Welcome to the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media, I'm Mike McIntyre.

So glad you could join us today.

What everyone is talking about this week and what will lead the roundtable with, is the deeply personal attack ad by the Vivek Ramaswamys campaign, featuring the estranged mother of his opponent for governor, Doctor Amy Acton.

And not just the ad which gave voice to the woman who stayed married to the man act and accused of sexually abusing her as a child.

But the reaction bipartisan repudiation from across the country, not from the president and the vice president, though, well, this October surprise benefit Ramaswamy or backfire spectacularly.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield still doesn't have a deal with the Cleveland Clinic.

Is it possible those insured by anthem won't have access to the clinic next year?

Big counties that want to increase sales taxes would have to get voter approval.

Under a law proposed by Strongsville State Senator Tom Patton in response to discussions about an unvetted hike in Cuyahoga County to cover stadium repairs.

And it's not going to be easy to watch the Cavs on TV this year, though it would have been great to have missed last night's second half collapse.

Joining me to discuss all of this week's news from industry and public media.

Deputy Editor of News Glenn Forbes and criminal justice reporter Matt Richmond.

Hello.

Good morning.

Morning, Mike.

Good to have both of you with us.

And in Columbus, a woman who you can easily find on TV, on PBS and who stays strong through both halves of the show idea and Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Morning, Karen.

Good morning.

Good to have you with us.

And I, by the way, visited the statehouse news bureau this week.

And now I know exactly where Karen is sitting when she's talking to us in that show.

You know the magic, I know.

Very impressive, isn't it?

That massive studio here right now.

All right.

You can share your thoughts with us.

And I imagine there will be many this week by sending email to.

soi@ideastream.org already have about a half a dozen emails about this Vivek Ramaswamy ad about Amy Acton's mother.

Please keep in mind, I'm screening these as they arrive and sharing them during the live show, so very long emails likely won't be included.

Concise and to the point.

Works.

And thanks for that.

All right, let's get ready to roundtable.

We've been saying for weeks how sick we are of political ads and how they seem to be particularly nasty this season.

Well as the saying goes, hold my beer.

And an ad by the Vivek Ramaswamy caused shockwaves and loud bipartisan condemnation this week, described variously as deeply troubling, disgusting, revolting and despicable.

It features the mother of his opponent in the governor's race, Amy Acton, saying Acton has, quote, lied her entire life.

Acton was removed from that mother's care as a child when she accused her mother's husband of sexual and physical abuse.

A claim Acton's brother backs up.

The mother stayed with the husband.

Acton says the last time she saw her mother was in a courtroom in 1978, when her stepfather was indicted, he and Acton's mother moved out of state.

He was never prosecuted, and he died in 2004.

It's been the topic of national talk shows.

Governor DeWine and former Governor Kasich have condemned the ad, but Vice President JD Vance said on the campaign trail, people need to stop whining about the ad, and he praised Ramaswamy for having the audacity to put up an ad that quote calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.

President Trump yesterday said he wished the mothers of his opponents would be so brave, and called the ad paydirt.

A lot to unpack.

And this October surprise.

You can weigh in again via email.

soi@ideastream.org.

And Karen, what a turn in this campaign.

Yeah, I had heard that this kind of October surprise was on the horizon.

I mean, Amy Acton has talked about her abusive childhood and living in a tent at one point.

It's in one of her campaign ads.

So she's been very open about this.

But as it turns out, this ad featuring her mother, Donna Arthur, talking about how Amy is a liar has actually exposed that some of the things that act and said were actually downplayed, that that her she wasn't just sexually abused.

Her stepfather was indicted on felony rape charges in 1978.

Her mother lost custody of her and her brother, which back in the 70s, mothers did not quite often lose custody of their children.

So this is quite an ad that I think shocked a lot of people.

But the Ramaswamy campaign is standing behind it.

And there is there's some reporting that suggests that his testing of this ad showed that it would go over well with some of his base voters.

So this ad remains on the air.

When you say testing.

So they show the ad to a focus group of people and they say, oh, yeah, boy, even her mom hates her.

So it looks like it works.

But that's that's without any context.

I suppose if some people saw this without knowing any of the backstory.

It may be a successful ad.

The question is, is that possible?

Now, I've seen the coverage across the nation and you're seeing people way in everywhere.

We're talking about it for a good part of this show today.

Is there still a calculus there whereby this works?

Well, I think the idea is to go after these low propensity voters, voters who will see this ad and not know the back story, not do the research.

Again, acting has talked about this.

The research is is out there.

But if you do, the national attention on this has really elevated it because now it's not just an Ohio governor's race.

It's a national story.

And that brings this into the social media feeds and into the the phones of everybody who is online.

And so it'll be very interesting to see what the reaction of this will be when we actually vote on Tuesday on and the general election.

But the reaction so far has been just incredible.

I mean, the vitriol that's been pushed from those who are upset about this ad and anger, angry about this ad, who say that it really takes advantage of Acton's trauma.

And, it's really unfair that Ramaswamy did this.

Meanwhile, you have got some of his supporters, some Republicans, who are saying that this was fair game, that Acton is a liar and the shows it.

But it's I think the overwhelming response has been pretty negative.

You were waiting when we were together on Wednesday.

You were trying to get the governor and get a comment from him, and they said, well, we'll talk about it later in the week.

And finally then yesterday, he had a gaggle right outside his office and offered his comments.

He called it deeply troubling, I think was his term, but and said that Ramaswamy should take the ad down.

But when you asked, are you still endorsing him?

The answer was yes.

He's still supporting him for governor.

Yeah.

At this kind of impromptu gaggle where the entire State House press corps had been tipped off by his people that he was going to be there.

He talked something about he talked a bit about how he was a prosecutor in Greene County, the attorney general of Ohio, talking about meeting sexual assault survivors and rape survivors and how much he admired these women for their bravery and coming forward.

