Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-02-26_FRIDAY_8AM

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

01-02-26_FRIDAY_8AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. For a change, I'll let Eric Peters sleep in a couple of days. Of course, I don't know. You're probably just working your tail off as always. Is there right, Eric? Welcome back.

How could I possibly get any rest with everything that's going on? Have you heard Trump's most recent social media post, by the way? No, I haven't heard the most recent one. What happened with that? By the way, Eric Peters is epa autos.com, and we have a Wheels Up Friday special edition instead. First one at 2026. Well, here it goes. If Iran shots, S-H-O-T-S, shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom,

the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump, all caps. Okay, so let's see. In other words, we go to war with Iran. And if they, okay, if they shoot their own citizens. Okay, I didn't realize that that was part of our Make America Great a deal. But we'll see.

We'll see what. Well, am I being petty? Or maybe I'm showing my age here, but the president of the United States apparently can't find somebody to proofread his social media posts before he posts. I think we knew what was going to go on there. It's like, okay, you know what you were buying, Eric. Come on. All right.

Yeah, I know. There are some good things. There are some good things, but I don't think any. anybody tells President Trump what he's going to put on truth, sir, social. He owns the platform, by the way, okay? Yeah, yeah, that's a point. Well, well taken. Okay.

Well, you want to talk about some car stuff? I certainly do. First, I want to find out who was the Clover that was, manhandly? You were trying to mess with you the other day. Now, a Clover, a lot of people don't know what your nickname of a Clover is. Tell us what a Clover is for those who don't know in 2026. It's an appellation for somebody who is a bad driver, you know, and it sometimes is conflated with somebody who's just a slow driver. You know, driving slow is not necessarily bad driving,

you know, particularly for people who are, let's say, older and maybe they don't have great vision anymore. I don't have any issue with people driving slowly. I sometimes drive slowly. I was driving slowly the other day in my truck because my truck is old, you know, and I kind of just drive along at a modest pace. Anyway, a clover in a late model Chevy Suburban just roared up on me onto the tail of my truck and began to tailgate me. Now, clearly, he wanted to go around me, he thought I wasn't driving fast enough. So, you know, we were at a passing zone and I kind of edged as much as I could off to the right to indicate, dude, go ahead and pass me.

Yeah, go ahead. He wouldn't pass me. And, you know, so we go through the whole passing zone with this guy tailgating me. Okay, whatever. And so I keep on going another mile or so down the road is a really long passing zone. There's no oncoming traffic. It's clear for half a mile at least. Same thing.

The guy doesn't pass. Then I decided to have a little fun with them because at the end of that stretch is the beginning of what we call locally here, Bent Mountain. and it's a series of S curves that takes you down from the elevation where I live down into the Roanoke Valley, and it's about two miles of that. And naturally, as in every instance where I have done this before, the Clover couldn't keep up with me in the curves. And to me, that's very telling. If you're somebody who could only drive fast in a straight line, you probably shouldn't be driving fast at all. Those are my favorite people, the ones that tailgate your butt forever. And then when

there's a passing zone, they either don't pass, or if they do, or if you're on a two-way, And the only place they'll go fast is on the straightaway. And then they slow back down. I hate those people, too. I shouldn't say hate. Hate's a strong word, but strong dislike, okay? It's frustrating because I get characterized by the insurance mafia as a quote-unquote unsafe or risky driver because I do drive fast.

But I actually know how to drive fast. And evidence of that is 30-plus years of not having wrecked anything. So, you know, ipso facto. And yet these people, people like that, who will ride right up on somebody's bumper, Meaning, you know, if there's any reason that you have to slow down, you know, an animal, a kid happens to run out into the road and you have to hit your brakes, that guy's going to go right up your tailpipe. And there's going to be a bad accident. And these same people who are perfectly comfortable with operating their vehicle at a high speed on a straight stretch, you know, can't even stay in the road that's mildly curvy. You should have seen this guy. You know, it was halfway in the opposing lane of traffic in a curve where he couldn't see whether there was anybody coming, you know, desperately trying to keep up with me. And I wasn't even driving that fast. But I can drive and they can't. And yet they're the ones who are who are who are who are considered to be, quote-unquote, safer drivers. Speaking of safer drivers, I wanted to get your opinion on one. I ran into a very safe driver this morning.

It was P-Soup fog at 4.45 in the morning when I was coming down to the radio station. And I was on Highway 62. It's a limit of 45. And I was doing 40 in this. And then an amazingly large pickup truck blew by probably at about 60 in the P-Soup. Now, I'm just curious, is there an option now in the modern pickup? up truck that allows them to see through the fog better than I can. I want to be fair about this because I'm not one of those people that, whoa, I can't believe how fast this guy is going,

but you couldn't see anything. Now, is there some special, I think it was GMC. Was it, is there some special GMC truck options that make them able to see through the fog? I'm very glad you brought that up because it's actually quite the opposite. All of the much touted safety and assistance features that all the new vehicles have are generally dependent upon cameras that are embedded in the front rear of the vehicle. And those cameras tend to be occluded by such things as fog. And then the safety system goes online. So if anything, it's even more dangerous to drive one of those things in a situation of low visibility when the driver is probably somebody who is overly reliant on safety technology rather than just

