Speaker 1: Now your host Ken Brew on news radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: What a glorious day it is in the tri State.
Speaker 2: Here you are on this Saturday before Christmas. Everybody is out.
Speaker 2: It seems like at the Kenwood Town Center. I look
Speaker 2: over there. Well, most saturdays it's like that, but now
Speaker 2: it just appears like it's it's completely out of control.
Speaker 2: I made a joking remark this week that Kenwood Town
Speaker 2: Center is the reason why God invented Amazon. And I'm
Speaker 2: not quite so sure that should be a joking reference.
Speaker 2: It might be true, you know. He said, let there
Speaker 2: be light, and then after he saw the Kenwood Town
Speaker 2: Center at Christmas, he said, man, let there be Amazon
Speaker 2: dot Com. If you're out there today, please be careful.
Speaker 2: I hate it when people say that to me. You
Speaker 2: walk out the door, please be careful. WHOA what do
Speaker 2: you think? I'm not going to be careful, But you know,
Speaker 2: it's you know, if somebody cuts you off, or you know,
Speaker 2: if it's the last parking spot and there's two cars
Speaker 2: it looks like that are ready to attack the spot,
Speaker 2: just back off. There'll be something that opens up in
Speaker 2: a couple of minutes. It has been a big week
Speaker 2: for weed huge week for weed, both good and bad
Speaker 2: if you're so inclined to partake in weed. First off,
Speaker 2: the President signed an executive order this past week that could,
Speaker 2: and the emphasis is on the word could, reclassify marijuana
Speaker 2: as a less dangerous drug. Right now, marijuana is a
Speaker 2: Schedule one drug and that would put it in the
Speaker 2: same classification as heroin LSD. And what the President is
Speaker 2: doing is trying to get it to a Schedule three substance,
Speaker 2: which would put it in the same class as things
Speaker 2: like ketamine and some anabolic steroids. What this means is
Speaker 2: reclassification by the DEA would not not make it legal
Speaker 2: for recreational use by adults nationwide, but it could there's
Speaker 2: that word again, could change how the drug is regulated
Speaker 2: and reduce a hefty tax burden on the cannabis industry.
Speaker 2: Right now, medical marijuana is allowed by about forty states
Speaker 2: and the District of Columbia, So that was on one hand.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, this week, just yesterday, the Governor
Speaker 2: of Ohio, on an expiring term, this would be the
Speaker 2: Honorable Mike DeWine, struck down a provision that was in
Speaker 2: Senate Bill fifty six. That Senate Bill fifty six basically
Speaker 2: said that THC drinks in their present form could be
Speaker 2: sold anywhere in the state of Ohio. Dwine does not
Speaker 2: want THC drinks. And so when Bill SENATETIL fifty six
Speaker 2: got there to his desk, it carved out he carved
Speaker 2: out basically that provision, and it gets into milligrams and
Speaker 2: how much are allowed per container. And basically what it
Speaker 2: means is that places that sell THHC drinks, you know,
Speaker 2: the infused seltzers, are now scrambling to get them off
Speaker 2: the shelves. And if I'm reading this correctly, they've got
Speaker 2: to get them off the shelves and got to be
Speaker 2: done selling them within ninety days of the wine signing
Speaker 2: this bill, which would make it the middle of March.
Speaker 2: So what does this mean for you? What does that
Speaker 2: mean for me if we indulge in these kinds of things?
Speaker 2: And can you really, in this day and age legislate morality.
Speaker 2: This ain't nineteen twenty and it's not prohibition. And I'm
Speaker 2: just wondering what the weed industry thinks about this. So
Speaker 2: who better to be a spokesman for the weed industry
Speaker 2: at this particular point in time in the tri State
Speaker 2: than the weed Man himself. That would be Jerry J.
Speaker 2: Mann Joiner. He is all things weed. He has his
Speaker 2: own television show, Weed and Whiskey TV. And the only
Speaker 2: other person I know know that goes up in smoke
Speaker 2: more than Jerry Joyner, it's Willie Nelson. And perhaps they
Speaker 2: know each other. I don't know. We'll find out here
Speaker 2: in just a second. But let's get into this and
Speaker 2: what happened with Trump this week, and also what happened
Speaker 2: with the wine and Jerry Joyner. How are you on
Speaker 2: this glorious Saturday.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm doing great, ken, and thank you for those accolades.
Speaker 3: Just being in the same sentence with my patriot, Saint
Speaker 3: Willie Nelson is a real compliment.
Speaker 4: Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Now you know what happened up here yesterday, I'm sure,
Speaker 2: And that's the governor of Ohio looked at Senate Bill
Speaker 2: fifty six, which had passed the House, hadn't passed the Senate,
Speaker 2: and said, you know what, No, I don't like that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to wea to veto the part and take
Speaker 2: out the part where we're going to allow THHC infused
Speaker 2: drinks greatly reduce things like even selling him even selling
Speaker 2: marijuana here in the great state of Ohio. Now, when
Speaker 2: you saw something like that, what did you think.
Speaker 3: Well, you know that the headline kind of got on
Speaker 3: the THC, which it seems like Governor de Wine wants.
Speaker 3: So it is to only be sold in the marijuana dispensaries.
Speaker 3: No more gas stations, sea stores on the corner or
Speaker 3: any of those places, or.
Speaker 4: The vape shops.
Speaker 3: Even at this point, for milligrams, is such a minute
Speaker 3: trace that a big fat boy like me might not
Speaker 3: even show up in a drug dest That is.
Speaker 4: That minute of an amount.
Speaker 3: But I think as I did a little research, I
Speaker 3: found some more interesting things besides the THHC drink issue. Uh,
Speaker 3: marijuana must now be stored in its original packaging and
Speaker 3: kept in the trunk of a vehicle while driving. You
Speaker 3: that again, it says that marijuana must be stored in
Speaker 3: its original packaging and kept in the trunk of a
Speaker 3: vehicle while driving out an SUV that doesn't have a trunk.
Speaker 2: That's true, and and and so you got to run
Speaker 2: out and buy some of those baggies at the grocery store, Koger,
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to go out and get some of
Speaker 2: those and use them for other things, because you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of people just throw it in there, you know,
Speaker 2: they buy it, they throw it in there, seal it
Speaker 2: up and everything's five. Well, you can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2: You have to use those baggies for something else.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: You know that packaging back in the day was just
Speaker 3: a clear baggie. Let you see exactly what was in there.
Speaker 3: And now we've moved to big marketing where you've got
Speaker 3: colorfual graphics, some of them appealing too much towards children.
Speaker 3: And of course it does allow for some labeling and
Speaker 3: some information which we really never got that on those
Speaker 3: just clear baggies that we bought. You know, it's also
Speaker 3: going to be a state crime now if you went
Speaker 3: to like Michigan, bought you a little pot and brought
Speaker 3: it back.
Speaker 2: So this bill that the Senate passed, it had an
Speaker 2: exemption for THC infused beverages. At Ohio would have been
Speaker 2: allowed to sell these things in breweries and bars with
Speaker 2: no more than five milligrams of THC for serving. That's
Speaker 2: what DeWine did want. He outlawed that.
Speaker 3: Now he says, yeah, use the line item veto to
Speaker 3: immediately ban that.
Speaker 4: Well, I say immediately, you've got until.
Speaker 3: Twenty March of twenty twenty six for them to depinish
Speaker 3: their inventory.
Speaker 2: So if I went down to my local liquor store
Speaker 2: right now, I could if he has it, I could
Speaker 2: still buy a THC infuse drink with about five milligrams
Speaker 2: of THCHC. But the guy that owns the place has
Speaker 2: got to clear the product and it's got to be
Speaker 2: off the shelves within ninety days three months, which would
Speaker 2: be the middle of March. But let me go back
Speaker 2: to something else here. What's the difference in terms of
Speaker 2: what a THC drink will do for you? What's the
Speaker 2: difference between five milligrams which the wine says no, and
Speaker 2: zero point four milligrams, which he says, okay. Up to
Speaker 2: that you can sell it, but anything over that you
Speaker 2: got to go to a licensed marijuana dispensary. So just
Speaker 2: to what it does to you, what's the difference between
Speaker 2: five milligrams of EHC and point four milligrams of THHC.
Speaker 3: Ken, let's compare them to beer. A point four is
Speaker 3: going to be a non alcoholic beer. That's about what
Speaker 3: it's going to do to you. A five milligram is
Speaker 3: going to be like a regular beer a two point
Speaker 3: five milligram, which is what oj Man recommends people to
Speaker 3: try if they're new to this and they want to
Speaker 3: see how it compares to to beer and those those
Speaker 3: things two point five milligrams. But again, it also depends
Speaker 3: on the size of the can. There's some there's some.
Speaker 3: I think it's a twelve ounce can't five milligrams is
Speaker 3: not as much.
Speaker 4: THC is a two point five milligram.
Speaker 3: And in a in that small shot thing that they
Speaker 3: have now, so.
Speaker 2: You've got to a degree in chemistry to figure out
Speaker 2: all this.
Speaker 4: It really does.
Speaker 3: Used to we just took a piece of rolling paper,
Speaker 3: got the seeds out, rolled a joint up, and smoked it.
Speaker 3: And now there's so many ways that you can get
Speaker 3: THC into your system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're right, but so so the bottom line
Speaker 2: of all of this is, despite the fact that the
Speaker 2: Senate will pass, despite the fact that recent surveys show
Speaker 2: at about sixty five sixty six percent of Ohioans like
Speaker 2: it the way it is, our marijuana, our THC laws,
Speaker 2: the things governing those products to be you know, as
Speaker 2: free and as loose as possible. The governor says no, no,
Speaker 2: we're not going to do that. Anything like that goes
Speaker 2: to a dispensary. And if you want to go to
Speaker 2: your local liquor store and buy a can of THHC
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, can't do that after March of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. So it just means you're probably going
Speaker 2: to be taking your business elsewhere.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, let's hope that it doesn't go underground or
Speaker 3: to the black market. You know, the flower aspect of marijuana,
Speaker 3: cannabis our snip which they call THC a now is
Speaker 3: still very very popular, and that's going to be difficult
Speaker 3: for the cartails and organized client people to get in
Speaker 3: the drink business. It's easy for them to sell that flower,
Speaker 3: but getting into the drink business is a whole different arena.
Speaker 3: And I believe by this time next year you'll be
Speaker 3: able to get those THC drinks in a two point
Speaker 3: five milligram dose at your liquor stores. I think the
Speaker 3: liquor industry is going to take over the THHC drinks.
Speaker 3: You know, they keep trying to carve out the drinks
Speaker 3: from everything else. Book on the federal level, and now
Speaker 3: as we see what the governor do wine on the
Speaker 3: state level, so there's something up with the drinks in
Speaker 3: how it's going to replace beer in the next five years.
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's interesting because that would fly in
Speaker 2: the face of what this from what I can see,
Speaker 2: what this law says, because as we mentioned earlier, anything
Speaker 2: more than point four milligrams per curtainer per container have
Speaker 2: to be sold and licensed marijuana dispensaries. So I guess
Speaker 2: you're just basically moving state money from a marijuana dispensary
Speaker 2: to a liquor store, right. I mean, it sounds like
Speaker 2: it's a book keeping problem for the state of Ohio,
Speaker 2: is what it sounds like it's going to be.
Speaker 3: Jory State has these of how they're going to deal
Speaker 3: with this, and I think the main thing people need
Speaker 3: to keep in mind, kid is make sure and don't
Speaker 3: drink more than one of these drinks until you see
Speaker 3: how it affects you and use common sense. That's something
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty six we all need a big dose
Speaker 3: of it's common sense.
