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Chris Quinn (00:01.324)

Who’d thought that we’d wake up in late September and the Guardians would be in first place given where they were mid-season. What a miracle kind of team. Let’s hope the magic continues. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Courtney Astolfi and Laura Johnston. And Lisa, we’re talking about Jim Jordan.

The Ohio Congressman got a big win in his battle to stop what he sees as the centering of some viewpoints on social media who agreed to his requests.

Lisa (00:37.84)

Well, it was YouTube and they cave to the House Judiciary Committee’s pressure to reinstate creators who were previously banned for election and COVID related content. This is part of an ongoing Republican probe into alleged government censorship of social media. In a letter from YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, the attorneys say they admitted that the Biden administration

pressured them to remove content that didn’t violate their YouTube policies. They said that was unacceptable and wrong. And they also said in the letter that they will not empower fact checkers to label content across their company platforms. Now Jordan, of course, is thrilled beyond belief. He’s been pressing them for months now. He says, more telling Americans what to believe. We won’t stop fighting to protect free speech. So a Democrat from Virgin Islands, delegate Stacey

Plaskett says she accused Jordan of pressuring platforms to keep false and misleading information during the pandemic, especially. And she says they’re undermining content moderation efforts as well. And it’s not protecting free speech. But we don’t have any other details. We don’t know which creators will be reinstated to YouTube or when. And we also don’t know what their new content moderation standards.

Chris Quinn (01:57.721)

There’s a few things that I think are instructive here. One, that Jordan is out there holding himself out as this free speech maven when members of his party are trying to get anybody who said anything negative about Charlie Kirk fired. I mean, it’s the opposite of free speech. People exercise their free speech about Charlie Kirk and they need to lose their jobs and be vilified and investigated. You can’t really have that double standard. The other thing that is, I’m not sure about here is where Alphabet says,

Biden made us take things down that didn’t violate our policy. If that’s true, that’s really wrong that the Biden administration did that. I just can’t tell whether they’re telling the truth because every major corporation in America is kowtowing to Trump and the Republicans. So they may just be saying that whether it’s true or not. We have a problem in America in that a lot of the social media channels in YouTube

Lisa (02:31.381)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (02:55.456)

are purveyors of flat out lies that seem believable. has only exacerbated this because the AI produced content looks so legitimate. And if people see it on YouTube, they believe it. It’s why we can’t have a conversation in this country anymore. We’re not all working off of the same fact set. But on the other hand, it’s not really a free speech issue for YouTube to take content down.

First Amendment guarantees your ability and my ability to say whatever we want, but it doesn’t require a private company to publish whatever we say. I mean, we’ve been running letters to the editor for years, but if they’re lies, we don’t publish them. We insist on having truth. YouTube could do the same thing. They just don’t want to invest the money that it takes to verify all that content.

Lisa (03:50.603)

Well, know, in fact checking and content moderation, if you take that away, it’s going to be, it’s already the wild wild west on these social media platforms. After that, I mean, it’s going to be Katie bar the door. I mean, there’s all kinds of stuff that’s going to go out there. And you know, during the COVID pandemic, people were afraid they were getting misinformation. Hey, why don’t we inject bleach or take ivermectin? You know, these are things that are demonstrably wrong and probably dangerous. Should that content stay on social media? I don’t think so.

Chris Quinn (04:20.736)

No, that’s the problem. think, look, it’s become clear over time that probably the single most damaging institution that has arisen in the last 20 years to our democracy is social media. It’s loaded with stuff that’s wrong. It is a fountain of hate speech and it’s really crushed it. Forget the damage it’s done to children. It has wrecked discourse in this country and everybody who wants to have a fact

that no matter how false it is, has authority from what they get on social media. It’s bad. You are listening to Today in Ohio. Reporter Sabrina Eaton explored a developing Trump administration proposal to deny transgender Americans gun rights. Laura, what’s the reasoning and how does this fit into the normal Republican strategy of making guns available to anyone who wants one anytime, anywhere?

