they're also showcasing the GMC Sierra, um, no GMC, the Canyon. Well, they got the super heavy, the heavy duty, but I looked up, yeah I looked at the Sierra heavy duty and you're, you're, you're talking a hundred grand for the truck. Yep. And then I looked into the Canyon AT4X, which is a midsize truck. And those are starting, well, I don't know what they're starting at, but I kind of took a quick look at a couple of models. And you're talking 60, 65 for midsize. The AT4X is like the upgraded off-road package one. it's It's a sharp looking truck. Yeah. But I mean, that's.
02:09:33
Speaker
but They probably start at 50, 45. Yeah. forty five then Yeah, would I would have to say they start at least 50, 55. And then I went on the Ford website just to see see if I could build a XLT real quick.
02:09:48
Speaker
And the one I built was like 55. So if I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'm going to go with the XLT. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Why? I mean, some people want the smaller footprint, you know, and ah and that kind of a truck. But if you're yeah if you're spending that kind of money, I looked it. like, why would anybody? Well, okay.
02:10:06
Speaker
yeah The only reason I would go with the midsize truck is to save a few bucks. I don't mind the midsize trucks. I mean, I'd rather have the big truck, but if it if it comes down to the dollar, i can if it could tow a certain enough for me, then I would just go with the midsize truck.
02:10:23
Speaker
But ah the at 65, I'm not. so you and the The couple of Rangers i've I've driven, even those, I'm like, going you know, for a few bucks more, I can just get a nicely equipped XLT, full size. Yeah, honestly, they're more comfortable for me.
02:10:38
Speaker
Well, they are. They're so wider. Well, you're taller and everything. You're bigger, but I would still prefer a large truck. You call me fat. I said larger. That means and means a wider and taller. It means not fat, but big bones. That's what you're saying. I'm big boned. Yeah. ah i i I hear what you're saying im about the three cylinders because I rent cars and a lot of times when you rent these crossovers, it's all you get.
02:11:06
Speaker
Really? Yeah. That's what they give you. Holy crap, man. Because the horsepower was at 135. I think if you went up to the 1.3 turbo, it was And fifty five and that that's low, man oh it's low.
02:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. Especially like we get some of them are all wheel drive and it's just. Jesus, that that has to struggle. Your sister's van has 300 horsepower. I know. of you i know. and and it's all wheel drive and it it feels even a little sluggish compared to your dad as the same one. Right. So his feels snappier because of that. He's two wheel drive to all wheel drive.
02:11:37
Speaker
So now you take half the power away and you've got a dog. Yeah, it's... And then when you if you... So go on Ford's site, look at the... If you're next time Look at the Broncos, or the broncos the um Explorers, for example. And i I went on Chevy at the Blazer, too. It's similar.
02:11:52
Speaker
And... You're such a looking to buy a new car possibly. or she's She's always looking, but when it comes down to the price, she always backs off. Yeah, yeah. She's she's very frugal in that in that way, which is great. But she you know i want if she's going to buy something, um I don't want that three-cylinder. I want something with some balls.
02:12:09
Speaker
Are you saying Explorers come with the three-cylinder? No. Or the Escape? No, four-cylinders. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we're still... You know, they're all going to the turbo thing. That's because of government regulations.
02:12:22
Speaker
But ah you're putting so much strain on that drive... and Not the drivetrain, but the... the valves and everything like that. It's just ridiculous. They offer a six.
02:12:33
Speaker
They offer the EcoBoost, the two sevens. It's still turbo though. it's It's still adding, I'd rather have a naturally aspirated six cylinder. Well, yeah, in most it's not even an option. I know now, mean, the only, I think Nissan's still in their frontier truck. They offer, they're one of the last ones to offer naturally aspirated six cylinder making 300 horsepower.
02:12:56
Speaker
or thereabouts or a mid-sized truck that's pretty good but even to get to get that extra muscle in that 27 the turbocharged 276 v6 uh you have to go to the top package it's the only way to get it you can't take a mid-size one and upgrade no they don't even give you an option on ford so oh my god i don't know about other ones i know ford has since i looked at when i bought mine that they really streamlined their website and just took it was it was so many options it was so hard to pick I'll tell you what, I drove off you'm like ah a Ranger with a four to um with a turbo, you know? yeah And it it was snappy enough. i
02:13:34
Speaker
You know, my next truck, I want it to be i want it to be my last truck. And um i want naturally aspirated. I don't want turbo. I think i' I'm leaning towards an eight-cylinder Ford or I got to look into the... Who else has it? An eight-cylinder? Does Dodge have one?
