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Today in Ohio
Today in Ohio - Sept. 25, 2024 Bernie Moreno joins his ticket's misogyny train with idiotic statements about women and abortion
We spend a lot of time talking about JD Vance lately, but today we're talking about Bernie Moreno. It's today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I'm Chris Quinn here with Layla Atassi, Laura Johnston, Lisa Garvin. Let's get going, Laura, car salesman Bernie Moreno seeking to be a U.S. Senator from Ohio has some very odd thoughts on why women of a certain age are misguided in caring about abortion. What idiotic thing did he get caught saying in a recording? Well, he questioned why suburban women care about the issue of abortion anyway, especially if you're a woman over 50. So he says it's a little crazy, by the way, especially for women that are like past 50. I'm thinking to myself, I don't think that's an issue for you. And by this definition, that if you cannot physically bear children, then why would you care about abortion, then why does any man care about abortion? Just like to put that out there. And this is an estate where 57% of voters voted to guarantee the right of a safe abortion in our safe state constitution. He seems completely out of whack with what the majority of Ohioans think. Well, and what kills me is he says, you know, for the dams, there's always a single subject. I would argue that for the longest time, abortion was the single subject for people on the right. But the idea that because you don't have a body that would need an abortion, you shouldn't care about the issue boggles the mind because we all have people in our lives we care about who this does affect. And this goes beyond abortion. It's about women's dominion over their bodies, which we all care about. But he's blown enough. I haven't made a joke. I'm glad my wife's not here because his wife would be offended by what he said. Yeah. But Laura's point is she said this in the newsroom yesterday and I was like, oh, my gosh, why didn't I think of that, you know, first, is that, you know, that by his logic, men have absolutely no standing in this argument whatsoever. They don't have, you know, men don't have a body that pertains to this dilemma. So get lost, Bernie Moreno. Yeah, exactly. And obviously he's wrong because everybody has a right to care about women's dominion over their bodies and how we treat people in this country and this idea. And you're right, Chris. It has been the single issue. That's why people were voting for Republican presidents to try to get the Supreme Court changed enough that abortion would be, you know, to do what happened with the Dobbs decision. I mean, that was the goal for a very long time for a lot of Republican voters. But I hope that every woman has pay attention to these statements because you, you know, we're talking about Bernie Moreno here, but added to what Vance has said, added to what Trump has said. And it's like, if you're a woman, you only matter if you're having babies. That's all you're supposed to do. And when you're past that period, you're just supposed to be taking care of other people's babies. I don't think ever before have we seen a political party in America have such an attack on women. It's misogyny, really, that's in the Republican party right now. They are, you know, the cat lady thing and this. It's just overwhelming how much disregard these powerful men have for women and why any woman would cast a vote for these guys boggles my mind. The other thing is this just is further evidence. Bernie Moreno is an idiot, you know, to say something like this when you're in the heat of a campaign, you're really portraying yourself as an idiot because you shouldn't say things like this. Here we have Sherrod Brown, this man of substance who's been doing this job for years and years who's always stood for the same thing, who's always fighting for the little guy, multi-dimensional in every way, running against a cartoon character who can't even keep his mouth shut. And treated his employees badly as well. Right. Yes. He said, as a man over the age of 50, which I thought was a great, you know, tugging cheek comment, I care deeply about a woman's right to make health care decisions for herself, for my daughters, my granddaughters, and all Ohio women regardless of their age. And then he talks about how a burrito wants a national abortion ban because you can look at their, I mean, that's why, but Moreno's seeing this, right? He's trying to neutralize what he said about abortion and he's been on the record about wanting to make it illegal. So yeah, I, it's mind boggling and you think that this day and age, you know, nothing you say is in a public forum is going to stay secret. People are recording everything. People are putting it on social. You can't say something like that and say, oh, I'm glad my wife's not here because I'd get into trouble. I'm pretty sure his wife's heard it by now. He's the most cynical kind of politician there is. He doesn't stand for anything. He doesn't care about anything but winning and his whole campaign is based on writing the Trump