being able to drive to maintain control of the vehicle. I've oftened if what happens when you're in a very large, very tall vehicle, if there's just a natural desire to speed crazy, even in weird, and I just wonder if part of it is because there's an illusion of not going as fast as if you're in a car a little closer to the ground. There must be something to that. It happens a lot, I think. I think there's something to that, but I think the broader reason for it is that those types of vehicles have become mass market vehicles. Whereas in the past, when you and I were in high school, you know, people who drove four by fours, we didn't have SUVs back then, four by fours,

and trucks were generally people who understood what they were driving and the limitations of the vehicles that they were driving. And they tended to drive them with respect for those limitations. We're now at a point where people are driving these jacked up bro trucks and SUVs. And they didn't buy them because they're, you know, a contractor or they're, you know, there's somebody who's actually going to go rock crawling in the thing. They buy them because they just wanted a big halting vehicle, and they're deceptively easy to drive. You know, physics is physics. And despite all of the improvements in stability and all of the advanced driving technology, when you're driving a 5,000-plus vehicle, that's a lot of mass that's in motion.

And, you know, when all of a sudden you have to do something that unsettles that mass or if you have to slow down rapidly, you're going to require a bigger envelope than you would if you were in a smaller car. And you should have respect for that. Yeah, makes sense. Eric Peters is with me, Automotive Journalist, E.P.otos.com. Got a question or comment on something about the road? Check us out, 770-5633-3-3-770 KMED. Recent review you had, the 2026 Mercedes E-450. I didn't even know they were making any wagons at this point,

but it actually is a genuine wagon, but not the station wagon like the old Buick or Chevy Wales, right? It's a different kind of deal. Oh, but it's similar, and it is surprising to find that there are still a handful of these things available. Audi also has one, the A6. it's a direct competitor. They call it the all road. And, you know, it puzzles me that these kinds of vehicles aren't more popular in this country. They're actually quite popular in Europe. And most manufacturers that sell cars in this country do offer wagon versions of the sedans they sell over there. But for some

reason, the wagon has faded from popularity in this country. And it makes no sense to me because it's an immensely practical vehicle, especially relative to I did the comparison between the, uh, the E450 wagon and the E class sedan. These are essentially the same vehicles. The only difference is that one is a wagon. So it's got that wagon shape. The sedan has this paltry, really tiny trunk. You mean, it's not much bigger than the trunk you'd find in a compact car. I forgot the exact specifications, but it's something like 15 cubic feet. It's not much trunk. And it makes it difficult as a practical matter to use that for transporting people for any length of time. Let's say you're going to go on a road trip a couple of states away. Well, where are you going to put everybody's stuff in the trunk of a car like that? You're out of

I wonder if this is just a cycle of sorts because, you know, wagons are a very practical vehicle. No problem with that. I'll agree with you. I think the real challenge and when Linda and I go along in her Passat, she's a 2006 facade that occasionally I'll drive with her and we'll move around, you get to the point where so many vehicles now, including the crossover SUVs, are so high and so jacked up, that you feel at a real advantage just trying to see in the traffic because of the height of all the vehicles that are preferred now, whether it's a four by four, whether it's a crossover SUV. And I'm wondering if that is what killed the wagon in the United States more than anything else. Any thoughts on

that? Oh, absolutely. You know, it's ultimately all due to these government interventions, you know, particularly CAFE. Cafe served to essentially extinguish the American full-size sedan. American full-sized sedans were very common in the 60s, 70s, and even up into the 80s, rear drive with V8 engines, big sedans that were made into wagons. Well, most of the manufacturers stopped making them. The last one that was like that, I think, was the Buick Park Avenue Ultra that was based on the Impala. They just stopped making those, I guess, about 12, 15 years ago, ish around that ballpark. You know the people who love those old Buick Park Avenue wagons? You know the people who get... Well, you can like them, too.

But the survivalist type, if you're looking for like an urban vehicle that actually hauls a lot of stuff there, you don't want an SUV. People go from-frame, rear-wheeled ride, you can pull, you know, all those things, you know, very tough. They used to use those kinds of vehicles as taxis, not necessarily the wagon. But if you went to New York 15, 20 years ago, you'd see a lot of Crown VIX, a lot of Chevy Caprices, you know, the old one, the Impala Caprice model, because they just are tough. You know, cops love them. They would just put up with all kinds of abuse and go 20 years and still have life left in them. Yeah. They're still considered very desirable on the used market. There's a market. So the point is that most of the cars, i.e. sedans that are still on the market are pretty small. You know, there's not a lot of usefulness in them. Even the full-sized sedans, it's interesting. Like if you look at a Mercedes S class, the part of the car in between the front and rear axle center lines, that part is big. But the hood and the trunk area is kind of stubby relative to the rest of the car. And so there's just not much space in the trunk for things. So naturally, people, especially people who can't afford to spend $100,000 on a Mercedes or a BMW, they buy a crossover. Why? Because even a small footprint crossover, if you get something that's a compact sized crossover, like a Honda CRV, let's say, or a Toyota RAV 4, it has literally four or five times as much space as an equivalent footprint sedan. And it just makes more sense. It's more practical. The fact that it's higher up, of course, is now something that people do like. Because as you say, almost everything else that's on the road is a crossover or an SUV or a jacked up.

road truck. Yeah. And if you're driving a smaller car or an older car, a lot of times you're thinking, gosh, I can't see over anybody. Can't see anything. And it's true. All right, but your overall impression of the E450, what is that? What do you think? That's a wonderful car. And you know, another thing about it, too, that I kind of harped on a little bit in the article, it comes standard with an appropriate engine for a vehicle in that category, i.e., you know, this is a, this is an E-class Mercedes. So it's not an inexpensive vehicle. And you at least get a six-cylinder engine. I've ranted many times about how cheap it feels for Mercedes to sell the E-class sedan, and it's not just Mercedes that's doing this. BMW does it, Audi does it.