Speaker 2: Well now, in another front on the marijuana level, President
Speaker 2: Trump this past week signed an executive order that could
Speaker 2: reclassify marijuana to a less dangerous drug and that would
Speaker 2: open up new avenues for medical research. That would be
Speaker 2: a shift in federal drug policy, and it gets to
Speaker 2: where a lot of other states are with this. So
Speaker 2: he's trying to deal with this on the federal level.
Speaker 2: And from what I read, this reclassification by the DEA
Speaker 2: would not make it legal for recreational utes by adults nationwide,
Speaker 2: but it could, and emphasize the word, could change how
Speaker 2: the drug is regulated and reduce a hefty tax burden
Speaker 2: on the cannabis industry. So how do you view someone
Speaker 2: that understands as this someone that lives his life in
Speaker 2: a haze of smoke? Jerry Joinder? How do you view
Speaker 2: what President Trump did last week?
Speaker 3: I do it is a good thing for the industry
Speaker 3: and for the people because it will loosen up the
Speaker 3: restrictions on research. You know, we've been very limited on
Speaker 3: the research into marijuana just because of it being illegal
Speaker 3: on a federal level, and so this has been to
Speaker 3: allow for more dollars to flow for research. It's supposed
Speaker 3: to help the good players in the industry with their
Speaker 3: two ade tax situation, which has been a burden on
Speaker 3: a lot of these players.
Speaker 4: But I found it interesting.
Speaker 3: A good friend of mine, David Charles, who is the
Speaker 3: CEO of a company called Mood that tells one hundred
Speaker 3: million dollars worth of thc or hip products online across
Speaker 3: the country within the White House, and you would have
Speaker 3: thought he would have been like, oh, what are they.
Speaker 2: Doing to us?
Speaker 3: So that lets me think that there's something still going
Speaker 3: on behind the scenes, that this hip stuff will come back,
Speaker 3: but it'll just be in the liquor stores are where
Speaker 3: beer is normally being sold in a different fashion with
Speaker 3: better in safer products. That's what let's all hope.
Speaker 2: Biden tried to do what Trump did, but never really
Speaker 2: took up the issue. Trump did it, but a lot
Speaker 2: of his Republican cohorts are not happy that he's doing this.
Speaker 2: A lot of the people that governed in the South,
Speaker 2: particularly people like North Carolina Senator Ted Budd says that
Speaker 2: it's dangerous and this shift would undermine strong efforts made
Speaker 2: by Trump. I don't know. I think anything that's unknown
Speaker 2: tends to scare people. It took us a very long
Speaker 2: time in this stage, Jerry to get legalized gambling. You know,
Speaker 2: the opposition was running commercials where it was some dude
Speaker 2: dressed up like the devil talking about the devil. We
Speaker 2: were all going to go to hell. And you know,
Speaker 2: right now, I don't sense anybody is getting burned. I
Speaker 2: only maybe people with you know, an addiction to gambling
Speaker 2: that they can't cure. But the fact of the matter
Speaker 2: is always said this, it's very difficult to legislate morality.
Speaker 2: It's a very difficult thing to do in the American
Speaker 2: society that we live in right now. And now that
Speaker 2: the toothpaste is out of the tube, so to speak,
Speaker 2: with marijuana, I don't sense that anybody is going to
Speaker 2: be successful taking things back. I think it's going to
Speaker 2: have to be a very thoughtful and very prodigious step
Speaker 2: forward with all of these things. But going back, I
Speaker 2: just don't think that's going to work.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts, well, we learned that from prohibition, right you know,
Speaker 3: the Americans they wanted alcohol even though the government made
Speaker 3: it illegal. They still found ways to get alcohol, no
Speaker 3: different than gambling. And so if we allow these things
Speaker 3: that people want to be legal, but regulated in thoughtful,
Speaker 3: proper manners, I think it's a good thing because, as
Speaker 3: you said, Kim, Americans are gonna kind of we're built
Speaker 3: that way. If we want something, we're going to go
Speaker 3: get it. And let's just make sure what we want
Speaker 3: and we get it safe. That's the moral of all
Speaker 3: this to me.
Speaker 2: So your prediction is by November of next year, despite
Speaker 2: what the governor signed into law this past week, your
Speaker 2: prediction is in November of twenty twenty six that these
Speaker 2: THC infused drinks and not the ones that are limited
Speaker 2: by zero point four milligrams. Your prediction is that they
Speaker 2: will be available in liquor stores in November twenty sixth
Speaker 2: I am I hearing you correctly.
Speaker 3: That's my prediction for what it's worth. And I also
Speaker 3: think we'll see a reduction in the amount of what
Speaker 3: we call flour or the plant that the people smoke.
Speaker 4: You know, across the country. I hear people complain all
Speaker 4: the time. Jay Man.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't mind people smoking pot, but I
Speaker 3: don't want to smell it everywhere I go. I had
Speaker 3: a friend tell me the other day he could smell
Speaker 3: it going down the highway coming out of somebody's guard right,
Speaker 3: So first of all, don't drive around and smoke it.
Speaker 3: But you know, if the drinks are a way for
Speaker 3: people to get the THCHC and it takes away from
Speaker 3: them wanting to smoke, that I think that's a good thing,
Speaker 3: even for myself.
Speaker 4: At my agent.
Speaker 3: Willy doesn't smoke anymore, but he's got his own Willy's remedy,
Speaker 3: but he's got his own drink right uh. And and
Speaker 3: so if we see a change in people's attitudes moving
Speaker 3: towards Hey, I want this TC in my system, but
Speaker 3: I'll get it from drinking instead of smoking. That will
Speaker 3: really reduce the black markets a huge hold on this,
Speaker 3: so right Will.
Speaker 2: He's also got a song about it. He rolled me
Speaker 2: up and smoked me. When I die.
Speaker 4: You hear that one.
Speaker 2: When I die, I have another one.
Speaker 4: It's all going the pot. We lock it or not.
Speaker 2: Jay Man, it's it's great catching up with you. You
Speaker 2: have a merry Christmas and stay out of trouble, all right.
Speaker 4: You two can't talk to you next year.
Speaker 2: There's a Yeah, there's a guy that knows his weed.
Speaker 2: But I I think when the Governor's office turns over,
Speaker 2: whether it's acting God help us all or if it's
Speaker 2: a nswami, I think this thing will come before the
Speaker 2: governor again. If the legislature stays read. I think this
Speaker 2: whole thing comes before the governor again, whoever it may be.
Speaker 2: And I think it passes without line item veto. I
Speaker 2: just do I just you know, okay, I think there
Speaker 2: are a lot of people that were disappointed, a lot
Speaker 2: of people that were happy. But it sounds like the
Speaker 2: overwhelming majority in this state if you look at the polling,
Speaker 2: one in fifty six to pass without without challenge or change.
Speaker 2: So keep your antenna up. There you go. The j
Speaker 2: man said, come next November, it's all going to change.
Speaker 2: We're twelve twenty five right now, right here on this
Speaker 2: December news Radio seven hundred WLW Torld forty one. On
Speaker 2: this Saturday, Welcome back News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 5: I am.
Speaker 2: On the program today John Houston, who is an Ohio senator.
Speaker 2: Don't feel badly if you don't know who the guy is.
Speaker 2: Forty percent of the people in Ohio apparently don't know
Speaker 2: who John Houston is in a recent poll. Anyway, he
Speaker 2: is filling out the term that JD. Vance was elected
Speaker 2: to when Vance became the Vice President of the United States.
Speaker 2: And anyway, John Houston wants to run again on his
Speaker 2: own And like I said, forty percent of the state
Speaker 2: don't know who John Houston is. So who the hell
Speaker 2: is this guy and why does he want to continue
Speaker 2: being a senator. And if he is the man that
Speaker 2: could get lost in a phone booth all by himself,
Speaker 2: what's the point of sending him back to Washington. We'll
Speaker 2: get into that at one o'clock with Rebecca Downs from
Speaker 2: the Daily Signal. Also, the best and worst airlines to
Speaker 2: travel during this holiday season. Believe it or not, there
Speaker 2: are more than a few you might be on heading
Speaker 2: out to wherever you're going for Christmas in the New
Speaker 2: Year's that are not so let's say, reliable. And then
Speaker 2: what's going on in Venezuela. I mean, what is exactly
Speaker 2: is Trump doing down there? He's got a blockade of
Speaker 2: the country, He's blowing up drug boats from Venezuela, and
Speaker 2: it looks like he's going to going to make a
Speaker 2: move on Meduro down there. Some thought he would say
Speaker 2: something about that in his speech to the country a
Speaker 2: couple of nights ago, but he did not. But it
Speaker 2: looks like there are very good odds of something happening
Speaker 2: militarily between the United States and Venezuela. We'll get into
Speaker 2: that with a guy who is knee deep in that
Speaker 2: story at the two of six, Bill Conroy. All of
Speaker 2: that and more Oh, and by the way, the Epstein
Speaker 2: files are being released, what it's left of them over
Speaker 2: the course of the last twenty four hours they've been
Speaker 2: released by the DOJ. But of course, the Democrats aren't
Speaker 2: really interested in anything inside the Epstein files unless it
Speaker 2: incriminates Donald Trump. Uh, you got a guy, Democrat, Representative Garcia,
Speaker 2: we will take legal action of Trump continues to stonewall
Speaker 2: on the Epstein files. And then, of course you've got
Speaker 2: the squad. You have congress Woman Ayana Presley. She's accusing
Speaker 2: Trump of a brazen cover up with redacted Epstein files.
Speaker 2: You want to know if it's redacted in the files
Speaker 2: that they've bet. They got Bill Clinton. They got a
Speaker 2: picture of Bill Clinton in a bathtub with another woman
Speaker 2: who's whose whose eyes have been redacted, and they're only
Speaker 2: redacting apparently pictures and things inside pictures that involve victims
Speaker 2: or people that are not named inside the Epstein files.
Speaker 2: Per se, they got Clinton laying in some bathtub. They
Speaker 2: got another picture of swimming in a pool with the
Speaker 2: Maxwell chick that was Epstein's right hand person. And I've
Speaker 2: said this, and I said it really since all of
Speaker 2: this popped up, if the Democrats were so damned interested
Speaker 2: in the Epstein files, then why weren't they all over
Speaker 2: getting them released when they had power White House, Senate,
Speaker 2: House of Representatives from twenty twenty one through twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one January through twenty twenty three January. They
Speaker 2: had two years to do it, and of course they
Speaker 2: didn't because they know that most of the people that
Speaker 2: are inside those files, most of the people of note,
Speaker 2: at least the ones we've seen so far, but they
Speaker 2: probably knew it would be embarrassing to their party. But
Speaker 2: they really don't give a rats rear end about Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton or his wife Hillary. They don't give really a
Speaker 2: rats rear end about Barack Obama anymore. They want something
Speaker 2: that's going to get Trump, get Trump, stop Trump, Orange
Speaker 2: Man Bad, And of course the syncophants in the news
Speaker 2: media that you hear and see all over the place,
Speaker 2: that's what they want too. But if there was something
Speaker 2: about Trump inside the Epstein files that they had the
Speaker 2: ability to get and get out and preempt Donald Trump
Speaker 2: from running again, don't you think they would have done that?
Speaker 2: Because the only thing that the Democrats really have been
Speaker 2: interested in since twenty fifteen is stopping Donald Trump. What
Speaker 2: the hell else have they done? Well, well, they've been
Speaker 2: pretty good obstructionists for the last eleven or twelve months.
Speaker 2: But the fact of the matter is they would have
Speaker 2: and they would have put those files out and be
Speaker 2: damned whether or not Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama
Speaker 2: or Michelle Obama were inside those files, they wouldn't have cared.
Speaker 2: So why did they do it? Chris? There's probably nothing
Speaker 2: in there about Donald Trump. Well, he has pictures in there,
Speaker 2: he's posing with Epstein, he's got some young women around him.