Laura (05:16.972)

This is such an interesting dynamic because the far left wants to demonize trans people at the same time they hold the second amendment. Far right, I’m sorry. Thank you. That they hold the Second Amendment sacrosanct, right? So these kind of things conflict. They’re basically arguing that transgender people are mentally ill and therefore they should lose the right to carry firearms. And that’s even though being a transgender is not an illness and that people

Chris Quinn (05:24.664)

The far right instead of the far left.

Laura (05:44.825)

who are actually mentally ill have no problem buying and owning guns. This came up after the shooting at the beginning of school at the Catholic school in Minneapolis that left two kids dead. were eight and 10, 21 people injured, carried out by a transgender woman. And that attack prompted all sorts of conservative figures, including Donald Trump Jr. and Charlie Kirk to link transgender identity with violent behavior, which there’s no backup for that stat, you know, in statistics, no.

research that shows that. Kirk was actually shot while he was arguing this point at that Utah school, which is kind of mind bending to think how this is all related this fall, all in one month, right? So this issue transcends gun policy though. It echoes all of these troubling ideas of being systematically stripping rights from an entire group of people. And we can find lots of examples of this in our own history, in German history, and it

I hate to use the slippery slope thing because sometimes things are not on the slope and they’re just a decision or a compromise, but here it seems to really apply.

Chris Quinn (06:52.109)

Look, every time I say this, I hear from some people saying, how can you say that? And I can say it because it’s history. We’re following the Nazi playbook here. That’s what the Nazis did. They vilified individual groups of people, stripped them of their rights and went down the path they went down. This is preposterous that Republicans want to take gun rights away from somebody because they say there’s mental health issues. We have all sorts of mental health issues in this country.

Laura (06:59.192)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (07:22.049)

that they haven’t batted an eye about giving guns to those folks. This is all about vilifying one group. They think that the transgender issue resonates with their base. It probably does with the fringe right wing part of the party. make no mistake, this is exactly what the Nazis did. And we’ll get emails from, how dare you? You should never compare anybody to the Nazis. You compare them to the Nazis when they act like Nazis.

Laura (07:34.306)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (07:50.389)

Right, right. I completely agree with you. Nazis rounded up gay people and transgender people was part of the Holocaust. this is, you know, deeply troubling. And it’s weird because, like I said about this dynamic, that people usually who want some kind of laws to make gun ownership sensible are now defending the right to own guns because they want transgender people to be treated like every other American. It’s not a mental illness.

Chris Quinn (07:51.063)

That’s what this is.

Chris Quinn (08:17.891)

Well…

Laura (08:19.854)

It is a state of being and a lot of people accept that that is just how it is. And then it is just another dog whistle, another red meat. It’s not an actual problem. We have a lot of real problems in this country I wish we would pay attention to.

Chris Quinn (08:33.997)

But it’s hilarious what you just said. The left has aligned with giving guns to people. The NRA and the left are working together to stop this law. It’s up is down, black is white. Nothing makes sense anymore. The Republicans have really put themselves into a jam here. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Courtney, what is the staggering number of Ohio children who lost health insurance because of

Laura (08:42.369)

Right.

Chris Quinn (09:01.719)

government policies since 2022.

Courtney (09:05.475)

30,000 kids, 30,000 kids in our state have lost health coverage since 2022 up through 2024. These are findings that we got from Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. They crunched recent census data from US states to see how many folks lost coverage in each state. And Ohio ended up being one of 22 states where the increase in kids who lost insurance

was considered large enough to be statistically significant. This number pushes the state’s child uninsured rate up to 5.6 % and compare that to just 4.5 % a couple years earlier. Now we’re looking at roughly 152,000 Ohio kids who don’t have health coverage as of 2024. And of course, the biggest factor here is the rollback of Medicaid and CHIP coverage.

after the federal government ended those pandemic era protections that kept people on the rolls. When that protection expired early in 2023, Ohio went back and spent a year reviewing the eligibility of more than 3 million beneficiaries. And as part of that rollback process, 600,000 people were disenrolled. Many of them were children.

