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Today in Ohio
Today in Ohio - Sept. 10, 2024 Donald Trump, Bernie Moreno, JD Vance and others spread a migrant crime lie about Springfield, Ohio
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We could be having an adult conversation in Ohio about how to accommodate legal immigration. But no, no, JD Vance, Dave Yoast, Donald Trump, Bernie Moreno are turning it into absolute nonsense that crowds out the facts. The first story we're talking about on today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I'm Chris Quinn. I'm here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, and Leila Tasi, and let's get to that story. How did JD Vance, Dave Yoast, John Houston, and Donald Trump get it so wrong in widely publicizing a false claim about Haitian migrant crime like the killing of ducks in parks in Springfield, Ohio, Laura? My guess is that they wanted to believe it so they didn't check their facts. These claims circulated and right-wing social media circles, Republicans in Ohio around the country are trying to make illegal immigration a cornerstone campaign in November, even though illegal immigration is not really a big problem in Ohio. But I guess if you can say, "Hey, Haitian immigrants, migrants, refugees are killing ducks in public parks," then we're going to try to make it an Ohio issue. But the Springfield City Manager is really trying to quell this and saying there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community. There are no verified instances of immigrants illegally engaging in any illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents home, no reports on deliberately disrupting traffic. So apparently these are the rumors that have been circulating. And the city manager is saying, "Not true. They're talking about these Haitian immigrants, 12 to 15,000 of them who are there under a federal refugee program can be in the country legally until at least 2026. But does that stop JD Vance from posting about it on X?" No, he says months ago I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos, chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our borders are? I mean, I don't even see the eaten one, it's just like, "Oh my gosh." What's sad is this is the way the system is supposed to work. We're a country that does bring in people who are in danger elsewhere and in Haiti life is cheap, people are getting slaughtered. So this is not illegal, this isn't the loose border, this was by design and by all accounts it's going pretty well. The city's only point is this is a 30% increase roughly in our population. We don't have the comparable increases in our police and fire department and that's not in our budget. So we could use some help from the federal government as we accommodate this, perfectly reasonable sober conversation we should be having. If we move a bunch of refugees into a city there should be assistance to that city to accommodate it. But these guys have turned it into utter nonsense, where does mature conversation go anymore? Well, and so President Donald Trump, their campaign cited the Daily Mail, which cited an unsupported statement during a city commission meeting. There are also people I kid you not quoting an anonymous Facebook post that described a neighbor's daughter's friend who discovered their cat had been strung up. Who would buy that, that is the most asinine, far-flated, I don't know, you just can't make this stuff up. It's sad because these are people who are our leaders or want to be leaders, but what you count on in leaders is thoughtful discussion, thoughtful approaches, and they're just ridiculous flame throwing liars, yet again telling big lies to scare the hell out of the population. You know what their problem is, they keep trying to convince everybody that immigration is a big problem, and in Ohio that's not what people are talking about. They're talking about childcare, they're talking about grocery prices, they're talking about the cost of college tuition, they're talking about paycheck to paycheck living. We don't have an immigration problem in Ohio. As much as Bernie Moreno, who's an immigrant, I should point out, is trying to convince us. Right, we are really far from the Mexican border in Ohio. We have a Canadian border, I am a Canadian immigrant, but as far as I know, nobody's pointing fingers at the Canadian saying they're causing problems. But that doesn't stop. Well, I kind of point the finger at a Canadian, but not in general, just a specific one. But Attorney General Dave Yoast, I mean, he's jumping in on this. This is the top law enforcement person official in our state, and he's putting out these statements that say migrants are causing car crashes, stealing property, including livestock. How much livestock is in Springfield, Ohio? It's a city, I don't know that there are cows in the backyard, squatting in homes and killing wildlife for food. The problem is not migrants, it's weighed too many migrants in a short period of time, a massive increase in the population without any communication or assistance from the federal government. And that's where it is, right? Because they're going to blame the federal government here so they can point fingers at Biden and the Democratic president say it's all their fault, that's why we need Trump in the White House. Don't you think Dave Yoast would have learned his lesson about jumping on bogus news with the 10 year old abortion, you know, when he cast doubts that she even existed, you'd think that he'd say, wait, wait, wait, before I start throwing gasoline on the fire, maybe I should get my facts right. He was a journalist once, you know, you would think he would respect the getting it right. You're listening to Today in Ohio, is the state going to spend $400,000 to circulate a flat out lie from Franklin Rose about the anti gerrymandering amendment on our November ballot? Layla. Well, that's very possible, Chris. The state has just