Speaker 2: There's nothing in there that's incriminated him. It's just it's very,
Speaker 2: very weird. And so now when they're not the these
Speaker 2: files aren't being released quickly enough, and because the files
Speaker 2: have names in there that need to be redacted who
Speaker 2: aren't necessarily victims or suspects or anything else. Now it's
Speaker 2: you know, there's something that's hiding, something, hiding something. Well,
Speaker 2: you could have gotten everything that was in there, you
Speaker 2: could have gotten from January twenty one to January twenty three,
Speaker 2: and this whole business about well, you know, they didn't
Speaker 2: want to release them back then because it would be
Speaker 2: embarrassing the Democrats. It's crazy. The number one thing on
Speaker 2: that side of the aisle was get Trump, and when
Speaker 2: they couldn't stop Trump. Now all you've heard about was
Speaker 2: Epstein files, Epstein's files, and Epstein get the Epstein files out,
Speaker 2: and when there's nothing in there, they'll move on to
Speaker 2: something else. Every time it seems like they start down
Speaker 2: the road to something like this, they step on a
Speaker 2: rake and hit themselves in the groin. Oh anyway, stand
Speaker 2: by the DOJ is releasing it and we'll see exactly
Speaker 2: what's in it. But I can't believe that this things. Well,
Speaker 2: when when did Epstein allegedly off himself? Was it twenty nineteen?
Speaker 2: We're six years down the road and we're all worked
Speaker 2: up in a lather over the Epstein files. Okay, you
Speaker 2: know I mentioned it was twelve forty one, and in
Speaker 2: most places it is twelve forty one. But as you
Speaker 2: and I both know, five o'clock somewhere, it's one for you,
Speaker 2: one for me. Somebody's gone a little Miami, haven't they.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff? Pop top again, Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: a jans. I've just got time for one more round.
Speaker 2: Set them up, my friend, and what happens after that?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 7: Now be gone?
Speaker 2: You can let some other sick. Dawn gotta be sterling.
Speaker 2: He's in a three oh six, and I would stay
Speaker 2: tuned for all the various high jinks that goes along
Speaker 2: with a sterling program. College football player playoffs continue right
Speaker 2: now Miami and Texas. A and m are scoreless with
Speaker 2: four minutes to go first quarter, and that is out
Speaker 2: in College Station Texas. Later on, we've got James Madison
Speaker 2: University at Oregon at seven thirty. At three point thirty,
Speaker 2: it's two Lane at Mississippi, the Lane Kiffin less University
Speaker 2: of Mississippi. Last night, If you didn't see it, you
Speaker 2: watch one of the great meltdowns in college football, and
Speaker 2: that occurred when Oklahoma saw a lead slip away. They
Speaker 2: were up seventeen to nothing in this game, and then
Speaker 2: it started a hemorrhage. And in the final analysis, Alabama
Speaker 2: thirty four, Oklahoma twenty four. Over the first twenty minutes
Speaker 2: of that game, when Oklahoma went up seventeen sid it
Speaker 2: looked like it was going to be a blowout. In
Speaker 2: the first twenty minutes of that game, Alabama had a
Speaker 2: grand total of twelve yards of offense. But then things
Speaker 2: started to go haywire. Alabama came alive in this I
Speaker 2: would say the next twenty twenty five minutes maybe and
Speaker 2: flip the script out gaining Oklahoma one ninety four to
Speaker 2: fifty nine. And then there was just meltdowns on a drive,
Speaker 2: a fourth down touchdown toss before that, a big third
Speaker 2: down conversion, and you could just sense the momentum building.
Speaker 2: And Oklahoma has not done any favors with its special teams, miskicks,
Speaker 2: block field goals, you name it. And that led to
Speaker 2: this joyous celebration out on the field by Caitlin de Boor,
Speaker 2: who was the head coach of Alabama and in some
Speaker 2: circles still held up and compared to his predecessor, Nick Saban.
Speaker 2: But here is de Boor jubilant. It seems like, well
Speaker 2: jubilant for him on the field after the game.
Speaker 8: Yeah, just our guys have, like you said, I had
Speaker 8: been in it all year long, and and uh what's
Speaker 8: up man? Uh, just I'm proud of the fight. I
Speaker 8: know I'm gonna get that every single time we step
Speaker 8: on the football field. We had to trade our own
Speaker 8: breaks a little bit. We knew it was gonna be
Speaker 8: a fist fight. We knew it's gonna be a physical
Speaker 8: game would be hard moving the ball, but you just
Speaker 8: gotta you just gotta keep playing well.
Speaker 2: The next one will be the easy one, that's for sure. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: over on the Oklahoma side of things, the head coach
Speaker 2: Brent Fvennables was well, let's just say during his news conference,
Speaker 2: he was sniffing the tears. Here's Brent Vennable.
Speaker 9: You know, I had a seventeen point lead, had great momentum,
Speaker 9: and and just we lost the momentum and gave up
Speaker 9: a seventy five yard drive and the third and six
Speaker 9: that we lost leveraging coverage and then gave up a
Speaker 9: fourth and two on that drive. And you know, Alabama's
Speaker 9: got a really good football team and really good staff,
Speaker 9: and they were able to start to slowly but surely
Speaker 9: creep back into the game. And and then we had
Speaker 9: a couple of really ill timed mistakes that they capital.
Speaker 2: No kidding, no kidden. It was good. It was an
Speaker 2: eight to nine matchup. It was a good matchup. I
Speaker 2: thought it was a fun game to watch. But you
Speaker 2: could just tell watching that game that Oklahoma had no
Speaker 2: idea how to stop the steamroller after it turned around
Speaker 2: and came after them. So it's Alabama. That moves on,
Speaker 2: Oklahoma goes home, and more fun and frivolity as today
Speaker 2: goes on and the next week everybody gets into the action.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow it is Cincinnati against Miami in the National Football League, Yes,
Speaker 2: the Bengals. In a just a couple of minutes, probably
Speaker 2: we'll be boarding a plane and heading down to Miami
Speaker 2: where it's supposed to have a game time temperature somewhere
Speaker 2: in the low eighties. Start difference right from what we
Speaker 2: had to sit through last Sunday here with the Ravens. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: both of these teams are out of it, and what
Speaker 2: it becomes is it becomes a showcase really for players
Speaker 2: that maybe the team is fence sitting on right. It's
Speaker 2: gonna Schamar Stewart is a guy that he'll be around
Speaker 2: next year, but he hasn't shown much this year either
Speaker 2: when he was in there healthy yer and now he's
Speaker 2: coming off of an injury. So it's a big game
Speaker 2: for him. Two rookie linebackers, big game for them. Some
Speaker 2: players in the secondary who have underperformed, big game for them.
Speaker 2: Defensive line, who's bringing the heat, you know, Trey Hendricks in.
Speaker 2: It looks like that boat has sailed here and no
Speaker 2: Joseph Asside tomorrow. So some of the other folks like
Speaker 2: Miles Murphy is a has it been a canard the
Speaker 2: last two or three weeks or is he for real? Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: here's the head coach, Zach Taylor, saying, I still believe
Speaker 2: in what this team offers.
Speaker 10: I got a ton of belief in our coaching staff,
Speaker 10: our scouting department, our ownership, that we are very much
Speaker 10: in alignment with every decision we've ever made here, and
Speaker 10: so again, when things haven't been good enough over the
Speaker 10: course of this season, there's really no one to blame
Speaker 10: other than me, and so I know we all play
Speaker 10: a piece of this, but I'm the guy to get
Speaker 10: to sit there and talk to the team every single
Speaker 10: week to present plans and make end game decisions, and
Speaker 10: so frustrating that I haven't done any job this year,
Speaker 10: but a ton of confidence, and maybe it rings hollow
Speaker 10: to everyone listening, but I know that we've been here
Speaker 10: before and I've seen how we can get out the
Speaker 10: other side.
Speaker 2: I'm very confident we're gonna get that done. There go well,
Speaker 2: I mean again, he's got a little bit of a
Speaker 2: heat under his seat, but he also has two years
Speaker 2: left on his contract, and we know Mike Brown does
Speaker 2: not like to pay players or coaches to sit. So
Speaker 2: Zach Taylor. You know, despite what a lot of people
Speaker 2: in this town may think, despite what you might see
Speaker 2: on billboards, I don't think he's going anywhere. This is
Speaker 2: where it's at for the players. All Right, they're getting paid,
Speaker 2: but it's they're getting paid. Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2: They're professionals. This is what they're supposed to do, even
Speaker 2: when there's nothing left to play for. Dalton Riisner one
Speaker 2: of their top offensive line.
Speaker 11: I mean, we all know that we're both out of a
Speaker 11: playoff contention, but there's a lot to play for.
Speaker 2: I mean, I said this last week.
Speaker 4: I don't speak for the team.
Speaker 11: But I know this is the mindset of the team
Speaker 11: is we get to be Cincinnati Bengals. We get to
Speaker 11: wear the stripes, we get to go represent ourselves, but
Speaker 11: even more importantly, we get to go represent the Cincinnati
Speaker 11: Bengals on Sunday. So anytime I'm putting on the stripes,
Speaker 11: I don't care if playoffs on the line or not.
Speaker 11: I'm going out there. I have so much to play for.
Speaker 11: This is this is a blessing. And if you take
Speaker 11: it for granted, you ain't. You ain't gonna be in
Speaker 11: this league for long. So there's a lot to play for.
Speaker 11: On Sunday, I'm excited to go play the Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 4: We're gonna be ready to go.
Speaker 2: Never met that guy, but I like that guy. That's
Speaker 2: the way you should at that. That should be the outlook.
Speaker 2: You're getting paid, you play as a pro. And my
Speaker 2: guess is he'll be back here again next year too,
Speaker 2: And that's good. That's good. Keep hope alive, for gosh sakes,
Speaker 2: keep hope alive. All right? Who is John Housted and
Speaker 2: why does he want to continue being the senator in Washington,
Speaker 2: DC representing the grand of people here in the state
Speaker 2: of Ohio. We'll get into that next as we cruise
Speaker 2: on till three o'clock on news radio seven hundred w
Speaker 2: l W.
Speaker 1: Oh your host Ken Brew on News Radio seven hundred
Speaker 1: wl W.
Speaker 2: Thank you, mister announcer with a nice voice. Yes it is.
Speaker 2: I have no fear right till three o'clock and then
Speaker 2: all hell breaks loose when Sterling comes in. But we
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about that for a couple of hours.