Chris Quinn (10:25.293)

Mike DeWine and the Republicans in the Ohio legislature on multiple rounds of budgeting now have given billions of dollars to rich people. They’ve cut their taxes over and over again to give wealthy people more money to create more haves. Well, at the same time, leaving kids without health insurance. That’s the Mike DeWine legacy. That’s the Matt Huffman legacy.

Let the kids go without healthcare so your wealthy friends get more money. This is such a stain on Ohio. To deny kids health insurance because you’re cutting budgets to give wealthy people more money, it just boggles the mind.

Courtney (11:08.299)

Yeah, I mean, we all know the financial strain and devastation that can come from even, you know, short gaps in coverage. And that was kind of echoed by Joan Alker. She leads the Georgetown Center who headed up this research. Of course, no parent wants to weigh costs before taking their kid in to see the doctor, right? The good news here, I guess, if there is a sliver of good news, is that we’re still slightly below the national average of 6 % for

the number of kids who are uninsured. But wait, we’ve got some crazy stuff coming down the pipeline here. We know that the one big, beautiful bill act that was passed by the Trump administration in Congress slashes Medicaid by a trillion dollars over the next decade. So, you know, when we talk to experts, no state program is going to escape the impact of these just huge cuts out of DC. So we got to see how this continues to unfold and how many more Ohioans and kids are

going to lose coverage under this. You know, the good news here, I suppose, is also that we know that states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are seeing, you know, they’re seeing smaller jumps in the number of uninsured children. So to me, that kind of underscores how important it was when former governor Mike, or excuse me, former governor John Kasich in 2013.

Over-road the legislature and expanded Medicaid here. That’s you know, potentially staving off some of the more devastating impacts in the line

Chris Quinn (12:41.113)

Come on, we just gotta keep this as simple as can be. Mike DeWine came into office saying, I’m going to be the children’s governor. I’m going to make life better for children. And instead, they’re giving a billion dollars a year to charter private schools with almost no accountability. They’re giving billions to rich people and those kids go without health benefits. Amy Acton should be touting this all over the state. This is what’s happening in Ohio government today.

They are sticking it to children, the most vulnerable part of our population, so they can give their rich friends money. That’s the simple message here. That’s the Mike DeWine legacy. Forget about him being the children’s governor. You are listening to Today in Ohio. Dick Celeste is the last Democrat to win a second term as governor in Ohio, so his name means something. Lisa, why does he say he supports Amy Acton for Ohio governor in 2026?

Lisa (13:35.765)

you

Yeah, the 87 year old Celeste is in a letter is endorsing Amy Acton and he so he says it was an actually Amy Acton said that it was Celeste who approached her about running. So Celeste says, know, Acton will focus on ordinary Ohioans. People are sick and tired of political parties and they just want someone to work for them.

And Acton in response says she’s honored to have this incredibly meaningful endorsement. And she calls Celeste a mentor and a friend. In a January interview with PlainDealerinCleveland.com, Celeste said that to win, Acton needs to build on the goodwill that she gained from being the health director during the pandemic and reestablish herself as a leader on issues that voters care about, affordable housing, jobs for young adults, and so on.

And other endorsements for ACTIN include 16 state lawmakers, 2022 gubernatorial nominee Nan Whaley, former Congress people Ed Fayen and Mary Jo Kilroy, dozens of current and former local politicians. So she’s starting to get those endorsements rolling in. Celeste, as you said, was a two-term governor, 1983 to 91. He was also Bill Clinton’s ambassador to India.

and president of Colorado College and he currently lives in Colorado Springs. So I think, you know, I wasn’t here during the Celeste era. I’m assuming that this really holds some weight.

Chris Quinn (15:07.258)

Well, I think the most important tie between Acton and Celeste is I think Acton is following the Celeste playbook. Celeste knew he would not win outright many of Ohio’s rural counties, which lean Republican. But all he needed to do, he knew, was to peel away a couple of votes of the vote in each of those counties, get heavy turnout in the Democratic counties, and he can win. And he did it twice.