approved spending that money on newspaper ads to, you know, air quotes educate voters about issue one, which is the redistricting reform amendment, the state constitution requires the ads to run in newspapers in each of the state's 88 counties once a week in the three weeks before the November 5 election. Now the ads will include the full ballot language along with the official arguments for and against the measure. But you know, here's the kicker, the language for the amendment is still up in the air because there's a lawsuit pending about it and the highest Supreme Court hasn't made a final decision yet. And despite this legal limbo, the state had to approve the ad spending by a deadline this week. So the money's been approved, but they won't actually publish the ads until the court gives the go ahead. Democrats on the state controlling board, which is the group that voted on this, tried to delay this decision until the court settled things. But Republicans on the board rejected that attempt at delay and went ahead with locking in the ad space anyway. And their reasoning was that it's better to be safe than sorry, we'll secure the ad space now and decide what goes in the ads later. But you know, this is important because the language that's in dispute was written by the ballot board, which is run by Secretary of State Frank LaRosa, Republican and the Democrats and backers of the amendment are concerned because they feel the current language was forced to mislead or it was misleading to voters by suggesting the amendment forces gerrymandering in favor of both Republicans and Democrats, even though it's actually meant to prevent gerrymandering. So we'll have to wait and see how the Supreme Court rules on the ballot language before the ads go out. You're being kind and saying suggesting they call this amendment gerrymandering, which is a flat out lie. We cannot stress that enough. That is a lie of the highest order. That's the opposite of gerrymandering. There is no definition of gerrymandering that would cover what this amendment does. What gerrymandering is where you skew the maps to favor one party over another. This amendment demands that you actually get the maps exactly proportional to how Ohio votes. The fact that the ballot board and Frank LaRosa shoved that lie in there, they should all be thrown out of the jobs. And I got to tell you, if the Supreme Court approves that, everybody who goes to the polls this November should vote out whoever's in the Supreme Court. Because this cannot stand. It's a lie and it should not be put in front of the people of Ohio. And everybody involved in it, the ballot board should be ashamed of itself for telling the people of Ohio that massive lie. And they should not be spending nearly half a million dollars to spread it. And Democrats are really worried that LaRosa can't be trusted and that even if the court rejects the controversial ballot language, he might just go ahead and use it in the ads anyway. Do you think that that would be, he would be so brazen as to use that language even if the court rejects it? I would not put anything past him. He is not in any way a servant to the public. He is a servant to the Republican party and he breaks the rules to do it. I've never seen anybody operate like him. It's every decision he makes is the opposite. We're going to be talking about another one in a few minutes. It's amazing how often he violates his oath to the people of Ohio by making contrary decisions. You're listening to today in Ohio. Controversial Cleveland Browns quarterback, Sean Watson has a new accuser. And for the first time, the allegation is actually rape. What does his accuser say happen, Lisa, and how might this figure into his future in Cleveland? So the lawsuit was filed Monday in Harris County, Houston, Texas district court by a Jane Doe. She accuses Watson of sexual assault and battery back in October of 2020. Apparently, they met in July of that year and then ranged a meeting later at her apartment. So he came over and she alleges in the suit that he took off his clothes almost immediately lay down and demanded a massage. And she apparently complied and then he pointed to his buttocks and says, I want you to massage my buttocks. At this point, the lawsuit said she was terrified. The filing also says he became upset with a massage and then sexually assaulted her. So apparently at some point, she grabbed a heavy decor item that was sitting on the dresser and threatened him with it and told him to get out. And he did leave. He left enraged according to the lawsuit. She said in the suit that she was worried about reporting these allegations because of Watson's star status in Houston at the time. And since that, she's been suffering panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. Her attorney is Tony Busby of Houston. He's the man who represented the other two dozen women who had sexual harassment or assault claims against Watson. We reached out to Rusty Hardin, another powerful Houston attorney who has represented Watson in these other cases. He's not listed as the attorney of record on this new case. So I don't know, we're waiting to hear from him. We should point out that in a civil case, the standard that you must get across to a jury is a preponderance of evidence, unlike in a criminal case where it's beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no corresponding criminal charge. Busby said he doesn't know if the file of police report at this point. Because it's rape, though, I think in Houston, the statute of limitations are in Texas. It's five years. It would still be within that window. But it puts the Browns in a challenging, in the NFL, in a challenging position. The rape allegation is a new one. And they are pretty strict with people who are accused of that kind of sexual violence. And I guess in some ways they could banish him from playing and the Browns could drop his contract. There are certain scenarios. Well, and I haven't