Speaker 2: It is great to have you with us on this
Speaker 2: Saturday before Christmas, and so much is going on of
Speaker 2: course Hanikah, Christmas, then the New Year, and then and
Speaker 2: then January comes. I was just talking last night about
Speaker 2: this to a friend of mine. January comes and it's like,
Speaker 2: what the hell is this? What happened?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 2: You're in the sun isn't out, you're inside, it's cold
Speaker 2: and all that. It just anyway, so enjoyed this month
Speaker 2: of December what's left of it, because we all know
Speaker 2: what's coming. Speaking of what's coming, we are about to
Speaker 2: enter into full bore blast an election season. The midterms
Speaker 2: are coming up in November, and there are a lot
Speaker 2: of people that are in office right now, both here
Speaker 2: in the state and in Washington, DC, that won't be
Speaker 2: around after the election next November. One would think that
Speaker 2: it will be a big election night for the Democrats
Speaker 2: next November. That just is the way it works on
Speaker 2: off your elections. Now, Donald Trump is going to hold
Speaker 2: a Republican National Convention on this off your election, never
Speaker 2: done that before, to try and drum up support. He's
Speaker 2: got a lot of Democrats that are just running tail.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry Republicans who are just turning tail and running
Speaker 2: from him. They're retiring, they're getting out. They don't want
Speaker 2: a part of it. They know that probably they're done
Speaker 2: in November. So it's going to be very challenging for
Speaker 2: the GOP to keep the majority in the House. What
Speaker 2: is the first thing that the Democrats are going to
Speaker 2: do if they get the House right, They're going to
Speaker 2: impeach Donald Trump. Doesn't matter for what, They'll impeach Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: First thing. They do nothing to help you live healthier,
Speaker 2: nothing to help you deal with expenses. They're going to
Speaker 2: impeach Donald Trump. We just know that, so just leave
Speaker 2: it there. We know it's coming in the Senate where
Speaker 2: the impeachment hearings will take place. Aha, that's where it
Speaker 2: could get crazy. And in the Senate there are a
Speaker 2: number of seats that are up that the Republicans are
Speaker 2: interested in, and several seats they're interested in in defending,
Speaker 2: one of which is here in Ohio. Here in Ohio,
Speaker 2: we have John Houston. If you just said who, that's
Speaker 2: fine because in a recent poll it was taken by
Speaker 2: Emerson College, thirty eight percent of Ohio and said they
Speaker 2: never heard of John Houston. Even though this dude has
Speaker 2: been in Ohio politics for his entire life. Nobody knew
Speaker 2: who he was. Now here in Cincinnati, having worked in
Speaker 2: local television for over forty five years, I can tell
Speaker 2: to you that the interest in covering what goes on
Speaker 2: in Columbus and inside the State House in the State Senate,
Speaker 2: the interest among Cincinnati television stations is somewhere south of
Speaker 2: zero percent. Don't cover it. Even the paper gives cursory
Speaker 2: coverage to the Ohio State House and the Senate. So
Speaker 2: a lot of these dudes that are up there, like
Speaker 2: John Houstad, until he was appointed to fill out JD.
Speaker 2: Vance's seat, fill out the term that JD. Evans had,
Speaker 2: nobody knew who he was. He was a name that
Speaker 2: appeared on a ballot like once every seven or it
Speaker 2: was every four years. So he's got a problem, or
Speaker 2: maybe not. Maybe it's a good thing that forty percent
Speaker 2: don't know who he is and he can paint over
Speaker 2: that blank canvas standing by it give her thoughts on
Speaker 2: all of this. Is one of the finest political writers
Speaker 2: in this country, and she happens to reside here in Ohio,
Speaker 2: and she happens to write for the Daily Signal. We've
Speaker 2: had Rebecca Downs on the show before because we like
Speaker 2: her and because she has good stuff to say, and
Speaker 2: she's kind of up to call oute some of her
Speaker 2: Saturday to spend with us right here on seven hundred
Speaker 2: at WYLW. So how much you been a dentity problem?
Speaker 2: Does John Houston have? Sure?
Speaker 7: So he do have to pay attention to state politics
Speaker 7: a lot, right, since those are the various offices he's helped.
Speaker 7: So he was their lieutenant governor. He's also been Secretary
Speaker 7: of State, state senator, served in the Ohio House, which
Speaker 7: included the Speaker.
Speaker 4: Of the House.
Speaker 7: So at the end of the day, it matters if
Speaker 7: people know about him enough or like him enough to
Speaker 7: vote for him. But yes, it is very curious to
Speaker 7: me that he is our sitting senator currently because he
Speaker 7: was appointed to fill JD now Vice President J. D.
Speaker 7: Dance's seat, and so he's running for his special elections
Speaker 7: next year.
Speaker 4: So it is very curious.
Speaker 7: Okay, a lot of people don't a plurality in the
Speaker 7: Emerson Poles don't know a lot about him. They asked voters,
Speaker 7: and these are active voters in Ohio, right, They asked,
Speaker 7: do you have a favorable opinion about this person? Unfavorable,
Speaker 7: unsure don't know enough about them, and thirty eight percent
Speaker 7: said that I'm sure don't know enough about which is
Speaker 7: actually a plurality of responses for what people think.
Speaker 4: About He said.
Speaker 5: Now I talked to him about this.
Speaker 4: I asked him about this, about.
Speaker 7: That poll during a press conference he had last Friday
Speaker 7: after he filed, and another reporter asked him, you know,
Speaker 7: are you worried about those numbers? He seecred as an opportunity, right.
Speaker 7: He pointed out that if I got to introduce myself
Speaker 7: to voters, he seems happy to do that. He seems
Speaker 7: to see it as an opportunity. He also pointed out,
Speaker 7: from my understanding, what he was saying is, you know,
Speaker 7: imagine politicians known for how things are not great in
Speaker 7: Washington type of thing, and there might be a negative
Speaker 7: connotation with that he's running against. In all likelihood, I
Speaker 7: don't think anybody's challenging side. Former Senator Shared Brown. So
Speaker 7: shared Brown has been in politics for a while and
Speaker 7: he just lost last year to now Republican Senator Bernie Marina.
Speaker 2: So yes, go ahead, No, it's going to say you're right,
Speaker 2: I mean it's happened. He lost by Yes, I take
Speaker 2: a point by about two hundred thousand yea three point
Speaker 2: six okay, two hundred thousand votes. They ran him out.
Speaker 2: They ran Shared Brown out in the state. Why would
Speaker 2: anybody think, let alone Shared Brown, that they want him back.
Speaker 7: You know, it could be it's a midterm year. How
Speaker 7: are people feeling, including especially in Ohio, feeling about about Trump?
Speaker 7: Although you know, is Shared Brown getting donations, support and
Speaker 7: fundraising emptines for people outside of Ohio, which always is
Speaker 7: so curious to me because it's only Ohio. Voters are
Speaker 7: gonna have a say or should have a say, and
Speaker 7: whether Shared Brown goes back to the Senate or if
Speaker 7: John Houston gets a full term.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess the outside money maybe
Speaker 2: buys you TV timing, it's a whole thing. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you're building your coffers up. But I mean it seemed like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they seems like the state kind of like was over
Speaker 2: Shared Brown.
Speaker 12: I mean he was I get that sense increasingly read Yeah, thirty.
Speaker 2: Two years in Washington, d C. I mean, you pretty
Speaker 2: much know what you have there. It's not you can't
Speaker 2: put a fresh coat of paint on Shared Brown and
Speaker 2: say here it is you and improved. But you raise
Speaker 2: an interesting point. This is a midterm election. Trump is
Speaker 2: not on the ballot. The Trump voters aren't going to
Speaker 2: come out the way they come out when Trump is
Speaker 2: on the ballot. And so that's where I think Houston
Speaker 2: has his work cut out for him, because upsets like
Speaker 2: this occur in.
Speaker 7: Mid And I yeah, and I did talk. I asked
Speaker 7: he said, I said, are you worried about the poll?
Speaker 7: And he kind of looks a lighthearted tone candidly said, oh,
Speaker 7: you mean the poll where I'm up? So he is
Speaker 7: up against Shared Brod. I believe it's about uh three
Speaker 7: or four points.
Speaker 4: He was up more.
Speaker 7: So in August. He does not seem to be worried
Speaker 7: about the polls. He said, you know, poll numbers say
Speaker 7: come and go. He also has a little less than
Speaker 7: a year now at this point. Let's voters, this is
Speaker 7: just means to hear voters. Voters do seem to have
Speaker 7: a short memory. Will see how short it is and
Speaker 7: what else is going in the world come next November.
Speaker 7: And he did tell me on the thirty two years
Speaker 7: time period. The narratives really seems to be from him,
Speaker 7: because I talked to him about this in September said,
Speaker 7: you know, it's the DC guy versus Ohio guy. He
Speaker 7: sees Shared Brown as working in seteral politics and that
Speaker 7: you know, that dysfunctional system whereas he has he would
Speaker 7: tell you he's you know, really far for the people
Speaker 7: of Ohio, including in those various Ohio state role positions.
Speaker 7: And I think people don't put better or worse, don't
Speaker 7: really pay attention to their state politics.
Speaker 4: No, no whole numbers.
Speaker 7: Like you said, you know, all of you asked, you've
Speaker 7: got lost in the phone book, or you ask ten
Speaker 7: people on the street.
Speaker 4: Who is this guy?
Speaker 7: You know? But as he pointed out, he just needs
Speaker 7: to win by one vote, He needs enough people to vote.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's a that's a very you know, cute
Speaker 2: and cottage way to look at it.
Speaker 4: I I do think very true.
Speaker 2: I do in Cincinnati. This is historically in Cincinnati. We
Speaker 2: don't pay a whole lot of attention what goes on
Speaker 2: in Columbus unless it adversely affects our lives. We are
Speaker 2: the state of Cincinnati, and so the TV stations don't
Speaker 2: cover it the way they should. The local newspaper relies
Speaker 2: on the Columbus newspaper to cover state politics.
Speaker 4: It's just some issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not. It's it's it's we're an anomaly in
Speaker 2: and of ourselves. But I have to be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I've seen John I've heard him talk. He's not the
Speaker 2: most stillating guy in the world. And if forty percent
Speaker 2: of the people don't know who the hell this guy is,
Speaker 2: it would seem to me that somebody in the hierarchy
Speaker 2: of the Republican Party would say to somebody in the Senate, look,
Speaker 2: get this guy in front of the camera and get
Speaker 2: him involved in some of the big legislation coming up,
Speaker 2: so that forty percent of the folks you don't know
Speaker 2: who he is, can at least put a face with
Speaker 2: a voice, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And the NRSC is taking this race very seriously.
Speaker 7: I think it is the race to watch.
Speaker 4: The fact that shared brown Democrats like him, you know.
Speaker 6: Got.
Speaker 7: Back in the race. They actually did regard the race
Speaker 7: from likely Republican when he's did opponent wasn't announced yet
Speaker 7: to lean Republican, so he still has an edge.
Speaker 5: It will be very interesting to watch.
Speaker 7: So in addition to the NRSC taking it seriously, he's
Speaker 7: also had Trump's endorsement, the Vice president's endorsement. You know
Speaker 7: that Ohio nection that he is trying to get out
Speaker 7: there on healthcare with God bless and that's kind of
Speaker 7: like a bangless issue right now with all that's going
Speaker 7: on there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this polling, Rebecca, I don't know how you
Speaker 2: feel about polling. I think polling is is just I
Speaker 2: love pulling.
Speaker 4: I'm not like obsessed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, but I think it's I think it's
Speaker 2: a corrupt business because you never really know what you're
Speaker 2: going to get, and then you have people like Emerson
Speaker 2: and NPR and for that matter, matter for Falgar. I
Speaker 2: mean they all seem to have an agency bias. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there is, and I think that exists in virtually every
Speaker 2: polling that's out there. You're never going to get a
Speaker 2: good result if you're a Republican from an NPR poll.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't. It just doesn't happen because of their bias.
Speaker 2: So I don't pay a lot of attention to polling.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of this really kicks into high
Speaker 2: gear and polling matters until about Labor Day next year.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
Speaker 7: Yes, Yeah, then it's really going to heat up. That's
Speaker 7: when you're like in the grind. That's that's when you
Speaker 7: really do need to be paying attentions to the polls
Speaker 7: and how much the candidate is out there. And but
Speaker 7: I'm like a data walk when it comes to looking
Speaker 7: at the world.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: I mean, you always want to be ahead, you never
Speaker 7: want sure, you're always going to sell burbing ahead, and
Speaker 7: you never want to be behind. But I can see
Speaker 7: why it wouldn't be necessary to wear that at this
Speaker 7: point in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And you know the other thing we pointed out,
Speaker 2: nobody knowing Houstad and what he is and who he is.