And he said, that's the lens he viewed this ad through.

And then he said that knowing the backstory of all this, knowing what, Amy Acton actually went through in the court documents, prove that she went through, that this ad was deeply troubling and wrong.

This was a wrong ad to be airing.

He called for Ramaswamy to take it down, but he said he still stands by his endorsement of the entire Republican ticket because he is a Republican.

He said.

And he was asked a couple times, are you clearly, you know, if why doesn't take the ad down, will you take back your endorsement?

And he said, no, he he stands by his endorsement.

Well, the president says he isn't a Republican or at least isn't a supporter of Republicans, and repudiated him for, for his criticism of the ad.

Let me share some of the thoughts from our listeners, because there are many first with Steven and he says it's a show of poor judgment that the campaign went to Acton's mother, who was determined not to be able to care for her children and believe what she said over the officials and victims at the time.

But then to double down on the ad after being confronted with the poor choice is a show of poor integrity.

Someone with that level of judgment integrity should not lead this state.

That's what, Stevens point of view is.

We also had Susan, who mentions that she thinks the ad is going to backfire, but also said that she believes that DeWine needs to denounce the endorsement of Ramaswamy and stand up to his party.

A number of other reactions.

I wonder what you're hearing at the state House.

I know you guys are insulated in that it's the press corps and it's the officials there, but, and we're in a recess.

But, has there been buzz about this and what has been the prevailing thought?

Oh, it's all over the place.

And again, it's not just a national story.

It's a local story.

It's a statewide story.

It's everywhere.

And so you haven't seen a whole lot of reaction from officeholders specifically.

I mean, we heard from U.S.

Senator Jon Husted, who was DeWine's lieutenant governor before he was appointed to the Senate and then Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

They're both on the ballot this time saying they would not have run that ad, the the loudest condemnation from Republicans came from Lydia Mihalik, who's the former mayor of Findlay and DeWine's Director of the Ohio Department of Development and then former House Speaker Ryan Smith, who lost his House seat to Larry Householder.

Another name you might remember, but we really haven't.

There hasn't been a whole lot of public outcry from Republicans on this, and most of it has come from Democrats.

Democrats have loudly not only defended their candidate, but said that this kind of attack is really just wrong and inappropriate and just really weaponizes what Acton went through as a child.

She was 12 years old when this sexual assault happened, and her father, her stepfather, was indicted for felony rape.

He was turned in by her father, her biological father.

So this is a a family nightmare that goes way back.

Yeah.

We did see Nancy Mace, the Republican in South Carolina, who, who came out against this as well.

So there has been bipartisan condemnation.

Another thought here.

This was from Kit from Canton.

She says, do you think the prospective voters who dislike the ad will hold their nose and vote or swing to the couch?

Anecdotally, my mother disliked the ad, but we'll probably still be voting for him, so I'm not feeling very confident in the ad serving as a red line.

Do you think the ad will set a new normal where those sentiments can fall within a range of acceptability?

Glenn.

Its the question that will never get a real answer to.

We'll get an indication of it on election night.

Right.

But I think, you know, the bottom line on this in terms of the results is, did this sway thousands of independents to vote for Amy Acton, or did this convince thousands of Republicans maybe to stay home?

Or to the emailers point, will many Republicans still, in some ways kind of hold their nose and vote for Ramaswamy?

I been thinking about this kind of on two tracks, and one is the the political track.

And I've been thinking a lot about Dave Yost, former Attorney General Dave Yost this week.

Right.

And just kind of what he thinks about this because he was, supposed to be in this race for governor.

And the party decided they wanted Ramaswamy.

And I wonder if some Republicans privately are thinking, even though Yost certainly has some of his foibles, if he was the safer choice, and if they just should have kind of, you know, in a, in a state that's been pretty solidly red for the last, I don't know, 10 to 12 years or so.

Would they have been better off with a safer candidate?

And I. You'll never get the answer to that.

You may.

You may get the answer after the election, with some Republicans coming out, you know, but but that's that's one side of it.

I think on the, on the personal side of it or the, the professional side of it, I don't think any of us became interested in politics because of stories like this.

Right.

No one wants to really cover stuff like this.

And we might talk about how this, these political ads and how they, they impact kids.

But, you know, think about to how we got here, in the two biggest races in this state.

Ramaswamy Acton and then, for Senate, Husted, Sherrod Brown, there was no real primary.

We didn't have a primary for for any of these races.

There have been no debates.

And I no one can convince me that that's a good thing for the political process, right?

No primaries, no debates in these two high profile big races.

So I think that's a problem.

And as I as I was starting to say, I don't think any of us became interested in politics because of this.

And when you see these ads and when you see, you know, some viral videos of, of some kids as young as ten kind of mocking some of these ads and mocking this process, this is the most, one of the most important things we do in this country.

Right.

And you've got ten year olds that kind of see through it and are joking about it.

And how do we get the next generation either interested in politics or taking this seriously?

I'm not naive enough to say that this is going to change, or we need to change something and it'll change, but it's it's discouraging.

The whole thing has been discouraging up to the fact that there was really no primary, no debate.

Right.

And now we get to this, political season with these campaign ads.

Jerry's thought says apparently, Ramaswamys October surprise is that he's even more contemptible than anyone suspected.

You're just hearing some, really, aside from the things that Glenn talked about, which are part of the whole political process, that there hasn't been a primary, there hasn't been debate.

We're getting down, Karen, now to focusing literally on this one particular advertisement.

The question is, is it a Hail Mary?

Is this something that's being thrown out because Vivek Ramaswamy is behind?

I don't know if anyone believes polls at all anymore, but is this something his campaign would do because they're seeing trouble, or is it something that he would have rolled out any way to solidify what he thinks is a lead?

