Crooked River Cast

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After Election Recap

The polls were off Just In The Wrong Direction. 

Voter ID In Ohio Constitution. 

Beat Vivek like a drum. 

Can’t think five minutes ahead. 

A Toast To Acton. 

Some Good News. 

Smithville, Avon Lake, and Newton Falls. 

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Midterm Madness — Crooked River Cast Show #81 🎙
Rob and Tom, week of November 2, 2026. Election week.

What’s with all the doomsday talk?  — Tim Pool’s FORTRESS montage, then Hegseth’s Fortress America: bases insurance, not civilian bunkers.

Alaska shenanigans.  — Two Dan Sullivans on the Senate ballot, Decoy Dan, and ranked-choice confusion.

Obama in CLE and The Gay General Scott Bessent. — Obama’s Cleveland Cheesecake Factory burn meets Bessent’s Darth Vader’s tomb clapback.

JStroke Email Yard Signs. — Door-knock questions for the yard-sign crowd, ending in “Are you a moron?”

Early voting numbers.  — Nearly 1.2M early votes climbing to about 1.5M by Fri Oct. 30; in-person up, mail down, Franklin County lines.

On the ballot. — Cuyahoga Issue 10 DD levy, statewide Issue 3 voter ID into the constitution, Ohio’s data-center ballot fights, and NEO school levies (Strongsville, Mentor, and friends). RTA’s levy and an elected sheriff are not on the ballot.

LaRose refers another voter group to the Feds.  — Field Forward Ohio’s late voter forms referred to DOJ.

Good Things
Cuyahoga River safety tools. — CUYAC (said like kayak) gets a $110K Knight upgrade for LED river-risk lights at access points. Signal Cleveland
Youngstown Schools improves to 3 stars for the first time. — First overall three-star (meets standards) since Ohio started report cards. WFMJ

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Crooked River Cast, Show 80 for the week of October 26.

• Halloween yard junk, inflatables, and a glowing Pennywise that follows you out the driveway.
• Vivek Ramaswamy’s Acton-mother ad. Mike DeWine tells him to pull it. Trump piles on DeWine. Step-dad Cledith Arthur and the Mahoning County record. Hosts’ take: two things can be true.
• Fake polls: Wedgwood Polling admits it fabricated surveys, including an August Ohio poll putting Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton ahead. SoCal Strategies, tied to the same person, wipes its site. Aggregators scramble less than two weeks before Election Day. Poly Market digression included.
• Ohio lore: the Cleveland Torso Murderer / Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, 1935–1938. Eliot Ness, Francis Edward Sweeney, and a case that never closed.
• Mansfield’s Ohio State Reformatory: haunted house on the highway, Shawshank set, and a former inmate’s hard-time stories. Architecture meant to uplift. Death did the opposite.
• Good Things: Cleveland Haunt Club’s haunted garage sale, and Circleville’s 2,455-pound record pumpkin. Pumpkin death is a bad way to go.
• Next week: election episode before Nov. 3. October surprises teaser on the way out.

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Crooked River Cast, Show 79 for the week of October 19. Rob and Tom are back.

• Homecoming season, volleyball shorts, and the Shane Gillis bit everybody's talking about.
• A Fayette County, Indiana council candidate goes viral on a local TV forum: "We have guns too."
• Feds raid Ilhan Omar's Washington home at 6 a.m. over decades-old immigration paperwork. Then the Al Qaeda laugh and her America comments.
• Big beautiful subs: Trump announces in Youngstown that Cleveland gets a Navy submarine component repair center. No, you idiots, it's sub PARTS.
• Max Miller vs. Poindexter in OH-7, and how an easy win turned neck and neck.
• SB 477: Sen. Bill DeMora wants e-bike limits for kids under 14, a $25 registration, and driver's ed. Damn those e-bikes.
• East Canton's speed cameras write 16,000+ tickets and pull in $800,000 in one month. Youngstown's vendor keeps 35%. Who reviewed all those tickets?
• The unmarked white F-150 "police" truck on I-77.
• 13 DeWine bills go into effect, from a $5 million space advisory commission to GPS check-ins for Medicaid caregivers.
• Good Things: David Lady of Chatfield and his 400+ handmade monster masks. Born on Halloween, just like his mother.
• Next week: our Ohio spooky lore special.

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• JD Vance hits Lima for Vivek Ramaswamy and Jon Husted, and Bernie Moreno calls Amy Acton "Anthony Fauci in a cheap dress."
• Vance at the White House on H-1B and J-1 visa fraud, with Microsoft in the crosshairs: you're a great American company, now act like one.
• Mail-ballot requests are way down from 2022, and some folks still think Sherrod Brown is our senator.
• The SLF ad hitting Brown on trans surgery for minors, and Morgan Trau's News 5 fact check on Soren Aldaco's story.
• Howmet wants its profit-sharing money back, and workers get 30 days to repay.
• D.J. "The Rooster" Byrnes found guilty in the Shrek case with Sen. Cirino: a $200 fine, with an appeal on the way.
• Geneva-on-the-Lake spends $1.3 million on beach sand. How long does it last?
• Good Things: a Geauga superintendent gets his CDL and drives the bus, and a WWII airman finally comes home.