Speaker 2: It could be it's a blank can true. There's a
Speaker 2: yeah beauty in that if you are. We're chatting with
Speaker 2: Rebecca Downs. Yeah, she is a terrific writer and understands
Speaker 2: politics in our state top to bottom and she is
Speaker 2: with the Daily Signal. All right, let's get into this
Speaker 2: gooblatorial race. Oh yes, the vag Ramaswami on the Republican side.
Speaker 2: And it looks like doctor Amy Acton, she of COVID fame,
Speaker 2: is on the Democrat side.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because Tim Ryan's not running.
Speaker 2: Great and I look at Amy Acton and I think
Speaker 2: the governor of Ohio, current Governor Mike DeWine unwittingly built
Speaker 2: this woman up into be some sort of godlike figure,
Speaker 2: and now all of a sudden she's coming back, roaring
Speaker 2: at the Republicans and trying to be the governor of
Speaker 2: this state. I don't know what her favorability rating is statewide.
Speaker 2: I can't believe it would be great, just because she
Speaker 2: is the COVID queen in Ohio and we all know
Speaker 2: how that went five years ago. Yeah, why is she
Speaker 2: running and does she have, in your opinion, enough grassroots
Speaker 2: support to pull this thing off.
Speaker 7: Her fund raising numbers have been impressive for a Democrat.
Speaker 7: Let's emphasize that it's for a Democrat, but also the
Speaker 7: day Grammar Swammy has raised a ton of money too.
Speaker 7: Her favorable rating, she is looking at a thirty five
Speaker 7: percent favorable rating, rights towards the bottom. It's a little
Speaker 7: bit better than her unfavorable rating, which is thirty three
Speaker 7: percent and then thirty two percent.
Speaker 4: Say, you know, I'm.
Speaker 3: Sure I've never heard of her.
Speaker 7: It's only a little bit better than John he said
Speaker 7: in that regard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they should run as a team.
Speaker 7: Yeah right, so true. So you know, the Ohio gop
Speaker 7: here they are really hammering the narrative, Oh, the COVID
Speaker 7: queen and COVID closures. And I think that does matter
Speaker 7: in a red state. I really do, especially when when
Speaker 7: parents think about how their kids were affected in school closures,
Speaker 7: and that's certainly a narrative. I said, the Ihio GOP
Speaker 7: is really hammering. That's what I've seen from them. The
Speaker 7: Wine is a very interesting calculation in this mixt and
Speaker 7: he is the current governor, and he was the governor
Speaker 7: when all this was going on, So I think it
Speaker 7: puts him in an awkward spot. I will say, to
Speaker 7: put it politely, that not everybody in Ohio, from the
Speaker 7: repubt book inside, is a fan of Mike de Wine.
Speaker 7: I think they see him as an establishment or what
Speaker 7: some people call rhinos Republican a name only I do
Speaker 7: see their argument, you know. I think I think you
Speaker 7: could also say Republicans would say he was better than
Speaker 7: what the Democrat Nan Leally, who lost him by like
Speaker 7: twenty five points in twenty twenty two, would be. So
Speaker 7: I think I don't I have to wonder how much
Speaker 7: I'm getting involved in the race would would help because
Speaker 7: of both you know, how.
Speaker 2: The Wine hasn't endorsed Ramaswami, and I don't know that's
Speaker 2: not and I don't you know, I don't know how
Speaker 2: he views acting. I would view her if I were him,
Speaker 2: as a political liability. But I do find it that
Speaker 2: the Wine either thinks his anointment of some sort of
Speaker 2: candidate like ramas Swami would carry any kind of weight.
Speaker 2: He's a lame duck governor and he is he is
Speaker 2: not what anyone would discribe as an ultra conservative and
Speaker 2: certainly not part of the Maga movement. So I maybe
Speaker 2: it's a pleasing that Ramaswami doesn't have his endorsement yet.
Speaker 7: True, I do believe it's going to come, because he
Speaker 7: said he would endorse, and my sense was he would
Speaker 7: endorse the Republican candidate, not that Ramaswami and he were
Speaker 7: best friends, but you know, Ramaswami is the Republican Canada.
Speaker 7: I do wonder if Dave yoc Attorney General, had he
Speaker 7: stuck in the race. I don't think he would have
Speaker 7: gotten the nomination, to be frank, given that the Ohio
Speaker 7: GOP endorse Ramaswami, I do wonder if the Wine would
Speaker 7: have thrown his support behind him much more quickly. But
Speaker 7: you know, that's that's where we're at, he said. He
Speaker 7: this is the wine said, he's had conversations with Ramaswami,
Speaker 7: is my understanding.
Speaker 4: So it's probably coming.
Speaker 7: They're probably gonna, you know, maybe it would be a
Speaker 7: photo up or or you know, just tell each other
Speaker 7: what they want to hear. I do wonder if who
Speaker 7: promise Bammy Picks as his lieutenant governor will have any play,
Speaker 7: especially because it's someone currently in state politics. The names
Speaker 7: I'm hearing and I'm sure everybody else are hearing, or
Speaker 7: you know, frank Le Rose. Also, you've got few state senators,
Speaker 7: so I think it's going to be so interesting to
Speaker 7: see if that, if that has no effect as well.
Speaker 2: And that's why you got to read Rebecca downs on
Speaker 2: the Daily Siguation. He is on top of it all.
Speaker 2: And Rebecca, we appreciate your time here today and you
Speaker 2: know we will be calling, but if not before Christmas.
Speaker 2: Every Christmas to.
Speaker 4: You and Christmas to you too.
Speaker 7: God bless, happy New Year and happy han It as well.
Speaker 4: That's going on right now.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful. Thank you. Appreciate that the GOP in this
Speaker 2: state anointed ramas Swami and that ticked off a lot
Speaker 2: of the shall we say, longtime Republicans in this state,
Speaker 2: and that could be one of the reasons why the
Speaker 2: governor has withheld his endorsement Ramaswami. He says he will
Speaker 2: endorse the Republican candidate, but he might not have liked
Speaker 2: what happened about six months ago when it was a
Speaker 2: coronation of Ramaswami. Is that bad for Vivek or we're
Speaker 2: not good for Vivike?
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Speaker 2: ken Brew two O six. What's going on in Venezuela?
Speaker 2: What's Trump up to? Blockhanding the country? Blown up drug boats,
Speaker 2: alleged drug boats and trying to get Maduro the hell
Speaker 2: out of that country. Now there's a line of thinking
Speaker 2: that Maduro and the person that had the power before him,
Speaker 2: Hugo Chavez that they simply just stole all the equipment
Speaker 2: and all of the rigging and all of the everything
Speaker 2: that oil companies invested in years ago, and some oil
Speaker 2: companies gave it up willingly just to get out of
Speaker 2: the country, and others basically, we're just run out of
Speaker 2: the country. And Trump wants his oil back, he wants
Speaker 2: the rigging back, and he wants Maduro out. So exactly
Speaker 2: where are we going here and how does he plan
Speaker 2: on doing that? We'll get into that in just a
Speaker 2: little bit. You're you're invariably, if you're going out of
Speaker 2: town for the holidays, you're going to encounter some problems,
Speaker 2: either traffic on the roadway or if you're going to
Speaker 2: the airport, delays and cancelations and lost bags, and so
Speaker 2: the question becomes what airline is the most dependable if
Speaker 2: you are flying out of town over the holidays, whether
Speaker 2: it be for Christmas or Honikah or for the New Year? Well,
Speaker 2: how about this? Finance Buzz is a website and it
Speaker 2: examined data for the months of November and December from
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four to find which
Speaker 2: airline are the best for holiday travel and that's based
Speaker 2: on what I just mentioned, delays and cancelations, mishandled luggage
Speaker 2: the best the top of the heap Delta Delta Delta
Speaker 2: through that time period when this survey was done, only
Speaker 2: had thirteen point seven percent of their flights delayed and
Speaker 2: less than one percent of their flights canceled. Now, there
Speaker 2: were delays, some is long or averaging out to an hour,
Speaker 2: but some are just not good. Jet Blue Alaska, even
Speaker 2: the low cost carriers Allegian in Frontier not very good.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to get an aviation expert on today.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of them out there. We have
Speaker 2: our own Jay Ratliffe here on seven hundred WLW. But
Speaker 2: Brandon Blewett wrote a book a few years ago that
Speaker 2: I bought and I liked, and I thought it was
Speaker 2: kind of cool. It's called how to Avoid Strangers on Airplanes,
Speaker 2: Survival Guide for the Frequent Business Traveler. And I wanted
Speaker 2: to get his thoughts on what Finance Buzz did here
Speaker 2: and whether or not there's any truth to what we're
Speaker 2: seeing in here. The survey is interesting. I don't think
Speaker 2: it is, Brandon. I don't think it's particularly great for
Speaker 2: any of these airlines It's.
Speaker 12: Really interesting the list of finance Buzz put out right
Speaker 12: because how they factored it is in what's the most
Speaker 12: disruptive and what is the least dependable probably depends on
Speaker 12: you know, how often you travel and you know what
Speaker 12: your travel plans are, because for me, I travel every week.
Speaker 12: So if applies the aid, yes that's annoying, but it's
Speaker 12: not going to be devastating. So a flight cancelation would
Speaker 12: be the bigger drawback for me. You know, I'm looking
Speaker 12: through the you know, the stats, and it looked like,
Speaker 12: you know, Delta, you know, score the best and in
Speaker 12: almost you know, every category. So look, they have, they
Speaker 12: have a stellar reputation. I lived in Atlanta four eleven years,
Speaker 12: flew them every week and generally had a very very
Speaker 12: positive experience with them. So I do think that they
Speaker 12: are you know, king of the hill, so to speak,
Speaker 12: based on the latest ratings. I also think with airlines
Speaker 12: that you mentioned that the ratings aren't that good for
Speaker 12: all of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 12: I do think that the airline industry in general has
Speaker 12: to deal with so many external factors that a lot
Speaker 12: of other businesses don't have to deal with, you know,
Speaker 12: namely weather, if you have a hub and spoke model
Speaker 12: and a storm roll through your hub, that's just going
Speaker 12: to cause a chain reaction of bad events that happen,
Speaker 12: you know, across your entire network.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, that's true. There's a lot of things
Speaker 2: that are outside the airlines controlled. There's no quoest that,
Speaker 2: and just the skies are jammed, let's face it. I mean,
Speaker 2: these air traffic controllers are They're wizards and make holding
Speaker 2: this work. But I'd be interested to drill down and
Speaker 2: see what they mean by number of flights delayed. If
Speaker 2: you leave the gate, if that plane pushes back and
Speaker 2: sits on the tarmac, is it delayed because it left
Speaker 2: the gate on time? And the percentage of flights canceled?
Speaker 2: I think you really can't get around that one all
Speaker 2: that much. You know, there's some lines that say, hey,
Speaker 2: it's another un time departure, and then you sit on
Speaker 2: the tarmac for two So flights delay is a really
Speaker 2: kind of nebulous thing, is it not?
Speaker 12: It is, And it's even more complicated by the fact that,
Speaker 12: as I understand, the FAA used to measure it based
Speaker 12: on arrival time, so long as you were within thirty
Speaker 12: minutes of your scheduled arrival. So there's even a little
Speaker 12: bit of wiggle room for the airline there. And I
Speaker 12: think we shall also see with many of the airlines
Speaker 12: now is we'll pad the flight time. Right, So even
Speaker 12: if you sit on the tarmac for an extra twenty
Speaker 12: minutes because they have booked, say three hours before a
Speaker 12: flight that's likely only two hours and twenty minutes in airtime,
Speaker 12: you'll still wind up that your destination on time, so
Speaker 12: as I understand, and what they use here to calculate
Speaker 12: was not based on when you leave the gate. It's
Speaker 12: based on when the plane arrives at the gate of
Speaker 12: your destination.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, okay, So out of a score of fifty,
Speaker 2: Delta was overall thirty five point nine, and the rest
Speaker 2: of the airlines that we would fly here in this
Speaker 2: area of the country would not stack up all that well.