These are sedans that start at about $62,000, and they come with 2.0-liter four-cylinder engines. All of those cars used to come standard with a V6, and all of them used to offer a V8. That's all out the window now, and it shows you the degree to which the compliance pressures have even managed to ruin these prestige cars. When you paid that kind of money, you got something more than what people who bought an economy-type car got. When I last talked to you a couple of weeks ago, Eric, I think we were digging into the compliance cost in what is going on with United States vehicles. Is there any effort to truly strike at the root of the compliance car deal in which you have, you know, three-cylinder engines that are now powering a 3,000-pound vehicles, you know, that kind of thing.

And I know that President Trump, of course, is doing his best to take his boot off the neck of the regulatory state, or at least out of the customer, I should say, and trying to lighten up on some of this. But executive orders will not do it. It really takes some rulemaking and some legislation. What's the status of this in 2026? Yeah, I don't think he's taking his boot off the neck at all. I think what he has done is to, as you say, lighten it a little bit and give a temporary event. abatement as regards things like the cafe fuel economy standards. Right. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. Yeah, but that doesn't really address the issue.

The only way this is ever going to be addressed is, as you say, at the root, this whole idea that the federal government should be legislating what fuel economy our cars get at all. That's not the business of the federal government. That's something that ought to be, in my opinion, between the car buyer, i.e. the market and the manufacturers. And if the, if the market says, hey, you know, we really want turbo hybridized 2.0-0-liter engines in 4,000-pound vehicles, okay, I won't have a problem with it. But, you know, that's not what we have. We have the manufacturers trying to comply with their primary customer, the government, and then we get to pay for what the government says we've got to have. But there has been a real problem with these compliance vehicles. I'll just talk about, now I was just mentioning the three-cylinder engines, this proliferation of three-cylinder engines in small crossover SUVs. Buick comes to mind. There's also a Chevy version of something like that, I believe, too, and some other ones.

It's just use it in the different brands. Yeah, yeah, exactly, same engine. And then the mechanics are talking about how these overstressed engines are just blowing up and having, you know, low mileage. This is exactly what we were concerned about. And it's almost as if the federal government is trying to destroy our ability to even want to buy one. I don't like that. No, I don't like it either. And, you know, to give you an idea of just how bad it is, even Toyota, which is perhaps the most blue-chip brand,

or at least it was, the brand that people would generally go to, you know, if they were cautious and said to themselves, look, what I want most of all is an extremely durable, reliable, good value vehicle. Yeah, I want a bulletproof vehicle at a reasonable price, even if I had to pay a little more than the other ones, right? And, you know, and models such as the Camry, the forerunner, the Tacoma, the Corolla, were known to be vehicles that, you know, if you changed the oil and just didn't purposely abuse the things, they would go 250,000, 300,000 miles before anything major,

broke on them. Well, even Toyota now is ruining themselves with this compliance stuff. They have had disastrous recalls with their new turbo-hybridized 3.4-liter V-6 engine. They had to recall the entire initial production run that they installed in the Tundra pickup and the Lexus, the Lexus SUV that has that engine. They're having problems with the turbo four-cylinder that they're putting in the Tacoma. It's a disaster for them. And I think that part of the reason is that they just had to rush these developments, you know, rush these engines into production. They're much more complicated than the engines that they used to put in these vehicles. And inevitably, things go wrong. And they have. And so, you know, think about the cost to that of Toyota, of that reputation that they had,

of people now thinking, well, maybe I shouldn't get a Toyota. Maybe I should look at something else. It's just a disaster for them. Yeah. And this is just something that, you know, it was just taken as a given. Okay, you got a 2002 four runner. You're going to get 300,000 miles out of that. Easy. You know, as long as you do basic maintenance and like you said, don't intentionally abuse it, that kind of stuff. That's the part I think is very sad. And this is all about compliance costs. You know, we've got to get something. We've got to get another half mile per gallon out of this. And so right into, you rush something into production. And they never had to do that before, did they? No. Now, so to get back to the original thing we were talking about, why doesn't Trump do something to

end these regulatory bureaucracies because that's what's got to be done. You have to get these bureaucracies ended. Because if not, what's going to happen in the future is that another president will come, a new regime will ensconce itself in D.C. And they'll simply revoke everything Trump did and impose even more mandates. And this, you know, the people in the car industry that I know and talk to about this, they're in this awful position of, okay, right now, well, let's see, Trump has decided that for now the CAFE standard is going to go back to 2020. But we're making our, you know, our plans for the vehicles that we're going to be selling four or five years down the road when Trump isn't going to be president.