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• Daylight saving: 19 states passed permanent daylight-saving laws that cannot start until Congress acts. Sunshine Protection Act stalled. Clocks still fall back November 1. Hosts want standard time, not daylight time.
• E-Check: Northeast Ohio air now meets federal standards, so the 1996 testing program in seven counties may go, but U.S. EPA still has to sign off. Drivers test for now.
• Gas-tax holiday: DeWine signed a 90-day pause (38.5 cents a gallon on gas, 47 on diesel). Debate over whether wholesalers pocket it and whether the cut is real money at the pump.
• Governor polls: a Suffolk poll has Amy Acton up about 9 on Vivek Ramaswamy, and Sherrod Brown up about 3 on Jon Husted, inside the margin. Hosts note a tighter average and a small likely-voter sample.
• Side by side: Vivek takes a jet-setting billionaire / failed Alzheimer’s-drug question, calls the guy a plant, and keeps going through recorded events and a debate challenge. Amy walks off a questioner about twenty feet away. Line in the clip: no pictures, no interviews. The race in one short. Vivek answered. Amy runs, like she did in 2020.
• Voter ID: photo ID is already law. A GOP push would copy it into the Ohio Constitution. Hosts: you still have to do it. This is codifying what’s already there.
• November money asks: about 30 Northeast Ohio school districts seeking levies, plus Cuyahoga Issue 11 (health and human services renewal and increase).
• Good Things: a Lorain County couple’s 1983 wedding proofs never came back. The album turned up at a garage sale and found its way home about 40 years later.

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Crooked River Cast — Show #76, week of September 28, 2026.

• Trump at UN. 
• First time with negative migration. 
• Unpaid landing fees at Akron/Canton Airport. 
• Subscribe to the show. Share the show.
• Gas Tax Holiday. 

Main:

• Max Miller and OH-7.

Good things:

• I-77 to finish ahead of schedule.
• Monica butterfly migration.

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Crooked River Cast — Show #75, week of September 21, 2026.

Wine toast + Billy Idol at Blossom (light cold open). Critter Corner held.

• Ohio–Indiana I-70 truck platooning (driver lead, automated follower); Einride cabless electric haulers on a short Ease / Marysville loop; driver shortage vs Teamsters pushback; Kasich-era testing EO, thin state statute
• I-480 safety corridor (Lorain Co. to Jennings / 176): ~334 speeding tickets in five days, 166 at 20+ over; partners pile on more speed and seat-belt hits
• Gulf of Cleveland: Council’s tongue-in-cheek Lake Erie rename (Chris Harsh)
• Husted vs Brown Senate special (Vance seat): polls, FirstEnergy digs, debate non-commit, Trump boost for Husted, expensive race
• RTA delays cuts; May 2027 special for 0.5% sales-tax bump (already get 1%)

Good Things
• John Ream home-distill case toward SCOTUS (federal ban; Buckeye Institute)
• AutumnFest Harvest Moon, Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, Sat. Sept. 26, 3–7 p.m. (60th anniversary)

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Crooked River Cast — Show #74, week of September 14, 2026.

• Columbus pauses Flock ALPRs after officer Melvin Tellis plate-search probe; bags over ~65 cameras

• Cleveland Orchestra musicians authorize a strike; clock runs to Sept. 23

• Testing irregularities at 52 Ohio schools, plus the score incentives that make the flags matter

• Acton at Canfield Fair: Havas misdemeanors vs the campaign "armed lunge" frame; Labor Day parade medicals next day

• Critter Corner: HB 457 (political-murder death penalty), HB 292 (defense/space commission), HB 210 (catalytic converters)

Good Things

• Aurora Park at Geauga Lake (old SeaWorld): Phase 1A opens October

• Crocker Park Wine Festival, Westlake, Sept. 18-19

• Tremont Arts & Cultural Festival, Lincoln Park, Sat. Sept. 19, noon-7

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Crooked River Cast — Show #73, week of September 7, 2026.

Tom’s Ohio City stop + Rob’s first Nashville trip.

• Flu-shot skepticism (2006 NIH clip)

• Medina County families mapping teen cancers near the old Montville landfill

• Vivek’s debate challenge — Acton’s hard pass

• Swift & Kelce’s Lakeshore Blvd / Bratenahl house

• Springfield ICE ops, expired Haitian TPS, and the death of Pierre Damas Bell

• Critter Corner: Ohio police-drone rules (DeWine signed) + Flock teaser

• SB1: ~90 low-enrollment Ohio public degree programs cut

Good Things

• Waterloo Arts Fest — Collinwood, Sat Sept 12, noon–7

• Village Peddler Festival — Lake Metroparks Farmpark, Kirtland, Sept 12–13