Speaker 2: I guess. The next ranked one was Hawaiian Air But
Speaker 2: obviously Cincinnati's about and far away from Hawaii as you
Speaker 2: can get.
Speaker 12: When you're only flying between the California and Hawaii, the
Speaker 12: weather's always perfect, You're probably not going to be a
Speaker 12: subject to most of the elements of the rest of
Speaker 12: the country as well.
Speaker 2: Right, but you get when you get to airlines like
Speaker 2: United and Spirit and American, in Frontier and Allegian and
Speaker 2: Jet Blueth and Southwest, you're talking basically fifty percent. If
Speaker 2: the score is fifty these airlines are all scoring below
Speaker 2: twenty five percent. So that's not good, is it?
Speaker 4: No, it's not.
Speaker 12: And if you look at Southwest in particular, so for
Speaker 12: Southwest and percent of percent of flights canceled, you'll notice
Speaker 12: THEIRS is two point four percent, which is higher than
Speaker 12: I think almost every other airlines stay of Alaska. If
Speaker 12: you look at Delta, United an American, you'll see they're
Speaker 12: all below one percent. And the reason for that is
Speaker 12: that Delta, American and United have a hub and spoke model,
Speaker 12: so they within their network, they have call it eight
Speaker 12: to ten airports where all their show and they all
Speaker 12: leave there. So if you're able to fly people to
Speaker 12: that hub, the likelihood that they can get a new plane,
Speaker 12: get a new crew. If something you know where to
Speaker 12: go wrong, you know your inbound crew, your inound plane
Speaker 12: are delayed, they can mobilize. They have mechanical operations at
Speaker 12: those those at those airports, and so they're able to
Speaker 12: get things moving. When you see airlines like Southwest, they're
Speaker 12: more of a point to point airline, so they don't
Speaker 12: fly everything into one, you know, into eight to ten
Speaker 12: airports and everything goes from there. So if a flight
Speaker 12: gets delayed or canceled, it causes a serious chain of
Speaker 12: the events where all these subsequent flights that were depending
Speaker 12: on that aircraft could get canceled. And then airlines like
Speaker 12: you know, Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, you know Jet Blue, to
Speaker 12: some extent, they just have a very limited network and
Speaker 12: so if a flight gets canceled or a flight gets
Speaker 12: severely delayed, it just creates, you know, math, chaos within
Speaker 12: within the system for the rest of the day.
Speaker 2: Brandon Blew, it's an expert on airline passenger experience, sees
Speaker 2: the author of How to Avoid Strangers on Airplane Survival
Speaker 2: Guide for the frequent business traveler. How do you avoid
Speaker 2: strangers on airplanes? They're all strangers. You just want the
Speaker 2: stranger that doesn't talk to you.
Speaker 4: Right, you buy my book and you hold up the cover.
Speaker 4: People get the points.
Speaker 2: It's all in. It's all in the jacket. It's all
Speaker 2: in the jacket. The other thing I got you here,
Speaker 2: here's another pet peeve with my Brandon's sorry, I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna stud I think they should ban outside food on
Speaker 2: a plane, because invariably somebody is going to come strutting
Speaker 2: down that aisle as loaded with onions and garlic or
Speaker 2: some other curry or something is just going to stink
Speaker 2: to high heaven. These airlines should say no outside food
Speaker 2: on this plane. It just drives me crazy. Well anyway, Uh,
Speaker 2: this is interesting stuff, and you're an interesting guy. And again,
Speaker 2: Brandon's book has how to Avoid Strangers on Airplane Survival
Speaker 2: Guide for the frequent business traveler. Sounds like a good
Speaker 2: read for anyone that's boarding a plane this holiday season. Uh, Brandon,
Speaker 2: you stay well and hopefully we can visit again down
Speaker 2: the road. Thanks absolutely, enjoy I will whatever tours. Delta
Speaker 2: number one, Hawaiian Airlines two Southwest three in terms of
Speaker 2: best airlines for a holiday travel, United is a distant fourth,
Speaker 2: and then if you want a fistfight, you could always
Speaker 2: fly Spirit. They're coming in at number five in this
Speaker 2: survey done by finance Buzz. If you're flying, I hope
Speaker 2: the skies are friendly to you. Coming up on one
Speaker 2: fifty three News Radio seven hundred wl w W two
Speaker 2: ten on this Saturday afternoon, and welcome back. Great to
Speaker 2: have you with us. Well, without you, I would simply
Speaker 2: be one man sitting in a room babbling to himself.
Speaker 2: Why would I have to leave home to do that?
Speaker 2: What's going on in Venezuela, well a lot. It seems like,
Speaker 2: first of all, you have these drug boats, these cigar boats,
Speaker 2: if you will, that have been leaving Venezuela and heading
Speaker 2: north through the Atlantic or the Caribbean, or god knows where.
Speaker 2: And so the United States and the Department of Defense,
Speaker 2: Department of Warbs, i should say, have been blowing things,
Speaker 2: these things up. And now we heard just the beginning
Speaker 2: of this past week that the United States has a
Speaker 2: blockade around Venezuela. So it would seem to me that
Speaker 2: there is a decided effort right now by the Trump
Speaker 2: administration to do something in Venezuela. And although Trump says
Speaker 2: it would not involve boots on the ground, it's hard
Speaker 2: to imagine that the strong man in charge of that
Speaker 2: particular country, Nicholas Maduro, would leave under any circumstances other
Speaker 2: than through an invasion or through just basically getting taken out,
Speaker 2: if you will, by an organization like the CIA. But
Speaker 2: what's really going on besides drugs? Why are we so
Speaker 2: interested in drugs and are they only Maybe the overarching
Speaker 2: theme to all that and that the real issue with
Speaker 2: Venezuela is oil. Upon a time, major oil companies like Exon, Mobil, Conicco, Shell,
Speaker 2: they were all in Venezuela and actively pumping oil out
Speaker 2: of the ground, building the infrastructure needed and staffing with
Speaker 2: the people needed to get oil out of the ground.
Speaker 2: And it was under Hugo Chavez that they were run out.
Speaker 2: They are either left on their own or were forced out.
Speaker 2: But guess what all of that infrastructure remained. And so
Speaker 2: when you hear Donald Trump say we want to get
Speaker 2: our oil back, that's what he's speaking of oil. It
Speaker 2: seems like maybe the number one reason why we are
Speaker 2: so interested in Venezuela and the oil that it takes
Speaker 2: out of the ground and ships to other countries like
Speaker 2: China may be something that is also a part of
Speaker 2: this as well. Let's get the expert opinion on all
Speaker 2: of that, and that would be coming up from someone
Speaker 2: who has studied this on a very large basis. Bill
Speaker 2: Conroy is a veteran journalist forty years of experience in
Speaker 2: print and online reporting and editing. And Bill Conroy is
Speaker 2: someone who is now working and working diligently to find
Speaker 2: out what's going on in Venezuela. And he's kind of
Speaker 2: enough to carve out some of his time here on
Speaker 2: seven hundred WLW. And Bill Conroy, how are you on
Speaker 2: this glorious Saturday.
Speaker 6: I am doing well, doing well.
Speaker 2: You've had your eye on Venezuela for a very long time.
Speaker 2: You had a book that came out a few years back,
Speaker 2: The Great Pretense, a tour through the Boneyard of the
Speaker 2: CIA's War for Drugs. But this seems a little bit
Speaker 2: more in depth, and it seems like a minute, a
Speaker 2: little bit more broader of an attack on Venezuela than
Speaker 2: just drugs. You seem to think it has to do
Speaker 2: with oil. Can you explain that?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I can't. By the way, that book is coming
Speaker 6: out in February. It hasn't come out.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought it was already out. Oh it's not
Speaker 2: out yet. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 6: The prior book was about the Warris Cartel in Ice
Speaker 6: and it's called Dispatches from House of Death. But we
Speaker 6: want to talk about Venezuela. Yeah, I have been following
Speaker 6: it because part of you know, kind of the last
Speaker 6: part of the great pretense, you know, I kind of
Speaker 6: had to explore that because it's you know, it sits
Speaker 6: in and you're right, the summary is pretty much on
Speaker 6: the button. I would say, what we're really seeing, Yeah,
Speaker 6: the drug boats, just to tell you it's not you,
Speaker 6: it's there. They're carrying cocaine, right, and that's what comes
Speaker 6: out of the out of Colombia, for the most part,
Speaker 6: in the Andes, the only place you can grow coca plants.
Speaker 6: So you know, Venezuela is not a producer, but it
Speaker 6: is a transit nation and it probably plays a bigger
Speaker 6: role in the money side because you know, they have
Speaker 6: a financial system that can help the launder money. Right,
Speaker 6: So you know that what's coming out of Venezuela in
Speaker 6: terms of drug boats, it is probably actually Colombian cocaine
Speaker 6: or or someone else in that region. Is that there's
Speaker 6: there's a diversion of cocaine. You know, there's cocaine all
Speaker 6: over the place, you know, But let me give you
Speaker 6: the real factor. So those drug boats are the cigar
Speaker 6: boats as you want to call them. At most, you know,
Speaker 6: and this is generous, might carry four tons right, But
Speaker 6: those little ones are probably carrying like a ton of
Speaker 6: cocaine and they've done like twenty eight strikes so far
Speaker 6: right as of this moment, and that adds up at
Speaker 6: most about one hundred tons of cocaine. That's a lot
Speaker 6: of cocaine. But the production annually, and it's been growing
Speaker 6: every year. And this is you know, from surveys on
Speaker 6: the ground that the UN does they have the estimate
Speaker 6: of three thousand and seven or eight tons of pure
Speaker 6: cocaine that's that's hitting the market, and that was in
Speaker 6: two twenty three. It's going to be even higher now.
Speaker 6: And also while they're blowing up the drug boats, we
Speaker 6: had you know, a huge growth in seizures at the
Speaker 6: southern border of cocaine, I mean exploded and seizures are
Speaker 6: only at indicator how much is coming to because they
Speaker 6: don't measure what got through it. And yeah, with the
Speaker 6: cartels where they operate, they'll send like across the bridges
Speaker 6: where I covered it, they'll send three trucks through roughly
Speaker 6: at the same time, figuring maybe one gets caught and
Speaker 6: the other two get through.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: So that's and and uh so we're not going to
Speaker 6: stop the drug war by blown up drug boats. That's
Speaker 6: more of a shock and awe campaign. I think it
Speaker 6: was like the first sell bow and they're blown up bullets.
Speaker 6: They're probably you know, the ones that are in the
Speaker 6: Eastern Pacific are likely you know, coming out of Columbia,
Speaker 6: you know, and then the Caribbean that's probably Venezuela, and
Speaker 6: most of that cocaine headed to the States. It's headed
Speaker 6: up to out to Europe. That's that's you know, it's
Speaker 6: they're they're moving it to push it across across the Atlanta.
Speaker 6: There's a huge cocaine market in Europe, as.
Speaker 2: Is in the US with the US. A ton in
Speaker 2: the US, if my facts are straight, a ton of
Speaker 2: cocaine is somewhere around thirty thirty five million dollars.
Speaker 14: So they're not I mean, it's not chin right, but
Speaker 14: you got to remember it's a renewable resource, right, So yeah,
Speaker 14: it's it's it's a loss of potential profit.