Well, he's definitely standing behind it.

So it appears at least talking to him in his campaign, that this is an ad that he thinks will help him win.

But there are those who feel that this smacks of desperation, that this shows that he was actually behind in the polls.

And I want to say something about Dave Yost here for a second.

Yost is not really commented on this.

His only comment has been aimed at Ohio Republican Party chair Alex Triantafilou.

Triantafilou put out a post on X that kind of suggested that the party is going to be keeping score on Republicans and how they speak out on this ad, and on Ramaswamy in general.

And Yost responded by saying, we used to keep score against the other party.

We shouldn't be keeping score against members of our own party.

But Yost's wife, Darlene, made it clear that she could not vote for Rama because of all this.

And I should also add, when it comes to Yost, I mean, in 2022, he did go on national television and talk about there was a report of a ten year old girl in Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion because she was raped, because she was ten years old.

And he doubted that publicly.

And so, you know, there there's a there's a kind of a history that leads to this whole idea of who's lying and who's not, but the question about whether where this goes from here is, is really, I think, one that we have to worry about because this is this ad, this ad campaign and this, governor's race was already nasty.

And this just took it to another level.

It certainly has brought in, money.

We've saw that that there's been a fundraising boost as a result of it for Amy Acton.

Will it bring in the votes again?

That's something that we'll be keeping our eye on.

And I'll have to say that Krystal and Beth and Leo and Dave and Kathy and James and Sandra and Jason and many, many more who have weighed in all, essentially sharing some of the same viewpoint.

We're going to have to wrap up this part of our conversation on the roundtable since its a multi topic show.

However, on Wednesday, October 28th, we're going to have a show on political ads, and I'm sure that this will be a major part of that.

So do tune in on Wednesday with Stephanie Haney to talk more about political ads and perhaps share this opinion.

Of course, these emails will be shared with Stephanie as well.

Appreciate that.

Nestle USA told employees Monday that it plans to close its own factory by the end of 2027.

The company, which employs nearly 3000 employees across seven facilities statewide, will move its frozen meal pouch production.

As you'll recall, it used to be Stouffer's in Solon to South Carolina, so, Glenn, there's still a bit we don't know about the story.

How many employees will be impacted.

What can you tell us about the decision at this point?

It was a big blow for people in Solon, for sure, and for Northeast Ohio.

Absolutely.

And, I got to tell you, as, my aunt, used to live in Solon and as a kid, driving to her house I used as a kid who loved Crunch bars, I would see the Nestle factory and be like, oh, my gosh, Nestle, right?

So when I heard this, I was like, wow, Nestle has been there for quite a while.

As you mentioned, they bought Stouffer's in 1973, and Stouffer's has been in Cleveland for, you know, 100 years or more.

Part of what makes this difficult is this is it what they, what Nestle is calling a gradual closure.

So they haven't even filed their required paperwork.

It's called a warn notice with the state.

We don't know how many employees will be impacted.

There are some estimates that have it.

You know, probably in the hundreds.

We know they I spoke a little bit with the city.

They're kind of in the same boat.

It's like, obviously they know the intention to close it, but they don't know how many employees are going to be impacted.

They have started, that work of, reaching out to other companies in the area that may need some of these employees for those who want to stay on the Nestle side, they're saying, well, we have, Purina, Nestle owns Purina Pet care.

We have this facility in Cincinnati.

If some of our employees are interested in going down there, we can help set that up.

But it is certainly a blow, to Solon, one they were not expecting, obviously.

And, the research and development, facility for Nestle will remain, in Solon.

And that, they said about 2200 at the time when that opened in 2015, Nestlé said they had about 2200 employees in the Cleveland area.

So good news that that, R&D facility is staying open.

But of course, bad news for the people who work in that production facility.

Absolutely.

All right, well, I know you had Gabe Kramer out there covering the story.

Will continue to to look at the fallout there.

Certainly, the flock debate has come to roost in Akron, where members of Akron City Council have raised concerns about the constitutionality of the license plate reading cameras and the areas where they're being deployed.

Council President Margo Sommerville, among others, questioned the placement of cameras in mainly minority neighborhoods and how much data those cameras were collecting the mat.

These concerns were raised during a public safety meeting in Akron.

We've seen these concerns in Cleveland and communities all across northeast Ohio and throughout the state.

But what led now to the pushback from the Akron Council members?

Well, so it was a couple things.

The the public, the chief of public safety has a title there, Craig.

Craig Morgan was giving a presentation on there.

You said they have about 150 cameras around the city, and he was giving a presentation in the safety committee about, flock.

And in Akron.

There have been some reporting from Signal in Akron about the sort of the recent history of searches that were coming from, you know, outside of Akron, from from all departments, all over the from police departments, all over the the country.

And so it kind of all came to a head at this council meeting.

And the questions, though then were not just about, well, first it was about the data and how it's being used.

So, so outside agencies can be using it.

And I know that's something that was mentioned, in Cleveland too.

Who gets to use the data.

And are we going to be open to letting anyone search it.

So the concern there was these outside agencies looking at the data and trying to find people in Akron.

Yeah, that was sort of what what kicked it off.

But there were a lot of questions about, you know, like like you said, the, council president Sommerville brought up the that these are these are places in in minority neighborhoods here watching certain people.

And you're watching kind of all of their comings and goings to people who are coming, you know, going in of neighborhoods.

The people are who are, you know, just going about their daily lives.

You're capturing this, this information, not citywide, but in particular parts of the city.

And that, you know, then if you combine that with the question about what happens with this data, it raises questions about kind of who's who's being made vulnerable and who is.

And by this, by the use of this technology.

And then, you know, there are there were questions about then when officers in the police department want to look up a license plate, because the way it works is that, you know, the this technology takes a photo of every car that that drives by.