Somebody else is going to be president for five years. And that's why it needs to be attacked with legislation. And you make it much more difficult to change this around because I'm not even sure what's going to happen. And nobody is when it comes to the midterm elections. Even if President Trump wanted to do something, it's like right now it would be the time you would want congressional help to lighten up on the industries and just get us vehicles we want on a reasonable price that will actually last more than 40 or 60,000 miles.

A good way to understand this, I think, is to look at what Dodge is doing right now and also ram trucks. You know, they are rushing their V8 back into the lineup after having pulled it from the lineup because of the compliance pressures. Right. Which have been disastrous for those brands. Well, they're putting the hemie back into models like the RAM 1500. They're going to, I think, put it into the charger. And okay, great. Well, what happens, as you say, 26 and 28? All of a sudden, a cafe goes back up to 50 miles per gallon. And they're left holding the bag. Yeah, they can't sell it. They can't sell it. And nobody wants to the what the charger, the electric vehicle charger, right? They don't want that

one, right? It's just they're put in this impossible, damned if you do, damned if you don't position. And again, ultimately, this is not something that the federal government should be involved in at all. There's no legitimate reason for it. And I wish the Trump or somebody who works for Trump would be put out, would put that out there and just make that case to the people. I personally believe most people agree with that. In fact, I wanted to talk about one of your other articles here in just a moment, but if you have a question or comment for Eric, 7705-633, a special Friday morning of the wheels-up segment here on the Bill Meyers show, and we'll have more coming up. The wait is over, Road Valley. Eagles Gas Depot is open. No membership, no gimmicks, just everyday wholesale prices. Eagles Gas

Depot, located at Highway 62 and Avenue G next to the new Lashwam. Eagles Gas Depot, low-price fuel for everyone. Freddy's Diner has a menu that appeals to everyone in the family. Choose from 13 hearty burgers served with fresh cut fries, crisp and moist pressure-fried chicken, hand-dipped fish and chips, delicious melts, sandwiches, steaks, salads, and more. Avoid the wait at the drive-thru. Check out the menu online, and it'll be waiting for a quick and easy pickup. Support your local restaurants, Freddy's Diner on Maine in Old Town Eagle Point.

Open daily 10 a.m. weekdays for lunch and dinner. Good evening, America. Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess. The president makes his case. I've secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment. And the construction begins. Donald Trump was elected to fix the economy. These things are all going to continue to put more money in people's pockets.

At this point, it is an anchor on him. Democrats are going to have a great year. Did POTUS make any inroads? We have reversed the direction of this country dramatically. We've already seen philanthropists step up. Join the debate. We made a lot more money than anybody thought. on News Talk 1063, KMED.

News Talk 1063, KMED. This is the Bill Myers Show. Wheels up Friday this time with Eric Peters, E.P.O.O.com. Eric, we're back in, and we've got Brad, who is here. Brad, comment here on the conversation we're having on vehicles. Let's hear it. What's up? Yeah, hey, happy new year, guys. So I'm looking at this and on what you guys have been talking about,

right here, right now, things are pretty good. But looking down the road, what are the, odds that we can have some common-sense vehicles, for instance, like that old Volkswagen diesel jetta. My sister has a Volkswagen diesel jetty. She loves it, but she's going to have to sell it, but she's having a harder and harder time finding mechanics that know how to work on it, but it's a great car. Is there a chance? Is there a way that we can actually begin making these reasonable, affordable cars again? What do you say, Eric? Well, they're being made. The problem is whether they'll be sold in this country. You know, remember a couple of weeks ago, Bill, you and I were

talking about the whole tiny car thing. Yeah. You know, these aren't speculative. These are vehicles that are being made and assembled right now in Japan and sold in other countries. The Toyota Hylux is another example, the Hylux champ. There's a plethora of vehicles that are being manufactured right now. The question is whether these manufacturers will be permitted to import them into this country

and to sell them at the federal level. And then you've got to deal with the state level because remember, these vehicles are not compliant with every jot and tittle of the federal motor vehicle safety standards Bible that book. And they may also run afoul of so-called safety requirements at the state level. So what good is a car that you can't legally get plates and registration for? This again gets to the problem of these bureaucracies that have become de facto legislatures that just tell us what we're going to be allowed to do and not be allowed to do. And we have no ability to vote them out of office. So, you know, maybe Trump can do something about it.

I wish he would. Yeah, so he has to do something right now. It needs to go through Congress because otherwise even after the, by the way, thank you for your point on that, Brad. The point being, though, is that either he gets Congress to work on this. It's just temporary little delays of the ultimate doom, if that's the case, if we don't do this right now with congressional help. Yeah, that's my analysis of it. That's how I see it. Yeah, because they plan years and years.

in advance on something like that. You had a fascinating article I was reading up on this, and it is about the 1980 Honda Civic, and you put an article out there called, Would you spend $11,000 less for this? And it kind of details the difference between what was perfectly safe and perfectly available and perfectly reasonable and affordable to buy

only 40, 45 years ago. And now you couldn't build it like this because it wouldn't comply. So what's the story with that you were figuring out? Well, I like to do these occasional historical retrospectives and particularly for people who are young and who have no memory of these things. And so therefore they're unaware of it. And they assume that the way things are is the way things have always been and that you have to pay this exorbitant amount of money even for an entry level car. We don't have economy cars anymore. That 80 Honda Civic is an example of an economy car.