Acton is spending all of these early months in a lot of those counties talking to people. She’s working to peel off a few percentage points of the vote so that she can build the same kind of coalition of votes that he had. The trick for her, I think the bigger challenge, how do you get people in urban areas to vote? And Cleveland is not showing up to vote since Obama was elected. They just don’t vote. And if she can’t get the urban areas to vote.

Lisa (15:57.643)

Mmm.

Chris Quinn (16:06.434)

It doesn’t matter how many percentage points she peels off in rural areas. And I just don’t see a whole lot of energy by the Democratic Party to get people to vote here. Do you?

Lisa (16:16.203)

And no, and they really need to get on the stick here because the midterms are coming in 2026. Considering what’s going on with gerrymandering and the administration craziness, I really think it’s going to goose turnout for the midterms. And we have to encourage that.

Chris Quinn (16:32.728)

What happened definitely has issues she can use she has great facts in her hands about the terrible things republicans have done to the state sb one is one example we talked about it repeatedly. When i wrote a column about it this week and people are still reading that in huge numbers it’s something that resonates big time across the state the the the ideas about children we just talked about there’s a lot of really significant issues that affect.

rural Ohioans, people that don’t have a lot of money. And if you really hammer that, she can peel away votes. Interesting that Celeste has come out this early. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Why do some Ohio lawmakers want to reduce the influence Cuyahoga County has on a multi-county planning agency that makes decisions about highways and other projects,

Laura (17:23.458)

Well, this seems pretty pointed, even though it would really apply to all of the NOACA-like structures across the state, but it would transfer significant power over highway projects in Northeast Ohio from the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, who have the majority of voting seats on the board, to the four surrounding suburban and sort of rural counties. So would also force NOACA to end its DIA.

DEI and anti-global warming initiatives because they conflict with Trump administration policy and specifically targets the CEO for simultaneously holding an out-of-state adjunct teaching job saying you could not do that. Strongsville Republican named Mike DeVilla, he’s the state representative who’s the main proponent of this bill. He says they need to rein in NOACA and other non-elected metropolitan planning organizations because they’re stifling economic development in the outer

ring and bullying suburban officials into sharing tax monies with Cleveland. And they’re going to introduce this legislation soon. Obviously, it’s got a lot of things on their plate this fall with redistricting. the idea is that they’re saying Cuyahoga has too much power, right? There’s 45 board members and just over half come from Cuyahoga County, 51 % of the seats. But more than 60 % of the people in the area come from Cuyahoga County.

Basically, they’re pushing for non-representation.

Chris Quinn (18:51.21)

Yeah, this is a fascinating issue for a bunch of reasons. I get the population argument. The bulk of the people are here. They should have it. But it’s a multi-county planning agency. I mean, if it were just a Cuyahoga County planning agency, fine, but it’s multi-county. Everybody’s supposed to be able to have a voice. The way it’s set up now, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County can stick it to every other county and just gather all the marbles for themselves.

Laura (18:57.549)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (19:01.752)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (19:19.278)

That’s not right. If it’s a planning agency that affects a wide geography, shouldn’t the the ratio of leadership on this board be based on geography instead of population? Why should Cuyahoga County have any say, really, on what interchange goes in in Lorain County? I get the the pain here. We’ve been hearing this for a while. The people in the outlying counties

Laura (19:44.974)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (19:47.279)

don’t like the fact they don’t have any influence. On the other hand, the people in the outlying counties wanted to pass a resolution that says climate change isn’t real. So there are loons in some of the places that are on this board. And I’m not sure you want a planning agency with people that say the Bible is what determines our course instead of science. But it is an interesting quandary. I wonder if there’s a structure you could set up.

Laura (19:55.82)

Right, right.

Chris Quinn (20:12.674)

so that both interests are served, because I do think it’s unfair. If I lived in one of those outlying counties, I would feel like I have no voice in regional planning. It’s supposed to be regional planning.