And when an officer wants to find out where a particular car has been or what cars were in a particular place at a particular time, they entered into the cameras.

And you don't need a warrant.

You don't.

Really, it's more or less like it.

Any officer who has access to the system can enter a license plate.

They're supposed to put in information about why, but we've seen over and over again that the kind of level of detail and the specificity of why they're really making these, these searches is not, necessarily uniform.

Some, some officers don't take that part of it seriously.

And so there were questions about, you know, well, what how do we know why officers in Akron or in, you know, around the country are searching license plates in our in our city?

And are we really making sure that people are using it the right way?

So I've heard from and I mentioned this before on the show, there was a member of a grand jury and in Northeast Ohio said, listen to view and have cameras.

We wouldn't have cases like these are solving crimes.

You hear the police chief in Cleveland standing up and saying, these are tools that we need.

So the balance is between it as a legitimate tool and it being big brother and getting into your life and tracking you.

Is anyone figured it out That you can do that in a way that is balanced or is that really impossible?

No.

You know, the I mean, so there's this kind of comes down to it, to a Fourth Amendment issue is how much authority do you give to officers to stop you, to search you, to enter your home, to do whatever that they want to do, to try to solve crime versus, you know, the civil rights of, people in this country.

And that question, you know, there were there was an interesting case recently that, maybe an appeals court now on the East Coast about this question about, you know, are they collecting so much information that this has moved from, you know, so, so the argument is that when you are in public, you don't have the expectation of privacy.

So, you know, when you're walking down the street, someone could take a photo of you and that they really can't complain about that.

That's why you can film police officers while they're working in the street.

And that's why these cameras can, you know, and all the cameras that are out on the street can, you know, surveil people.

But the limit that's been drawn is that an officer without a warrant can't put a tracking device on your car and follow your car that way, everywhere that it goes, that that's a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

And so what courts have started to take up is, are there so many flock cameras and are they doing so much monitoring that it's moved from, you know, taking random photos of people here?

They're when they're around town to following them everywhere they go.

And where do you draw that line that it moved from one to the other being a de facto track?

Yes it is.

If you're putting a tracker on.

Yeah, that would be the line that once they cross it that then they're in.

You know, they're, they've what's the word that there's Supreme Court precedent that says you've gone too far?

Karen, we're talking about how Akron is debating now and Cleveland has had a discussion.

Matt.

I think it was, before I get to Karen, it was they were going to do a one year extension of flock, and they made it six months so that.

Yeah, look at it.

Yeah.

A lot of that was based on a sort of a mistrust or distrust of the flock specifically.

And they were going to look at the contract, see if there was another company they might do this with.

Okay.

And Karen.

And the question is if it's happening in Cleveland and Akron, it's obviously happening across the state.

Is there any plan for statewide regulation in regards to these flock cameras?

Well, there are about 6100 flock cameras around the state, and there are four bills in the State House that would seek to put some regulations on those.

But you do have communities, including Columbus, who have announced that they which have announced that they're suspending the use of flock cameras.

And it's not just the cameras, of course, it's the data and how the data is used to how long the data is stored and that sort of thing.

So this is something that I would expect could come up during our lame duck legislative session after the election, because obviously it's something that a lot of people talk about for exactly the reason Matt talked about, that there's so many cameras that it feels like there's surveillance everywhere.

Though law enforcement has said these are essential tools.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield has not yet reached an agreement with the Cleveland Clinic.

And if there's no deal, by the end of the year, patients covered by anthem may not have coverage, with Cleveland Clinic doctors.

A statement from the insurer noted that contract renewals and negotiations are normal, and they're optimistic that an agreement will be reached soon.

But Anthem customers treated by clinic staff are understandably nervous.

The Glenn, what are they negotiating?

And I didn't realize.

I guess every year you'd have to negotiate with the hospital systems to say, take our price, because whenever you get your bill, you see, it's like it was $10 million, but they've agreed to $50.

Yes.

And so, and then look at the line items on those bills, by the way.

Hey, we send it to this doctor over here.

Now we're going to charge.

I don't want to go.

So when you get to those separate services, what they're negotiating the.

Yeah.

The deal.

Right.

They're negotiating prices and not to trivialize this because this is so much more important.

But this reminds me of a lot of, you know, carriage disputes when it comes to our cable companies, you know, and things like that.

And we're up against this deadline.

As you know, many, employees and employers are, entering this enrollment period now.

And now is the time.

So I think it's interesting that, the Cleveland Clinic has started notifying patients, which is kind of how this story got out in the clinic saying, look, we just share this with our patients so they can make informed decisions.

As you mentioned, I think it is important to note Anthem is optimistic that they will reach a new agreement with the clinic.

They've got until December 31st to do so.

And the clinic right now is saying, hey, keep seeing your doctor.

Nothing has changed yet.

And these negotiations are continuing.

What kind of numbers are we talking about?

How many patients now, according to Anthem, 113,000 people on either employer sponsored or Medicaid Medicare Advantage Anthem plans visited the Cleveland Clinic at least one time within the last 12 months.

So we're talking about about 113,000 patients, that are right now using Cleveland Clinic as, as an in-network, care giver, supplier.

And, that would certainly have an impact.

But as we said, negotiations are ongoing and hopefully they get it figured out.

Absolutely.

If you were watching the Guardians playoff games, you most likely saw ads for sports betting companies that allow bettors to wager on predictions regarding athletic contests, which is illegal in Ohio.

Governor DeWine was watching, and he wants a crackdown.

So, Karen, this is not like, DraftKings.

It's not like those kinds of betting things.

This is, what they call the Polymarket, right?

And I'm not even going to go there on the Guardians.

This is still too sensitive for me.

I can't even talk about it.

But yes, we are talking about the prediction markets and how there are sports offerings on the prediction markets, like how she and Polymarket and Robinhood and you see those ads that is illegal in Ohio.