It was simple. It was light. It was the kind of vehicle that anybody just about who wanted to get out and go get a Chilton's manual on a socket set could fix themselves. And they were amazingly profitable for Honda and also amazingly popular at that time, too. Yeah. Yeah. The interesting thing is that they sold a bunch of them. Now, now the profit per car wasn't perhaps very high, but they sold so many that they made plenty of money. Honda was extraordinarily successful. So it was Toyota and all the other brands that sold cars like that. And it's a shame that they've gone away from that. And now we're looking at these, you know, these much more expensive, much, much less user-friendly vehicles. I compare it with the current Civic. And, you know, one of the things that's ironic is that the two cars, 1980 and the 2026, get about the same gas mileage. And just like that. No, wait a, no, wait a minute. Okay. A 1980 vehicle, probably with a carburetor, right? Or maybe. No, definitely with a carburetor and without computer controls. And it has the same mileage as the brand new civic. How can that be?

36 miles per gallon for both vehicles. And notwithstanding that the new Civic has a computer controlled fuel injected engine, the difference is 1,000 pounds, among other things. That's the weight difference between the 1980 and the current car. And, of course, the new one's more powerful and it's quicker. But again, you know, at the end of the day, was it such a bad thing to be able to buy just a little sprightly economy car that didn't cost you a fortune that gave you great, reliable, high value transportation?

I don't think that that was a bad thing. And I'd like to see that come back. In fact, you said a 1980 Honda, if it were built today, and that was, you're talking about in, what would it be inflation adjusted today? About $15,000. You know, I plugged some numbers into the BLS inflation calculator, and I'm suspicious of those numbers. I think that they overestimate.

I bet it's less than that. And certainly with modern manufacturing techniques and economies of scale and all the other advantages that we have today, I don't, I don't think that it would be impossible or I think it would be easy for a company such as Honda to build a modern civic equivalent that's comparable to something like that 80 model and sell it for around $12,000 bucks. Now, see, that's affordable, and you would have people lining up for this. But I find it ironic that you can drive a 1980 Honda on the road. You can still drive that on the road. You can still license it. But if you try to build a 1980, then all of a sudden it's illegal and you're not able to do this. I don't understand

even how we have permitted this kind of regulatory apparatchek to dictate what you are allowed to be able to buy here, Eric. And I'm hoping that they get to the point where they say that you're not going to be allowed to drive your 1980 vehicle around any longer. Yeah, don't give them any ideas because it is kind of a mopping up operation, right? I mean, implicit in this as well, you know, these new cars are safe because they've got six airbags and all the driver assistance technology and all these other things. And implicit in that is that a vehicle like that 80 Honda, it's not safe.

because it doesn't have those things. And if it's not safe, how is it that people can be allowed to drive a vehicle like that on the public roads and put not only themselves, but other people at risk? I mean, you can see the argument. Oh, yeah. And I mean, it keeps me up at night thinking that there's some clover out there, you know, who's in a bureaucracy somewhere, somebody like Pete Buttigieg, for example, who's going to try to impose that on us. So the goal this year for 2026, the New Year's resolution for President Trump should be actually rip out the bureaucracy, not just to say, hey, we'll have a temporary little hold off of these tighter regulations. That's it if you really want that freedom, that freedom of choice.

Fair enough. Is that it? Well, you know what? I wish he would go back to his populist nationalist agenda, and that would be a piece of it. Can you imagine the cheers you would hear across this country if he said, look, you know, just whatever the mechanics are, whatever the actual implementation procedure is, you're going to be able to buy $12,000 brand new car scan. We're going to get the government out of your face. We're going to get it out of the manufacturer's face. You're going to be able to let your needs be known, and the manufacturers are going to meet those needs, and it will no longer be up to a bureaucracy to tell you what kinds of cars are going to be allowed to drive. The cheer would be deafening if he did that. Instead, we're going to go bomb Iran. Well, we don't know

that yet, but we'll see. We'll get back to you on that one. Hold your fire for the time be. Well, maybe everybody holds their fire. You just never know, okay? So what do you have to review for next week. We'll know we'll have that Wednesday. Gosh, you know, and I apologize for this. I do this to you every week, don't I, Bill. I don't know. I didn't write down what the next one is. I'll shoot you an email, though, unless you know. Okay, fair enough. E.P.otos.com. Some great stuff there. And by the way, you have to check out that article. It's all General Motors fault. It's kind of... You know, I learned something new every day. That was something I was not aware of. Did you know about that? About the origins of the safety slash love seat? No, I did not. It's a great article.