Speaker 6: But you know there's plenty of cocaine. They just think
Speaker 6: more and you know, it's the system is just how
Speaker 6: do you get it to where you to market? And
Speaker 6: there's drug routes and there's plazas like all along the
Speaker 6: border they call like wars Is a major plaza and Tijuana,
Speaker 6: you know, all the big border cities, and then they
Speaker 6: move that stuff across the border and they have you know,
Speaker 6: a arrangements on our side of the border, warehouses and
Speaker 6: stuff where it gets stored and it gets cut up
Speaker 6: and then moved across the interstates or planes that use
Speaker 6: a lot of planes. And they also, you know, boats
Speaker 6: are big, so there's so many ways to get it
Speaker 6: in there. Blowing up. Yeah, two dozen drug boats is
Speaker 6: you know, like popping a pimple. You know, it's nothing, right,
Speaker 6: And yeah, for the guys that lost the cocaine, you know,
Speaker 6: but they're they got a problem. But the guys are
Speaker 6: competing with just moving and take over that market. Does
Speaker 6: that make sense? It's it's extreme, yeah, but it's it's funding.
Speaker 2: It's funding someone, right, I mean, the coc is funding
Speaker 2: something or someone, right, and it's probably directly linked back
Speaker 2: to the guy that's in charge of Venezuela and Maduro right.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean I think he had to take
Speaker 6: of it this way. Like all the corrupt politicians that
Speaker 6: the ones that we found that show up, everyone's along
Speaker 6: the states. It's the same down there, so it's not
Speaker 6: they get it cut it like in other words, I'll
Speaker 6: tell you how it worked. In Honduras. The guy that
Speaker 6: the president Honduras right got convicted, sentenced to forty five
Speaker 6: years in pardon just just recently by Trump. But what
Speaker 6: he was doing is he allowed the Cinelague cartel free
Speaker 6: passage through Honduras. In fact, helped guard the loads so
Speaker 6: they would pass through Honduras and then they get upped
Speaker 6: into Mexico up to the plazas along the border. And
Speaker 6: they asked him that he led about four hundred tons
Speaker 6: of cocaine through Honduras or ten years period where he's
Speaker 6: doing that, right or not when he was office so
Speaker 6: and and we died him and connected him and now
Speaker 6: he's out. But it's like that all over. There's so
Speaker 6: much money. I mean border patrol. I wanted to border.
Speaker 6: I mean, these guys are making you know, you know
Speaker 6: when I was covering a maybe fifty five grand a year,
Speaker 6: you know, by winking and letting loads through for the cartel,
Speaker 6: they could make that in a week. I mean maybe
Speaker 6: not a week, right, I mean they're getting ten grand
Speaker 6: pop for letting these loads through. And so there's there's
Speaker 6: weak points in every system and that you know, the
Speaker 6: cartels are the distribution just distributors. But you know it's
Speaker 6: like an iceberg. You always see the chapel, Guzman's and
Speaker 6: the you know the names, the bad villains, the guys
Speaker 6: in the black ant, but underneath that is the real cartel.
Speaker 6: And you know, none of this works unless the money's laundered.
Speaker 6: So the financial system is you know, huge player in
Speaker 6: laundering drug money and you know donald stream from that.
Speaker 6: You know, it's just suddenly gets you know into our
Speaker 6: economy and it's condos in Miami or it's real estate
Speaker 6: or Mexico wherever. Yeah, there's probably Yeah, I wanted to I.
Speaker 2: Want to go ahead, finish your thought. I want to
Speaker 2: tie this back to.
Speaker 6: The world with Venezuela.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The way the way it works is there's other the
Speaker 6: generals are you know, probably guarding or facilitating the transport
Speaker 6: of these loads, you know through Venezuela. Out of Venezuela
Speaker 6: they use planes to you know, not just boats. And
Speaker 6: they're getting a cut of the action, right, they get
Speaker 6: a cut for basically you know, facilitating, uh, the movement
Speaker 6: of the of the product. And you know, with Duro,
Speaker 6: no doubt is you know, getting a cut of all
Speaker 6: that action too. It's not like he has necessarily be
Speaker 6: involved in moving the drugs. He's just allowing it to
Speaker 6: happen and they pay him off. And in the Wayes
Speaker 6: explained to me this was about Mexico is if you're
Speaker 6: a politician or any kind of you know, public figure
Speaker 6: in a position with some power to that they would
Speaker 6: see you of use. You got two choices. Either, you know,
Speaker 6: if they're all going to say you can, you know,
Speaker 6: will pay you or essentially will kill you. And if
Speaker 6: you don't work with any of the cartels, you're against
Speaker 6: all of them. You know, you almost have to pick
Speaker 6: one to have protection.
Speaker 2: Well you got you got, yeah, okay, so you got this.
Speaker 2: Terasury Department UH started sanctioning as sanctioning seven family members
Speaker 2: of Maduro. That was Friday Rubio, the Secretary of State
Speaker 2: comes out and called transnational terrorists criminal organizations, praise some
Speaker 2: South American countries that are not transnationals, but slam Venezuela.
Speaker 2: And you mix all of that in with the fact
Speaker 2: that Trump thinks that Venezuela basically stole our oil. They
Speaker 2: certainly kept the rigging when they run ran countries out
Speaker 2: like Conco Phillips and they ran countries out like Shell
Speaker 2: and whatnot. So is the endgame here do you think
Speaker 2: in Venezuela or Trump to get those oil fields back,
Speaker 2: cut down on what goes out of Venezuela to places
Speaker 2: like China and in essence become an oil field for
Speaker 2: the United States. And you think that's the endgame here
Speaker 2: for him?
Speaker 6: In a word, yes, but I think getting there is
Speaker 6: a lot more of a complicated road. What as you know,
Speaker 6: they seize one of the tankers, that's like the like
Speaker 6: they rare. Maybe I can't remember a time that that.
Speaker 6: You know, these sank and chips, there's like there's like
Speaker 6: a thousand of them. And to set it up, let
Speaker 6: me set it up so that I can break it
Speaker 6: down real simple. Russia, Iran, and Venezuela all are sanctioned
Speaker 6: by the US, so they're basically blackballed from our financial system,
Speaker 6: et cetera. And so when they're delivering oil to China,
Speaker 6: and most of the Venezuela and oil eighty percent of
Speaker 6: it ends up in China right where and it's refined
Speaker 6: in China. We sanctioned a couple of Chinese they call
Speaker 6: the teapot refiners. There's our clandestine miners and they refine
Speaker 6: Iran's oil and uh, I mean in Venezuela. You know,
Speaker 6: if it doesn't come that you know, so basically that's
Speaker 6: and then it gets distributed in China and they pay
Speaker 6: you know, sub market prices for it because of the
Speaker 6: risk premium because they're all sanctioned, right, So it's cheaper oil,
Speaker 6: and it's that's that's helping the fuel of the Chinese economy.
Speaker 6: One SMI had is about four percent. Venezuelan oil accounts
Speaker 6: about four percent of China's oil use and China, I
Speaker 6: ran and Russia together about a quarter. So now think
Speaker 6: about that. So we are starting to seize the boat.
Speaker 6: We deceased one boat, and we put up a blockade
Speaker 6: to seize other sanctioned vessels. They figure and these are
Speaker 6: these aren't Venezuelan tankers. They're like they're fleets owned by
Speaker 6: private companies that maybe indirectly are being funded by Russia
Speaker 6: or you know, definitely Russia, uh and Iran and and
Speaker 6: they you know, they're like a pirate fleet. They come
Speaker 6: and they get the oil and they you know, they
Speaker 6: become ghost ships, so you can't track them and and
Speaker 6: they you know, maybe delivered it to Malaysia, which now
Speaker 6: which is suddenly a giant explort of oil and it
Speaker 6: doesn't have any because you know, they delire to a
Speaker 6: middle cour company country and then from Americas to China
Speaker 6: to try to mask where it's coming from. Right, that's
Speaker 6: the game. Well, we're we're seizing oil tankers out in Venezuela.
Speaker 6: That's an eight billion dollar black market for Venezuela and
Speaker 6: that is the real source of income, not the drugs,
Speaker 6: for the Venezuelan economy and frankly for Maduro's you know
Speaker 6: slush one. Right, and you know, Europe is starting to
Speaker 6: crack down a little bit more on these these uh
Speaker 6: you know ghosts sports ghost ships as well, not seizing them,
Speaker 6: but at port, making them prove they have insurance, et cetera.
Speaker 6: So they they're afraid to go into port. And then
Speaker 6: you know, finally the Ukrainians, you know, the war with Russia,
Speaker 6: they've been blowing these boat out, right, they've been going
Speaker 6: after them. So there's a lot of pressure on this
Speaker 6: this shadow oil fleet that's going around the world. Right,
Speaker 6: some of them won't go into Venezuela now because they're
Speaker 6: afraid of the blockade that's there and getting getting caught
Speaker 6: up in it. And they're all like older twenty year
Speaker 6: old tankers. They're literally like modern pirates to me. And
Speaker 6: that's the game. So as we increased pressure on Venezuela,
Speaker 6: and there's an increased pressure on Russians and you know
Speaker 6: Iran that chokes off oil to China, so you can
Speaker 6: see where this is headed. Russians are already well, it's
Speaker 6: setting it's it's warships to guard these ghost tankers for delivery.
Speaker 6: Venezuela the other day sent out it's ships to guard
Speaker 6: these takers. Now it's not going to it says, it's
Speaker 6: not going to have a confrontation with the US Navy.
Speaker 6: They would back off that they try to seize these
Speaker 6: but you can see how how hair trigger this is.
Speaker 6: All it takes is for one of these ships. That's
Speaker 6: how World War one started, right or World War two.
Speaker 6: You know they're sinking ships going across the ocean. It
Speaker 6: was Mercantaile ships that were that were the tip of
Speaker 6: the spear that ended up, you know, resulting in a
Speaker 6: Rul's war because everyone was blowing their Merchantais ships up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's yeah, I think that's where it's headed.
Speaker 2: I think, And as you mentioned earlier, you know that
Speaker 2: our conducts are one thing. It's more probably gets through
Speaker 2: than anything else, but it might have gotten Venezuela's attention.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, you're right, we're we're
Speaker 2: we're seizing ships and now we've got a blockade. Build
Speaker 2: your book. Dispatches from the House of Death, A war
Speaker 2: is cartel informed, a d As whistleblower, mass murder and
Speaker 2: a cover up on the edge of the Empire. That's out.
Speaker 2: But the great pretense, the tour through the bone yard
Speaker 2: of the CIA's war for drugs, that's out again. When
Speaker 2: it's out again in a couple of months, right, did
Speaker 2: you just say that February?
Speaker 6: Yeah, February nineteenth is supposed to be out, And just
Speaker 6: you know, they're almost like a series because it's all
Speaker 6: based on the reporting I did over twenty years on
Speaker 6: the drug war. And so one part looks that, you know,
Speaker 6: the US side of the border, in US law enforcement,
Speaker 6: that case is you know, that's going to Latin America
Speaker 6: as well, but it's more focused from this side. And
Speaker 6: then the new book is you know what's happening in
Speaker 6: Latin America in terms of our US law enforcement and
Speaker 6: intelligence agencies in the drug war. So that's the way
Speaker 6: to put it.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, well Bill, Bill Conroy, we got to run.
Speaker 2: But those are the books and his thoughts on what
Speaker 2: exactly is going on in Venezuela. Good stuff. Bill, Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us, carving out a little piece of your
Speaker 2: time today, and let's do this again. I want to
Speaker 2: do this again down the road. We got a lot
Speaker 2: more we got to get into. But for your time today,
Speaker 2: thank you. Well.
Speaker 6: I appreciate talking to you guys. All right, and happy
Speaker 6: holidays everyone out there.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, Merry Christmas to you too. Christmas there, whatever.
Speaker 6: It is there, I've lost the celebrations.
Speaker 2: There you go, all right, Thank you, Bill Conroy to
Speaker 2: twenty seven News Radio seven hundred at WLW.