It's been illegal in Ohio since 2005.

And DeWine says that the law is clear.

Court decisions have been clear, and the attorney general is going to be taking some action here.

There is this whole debate over whether there could be sports betting offered by outlets like how she has, how she says it's covered by federal law, not state law.

And there's an active court suit on that.

So but DeWine has long been an opponent of gambling.

He sees this as gambling in a way that these prediction markets are allowing sports betting, but trying to get around the laws that regulate it.

And, Glenn, you know, a little bit more about this than I do, but do you do because I don't do sports.

Bet.

But if, if it's a, if it's a sports bet where you're saying who might win a game or you're taking odds on on the point spread or those kind of things, how is that different from this kind of thing?

Like, I think the main difference is what Kelsey and a lot of these, companies say is, hey, there's no cut for us.

This is determined by the people who are placing the bets.

It's there's no they call it, you know, the cut for the house, for DraftKings or FanDuel or whatever, where they kind of mess with the lines a little bit to somewhat ensure that they make a profit, even though you've got people gambling and trying to win money.

I think what the issue is, is that that opens them up to huge swings.

You know, by influential people, people who may be trying to artificially raise or lower the odds because they have inside information or whatever the case may be.

So I think that's kind of both sides of it.

The companies are saying, hey, we don't, you know, it's totally run by by you, by the people, by the people who can win, not by the house.

But again, that leaves it open to some, possibly some influence from people who may have some inside information.

I think I'd rather and I'd probably be just as well off if I took $100 and threw it down the sewer.

Didn't you know, though, that the Sixers were going to come back on the Cavs?

So couldn't you take advantage of that?

Sorry, I'm 29 down.

All right.

We're going to take a quick break right now.

Stephanie Haney host of The Sound of Ideas Monday through Thursday can clue us in now on what's happening next week.

on the Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU.

Hey Steph.

Hello, Mike.

Here's what we have coming up next week on The Sound of Ideas.

We'll start things off on Monday.

Looking at the one year anniversary of a pay transparency law in the city of Cleveland, which requires employers from some companies to list a salary range on job openings, and also stops them from asking what people were previously paid.

The point of this was to try to close pay gaps and also increase negotiating power for employees.

We'll see how that's shaken out over the last year.

On Tuesday, we return to a Slice of Politics.

This is a conversation that Morning Edition host Amy Eddings started in 2024 with a group of voters from the Mahoning Valley.

Three of those voters, plus one newcomer, have returned to have a conversation with her ahead of this midterm election about what's changed for them in Trump's second term.

On Wednesday, we are turning our attention to political ads in our latest edition of our law of the land series, where we look at how the law affects our everyday lives.

We're looking at rules and regulations related to political ads.

In light of the major controversy and the Ohio political ads in the governor's race, drawing repeated national attention.

We'll wrap things up on Thursday, talking with our Ideastream Public Media reporter about what they're covering heading into Election Day, which is very near, so close you can almost taste it.

So we'll talk with them about that and we'll wrap things up with the menu, our bi monthly series where we look at the food scene here in Northeast Ohio in partnership with Cleveland Magazine.

Back to you in the studio, Mike.

Thanks so much, Steph.

Sounds like a great line up next week.

You are now back with The Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Ideastreams Editor in Chief Mike McIntyre, along with Glenn Forbes, Matt Richmond and Karen Kasler in Columbus.

And if you follow the news like we do, the Ideastream News quiz is a fun way to test your knowledge, find it at Ideastream.org/quiz and sign up to have it sent to your inbox every Friday.

Since 2020, the overdose death rate in Ohio has dropped more than 50%, and in Lake County, the decline is even steeper, just over 75%.

That's welcome news for a state that had been the epicenter of opioid overdose deaths.

It's now leading the way in the country in the decline of those deaths.

So, Matt, that is great news.

Can you provide some perspective on how big this drop is, how they came to these, numbers?

So, it was based on CDC records nationwide of more than 630,000 deaths.

And so it's kind of an across the board.

I mean, you've seen it all over Ohio.

Just a couple of examples.

Is in Lake County.

At the height of the crisis, it was 90 to about 100, deaths a year.

Wow.

And the in in Medina County, they saw an 80% drop, between 2017 and 2025.

And yes, it's really been across the board.

Yeah.

So what do we attribute that to?

Why are people dying less from overdose.

Right.

It's it's a lot of things.

So there was a lot of money that came in from the opioid settlement.

You know, billions of dollars went all over the place and that, funded treatment, funded, you know, some, some law enforcement measures.

You've seen, a lot of work at the border with Mexico to kind of close it down.

So that has certainly affected the amount of drugs that are able to come across the border.

There is the kind of more, more and more widespread use, use of Narcan, and that helps people who are, you know, in the middle of an overdose to prevent it from being a death.

So, you know, it's just like, it seems like there are dozens of, factors that have all come together to, to to make this happen.

You know, we talked with the folks at MetroHealth Project Dawn there years ago about Narcan, and now I've seen these.

You see them sometimes online where they'll show it.

Somebody is literally in absolute crisis out of it, up the nostril with this Narcan and just back.

Yeah, it's it's an amazing miracle, an amazing antidote.

All right, a domestic violence fatality.

So we talked about how the deaths from overdoses are down.

Sadly, domestic violence fatalities in Ohio.

They were down 15% since last year.

But still, it's the second highest number of such deaths on record.

And it's only down because of the record set the year before, which saw a 37% surge.

Karen, Sara Donaldson reported on this story on the numbers from the Ohio Domestic Violence Network.

You share a little bit more about the numbers in the report, like what kinds of demographics we're looking at.

Yeah, there were 134 total deaths, 73 women, 61 men.

Many more females are the primary victim, 75% of the deaths came from gun violence.