that the child safety seat was actually invented. It was like an option from General Motors back in the day, wasn't it? Yeah, way back in the 60s. So, you know, more than 20 years before the first state, which was Tennessee, imposed a requirement that you have to strap your kid like a little Hannibal Lecter into a safety seat. Yep. It started in the 1960s. Now, by the way, there's nothing wrong, essentially, with, I mean, the child seats that we had back when we were kids

were not particularly good, and I don't mind a little bit of this, but it's the difference between what you could get and what is required now, and that's what you're getting at, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Same with airbags. You know, I mentioned that in the article. General Motors did offer airbags in the early 70s in a couple of models. Most people didn't want to buy them, though, because they just, you know, looked at the cost and what was the gain for that? Well, a hypothetical decrease in the chances that I could be hurt or killed in a crash, and they decided it's not worth spending all that money. wasn't good enough for General Motors, or the rest of the industry, and they succeeded

in getting a mandate passed so that now everybody has to buy these stupid airbags in a vehicle. All right, talking with Eric Peters. We'll grab a quick call or two here before we take off. Hi, good morning. You're with Eric. You want to talk with him or something else? Morning. Hello? Okay, you're not there. You've got to be quick on the trigger. Hi, good morning. Who's this? You're on with Eric. Who's this? Good morning. Listen, I want to make a comment about engineers sitting behind a desk deciding what we should do in the world. Okay. A perfect example of this is a couple of years ago, several years ago, they decided that

there needed to be a ramp at every sidewalk crossing. And so they made them put in all these things, right? Well, they should have added a comma in the regulation instead, and it must drain because now all of the, all the engineers have designed it so that the implementation creates a puddle right at the crux between where the pavement and the sidewalk meets, and there's an ice sheet there every single winter. And my joke is they should have added comma and must drain. Yeah, so this will be the next lawsuit,

and then we're going to see the cities rip up the streets again, right? Yeah, the regulators don't have practical world experience. There you go. That's the great takeaway from this morning show. Eric, I appreciate your call, as always, and we'll talk next week. week at e.p.otos.com, okay? You'd be well. That sounds great, Bill. Happy New Year. Thanks again. Happy New Year indeed. 20B.4-9-7705-633. Service is the difference with Sweetwater Sanitation. Your experts for sanitation services and

portable restrooms. From pumping septic tanks, grease traps, even holding tanks, sweetwater sanitation brings 20 years and two generations of experience. And as a DEQ certified maintenance provider, sweetwater sanitation can inspect, service, and repair your septic tank, which should be pumped every three to five years. Call five. 4-1-821-1426, and visit SWSWSmodak.com, Sweetwater Sanitation, where service is the difference. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, on behalf of one of my longtime sponsors who has saved me a lot of money, and I'm hoping that he'll save you a lot of money, too, that's Steve Yancey at Skypark Insurance. And in a world where customer service doesn't seem to mean a whole heck of a lot,

Steve Yancey really shines as an exception to that rule. What's great about working with Steve, he's an independent insurance agent, not just one company, many companies. We're talking with home and auto and business and RV and boats and, you know, all the different various lines. He goes to work to find you the best deal. And when you get a renewal and you're looking at the renewal rate and you're going, oh my gosh, what did you do? Call Steve. His numbers 541-261-5444. I've called Steve many times over the years that I've been talking with him and saying, all right, Steve, what can you do? And usually comes up with a great deal or at least a better deal than I had. It all starts with the call. 541-261-545.

444-261-544-261-544-24-4 or skypark INS.com. At Skypark, we make insurance easy. Fox News. I'm Chris Foster. Swiss investigators say it's likely that sparkling candles and champagne bottles started a fatal fire at a ski resort when they came too close to the acoustic tile-covered ceiling. At least 40 people reported to have been killed, 119 injured, some critically. Officials say the death toll is likely to rise. And we are learning. more information about the victims. Now, they do say among the dead and injured, there are Swiss, French, Italian, Serbian, Bosnian, Poland, Belgian, and Portuguese. No word yet on Americans. And due to the severity of the burns, it will take time to identify them. They are

using DNA and dental records. Boxes is Stephanie Bennett. President Trump says the United States will come to protesters rescue if Iran's government starts having them killed. The president also writes on social media. He's in perfect health. A Wall Street Journal report yesterday raised concerns. America's listening to Fox News. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit Fontanarroofing Services.com. Welcome to the Bill Myers Show on 1063, KMED. Give Bill a call at 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. And a little little bit of open phone time to wrap stuff up and we'll talk about some other things on

Monday. I was hoping to get to the, I want to think, I want you to think about this over the weekend here and maybe we talk about this on Monday. But I had a friend who was telling me about one of his friends that his grandchild, well, his kids ended up having children and they ended up going to classes that were put on by the organization. Department of Human Services, state agency, one form or another. And they were having these child-rearing classes and parenting classes. And there was also grandparenting classes. And the grandparents were told by text message a day after the child was born, and they didn't even want them down at the hospital. And this seems to be a trend of breaking up the family,

or, you know, this is your time. You don't want any grandparents around, nothing like that. No contact. We don't want that. You know, all this sort of thing. There seems to be a real push coming down from the state of Oregon through this consensus process to break the family up. And they kind of train people.