train in office. That's all he hopes for is that there'll be enough votes that sweep him in because there's nothing that he stands for. You cannot count on him for anything except that goes the way the wind blows and the way his master tells him to vote. You know, I think one of my favorite reactions to this, to this moment for Bernie Moreno came from Nikki Haley, who I believe she tweeted, are you trying to lose the election? I missed that. That's good. Good line. You're listening to today in Ohio. All right. This is cool. Lisa, how far will you now be able to go from Cleveland via Amtrak without having to switch trains? Yeah. This is pretty exciting. I might actually ride it while it's around. So starting on November 10th, Amtrak is starting a new temporary route from Chicago to Miami. So what they're doing is they're combining the capital limited, which comes through Cleveland. And that goes from Chicago to D.C. and they're combining that with the Silver Star, which runs from D.C. to Miami. So if you get on the train in Cleveland, you can go all the way to Miami without changing your seat. This new route is called the Floridian. It'll take about 32 hours to get from Cleveland to Orlando. There stops along the way in Richmond, Virginia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida. This route actually used to exist in the 1970s, but it didn't have a stop in Cleveland at that time. So Rail Passengers Association CEO Jim Matthew says it's been a longstanding dream to bring back a one-seat ride from the Midwest to Florida. So this, as I said, the route is temporary. It's alleviating rail traffic in New York City because they're going to be rehabbing their East River tunnels under the East River. So that'll affect rail traffic. Coach seats started $180 from Cleveland. It's a daily service, but it still leaves Cleveland at the ungodly hour of two o'clock in the morning. But to go to Florida without having to drive or worse fly, there's a lot to be sucked out. When I was a kid, we went to Disney World by taking the train from where we lived down to Florida. It was a great adventure. The kids were having a good time running around the trains. It's a long trip. You're giving up probably an extra day of vacation to do it, but to take away all the headaches of flying and the headaches of driving, I would love this. This is a wonderful service. It came out of nowhere. Did anybody know that this was even under contemplation? I certainly didn't. I kind of pay attention to Amtrak. I'm always looking at, I took the sunset limited from Houston to Palm Springs, California years ago. And it was a great ride. I want to do another. Yeah. Train travel is wonderful. I've always enjoyed it, especially when you're in Europe. So this story jumped out yesterday and I thought, wow, this is one of the coolest things to come along. I hope people use it. I hope they keep it around for a while and I hope we get more of it. You're listening to today in Ohio. This is such a Cleveland City Hall kind of story, Layla. Why did Council grill the administration over whopping fines the city has to pay for not spending its money fast enough? Yeah. City Council, they really had some strong words for mayor Justin Bibs people on Monday after they learned that the city has to pay a $404,000 penalty to the IRS. And this is a penalty that happened because the city earned too much interest on unused tax-free bonds from 2019. This problem is one that was uncovered by Council President Blaine Griffin's team while they were reviewing the city's finances. And it really sparked this kind of deeper long simmering issue about long standing issues with the city's delays and paying contractors for projects that are funded by bond money. When Chris Harsh expressed frustration during this meeting, he said, "We're not getting money out in time to make life better for our residents." Another council members echoed that feeling with some saying that they've waited years for payments to their contractors and their wards. Jim Gentile from the city's finance department acknowledged that there was a problem here and he promised a full review to figure out the delays and improve how contracts are handled. But it wasn't just the IRS penalty that had council members all fired up. The city is also seeing a massive drop in EMS billing revenue. Cleveland had hoped to collect $11 million there, but it's only on track to bring in about five. And to top it off, the city is still struggling to fill nearly 600 vacant positions, including over 200 in the safety forces. So council members were really clear. They want better communication and quicker action. And Councilman Brian Casey summed it up by saying that the confidence in the administration is really shaken and something needs to change. Well, and Blaine Griffin pointed out kind of a disturbing possible breaking of the rules. This wasn't disclosed to council, they had to go find it, but when you spend that kind of money when the fine is this big, you're supposed to take that to council. And so Griffin was rightly questioning, "What happened here? Why did I have to go find this on my own