And the range in ages is really interesting here.

The youngest under a year and the oldest 88 years old.

Let's go back to that under a year thing, because five kids in this report died at the hands of a parent or a step parent, and 53 children witnessed a parent's murder, which is a 47% increase over the year before.

So it's not as horrible as it is for the adults involved here and this tragedy.

We've lost these adults, but these children who are not only they're put in danger and some of them don't come out of it is really, really devastating.

There was a statehouse event, actually.

I attended a little bit of it on Wednesday in the atrium.

They have the attention of lawmakers.

There are these are proposed, actions that should be taken to provide more protection for people in these domestic violence situations.

Yeah.

There have been bills over the past couple of years that try to attack certain parts of domestic violence and like strangulation and that sort of thing.

There is a bill that would create new mandatory standards of care.

Governor DeWine did something on, earlier this week that kind of helped move some of this stuff forward.

So there is attention being paid to this, but these numbers are just terrible.

And we just keep seeing these numbers that they really don't dramatically change.

They they go down a little, but it's not a dramatic decrease right?

When they go down from a record increase, it's not really a, we're not really making progress.

Yeah.

We're going to talk more about some of the other political races.

But as we do that, some more feedback on our discussion about the ad from Vivek Ramaswamy.

And here's an interesting question from Sam, who says, while I don't like negative ads, and I would prefer candidates discuss their proposed solutions for problems that Ohioans face, I note that Acton's mother accuses her daughter of lying about living in a tent, but does not mention the sexual assault.

So why is the media connecting the ad to the sexual assault that Amy Acton experience from her stepfather?

Hey, and are you are you asking me here?

Well, I do have a question for you, Karen.

Kind of, you know, related to that, the strange thing about the ad, I don't know if it's strange, but one of the interesting things about the ad is that it starts with Amy Acton's mother talking about setting up the first childhood sexual abuse program in Ohio, or something of that nature.

So it doesn't mention Acton lying about that specifically, but it tries to, in my estimation.

Right.

I think in anyone's estimation, it tries to build the mother's credibility as someone who combats this kind of thing.

Yeah, many of our listeners have written in, though, Karen, that mother hasn't seen her since she was 12 years old.

So there's no credibility in terms of running anything about her.

Well, and the backstory here, I think the important context here is, yes, she says that Acton was lying about living in a tent, but she said in the ad that she's lied about her past.

Acton's past, which has been proven by court records, shows that her stepfather was indicted for felony rape when she was 12 years old and her mother lost custody of her and her brother.

I mean, that really kind of goes to the credibility of the woman.

Speaking on behalf of this ad and saying that her daughter is lying.

I mean, I think that's important context here.

When you start talking about who do you believe?

Well, there's there's some evidence here in the courtroom, the evidence from law enforcement that shows that what Acton has been saying was not only true, but actually Acton didn't even tell the full story because it was worse than she talked about.

An important word you use, there was context.

They don't have to make the ad specifically saying sexual abuse.

We can make that connection when we're looking at what this ad is in its totality.

So, Sam, that's the answer for you.

It's not a media concoction.

It's looking more deeply into who this person is and what the claims are that they are making.

And moving on to some other election news.

Then early in-person voting numbers have surged compared to the last midterm election four years ago.

The requests for mail in ballots has declined.

Experts say.

That's due in part to unfounded claims, beginning with the president that voting by mail is not secure, a change in the grace period for mail in ballots.

They need to be delivered, not just postmarked on Election Day also is seen as a factor.

And whether it's early in-person voting or casting ballots on Election Day, campaigns are bringing the heavy hitters to Ohio to get out the vote.

Trump and former President Barack Obama are stumping in Ohio in the next few days as well.

So, Karen, let's talk about those early voting numbers.

What are they telling us about the patterns of the way people are voting?

Because for a while, Mail-In voting was huge here, and there's been a lot of changes to mail in.

It seems like the reaction to that is, okay, let's just go and get the voting out of the way.

If I can't do it on Election Day, I'm going to go in-person early.

Well, the Secretary, the Secretary of State's office has a dashboard that shows what, absentee and early voting looks like right now.

And more than 838,000 ballots have been returned.

And that includes mail in ballots and in-person ballots.

All the ways that you can vote early.

And it is true that mail in voting is down and it's down across the country.

NPR had a piece on that this morning, but it's suggested that that's down because there's real concern about the postal system and making sure that your ballot gets to the Board of Elections in time and in Ohio, like you mentioned, the deadline has changed to have those ballots in.

So I think that there is some suggestion here that people are indeed going to vote early in person rather than voting by mail.

So early voting is still a big thing for a lot of people, but some folks are making the choice to actually go in person rather than getting the ballot in the mail and then mailing it back.

I like to go on Election Day because I get, cookies and a sticker.

Yeah, they get a sticker.

You get a sticker if you're early and early in-person as well.

You're still in person.

Yeah.

But if I'm going to the local school where I do my voting, there's always cookies to buy.

So that's a good thing.

We got to get that in my precinct.

I don't think we have cookies for sure.

So, Karen, let's talk about, or Glenn, Actually, President Trump is visiting for the third time this month in a state that he won by double digits just two years ago.

We're seeing new polls, showing the Democratic candidates, though, for Senate and governor leading the polls.

And some think they're going to be even stronger on the governor's side because of this controversy we've been talking about.

But, but Trump is coming.

He believes that he can help turn the tide in a lot of places.

We saw him in South Carolina and Iowa and here, and I think it's certainly indicative that that at least both sides feel that at least this is maybe a return to battleground Ohio and possibly, Democrats hope, a return to to a purple state.

Or maybe they can even, you know, certainly get some gains here.

But yeah, we not only saw Trump weighing in on the Ramaswamy ad that we've been talking about most of the show, but also, he did this thing where he did this for multiple states.