found any verification, but plenty of people said that there is an out in the Browns contract. I don't know the details of that. I don't know if it's true, but I mean this could give them cause, I guess, to do something. I don't know. And we share in mind, everybody, that the Browns owners, D.N. Jimmy Haslam, knew of the previous allegations against the Sean Watson. But after talking to him, they said they felt comfortable with him. We'll see if they have the same comfort as this case. Well, but let's not forget that those cases were all no build by two different grand juries in Houston. I just want to throw that out there. And I did find a quote, apparently Busby did talk to USA Today Sports. He says he's going to pursue this case aggressively and he wants a jury trial on this one. He always says that. And then they settle. I think they settled every single case, didn't they? They did. Yes. Yeah. So my guess is that the Haslams are going to be less comfortable with this now that they realize how bad he sucks. If this gives him an out, it gives him an out on that contract. Let's see how they, how they use this to their advantage. Yeah. Many, many people believe that the deal they made for him may be just the worst football deal ever made. And it's saddled Cleveland with mediocrity for years. They gave up all their draft picks and brought in a guy who's not that good. So you're right, Laila, might be interesting now that they know what his quality is, whether they're less willing to stand by his side. This all happens, of course, as they are trying to jack the public for $1.2 billion for a stadium. You're listening to Today in Ohio. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. So Lifelock wants to remind you to update your passwords. Using the same password across multiple accounts makes you vulnerable to cyber criminals. For comprehensive identity theft protection, let Lifelock alert you to anything suspicious and fix any issues. Start protecting your identity today with a 30-day free trial at Lifelock.com/podcast. How are the political campaigns getting all our cell phone numbers, Lara, and bombarding us with text messages, begging and begging and begging us for money? And is there anything we can do about it? No, not really. You can respond, stop, as much as you want. And maybe that specific one will stop, but we're talking about a whole lot of different groups that have your number, literally, and it's legal, and they can keep doing it. So here's what I got, I was prepping for this podcast, it came in, it said presidential straw poll, before Kamala Harris hits the debate stage, confirm you're voting for Harris, not Trump. It's reply here. I always delete these, I always say report junk, I just keep going them. I get ones addressed to my husband, but apparently they're legal because they're considered manually sent and they proliferated since the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It loosened consent requirements for these mass texting systems. In the 2022 midterms, campaigns and other political groups sent more than 15 billion political texts, I can only imagine we're going up exponentially from there because these campaigns buy the list of potential targets by, from data brokers, they compile them from a combination of state voter records, third party consumer data, lists of verified cell phone numbers, and basically just data that you can buy for the right price. And they were trying to get small donations from people or to click on something to show that you are supporting. I don't know if I clicked on that, what that would have done. I got the same one, look, I'm overrun, I've gotten them every year and I've never donated to a political campaign and I'm a registered independent. I get them from Donald Trump, which is kind of funny because you know, people know, I think people are as human being ever to be on the political stage, but I got to say the Harris Wall's campaign is by far, by far the worst I've ever seen. I've been hitting stop, I've been reporting junk day after day after day, I get multiple messages from them each day and I can't get them to stop. I wish there were a law, but you know, the lawmakers are the ones that pass these laws and so they need you and they need your money, but it causes serious resentment. I don't want that junk in my phone and it just keeps coming and coming and it's don't you get the message, no, go away. Right, I completely agree because you know, your phone all of a sudden is like your iCloud is full, your storage and it's like what, because I have all these stupid text messages that I don't want in the first place. So that's why I've been deleting the messages that get in there so I don't take up space on my phone, but I guess they do this because it works, if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. Is this going to change the way you vote? I mean, it's not going to change the way I vote, but I really do want it to tell them like I'm not going to, I'm not going to spend money on you, I'm not going to support your campaign and you're really just annoying the heck out of people you really want to like you. Well, it's pathetic begging. It's like, hey, we only have 12 hours. The other side is doing next. We got 12 hours and you haven't given us anything. It's almost implying guilt because you haven't given anything. I think it builds resentment. Yeah. I think it does too. And quite honestly, I, all of my text messages have been Democrats. I mean, they must know I'm a Democrat or I voted Democrat because I've not gotten any Trump, no, Moreno, no Republican ones at all. And as I said in the round table on Saturday, we talked about this and I'm like, we've been warned not to click on unsolicited texts. How do we know these are even legit? Yeah. Right. And I mean, that's not even talking about the email. I probably get more than a hundred solicitations every day from all the campaigns. And I mean, part of that is being a