02:13:51
Speaker
Dodge and I i think... ah Chevy still offers a half ton? You sure? thought they cared. No, i thought I'm not sure. i thought Toyota and Chevy got rid of their six. they Toyota did. I'm not sure if Chevy did. have to look at it. Yeah.
02:14:06
Speaker
It could be. yeah The only reason I'm saying they offer would offer it. Can you get a half ton and put a plow on? ah Do they offer one that you could put a plow on? Because ah they ah they do offer an F-150 where you could put a plow on. That's an eight cylinder. Yeah.
02:14:23
Speaker
I don't know. you know, I'm wondering if a Chevy just kind of offers one as kind of a special order or something. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. You can definitely get away from it. I'm just like, I just don't want to have a turbo for a car that I plan on keeping for 20 years. Yeah.
02:14:40
Speaker
Yeah. And even, i know Chevy has, no, Chevy does have it, but they have they have that valve or cylinder deactivation, which. Yeah. Yeah. You could turn that off though.
02:14:53
Speaker
i did but Yeah. I had a customer that's already had it fixed twice. Yeah. I believe, I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. That's just too much crap involved. they've They've tried it so many times and I guess they got it working now, but still it's just something else to,
02:15:10
Speaker
brake in my opinion and Dodge does not even don't know Dodge Dodge has like a hybrid option for their V8 which is lame kind of like the as lame as the Ford hybrid option doesn't really give you much is it bad is it it doesn't give you it's not like a the Ford at least the Ford one I'm pretty familiar with it doesn't give you much it'll give you more gas mileage if you're doing a lot of city driving Cause it, you that initial start and stop is on the battery, but it's not like you you can't even turn off the engine and just drive on the battery. it's It's just not, it's not like that kind of thing. So but if you look at the, you look at the gas mileage rates, they they're identical to the V8 and the two seven and three five. doesn't, doesn't go up by any state. So you get them out.
02:15:51
Speaker
With, uh, with Dodge, I might look at the Duramax or whatever they offer in diesel. Yeah. Now the advantage to the Ford EcoBoost or no, PowerBoost, think it's called, which is the hybrid one, is if you get the upgraded one, you could power your house. You have a 30 amp outlet on the back. You could plug it into your house and power your house for a couple days or a day or whatever. It depends on whether it does. I do have another customer that one of those. He said, yeah, when we had no power, he's like, I didn't even think of an all-send dawn on me. I just plugged it in and plugged everything into my truck and ran in house.
02:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. Full tank, you could run it for 30 hours. Yeah. Dodge still offers a Hemi for yep trucks. Yeah. Okay. Five, five, seven Hemi. Yeah. Yeah. I knew Dodge. I think I was wondering, I know Toyota, I think it's gotten away from the V8. I think.
02:16:35
Speaker
And Toyota got rid of the V8 and just offers the six one. A lot of, and pe a lot of people off, man. because that was it Yeah. They, they did. I don't know if they still do in the beginning, but that ticked off a lot of people.
02:16:53
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh, sure. I don't even know if it's about the power. It's more about longevity. You had a truck that 300,000 without it even tune up. You did?
02:17:05
Speaker
Not anymore? I don't think so. Well, go check out the auto show and, you know, yell at the Chevy guys for not, or whoever, Toyota guys for not having a V8. No, Chevy does actually still one. Yeah, that's what was thinking. My cousin has one. it he did he has He gets pretty decent gas mileage on his V8.
02:17:22
Speaker
but Yeah. The cylinder deactivation part. Yep. But Dodge doesn't do that. they have They don't think they do that, but i don't know. Not with the Hemi, no. Yeah. That's okay.
02:17:34
Speaker
I'll still beat him off the line. Probably. Most times, yes. All right. That kind of wraps us up. that's That's the end. That's the last one. Go look at the IAC Center and go there one more time. See it.
02:17:47
Speaker
Otherwise, who knows when the next time we'll be in there. And thank you for listening. Send us your shenanigans. if you If you see anything in your area, send it send it over to us. Quick at Rivercast at gmail.com.
02:17:57
Speaker
Don't forget the blog. Every Monday, when the show is dropped, you can check it out follow along as you go through the show if you're you're so able to. we really appreciate listening.
02:18:08
Speaker
We'll talk to you next week. Peace.