He kind of listed the entire Republican slate, and he said, these great patriots have my complete and total endorsement.

They will never let you down.

He did that for a number of states.

Ohio was one of them.

We've got former President Obama, coming into town as well.

And you also have both parties that basically saying don't believe the polls.

If it shows that Democrats are ahead, you still have to get out and vote for Republicans are saying if it shows the Democrats ahead still go out and vote.

And we also talk about the Houston Brown race in Senate.

Sherrod Brown was the last surviving statewide Democrat.

For a long time, it was difficult know relatively long time.

It was difficult for the Republican Party to get rid of him.

Now he's back, facing a guy who, as I mentioned before, was appointed, not elected to this position.

And neither one of them had a primary, but I digress.

You know, it's it's certainly shows that both sides feel Ohio is more in play than it has been in the past.

The other thing I wonder is how it will affect some of these other statewide offices.

As secretary of state auditor races that are not as much in the forefront or in the spotlight.

Will they remain red, or could this potentially be a bigger blue wave than anticipated?

Absolutely.

And, President Obama is here tomorrow.

We don't know exactly where they think they'll let you know 24 hours in advance.

Somewhere in Cleveland, people will register for that.

But he's coming in to stump for both Amy Acton and for Sherrod Brown as well.

All of those things.

And, Karen, as we're still on the politics, and I'll get one more in here and then we're going to move on from this.

But Christine asked, and there were several others that, had the same question.

Did they pay Amy Acton's mother for that ad?

I think we heard video from Vivek Ramaswamy say they did not Yeah.

And I think that's unclear.

I mean, that's something, you know, and also, who wrote the script, if there was a script, if this was something that she said or if somebody wrote the script for her.

So I think that's really unclear.

But I did want to add one really quick thing here.

I looked back in 2022 to early voting numbers, and we are right at the same point now, which we were in 2022 on the day of the election when it came to early voting.

So we are ahead of where we were in 2022 when it comes to early voting.

So I just want to add that in there.

Okay.

After the idea was floated in Cuyahoga County of increasing the sales tax without a vote to fund stadium repairs, State Senator Tom Patton, a Strongsville Republican, has introduced a bill that would require public approval.

So, that was a big contention here because Chris Ronayne, the county executive, had said, I will not raise taxes on the public's vote.

Then he, endorsed the idea of doing exactly that.

What Tom Patton is saying is let's put the brakes on.

But it's interesting.

He made it basically just for Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties.

Yeah.

The size of the kind of.

And if you're in Cincinnati or Hamilton County, you're saying, well, what about us?

Not big enough.

We'd like we'd like to have this, too.

And I wonder if if this gets amended or, you know, what happens?

Well, you can't you can't extend it to Kentucky, which is what half of Cincinnati is.

But anyway, somehow I knew that was going to come up.

But anyway.

Yeah.

And there is but as you mentioned, Chris Ronayne, there is precedent for this.

I mean, county council voted 6 to 5 to extend, quarter percent sales tax increase to pay for, the new county jail, in Garfield Heights.

It's being built.

So, yeah, it's this idea that, you know, we've seen, increases we've seen, the costs of repairs for these facilities going up.

We've seen that the current syntax isn't enough.

And obviously, Chris Ronayne and Council President Dale Miller want to push their own plan forward.

Tom Patten is saying, wait a minute.

The voters should should have a say here.

Yeah.

Karen, Tom Patten's always, doing these kind of things.

I know when it comes to, the speed cameras and those types of things, he's he's got creative ways to try to rein things in.

Yeah, I mean, he's got a bill that would require electoral, voters to approve cameras.

So, yeah, he's he's really big on traffic cameras and, and also apparently on voters weighing in on things, for sure.

A fire in May destroyed Salvation Army of Greater Clevelands storage facility.

It destroyed 2000 toys that were to be holiday gifts for children served by the organization.

The organization is now hoping Kris Kringle is in the community will replenish the stock, tell us more.

I just, you know, it's not a major story where people were killed or that there was massive amount of damage.

But when you got these toys for kids, Matt, and they just burn up.

Yeah, it's a bummer.

It's like 30.

It's about $30,000 worth of toys.

And they, they don't know some sort of electrical fire.

Nobody was there.

Like I said, it was a storage facility, so they just kind of discovered it after it happened.

And they're hoping people will step up.

I mean, they lost 15,000 toys, 6500 kids.

Let's give them a Christmas.

Yeah.

They're saying they need about 15,000 toys for 500 kids.

And, you know, they're going to they they're asking people to host toy toy drives or to there's a virtual registry at Walmart.

Walmart has an angels program up through like, mid-December where you can make a donation to get some toys to, to Salvation Army.

And then on December 12th, the The Baldassarre Orchestra, which I had not heard of, is having its third annual rock and holiday spectacular, and they'll be collecting donations for Salvation Army, too.

So there is still time to kind of replace these these toys.

Okay.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources investigated a gob fire in Deerfield Township this past week.

Don't worry acronym fighters, Gob is garbage of bituminous meaning old mining waste.

Portage County Emergency Services says the fire isn't a threat to the public, but they're still asking people to stay away from the area.

I had no idea that there could be such a thing as a garbage fire, but I guess it's the bituminous material for mining that can just catch on fire and keep burning.

And since you've already explained what it is and you are the acronym police, I can just say gob, right?

Yeah, you can say gob.

Okay, good.

Combusted coal mine.

Refuse.

Yes.

That's what it's known as.

And this, part of the issue here was this burn site was next to, or adjacent to an unpermitted landfill, EPA Superfund site, an abandoned strip mine.

So they didn't know exactly what was burning, which, of course, is a problem.

The cause, they say, was line maintenance on a nearby oil well that allowed the oxygen to reach the gob material, the gob material, and sparked those flames.