reporter, right? You just get that stuff. But I wonder how many other people are getting this stuff every day and you just wanted to go away. I wish tonight in the debate, one of the questions would be you're annoying the hell out of America by begging them for money. Will you pledge to change the loss? You outlaw these text messages, put them on the record. If we do that, can we also talk about TV ads and emails because I just feel like you turn around and you're just bombarded. You're listening to today in Ohio. Did Ohio Attorney General Dave Yoast ask Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine to recuse himself a few years ago from the redistricting case in which DeWine's dad, the governor, was a key player? Nope. So Layla, how does he justify seeking the recusal of a different justice in a separate party in a case that also involves redistricting? This is becoming quite the legal showdown here in your right, Chris. It seems really hypocritical for Yoast given the Pat DeWine situation from a while back. So democratic state Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Bruner just rejected a request from Republicans to remove herself from the major redistricting lawsuit that was filed by citizens not politicians over the ballot language of this proposed amendment seeking to create the independent redistricting process. As we mentioned earlier, Republicans who control the Ohio ballot board wrote the language in a way that says that the amendment requires gerrymandering, which is the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do. And Yoast asked Bruner to step aside from this case because last year she filed a different lawsuit challenging a state law that involves Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who also happens to be tied to this redistricting lawsuit. That other lawsuit was challenging a state law that requires judicial candidates to list their partisan affiliations on the ballot. So Yoast's argument was that Bruner couldn't be impartial on this case. But on Monday Bruner said, "Nope, there's no merit to that," and she's staying on the case. Specifically, she drew upon Yoast's own arguments from the redistricting lawsuit when the Democratic Minority on the ballot board filed arguments with the court independent of the Republican majority. Yoast tried to have those arguments struck from the record. He said, "The ballot board functions as a single unit and not as a collective of its individual members." So when Bruner wrote her letter rejecting this demand that she recuse herself, she was, you know, she said, "Hey, remember how you said the ballot board functions as a collective? Well, that flies in the face of your claim that I would be judging LaRose as an individual apart from that collective." I thought that was pretty brilliant. So Bruner's decision is obviously significant because in past redistricting cases, the Democrats on the court have always kind of hung together. They've been on that side with, you know, the courts for Republicans on the other. Well, Pat DeWine's refusal to recuse himself in a case that could have held his dad in contempt was the height of hypocrisy on any court. There's no way that wasn't a conflict of interest, and our Attorney General was silent on that. But here he is going after a Democratic justice on an issue that's so much more gray, it's hypocrisy, again, in our highest levels of office in Ohio. You know, maybe I'm being Pollyanna about this, but this decision on the ballot language really seems about as cut and dried as it could possibly be, right? The language that LaRose proposed says that the proposal would require gerrymandering. That couldn't be more patently false. This should be a unanimous decision on the court's part, regardless of party affiliation. But, you know, of course this is Ohio, so I guess anything can happen here. Right. They should say it as clearly as possible and spank him and say, cut it out, stop playing politics with your job. You're supposed to represent the citizens in elections matters, and you represent everybody, not just people in your party. He's terrible, and we're going to talk about him again in a minute. You're listening to today in Ohio. Lisa does Ohio's Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, have two standards for making decisions on candidates being on the ballot, including one just for white males like himself. How does he justify his decision to keep someone on the ballot who failed to disclose a name change as state law requires? So, LaRose ruled that District 59, a Republican state representative, Tex Fisher, can remain on the Mahoning County November ballot, despite not listing a 2020 name change in this candidate paperwork. This would be in violation of an Ohio law that requires candidates to list all names they've used in the last five years, even though there's no space on the form to put those former names. So, Fisher changed his legal name from Austin James Fisher to Austin James Texford Fisher. The chair of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, Chris Anderson, filed a complaint against Fisher, and then LaRose ruling broke a 2-2 tie on the Mahoning County Board of Elections, so which was a party line vote. The Dems were against, or for it, and the others were against it. But LaRose says the requirement only applies to statements of candidacy and nominating petitions. Fisher got on the ballot because he was an appointee. He was appointed in June by the local Republican party to replace Al-Cutrona, who resigned to seat in June for Ohio Senate appointment. So, he didn't submit that paperwork because he was appointed. So, I don't know, that sounds a little bit like weak sauce, but Fisher says it was really disheartening to deal with this petty, blatantly partisan stunt by the board. He says it's overly harsh and unfair, and he would, if elected, introduce a bill to make it a penalty for not, to reduce the penalty for not listing previous names on the