self? And you have to bring this to us," and we didn't get a good answer to that question. No, no. And then there's this other wrinkle to it that the city can face fines from the IRS if it doesn't spend a certain amount, if it's bond money within a specific timeframe. And typically, cities that issue tax exempt bonds are expected to spend at least 85% of the funds within three years. If they don't do that, the IRS can put penalties upon them, but they say that these are rarely enforced, but still. And right now, Cleveland is at risk because it's only spent about 60% of the bond money issued in 2020 and 59% of the bond money from 2021. So this could be a significant problem for the city if the IRS decides to take action. It's hilarious, but it's sad. I mean, it's just one of those only at Cleveland City, y'all. Would you get in trouble for not spending your money fast enough? What a story. Good for the counsel for doing the oversight, they should do more. You're listening to today in Ohio. The Ohio Supreme Court has ended the career of another Northeast Ohio judge who clearly lost touch with the people he was supposed to be serving. Laura, what did he do to lose his job? Yeah, this feels like a Dickensian debtor's prison, like if you don't have the money to pay your fines, you've got to go to jail so you could pay them off. That is really not how this is supposed to work in the United States of America in 2024. So this is Stone Municipal Judge Kim Hoover. And so he was removed from office for sending people to jail to coerce them to pay these outstanding fines and court costs. It was a unanimous decision from the Ohio Supreme Court. It cites two men wrongfully incarcerated and said 14 were coerced into paying fines and costs under unlawful threats of incarceration. He was suspended for 18 months, six months would be dropped if he doesn't commit any other misconduct, but he can't be a judge anymore. He turned 70 this year and under state law, you can't run for a judge ship at that age. He's been on the bench since 1995. This is about empathy. When you're in a public servants role, you're supposed to have empathy for the people that you serve. And if people who have poverty issues are before you, struggling to pay fines, do everything you can to work with them, but you don't lock them up. It's illegal. And two, it's really kind of vicious. And I don't know how people who get into these positions lose sight of that. These are their neighbors, after all. Why would you viciously treat them like this? I think it goes back to what we talked about yesterday. And we talk about all the time on this podcast, this idea that you lose touch with the reason that you're in government, that you are a public servant. You are not a lord and master. And I completely agree. These are civil penalties that people were in trouble for. They weren't criminal. And so they are not supposed to be able to go to jail for that. We ought to have a rule that anybody who serves in a judicial capacity that has the ability to put people behind bars, once each elected term should have to spend a night behind bars just to know what they're putting people into before they send them there. Because this guy clearly didn't care. I mean, it was all about giving me the money, giving me the money. I don't care what it takes to squeeze you into doing it. And it's just took too long to finally remove them from the bench. Right. It was in 2021 that the Ohio Supreme Court disciplinary counsel first accused him of illegally sending people to jail. They had 48 violations of the law that they cited. So this is not a one time problem. Right. It should have happened a long time ago. And this is the way it always seems to happen with the Supreme Court. You're listening to today in Ohio. Ohio has rolled out the red carpet to get a massive microchip plant built near Columbus. But the federal government still has a lot of red tape. Lisa, how did lawmakers peel some of that red tape away this week? The Congress members in the House passed the Building Chips in America Act of 2023 yesterday, 257 to 125 vote. This bill would streamline the federal review process for that for chip manufacturing facilities, including the one in New Albany, Ohio. They say that construction is being delayed by National Environmental Policy Act reviews that can take up to four and a half years. And they say it discourages future investments in the chip industry. So every Ohio and voted to approve this act except Democrat Joyce Beatty of Columbus. We've reached out to her to see why her vote. She voted no. It did pass the Senate unanimously back in December and it will head to Biden's desk to be made law. So opponents to this bill say that semiconductor production causes a lot of pollution, leaves behind a lot of toxic waste. Democratic lawmaker Summer Lee of Pennsylvania says Silicon Valley has the most superfund sites in the nation and that they are short circuiting environmental reviews that can be dangerous and pointless and that Americans' health and safety is at risk. So Ohio officials, you know, we've had a lot of news recently about Intel's financial