I don't know if this is an LGBTQ sort of agenda or something. I don't know if we're going to have time to talk about this today. but if you are a grandparent, have you been separated or kind of had your ability to be a grandparent questioned, pried away by people who have gone through parenting classes in the state of Oregon? I have a feeling there's more of that going on than we think because once again we don't want family formation. We don't want people loyal to a family. We want people who are loyal to the state because the state is so friendly and loves us. you unlike your family. I think that's what's going on. I could be wrong, but maybe we'll talk

about that more on Monday. Brian's here from Joe County. Hello, Brian. What's going on with you today, huh? Go ahead. Well, first of all, Bill, I'm glad you're back. I really am. It's going to be back, too. It's going to be back. So anyway, this recall for Chris Barnett, yeah, there's just a ton of lies selling this thing, and it's really about taking away our county conservative spot in in the commissioner seat. They did it with John West. But what I wanted to tell people is we got until January 6th, that's next week, to get out and vote no on this recall. This is, a lot of people are just sitting back doing nothing, and they're not even going to vote. Yeah, what's the ballot return? What's the ballot percentage return right now? Do you know?

I think it's about, I thought I heard someone say about 9,000. Okay, what percentage of that is? Is that, you know? In Josephine County? Oh, man. A third? Okay. So...

Not even a third? But something tells me, though, that the ones that are recall happy, the hissy-fitters or whatever you want to call them. I'm not a fan of the recalls. I'm just not a fan of the recalls. Not because I'm not shelling for Chris or John or anybody else out there. That's not what I'm doing. I just think, let them learn, let people serve a term.

This is just nonsense. that is moving forward. And it's about a differing, a fracturing political agenda. So I'm with you on that. Now, there's some protests going on over the bridge today. You're? Yes, so, yeah, the Cape Man Bridge at 1 o'clock to 4 o'clock, we're going to be waiving signs just to remind people to get out and vote.

We still have a few more days. A lot of people thought this was over New Year's Eve. It's not. It's on until January 6th. And then they count all the votes. So everybody has still has a lot. a chance to get out and vote for this thing and save our county from just turning into this leftist weirdos.

All right. Yeah, no problem with that. All right. Thank you very much for that, Brian. 770KMED. Dave's here. Minor Dave. Happy New Year.

How are you doing? Happy New Year. I hope you had a good vacation. It was a wonderful vacation, but it's good to be back. Yeah. So just before Christmas, bike dance, the one that used to own TikTok, Yes. Their market-making ability with their crypto, they got hacked.

The perpetrators took the money out and started shorting through other accounts that seem to be can't be traced. And Bight Dance lost 88% of its value, and it had a flash crash. and then, you know, because they're shorted, the shorts were activated, and somebody walked away with billions of dollars. Well, you have to understand, though. You want to put everything when it comes to your money on the Internet and in computer code, because what could possibly go wrong with such a thing?

Because everybody knows that there are no criminals on the Internet and in the cyber world. And the Chinese had to probably provide them liquidity. where they would have closed their doors. Yeah. Okay. Now, I know physical cash. Thank you for the call, by the way, I know physical cash.

You could also conduct a lot of crime, too, but you had to carry it around and walk it around and things. Now you just zip it across the borders instantaneously. All the Internet. What could possibly go wrong on something like that? It's kind of like this whole thing about, hey, let's sign people up for an Oregon voters card. All you have to do is give me four digits of your

last social, the last four digits of your social security number and scribble something on a piece of paper and upload it to the Secretary of State's office. And gosh darn it, you're a voter. Yeah, it's 2026, a different year, same nonsense, okay? Let me go back to the phone. So I, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. This is Ed, Bill. Ed, buddy. How you doing? well disturbed as you're talking about the thing about the grandparent issue and the things that are going on yeah yeah i'm not sure we're going to have a lot of time to discuss that today but i wanted to kind of pre-send it out there i just want to find out monday if maybe more grandparents have been

experiencing this because you're the one who told me about this uh this friend of yours could you could you kind of retell the story in a better way than i did perhaps basically the uh the birthing uh rejection was right around the first of the year and the uh the grandparents were basically excluded host type thing there was no respect to the grandparents before saying we wish to be alone we don't we don't want anybody there we don't want this we don't want that there's no communication whatsoever so my friend's wife took uh you know the entire week off stayed in there ready to go to the hospital and do all of these things. They didn't find out until a day later, okay, or a day and a half later.

Yeah, the day and a half later that was the birth of their grandchild, right? Yeah. Now, were they estranged, though? Were they estranged? Was there an estrangement between the grandparents and the kid? Not at all. Not at all. And so the theory then is that this came through state parenting, state,

What is this, is this like OHA or some other different agency? Yeah, this is the pathway. And again, I'm beginning my quest into finding the actual rock bottom of this pit of despair, Bill. Because what I want to know is how many people have experienced the same type of thing, because it's suggested. And you look at the thing and the comments that they're making, well, why can't you respect our wishes and just leave us alone? things like this and it's that has to be suggested to someone because the family structure that they have it was not like that okay this is something that's been brought about and when i started my initial dive into the uh the background on it what i was finding was so disturbing that's what i

forwarded to you all right so i'll tell you what since there's not going to be time to address it today you want to call we want to talk about this on monday and watch you set up a time and we'll go through what you have found out in the Oregon State documents about this kind of an anti-family bent and this suggesting about everything about the child, it's your child, and you shouldn't, no contact. And, you know, we're starting to see a lot of this right now with younger generations that are saying no contact. We don't want these toxic relationships as if, you know, all of these young people, young families just ended up being hatched, you know, rather than having come from parents.