Laura (20:23.68)

It is supposed to be regional planning. I completely agree with that. But for decades, we’ve been pushing population out of the core and that’s not smart planning, right? So I think you’ve got to give some heft to where the people are who are being served. I agree this is not a slam dunk, but forgive me for believing that the Republicans, the rural Republicans in the state legislature might not have the best interests of all Ohioans.

Chris Quinn (20:50.386)

That doesn’t mean it’s not a good debate. Look, you say that the growth has been pushed out. I would argue that people wanted to live out there and moved out there. And now they would like a transportation network to serve them. This is not a binary decision. This is something that has some real depth. I agree with you, the Republicans in the legislature don’t know depth to save their lives, but it is a debate.

Laura (20:56.302)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (21:04.652)

Yeah, it’s been subsidized by the government.

Chris Quinn (21:17.428)

worth engaging in. We’re going to do a follow-up story that kind of analyzes these issues more specifically because it’s a cool story.

Laura (21:26.318)

It’d be interesting to talk to some of the other metropolitan planning organizations because there’s 16 of them in the state. And when you put something in a bill that specifically targets Grace Gallucci for being an adjunct engineering professor at Northwestern, it doesn’t feel like good government policy. It feels like stomping your boot on a city.

Chris Quinn (21:44.218)

Right, that’s nonsense. mean, a lot of this is nonsense. All I’m saying is there’s a good issue at the heart of this, even if we don’t trust any of the motives of anybody involved, which we don’t because elected leaders today are terrible, which we keep pointing out. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We have a couple of stories to talk about involving seniors. First, Cuyahoga County is trying to help seniors and some other groups get into affordable housing. Courtney, what’s the strategy?

Laura (21:49.484)

Yeah.

Okay.

Courtney (22:11.767)

Yeah, County Council on Tuesday approved about $5 million in loans to expand affordable housing specifically targeted at seniors, as well as homeless veterans and adults with disabilities. This money is going to support nine projects across the county. And in total, it’s going to create about 560 new housing units, and it’s going to rehab another 150 units to keep them in circulation for these populations.

These loans are backed by federal home funds and they can be forgiven after 20 years. If these properties, you know, continue to meet affordability rules over that long time horizon. So this means that rents have to stay accessible to households making no more than 60 % of area median income. Now the biggest, the biggest chunk of money here is going to be $1 million for permanent supportive housing for homeless veterans on West 73rd street.

There’s also going to be senior housing construction in Hough, Clark Fulton and off Clifton near the Lakewood Cleveland border as well as Cleveland Heights. On top of that, we’ve got some multifamily developments in Fairfax mid-town and near the Cadell Recreation Center. Most of these are going to get about half a million.

Chris Quinn (23:27.781)

I hear from so many seniors that say they’re just squeezed that with their property taxes rising and the grocery bills unpayable, they can’t make ends meet and they’re worried. They’ve worked their whole lives. They thought they’d have halfway decent retirements and they don’t know whether they can even keep their homes. Anything that we can do to help them is a good idea.

Courtney (23:50.557)

And the county is really kind of zeroing in on this growing need for senior housing. By just 2030, not that many years away, nearly a third of our county’s residents are expected to be 60 or older. We heard from County Senior Services Director, Natasha Pietrocola. She said, we’re really reaching a tipping point here and this population change demands immediate action on the housing front. We learned from the county that cases of abuse and neglect

including what’s termed as self-neglect tied to not having enough money, those cases are on the rise and officials fear it’ll get worse.

Lisa (24:21.422)

Thank

Chris Quinn (24:25.071)

Yeah, we’re gonna talk about that in a minute, Courtney. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. It’s not just housing where seniors are having distress. Cuyahoga County has never seen a greater demand for help from seniors than they are seeing now. What’s that about, Lisa?

Lisa (24:25.787)

Yeah, that’s the next story.