problems, their stock is tumbled, we've worried about the future of the plant in New Albany. But so far the officials are saying it's still going on. Construction is underway and they expect to finish it. Clearly microchips are at the heart of just about every system that keeps our country running and having self-sufficiency with them inside our borders is a good idea. The red tape that's been in the way has been problematic for the chip makers. Of course, we should have environmental controls to make sure we're not creating superfund sites, but we also do want to bring the chip making home because if we ever get into conflict with the countries where the chip makers are, we're going to be up a creek. We saw it during the pandemic where how many cars sat on lots, unsellable because you couldn't get the basic chips to keep them running. So I'm glad to see that the federal government's moving on this. But I hope they strike a balance. I mean, I hope they don't throw all environmental stuff out the window. I mean, we do have to strike a balance here. And if that doesn't happen, we'll be really glad it's down in Columbus, not your plea. You're listening to today in Ohio. Issue one on the November ballot is the most important step voters might ever take to restore order to their government and bring sanity to the state house. But the people now in power hate that idea because let's face it, their megalomaniacs bent on staying in charge. Leila, which side has more money for getting the message across to the voters in the final weeks of this campaign? Well, it's definitely the the pro issue on folks. The yes campaign led by citizens, not politicians has reserved a whopping 19.3 million dollars in TV ad time across Ohio's major cities, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Their first ad is already out pushing the message that issue one has support from Republicans, Democrats and independents. And then on the flip side, Ohio works, which is the group opposing issue one is starting their own two week ad campaign, costing between one and a half million and two million. And their ad paints issue one as a democratic attempt to rig the system. While they admit that they'll be outspent by the by the proponents of issue one, they feel confident that they can still get their message across. But you know, there's a lot of money flowing into this battle, but it actually pales in comparison to Ohio's high stakes US Senate race between Sherrod Brown and Bernie Moreno. That race is drawing in around 400 million in ad spending, which just shows how competitive Ohio politics is this year. I'm glad that the issue one people have the money. This needs to pass. This is an absolute good. The lies that people like Matt Huffman and Frank LaRose tell about it need to be drowned out by what the positive messages are. We heard from Maureen O'Connor, the former chief justice, who's a chief author of this earlier this week. And she was pointing all of it out to all the nonsense that's being spewed about this. I've read this thing closely. This is a good way to draw the maps. You just get your neighbors, regular, decent people with no connection to politics. They get together. They draw the maps. And then they can't be in politics for the next six or seven years. It's a good system everybody should vote for this. It's the only way we're going to get out of this quagmire that's been created by people like Matt Huffman. And I also felt like during her talk with the editorial board, Justice O'Connor also said that because people are saying, "Well, you're getting money from other states and national interests." And she says, "This is a national interest. gerrymandering is a national problem." Right. It affects Congress. It's tilting Congress. We need to have fair and bounce maps. And the most sinister thing the anti-forces are doing are trying to convince people that what we're doing is creating gerrymandering. I don't think Ohio voters are that stupid. I think they're going to see through it the way they saw through all the lies with the issues last year. We'll know in less than two months you're listening to today in Ohio. Laura, how much is the childcare crisis in Cuyahoga County costing taxpayers? Around $114.2 million, that's just in the tax revenues that are not being sent to the county, just the county, because people are not working as much because of childcare issues. We're talking about parents of kids under age five. You're going to expand that up to older kids, you'd get more money. But total loss income comes to around $411 million for parents and $121 million for businesses. This is according to a study by Early Matters, NEO. That's a coalition of early childhood advocates. So an average of about $5700 a year in income for a family and $1700 for an individual business, that they're losing just in work that they can't get done because they have to care for their children because their childcare falls through. And it's just one more reason why the state and local government should be involved because this is a community issue. This is not a family individual problem that everybody should have to solve