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Speaker 2: Now, just at the start of the fourth quarter, Miami three,
Speaker 2: Texas A and m nothing the zero offense in this game,
Speaker 2: and the Miami kicker has missed three field goals kick
Speaker 2: four made one. So I know you're out there shopping.
Speaker 2: I'm looking out the window right here, I mean at
Speaker 2: the Kenwood Town Center. It is as you would expect
Speaker 2: the Saturday before Christmas. But do you know what you're
Speaker 2: shopping for? Do you know who you're shopping for? These
Speaker 2: are key questions because if you do, then you won't
Speaker 2: make a mistake that has apparently been a major mistake
Speaker 2: a lot of shoppers are making this holiday season, and
Speaker 2: that is buying the worst Christmas gift this year? Bet
Speaker 2: MGM Casino. Get this. They've taken a nationwide survey to
Speaker 2: find out what is the worst Christmas gift you can
Speaker 2: give this year. I know someone who's not giving the
Speaker 2: worst Christmas gift. She is an etiquette expert. I've had
Speaker 2: Valerie Sokolawski on my show many times. I know she
Speaker 2: always does the right thing. She is prim and proper,
Speaker 2: perfectly correct in everything she does. Is that right, val.
Speaker 5: No, I have a lot of ken.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: She's also the author of the book do It Right?
Speaker 2: Do It Right? What is it that means living your
Speaker 2: life so you don't do the right thing in front
Speaker 2: of other people that you're always from an etiquette standpoint
Speaker 2: on solid ground? And that would get back to gift
Speaker 2: giving this holiday season. And here now is this list
Speaker 2: apparently the worst gift anyone can give anybody in this
Speaker 2: holiday season. Val are self help books? Whatever you do,
Speaker 2: don't give someone a self help book this holiday season?
Speaker 5: Well, I would agree with that. However, I'm wondering who
Speaker 5: wrote that, because maybe that's a real experience. You know,
Speaker 5: I'll buy my own self help books. I think that's
Speaker 5: the point. Ken. You don't have to a friend that
Speaker 5: or a relative doesn't have to tell me I need help.
Speaker 5: I know I need help, but if I do, I'll
Speaker 5: buy my own books. So I agree with that.
Speaker 2: There you go, don't buy self help books. Accept Valterie
Speaker 2: self help book, right, except.
Speaker 5: What you buy for yourself, which says something you know.
Speaker 5: If you've got enough emotional intelligence to know you might
Speaker 5: need a little self help, go buy a book and
Speaker 5: look at it, do some research, figure it out yourself.
Speaker 5: But right, don't give it to someone else. And that
Speaker 5: would be offensive.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I'm agreeing. I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: But it would seem to me, if you're struggling right
Speaker 2: now to find a gift for someone else, find that
Speaker 2: perfect gift, you probably don't know that person. Is that
Speaker 2: fair to say?
Speaker 5: I think that's very fair. And one thing to do
Speaker 5: is to observe as much as you can someone that
Speaker 5: you're wondering what to buy a gift for. What do
Speaker 5: you know about that person? What have you observed for example,
Speaker 5: I have one of the best gifts just given to
Speaker 5: me by a woman who knows that we're going to
Speaker 5: have a little place in the country. We're getting it
Speaker 5: all fixed up, and she brought over a few days
Speaker 5: ago alive in a little pot, small fern that really
Speaker 5: can be planted. And because it's Christmas, she took the
Speaker 5: extra time and this is the point to put little
Speaker 5: lights around it like it was a Christmas tree. I'll
Speaker 5: never forget the intention that she gave it, that gave
Speaker 5: for that gift, the time it took to put something
Speaker 5: together for me. And I'm telling everyone about that because
Speaker 5: it shows that you have put some time and effort
Speaker 5: into it. And I'll tell you something else that's a
Speaker 5: really good gift for anyone, and that's an experience. For example,
Speaker 5: my son gave me tickets to go see a rock
Speaker 5: star that I like in country music, and that was
Speaker 5: extremely thoughtful. So think about experiences, think about tickets, but
Speaker 5: don't do the same old, same o. And for heaven's sakes,
Speaker 5: don't give underwear and socks.
Speaker 2: I no I could. By the way, you can't leave
Speaker 2: it at that val who's this rock story you're going
Speaker 2: to see?
Speaker 5: Oh Bell? It was in Nashville and it was Nate BARGATSI.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, oh, great gift, great gift.
Speaker 5: Think he's the funniest thing since life break.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah he was. He was just in town here.
Speaker 2: I want to say about a month ago, a couple
Speaker 2: of months ago. Was it October? What was it? What
Speaker 2: was that called big big dumb big world eyes, dumb eyes. Anyway,
Speaker 2: his world tour and play with the Bigger in a
Speaker 2: downtown see this is These are the kind of things
Speaker 2: I think that are great gifts because your kids knew
Speaker 2: mom likes something like that, they took the time to
Speaker 2: think about what you like.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it is absolutely and it can be something simple,
Speaker 5: but again observation. Another example is if you know a friend,
Speaker 5: a woman in my case, that likes to journal, so
Speaker 5: get her a lovely above beyond the paper normal journal,
Speaker 5: get her a really nice journal or a nice pen
Speaker 5: to journal with. If you have someone that you know
Speaker 5: likes to cook, find some even silly. There's always new
Speaker 5: little gadgets for the kitchen, even spoons, things like that.
Speaker 5: So it's taking the personal aspect to it and being
Speaker 5: purposeful with a good intention. And you can't go wrong
Speaker 5: when you think other word rather than inward. It isn't
Speaker 5: about you this Christmas. It's about other people and what
Speaker 5: you want to give intentionally.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And look, I think people struggle giving gifts or
Speaker 2: getting the right gift because they don't pay attention. We
Speaker 2: just talked about this a couple of minutes ago. But
Speaker 2: you know, if someone that is important to you and
Speaker 2: you don't see them that often, when you do see them,
Speaker 2: pay attention to what they do, what they need, what
Speaker 2: they use, and then store that in the back of
Speaker 2: your brain. And if you do that, here's a little
Speaker 2: tip that might save you some time and money in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. But if you do that early enough
Speaker 2: in the year, you're not scrambling Christmas Eve a couple
Speaker 2: of days before Christmas running around trying to figure to
Speaker 2: what to get this particular person. All you have to do,
Speaker 2: and this is like ninety five ninety five percent of life.
Speaker 2: All you really have to do in life is pay attention.
Speaker 2: It's amazing what you see and understand if you simply
Speaker 2: pay attention. Am I right on this?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 6: Ken?
Speaker 5: You should write a book on that.
Speaker 2: Hey, you wrote do it right? I could write the book.
Speaker 6: I did it rightful.
Speaker 2: We could, we could sell we could go to bookstores
Speaker 2: and and and sell them in tandem. I guess. But
Speaker 2: I mean this is I mean, this isn't brain surgery, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it isn't that hard, honestly, it's just it's just
Speaker 5: do you care. Let's just simplify it to that. Absolutely
Speaker 5: what you said, think about it all year, and even
Speaker 5: make a list. If you see something that strikes the
Speaker 5: chord about someone and you think, you know, I'm going
Speaker 5: to remember that for Christens, write it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, absolutely. If you have a bad memory anything right, Right,
Speaker 2: If you meet somebody for the first or second time
Speaker 2: and you know you have a difficult time remembering names,
Speaker 2: write the person's name down, and just a little bit
Speaker 2: about your interaction. By the way, we're chatting with Valerie Sokolowski.
Speaker 2: She is the author of the book Do It Right.
Speaker 2: A lot of the stuff in that book is you
Speaker 2: should know anyway, but a lot of it maybe can
Speaker 2: help craft your life in just a little bit different way.
Speaker 2: I bought the book now, by the way, I was
Speaker 2: the second or third time that we talked. I went out,
Speaker 2: I bought it on Amazon. I read it, and I
Speaker 2: highly endorse it.
Speaker 4: I do you know what.
Speaker 5: That's so honoring. Well, thank you. That means a great deal.
Speaker 5: You just made my day, week, and year.
Speaker 2: Thanks well, listen, you're making me and that's not a
Speaker 2: difficult thing to do for a redhead. Look, one more question,
Speaker 2: and that's about regifting. Regifting is okay, I think, but
Speaker 2: if you're going to regift, you might want to regift
Speaker 2: in a part of your family or friends that are
Speaker 2: on like the other side of the country so it
Speaker 2: doesn't come back and embarrass you. I think when you regift,
Speaker 2: you probably want to do it in some place that's
Speaker 2: safe harbor. Other than that, you're probably running the risk
Speaker 2: of making an embarrassing situation for everybody. Right.
Speaker 5: I think you said the right word. You better be safe.
Speaker 5: And I might have told you this on a show once,
Speaker 5: but I'll tell it again. A friend that came over
Speaker 5: regifted something. She forgot to take the tag off that
Speaker 5: had been gifted to her, and she walked in so
Speaker 5: proudly at this party and she said Merry Christmas and
Speaker 5: the tag said.
Speaker 4: To Joan love Mary.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh my gosh. That yeah not good, right,
Speaker 2: not good?
Speaker 5: True story.
Speaker 2: So okay, So the person that did that, were they mortified.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't say a word because that wouldn't
Speaker 5: be doing it right, would it.
Speaker 2: No? No, one hundred percent. You played it the right way,
Speaker 2: battery one hundred percent now, and regifting is okay. I
Speaker 2: don't have any problem with it done the right way,
Speaker 2: as we said, because if you get a gift and
Speaker 2: you don't need a gift, what's worse regifting it or
Speaker 2: just letting it sit somewhere and you never get any
Speaker 2: enjoyment out of it, never get any use out of it.
Speaker 2: But man, I'll tell you what if if if I
Speaker 2: did what that woman did to you, I would be
Speaker 2: talking to myself all the way home. I would be saying,
Speaker 2: you stupid, sweet. Can't you figure out one thing from another?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: Yes, and you know, if you get something that you
Speaker 5: don't want, don't need, just think about how many people
Speaker 5: aren't getting anything. So do something with it.
Speaker 6: Do it right.
Speaker 5: You can take it to a shelter, to children's hospital,
Speaker 5: to whatever, and gift it to someone that would appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Don't just stick it in the closet, you know, keep
Speaker 5: giving it. A gift is worth giving more too.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, pass it on. I guess is what is what
Speaker 2: the popular vernacular is. By the way, you can find
Speaker 2: Valerie at Valeriandcompany dot com, Batteryancompany dot com. So if
Speaker 2: you're wandering around the streets here, you're a complete dolt.
Speaker 2: You don't know what's going on half the time. But
Speaker 2: enough about me. But if you're if you're, if you're
Speaker 2: that way, or even if you're a company that's just
Speaker 2: trying to get a little bit better in the way
Speaker 2: you present yourself to your employees or to your business partners.
Speaker 2: She is again, Valerie Sokolaski Valerie and Company dot com. Valerie,
Speaker 2: I wish you a merry Christmas. I know it will
Speaker 2: be the perfect Christmas because that's the way you are.
Speaker 2: You just do things perfectly. And of course for your
Speaker 2: time today, we thank you, stay well, it's so good
Speaker 2: to be with you.
Speaker 12: Marry Marry Mary.
Speaker 2: Yes, thanks you you bet you bet. No self help books.
Speaker 2: Here's some other bad ideas. Something totally off, totally off
Speaker 2: in size, vibe and taste. Don't give socks something not
Speaker 2: on someone else's wish list and a subscription. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's kind of lame. No self help books. It
Speaker 2: is coming up on two fifty three from a man
Speaker 2: who needs a lot of help. News Radio seven hundred
Speaker 2: w l W.
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