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JUSTUS with Jack & Gonzo

JUSTUS with Jack & Gonzo

By: Jack D’Aurora and John Gonzales
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About this listen

Social justice means applying the law equally to all people. But in practice, that doesn’t always happen. We’re business and trial lawyers with over 60 years experience of practice. Together, we practice law, we seek social justice, and we reveal the conflict between the two. And in this podcast, we bring together guests from a variety of backgrounds to discuss the current issues surrounding social justice and the inequity between these issues and their relation to the legal system. Join with us, so that it’s not Just Us.Copyright 2025 Jack D’Aurora and John Gonzales Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • 107. MAGA's perspective on Trump's first 100 days (Part 1)
    Jun 7 2025

    Donald Trump has the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president in the past 80 years, with public pushback on many of his policies and extensive economic discontent, including broad fears of a recession.

    The concept of the "First 100 Days" refers to the early period of a U.S. president’s new term, typically seen as a symbolic window to set the tone, push key policies and demonstrate leadership. It represents a kind of political version of a first impression.

    In the United States, no one talked that much about the importance of a president’s first 100 days—until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933. He took swift action to calm the nation’s crippling financial panic (cue the Emergency Banking Act and the “fireside chats” that became Roosevelt’s signature) and began rolling out the programs that made up his New Deal, including 15 major pieces of legislation in the first 100 days. FDR’s extraordinary productivity translated into enormous popularity, and he set a first 100-day standard against which all future U.S. presidents would (perhaps unfairly) be measured.

    We talk with Chuck Cordak, an ardent MAGA supporter, about why he thinks Trump's first 100 days have been successul, and, of course, we offer our view. Spoiler alert: Chuck is positively impressed; we're not.

    What seems to matter to MAGA followers, like Chuck, is the volume of activity that surrounds the Trump administration. The question is, what does all that activity do for the good of the country?

    Chuck is a father of six, five who serve in the military. He has been deeply involved with Ohio, Illinois GOP politics for over 40 years. A former ROTC Midshipman at Ohio State University, Chuck is a native Ohioan and says he was raised as a Truman Kenndy Democrat with conservative Catholic education and traditional values. He has worked all over the Midwest, as well as the Northeast. Chuck resides in Columbus and is currently working on releasing a thought buster book. Chuck is also a segment contributor for Sirius XM and TNT Radio and writes for AFNN.us.

    So what does it take for a MAGA faithful to offer any criticism of Trump? Listen and find out.

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    32 mins
  • 106. Where our incarceration system falls short
    May 29 2025

    In 1974, Ohio’s prison population was 8,400 Ohioan. By 2011, the number grew to 51,000. Are we any safer as a result? Do all these inmates need to remain behind bars?

    Are we just locking up people without adequate attention being paid to things like education, drug treatment, mental health treatment and cognitive therapy? Our guest, Gary Mohr, former Director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, wanted to know, and so he called on the late Edward Latessa, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Criminal Justice to find out.

    Latessa spent three years visiting every prison in Ohio, collecting data and examining every program prisons offered to inmates. He concluded that an inmate’s pursuit of a GED, drug treatment and other self-help programs resulted in a statistically significant difference in terms of violence and recidivism.

    After Latessa completed his research, the Ohio legislature delved into revising the criminal code and created a panel of 23 individuals, consisting of legislators, defense attorneys, prosecutors and corrections staff. After a year and a half, several recommendations were made, all of which were endorsed by a legislative committee, and then—nothing. No legislation was introduced.

    If Ohio’s prison population has increased from 8,400 to 51,000, while the general population has remained fairly stable, that means, Mohr explains, there’s either a staggering increase in crime, or we're not doing what we need to do to reduce criminality and the amount of time people spend in prison, or some combination.

    Crime didn’t increase significantly during Mohr’s tenure, but the criminal code increased, and sentencing changed. Now we have more mandatory sentencing, which is a disincentive for inmates to engage in those programs that Latessa proved were beneficial in reducing the prison population.

    Add to this that politically it’s popular to be tough on crime. Sentencing offenders to long jail time is more popular than pushing for rehabilitation. Listen to the conversation.

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    45 mins
  • 105. Eliminating DEI negatively affects medical care where it's needed most
    May 19 2025

    It’s not intuitively obvious, but discarding DEI can result in even fewer medical professionals serving already underserved communities in rural Ohio. The Trump administration is doing its level best to eliminate DEI on the premise it fosters unlawful discrimination, but as Abraham Graber, Ph.D, points out, DEI promotes diversity and equity so as to achieve better outcomes, and that includes better outcomes in terms of getting more medical students interested in practicing medicine in rural Ohio.

    There's been a longstanding problem in rural Ohio suffering from inadequate healthcare. Some counties have just a handful of doctors. Some counties don’t have a single doctor or hospital. What if you live in, say, Vinton County, and you need an oncologist? Well, like they say in the mob, “Fuggetaboutit.” You’re pregnant and need prenatal care? Same thing.

    Who picks up the slack in these counties? EMT crews, but their services are only a stopgap.

    The absence of medical care for these communities means the people in these areas are not as healthy as those who live in metropolitan areas, and they have shorter life spans.

    To get more medical professionals in rural Ohio, we need a concerted recruiting program. And that means recruiting from the counties that are underserved, because the people who would want to practice in those counties will most likely come from those counties and not from the large metropolitan areas.

    And here’s the challenge. If kids in those counties don’t see doctors and don’t see their friends becoming doctors, they’ll never even think about becoming doctors.

    And for those few who might aspire to practice medicine, they likely don’t have the same life experience or education as others and, thus, face barriers when tested and suffer from the negative stereotype many have about rural Americans.

    As Dr. Graber points out, if we want to start getting students in rural Ohio interested in and practicing medicine, we have to start thinking about how we find these young people. Focusing on test scores alone won’t get us where we need to be. We need targeted recruiting, and that’s DEI.

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    38 mins
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