for themselves. I firmly believe that it is a common good if we could all help out and provide quality, affordable childcare. Look, it's another reason to vote yes on issue one. One of the reasons we don't have help for childcare in Ohio is we have a gerrymandered legislature where a bunch of Fred Flintstones think women should stay home and be barefoot and pregnant. We need to get balanced back to our legislature because anybody with common sense would do this. The series that we've run for two years has proven in every way possible, this is good for everyone. It's good for the economy, it's good for the taxpayer, it's good for the families, it's good for the children, but we got Fred Flintstone Incorporated running the state and they simply won't make the changes necessary, which makes us last in the country when it comes to helping with childcare. Yeah, absolutely. We are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to what we provide in state support for childcare and there are a number of bills in the state legislature that would do something about this. A whole host of different possibilities that we could be looking at to put together to really help everyone, but you don't see them getting a lot of traction because of the leadership in the house. So it's not that these ideas aren't out there. They are. I mean, that's been a big change in the last year, so hats off to them, but we're not seeing it as a focus of the legislature because you're right. They're way too busy trying to pass laws to make sure that people have to use specific bathrooms. Or turn college campuses into fascist training centers like Gerasarino wants to do. You're listening to today in Ohio. How is the Metro Parks assisting with the effort to bring professional women's soccer to Cleveland? We saw I'm a little bit confused by this story. I'm hoping you can sort it all out. Yeah, and we were confused when the story first ran and why Metro Parks is even involved here. The Metro Parks board agreed to buy 14 acres of land near progressive field from the Ohio Department of Transportation for 4.2 million. That price will be paid by the Cleveland soccer group, which is trying to bring a national women's soccer league team to Cleveland. The sale only goes forward if CSG builds that $150 million stadium want and if they get a, you know, once they get approval for the team. So if that happens, if we do get a team, Metro Parks will lease the land to CSG, CSG entity that will build and operate the stadium. If Cleveland does not get the team, the sale would be canceled. And then I guess, you know, Metro Parks apparently leases this right now from ODOT. They use it for parking for guardians and calves games. This land is bounded by I-90 in the railroad tracks to the north and East 9th Street and commercial road to the south, it's currently a gravel parking lot. It's about a five minute walk from progressive field. But ODOT acquired this land back in the day when they were doing the interbelled highway construction and they've been leasing it to Metro Parks ever since. I'm a little bit nervous about Metro Parks entering this. They're not helping finance a stadium. They're not jumping into it, but we're having a huge debate right now about the future of Brown Stadium, I mean, forget how bad the team has stunk since the Haslams bought it. There's a big debate about how much money the public should put into a new palace for these players or an updated palace. And the last thing you'd want to see is the Metro Parks get involved in that. This isn't that. But the fact that they're stepping in to assist with the sports team makes me nervous because the Metro Parks has been about participatory recreation. Everything they do is for people to get outside and participate and get exercise. And sports isn't participatory. It's sitting in chairs watching a game. And is that really the right way for the Metro Parks to be going? I'm looking at the map. It is kind of a, if they want to have a downtown stadium, that would be the place to put it. But yeah, I find it very odd. But of course, if the sale doesn't go through, it's no problem. The land just reverts back to their lease, apparently. So. Yeah, but I could just see Dean, Jimmy Haslam going, oh, Metro Parks, stadium financing. Let's go hit them up for help. And that's the last thing we want. The Metro Parks is an agency that runs without debt. They pay their freight with everything they do. It's one of the best run organizations we've ever seen. Every year they expand their offerings to Cleveland. It's really quite the jewel for Northeast Ohio. And I hope they stay on focus with that and not start looking at things like this. I mean, I imagine Layla, who hates any kind of public financing of sports stadiums. Here here. Yeah, this would make you nervous as well. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I understand that, but I do think I like the guardrails around this deal, like Lisa pointed out, and I would like to believe that the Metro Parks just know better than to get in bed with the Haslams on any deal. This is different. This is different. Okay. And we don't know, you know, the CSG, the Cleveland Soccer Group is asking for $90 million from local and state governments, none of which have come forth with that money yet. So. No, because we're having this gigantic debate about the brown stadium. It's an interesting time to be thinking about these concepts. You're listening to today in Ohio. Here's a story we've been waiting to see for a long time. How far, Layla, have drug overdose deaths fallen in Ohio in the past year? And does a new study offer some strategies to help cut those deaths even more? The drop has been pretty dramatic, Chris. A nearly one third decline in the past year, according to some preliminary state data. And this marks a major turnaround for a state that's been hit hard by the opioid crisis, especially during the pandemic. So far in 2024, 1,673 drug overdose deaths have been reported. But that's down 30.8% from the same time last year when more than 2,400 people had died. But here's the thing. No one is exactly sure why this trend is happening. State officials suggest a combination of factors could be at play, including greater access to naloxone known as Narcan. That's the drug overdose reversal drug. And also expanded addiction treatment programs and possibly even a crackdown by Mexican drug cartels on fentanyl production. And while the drop is happening across most of Ohio, some counties like Cuyahoga saw overdose deaths fall by more than 30%. But then there are others like Lake County that actually saw an increase. So experts are hesitant to declare victory just yet. Some say state programs like Recovery Ohio, which supports mental health and addiction recovery, could be helping. But they're not convinced that that's the whole story. One really intriguing theory here is that the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico may have played a role in the decline in the numbers here. The cartel reportedly banned fentanyl production last year, which could have reduced the drugs availability. But US authorities are kind of skeptical of that. They suggest that the ban might be more of a public relations move than a full-scale stop. So while it's good news that fewer Ohioans are dying from overdoses, the reasons behind it are still being debated and officials agree that continued support for recovery programs and access to the lock zone are essential to keeping these numbers down. We had a similar trend in the late '90s with crack cocaine. Crack cocaine ravaged Cleveland. The number of women being tested who were incarcerated, we were number one in the country one year because it hit so hard. And after several years of overdoses and all the crackwars and all the shootings, it kind of burned itself out. And the numbers fell dramatically without a real explanation. And this feels the same way that it's just so many people have died. So much has gone on. Do these trends just kind of work themselves out after a while where the people who are going to get addicted, get addicted, there's all the deaths and then the numbers drop? I wish we understood it because it was devastating. So many families were affected by the opioid epidemic. It's great to see it dropping. What's the new study show that might offer even some more ideas for reducing it? Yeah, this is a recent study from Case Western Reserve University and they have showed that about 75% of overdose victims in Kayoga County were using drugs alone when they died. Of course, that means that those overdose victims had no one available to them to call for help. And the study looked at data from 2016 to 2020. In Northeast Ohio, opioid-related deaths are almost twice the average in most of these deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Over 70% of the overdose victims were men, mostly between the ages of 35 and 64 and 80% had used more than one substance. So researchers are urging for what they call harm reduction strategies like distributing the naloxone that we talked about and also fentanyl test strips that show whether their supply has been contaminated with fentanyl and that helps combat this issue. You know, quite a while back, we did another story, Hannah Drowned wrote a story about a new app that was going to be available soon here and it would allow people who are using drugs by themselves to tap a button and check in and when they know they're safe, they check out and the person who's monitoring that app on the other side knows that they're okay. And if they don't check in, that app can signal the need for a wellness check on that person, which I think is a really interesting way to kind of provide some oversight and safeguarding for people who are using in private. Exactly. The idea that you have some backup system, some fail safe when you're alone would go a long way to making sure people are revived. Interesting study, great numbers to see, hopefully the trend continues. Thanks for listening to Today in Ohio, that's it for our Wednesday episode. Thanks, Laila. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you for listening. Please come back tomorrow. We'll be talking about the news. 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