paperwork. It is harsh and unfair, but it did take somebody off the ballot this year. I mean, how do you do two different standards? LaRose is using a technicality to take care of a Republican, but this is not right. You can't have separate standards. Somebody got yanked off the ballot because they were a transgender who changed their name and didn't disclose it on the form, which doesn't have a place to disclose it. And then they allow this guy to stay on it. It doesn't make sense that we have the double standard. Frank LaRose should have stepped in earlier and made sure the other candidate also could be known. Well, I guess the only reason he stepped in was to break the tie, because Vanessa Joy, the transgender Democratic candidate, was left off the District 50 primary ballot by the Stark County Board of Elections. But two other transgender candidates in other counties were allowed to stay on their ballot. And interestingly enough, Fisher actually supports, he says, there was no clear intent to deceive voters in his case and Vanessa Joy's case, so he's kind of backing her up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, the right thing is actually happening here. He shouldn't get kicked off the ballot. But Vanessa Joy shouldn't have been kicked off the ballot either. That's where the wrong thing happened. You're listening to today in Ohio. U.S. Senator J.D. Vance and some colleagues took a loss in a U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati, even though the judges seemed to agree with everything that Vance was arguing. Laura, this is a complicated case involving campaign spending simplified for us. Okay, so this is about overturning federal limits on the political party's ability to coordinate the spending with the candidates. It's about how much the parties can give the candidates themselves in order to get elected. And this is the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Like you said, agreed with these plaintiffs, but they said, we can't overturn a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the limits, that that would have to come from the Supreme Court itself. These caps are established in 1972 in a campaign finance law. And they're currently $32 million for a presidential candidate, $1.1 million for a Senate candidate in Ohio. It differs in different states, $62,000 for a House candidate in Ohio. And while the Supreme Court overturned federal limits on overall party spending on candidates in 1996, then in 2001, they upheld these limits. They said that eliminating them would allow donors to circumvent federal limits and contribute to corruption, which we love to talk about corruption on this podcast. I get what they're saying. I'm all for upholding campaign finance laws and making sure things are above board. And that you're not swaying too much with the campaign money, but when we have dark money groups that can collect as much money and don't have to tell you where and can spend it on whatever candidate they want, it just seems like this is obsolete, this limit in the face of what else is happening in campaign finance. Which is what they argued and what the judges agreed to. They just said, we're not going to overrule the Supreme Court. They have to overrule themselves, tossing it up. So I'm sure it'll be appealed and there'll be some sort of decision that comes out of that. And it'll be like, hey, give as much money as you want to these people and keep texting everybody you know. You're listening to today in Ohio. Well, do we finally have a date when that old Sheridan Hotel at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is coming down to make way for much needed parking? Well, this place has been sitting vacant. It's in really rough shape for the past year. And demolition is finally set to begin on October 1st and it could take up to four months to finish the job. The Sheridan opened way back in 1959, but its condition has gone downhill. Partly due to the pandemics hit on travel, the city actually paid over $12 million last year to end the lease with the private company that ran the hotel and it's been closed since May of 2022. Now Cleveland-based Baumann Enterprises will be handling the demolition for just over $2 million as part of a larger $4 million contract to take down several buildings on airport property. So what's next for this site? In the short term, it's going to be turned into more parking. That's great news because parking at Hopkins has been tight lately. Air travels booming again with passenger numbers expected to hit over $10 million this year. That's the highest since 2008. And unlike 2008, when Cleveland was a hub for continental airlines, most of those passengers now are starting or ending their trips in Cleveland, which really puts extra pressure on parking. I don't remember. Did it say exactly how many more spaces we'll get? I don't want to say it was like 400 or something. Well, that's significant. I still don't understand why Cleveland tore down that other garage back when Frank Jackson was mayor that had tons of additional parking because it helped solve what was needed, but they tore that thing down. Yeah, it seems like they're moving in the right direction of solving their parking problems. I mean, there's talk of adding a second parking garage down the line and they're giving travelers some relief on that. And you experience their smart parking garage to help manage the demand during busy times like holidays and spring break. Yeah, they are. They're trying to make it there. There's all the off-airport lots that so many people use that I guess are also, they find them convenient, not me, but others. You're listening to Today in Ohio, that's going to do it for the Tuesday episode. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Layla. We'll be back on Wednesday talking about the news, but we will be off on Thursday and Friday, returning on Monday. Thanks for listening. 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