So.

And apparently this happens somewhat often.

So, believe it or not, and sometimes they just kind of burn beneath the surface.

And so what are they going to do about it?

How do they put it out?

Well, they're going they smothered up the oxygen.

It's still kind of, smoldering a bit.

But it no longer appears to be, an active fire.

The material will then be removed and placed in a manmade pond to cool it down.

So it's kind of smoldering, but but not spreading or active.

And I felt like we had to include that because I just.

I'm not a mining guy, I guess, but I'd never heard of gob and that it could burn.

We knew.

Yes.

Learn something new all the time in this business.

All the time.

All right.

Karen, I'm sorry about this.

We're going to have to talk a little bit about the Guardians.

No more go Guardians.

This year.

The magical run ended Monday night when the team dropped its third straight to Tampa Bay, who will now go on to play the Milwaukee Brewers in the Fall Classic, which kicks off tonight.

Karen, can I get the first of the season?

Go, Brewers.

No?

Sure, baseball's over for me.

I'm devastated.

Oh my gosh.

It's only four months till pitchers report for spring training about this.

Well, maybe you're maybe not.

Maybe you.

Maybe not.

Because we have we have this potential lockout coming up on December 2nd, which could delay the start of the season and maybe even endanger the entire season next year, which is why I would have been great if the Guardians could have won the World Series, because we could have been the world champions for maybe more than a year.

Wah wah Debbie Downer.

That's a great point, and it kind of makes my question a little moot, because I was going to ask Karen of Stephen Vogt.

The manager is going to get traded to the Seattle Mariners as the rumors persist.

No he's not.

So no, he says he's staying.

He's stats.

And so the pitching coach as well said I'm under contract and I love it in Cleveland.

Moving moving on from that though the Cavaliers started last night.

They as we mentioned earlier they had a 29 point lead.

First half looked amazing.

And then they lose to LeBron of all people and Philadelphia.

But one of the things we were talking about in the newsroom yesterday is it was easy to see the game yesterday it was on ESPN.

But the Cavs have a new deal where if you want to watch them you have to subscribe to something they're calling DAZN.

Which is another subscription fee.

And we've heard talk and there was some national coverage that it is the most onerous franchise in regards to its fans getting access to watch.

It is currently rated, as the least accessible, team, you know, for their for their fans to see.

I will say I heard a Cavs spokesperson talking about this this morning and say this is an evolving situation.

They may have an announcement today or tomorrow before the first game is set to be on DAZN, tomorrow.

So who knows if that will be, you know, satisfactory enough for a lot of people.

But not only that, Mike, I've heard people who have, purchased this package say that you can't get it on your phone.

You can't get it on your iPad, you can't pause or record the game.

You have to get a higher tier even for that.

So, as you said, 20 bucks a month, I think for the basic package.

The other interesting thing about this is if you get league pass from the NBA and you want to watch all the teams, they blackout the Cavaliers.

If you live in the Cleveland market because of this contract with DAZN, it's sounds like they've heard and we'll see what kind of news we can have today or perhaps hopefully this weekend.

Good news for fans.

Hopefully.

Bob “Hoolihan” Wells passed away at his home in Clearwater, Florida on Thursday.

He was 93.

Originally from Nebraska, he made a mark on Cleveland.

as its popular evening weatherman for WJW-TV and as the host of Ernie Anderson's Shock Theater with Ghoulardi and The One My Generation Remembers, both the Hoolihan and Big Chuck show, the precursor to the big Chuck and Little John Show.

You're a California kid, so you don't know what I'm talking about.

Never heard of Big Chuck and Hoolihan or big Chuck now, Karen, you grew up here.

You remember the skits, right?

I actually grew up a different part of Ohio.

I lived in Cleveland for a while, but, yeah, this is, this is a loss.

And you're young.

It's sad, and you're young.

Glenn, you can ask me.

I know big Chuck and Little John.

Little John.

I'm talking about Hoolihan.

I know you are, but Big Chuck and Little John, interviewed them several times.

Big Chuck, passed away in January of 2025.

But I got to tell you, whenever we had Big Chuck and Little John anywhere, people would always mention Hoolihan and they would talk about, you know, he was synonymous with those two.

I know you know, a Little John, recently just talked to Ideastreams Ygal Kaufman.

So Cleveland institution.

Yeah.

It's interesting they brought him over because they wanted something a little looser.

They wanted a more humorous, weatherman.

And he parlayed that into into comedy and freelancing and, you know, New York.

And then he became a born again Christian in the mid 70s and moved to Florida.

He was a, a really funny guy.

Those characters were great.

I mention it just because that's my childhood was Hoolihan and Big Chuck.

All right, well, that's going to wrap it for today.

I want to say thanks to you, Glenn, for being here and your expertise.

Matt, thanks for everything you've told us about flock, cameras, etc.. Thank you.

And Karen Kasler as well.

In your morning for the next few weeks, we're with you.

Yeah.

Go vote.

How about that?

Okay, good.

Go vote.

All right.

That's all for today.

And if you missed any part of today's show, you can check out the rebroadcast tonight at nine on 89.7 WKSU.

You can access the podcast or check out the Ideastream Public Media YouTube page as well.

Catch the television show tonight at five on WVIZ PBS.

Monday on The Sound of Ideas.

It's been one year since Cleveland enacted a pay transparency law.

Coordinating Producer Drew Maziasz will be in the host seat and talk about the impact the new law is having on the workplace.

Plus, a conversation with author Patrick Ryan, whose novel Buckeye, set here in Ohio, top many best of lists last year.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for listening and watching and stay safe.

And now for our closing song today in honor of the Cleveland Metropark Zoo's new Primate Forest, which opened this week letting orangutans enjoy the outdoors for the first time.

We're bring you Ape Man by The Kinks.