Lisa (24:41.227)

The county’s Division of Senior and Adult Services had said that there were 28,000 calls last year from seniors needing help with rent, food, and utilities, and that’s the highest since they opened back in 2015. Already this year, they’ve had 14,000 calls through the first six months of this year with no slowdown in sight. Administrator Natasha Pietrocola says the cause of the increase is unknown other than the obvious, you know, increased financial pressures that we just talked about.

She also says the cases that the division is getting are way more complex. They’re dealing with a lot more cognitive decline and seniors that don’t have any family or friends support network in the area to help them. Some of these cases do escalate to adult protective services. And that caseload is also rising. They had 2,784 calls to adult protective services last year, the highest in a decade.

and 2025 is on track to surpass 3000 calls.

Chris Quinn (25:42.548)

I just don’t know how seniors who don’t have family support as they get into their final years can do it. There’s just so many needs they have. They become very frail. They can’t drive. Any fall could be a disaster. And I just, don’t know how they do it without help. And I guess the County is that last resort. That’s what this hotline is for.

Lisa (26:05.919)

Yes. And yeah, I worry about myself. I never married. I don’t have kids or grandkids. So who’s going to take care of me when I get old? yeah, bless her heart. she also, Pietro Cola also said, you know, so many scams target these elderly, elderly lose their entire life savings. And she says actually family members are like the worst, you know, they take advantage of their elders.

Chris Quinn (26:12.611)

Your mom, your mom is gonna outlive everybody.

Chris Quinn (26:33.083)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Our favorite Canadian on this podcast, thanks to talk about a Canada story. Laura Cleveland Hopkins has another international flight, where to? And will anybody from Canada really come here anymore?

Laura (26:48.573)

It’s going to Montreal on Air Canada. It’s this daily nonstop service between Cleveland and the Montreal-Judeau International Air Parts. It starts May 1st, so quite a bit away from now. And it is going to be just a seasonal flight, May through October, for the warmer months in Canada and in Cleveland. So this hasn’t been served since…

2014 when United Airlines closed the Toppkins hub. So this is the first time we’ll have direct access. It’s the second destination that Air Canada, they have three flights a day to Toronto. this really does open up. mean, Montreal is an absolutely beautiful city, super easy to walk around, a lot of things to do and two hours from Quebec City, which a lot of Americans and you know.

Ohioans like to go to, Susan Glaser went there for the first time this year and wrote about it. the question, I think it’s going to be a lot more Ohioans going to Montreal than the other way around because yeah.

Chris Quinn (27:48.22)

At least while Donald Trump is president. Right. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. With all the turmoil in Ohio higher education, it’s good to hear about a school that seems to be doing something right for students who need help the most. Courtney, what’s the recognition Ursuline College has received?

Courtney (28:08.757)

Yeah, the private Catholic college out in Pepper Pike has been ranked number one in the state for what US News and World Report describes as, you know, upward social mobility rankings. We got these new rankings and the school also placed eighth among all regional universities in the Midwest. So it got some praise, not just in state, but across the region. This social mobility ranking measures how well colleges help

students from lower income families get degrees and achieve better career and income opportunities than their parents. And nearly half of Ursuline students are the first in their families to attend college. So right out the gate, that’s a pretty interesting measure for the small institution. About 40 % of their students qualify for Pell grants. And you know, that’s federal aid for those with the greatest financial needs. College president David King said this recognition

You know, really affirms what the school sees as its mission of preparing students for leadership and their professional lives and kind of changing the trajectory of their families, their families lives with this higher education. This is the first time Ursuline appeared in these rankings in this specific level in these rankings. And within Ohio, the college was also ranked fourth in serving veterans and seventh for overall value among regional institutions.

Chris Quinn (29:35.164)

Okay, good news story. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Kind of interesting. Today we talked about Ursuline. Yesterday we talked about local school districts that were doing great on their report cards. It’s nice to talk about some positive education news going on in this region with all the things that go wrong. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Laura. Thanks for listening to this podcast. We’ll return Thursday to talk about the news.