Yeah, the information starts to be nauseating, though, because, you know, they make mention of, oh, in the past 25 to 30 years, parenting has changed. This has changed. This is, you know. Well, I'll tell you one. All right. So let's set it up. Monday will go through this, okay? And we'll have to make some time with you, maybe 730 or so, something like that. Okay? Can we do that? All right. Yeah, because otherwise we're not going to be able to do it. We only have, like, four or five minutes left in the show. We're not going to be able to do it justice.

No, that's not enough. So if you have been denied or being ghosted by younger family members who have children, don't want to let you know. And it could be that they're being conditioned. We're trying to find out how big the problem is on Monday's show, okay? Thank you, Ed. All right, 770KMED. We'll grab another quick hit here.

Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hi. Hey, this Ray. Hey, Ray. What's going on? Well, I was listening to you guys talking about automobiles, and, you know, traditionally, Toyota and Honda's and stuff were the best vehicles out there on the market. Absolutely. Yeah. Good stuff.

And, you know, so with the new cars, it's really hard to tell what's good anymore because you said there's new problems with the Toyotas, the Nissan's, Mitsubishi, all that stuff. So what I normally do is I'll take old Honda elements and the Toyota Sions and put motors in them and stuff and keep them going because those things will run three, four, four or 500,000 miles if you take care of them. Yeah. It's pretty much the last of the reliability. Yeah, the last of the Mohicans before they had to end up putting compliance motors into everybody, or into every model. That's where the problem is.

And I was hoping, I was almost hoping that the car manufacturers would push back more. Wouldn't you have thought that just to preserve themselves, they would have done this, pushed back more against the regs? You would really think so because, I mean, the recall king, is like GM. I mean, it's just, it's pretty insane now with automobiles. I mean, everybody has their recalls. I'm all the big three, but just there's no reliability. And, you know, and a lot of it has to do with this aluminum, aluminum construction on the engines and stuff because of, you know, heat expansion and contraction and stuff and stuff just doesn't last like the old cast iron blocks did.

Yeah, and to save an out, you know, to save a half mile per gallon or a mile per gallon, it's all about that compliance. That's also the push to go to the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, aluminum construction. There you go. Exactly. Another example of it. Thanks for bringing it up there. 770KMED.

President Trump and Congress need to fix this. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Welcome. Hey, Bill, Matt. Matt. Welcome.

What's going on, buddy? Happy New Year, by the way, too. Yeah, happy New Year. We missed you. I think several of your callers have made that same comment. Yeah. Well, it's going to be back. What's up?

Yeah. You know, this whole fraud thing, to whatever degree exist in with the uh the child care centers the health care providers the delivery stuff you know it's the money of course right it's the money but you know it's also everybody feels like an idiot because it's almost like catching your best friend with your wife you like you totally trusted both of them and you walk in on it and you feel like a fool and i think that's how a lot of taxpayers feel. It's to the point now, the more of this stuff comes out, you just feel like, why do I bother paying? Why do I ever, why do I send money in it all? I should just claim

eight dependents on my paycheck, not pay any taxes. Yep. And they just not pay anything anymore. And so, all right, yeah, you're going to want money, but you're going to get it for me, right? That kind of thing. You know, at one point, this stuff does reach a breaking point where people are just going to say, why am I playing by the rules? You know, you and Eric have a great conversation about all these compliance things with cars. You just get to the point. You're like, why should I play by any of the rules? People come here from other countries and don't play by the rules. I was just making comment to a friend. Weren't we paying opium farmers in Afghanistan not to grow opium, and then they just grew it anyway? Yeah, we were. Were we paying for the retirement

plans and benefit packages for Ukrainian government officials? Well, we were paying for their Swiss bank accounts, too, you know, that kind of thing. And that's my point. You get to the point where the thing is it's so big, you get lost in it. But when you bring in, like, cases where, you know, somebody can open up their homes and say, oh, we have a child care here, file paperwork, and get paychecks, and they don't even speak English. You know, it just gets, so it's hard to wrap our brains around it as just individuals wandering around out there paying our taxes. Yeah, well, and the toleration.

the toleration of the corruption for years. You wrote me on an email over the weekend that was talking about why that teed you off so much, this whole thing about the, you know, the leering center, not the learning center, right? You know, that's that story. And you're right. It corrods any respect for rule of law. And the thing is, waltz and the Democratic machine and Price and Republicans, too. They knew about it.

They knew about it for years. But you didn't want to say anything about it because it's racist. I don't even believe that, Bill. I don't believe. I think that's the excuse that. Oh, I know. It's a thin excuse is what it is. But that's just the standard thing.

Yeah. I think the money's coming back to them. That's the reason they don't report it. And you could be, and that may be where this goes. I'm on a time for today. But I'll tell you, we'll pick that up again on Monday. And happy New Year, Matt. welcome back welcome that thank you very much that was kind of like matt's uh matt's email

the day on the air emails of the day by the way sponsored by dr steve nelson and central point family dentistry dot com on freeman in a central point all right email bill at billmyershow dot com i'm just out of time markley van camp and robins are coming up here in a little bit but we'll have some more great conversation on monday morning thanks again machine has spurred speculation at the offices of Fontana Roofing. Yes, we're...