Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-16-26_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Morning news headlines including the Talent Library controversy - no charges will be filed. Mike Kucharski, co-founder and Vice President of JKC Trucking - talking Feds taking on CAl for 16,000 illegal truckers, 20,000 trucking companies closed.

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. The Bill Meyer Show on Southern Oregon's home for conservative talk. News Talk 1063, KMED. Call Bill at 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Now more with Bill Meyer.

So do you want to kick off, find your phone Friday? I like Chris de Gaulle. I really kind of enjoy getting to your calls. Not that I ever turn your calls down. You know, a lot of times, especially Thursdays, Wednesdays, things I can be pretty guest-intensive with a lot of the news going on. And I'll certainly have some great guests coming up this morning. But if you wanted to get something going and you wanted to find your phone and, well, I say find your phone, you know, rather than open lines, you know. Just get on.

Okay, 7705-633-770K-M-ED. By the way, my email is Bill at Bill Myers-show.com. I must say I was kind of, I don't know if I was shocked, surprised, but it had to do with the problem over at the talent library. Did you hear the story? Yeah, Rogue Valley Times ended up breaking that story. Again, Buffy Pollock has been just like a dog with a bone, you know, on this one, keeping things up.

And what ended up happening is that the person who was accused of looking at the naked kids on library computers. Well, no his name now. I ended up being released here from the district attorney. 33-year-old Nicholas Johnson. So we had library patrons and employees reporting and feeling very uncomfortable. He's watching videos and seeing pictures of naked kids. on the library computer. And other patrons and people would say,

well, he would zoom in on, you know, the private parts of this. Well, it turns out that Nicholas is a registered sex offender. 33-year-old registered sex offender. And he told the police at that time, you know, they interviewed him. And he said that, you know, he didn't do anything wrong. And according to the law, it appears that Nicola is right. And it's just astounds, it astounds me apparently because what he ended up watching, and he did admit to the police, he did admit to Eagle Point Police in the interviews, that

he was watching these videos because it turned him on or it stimulated him. You know, he liked it. These were parenting videos. You know, you'd have videos of kids, maybe bathing a baby, you know, doing things like that. And he would watch stuff like that. And he would zoom in on it. And apparently other people were watching him do this. And they reported him. At this point in time, no charges will be filed.

Because the district attorney says that according to Oregon law, what he was doing didn't really rise to the level of sexual activity. Or you're watching a sexual video. It wasn't like it was child porn. It wasn't that sort of thing. didn't rise to that. And so everything just stays the way it was, except for one thing that Nicholas Johnson will not be permitted.

He's still banned for life from using the library systems library, the computers in the library. He can't do this. And the reason he said that he was watching these videos and doing it at the talent libraries because he doesn't have internet activity or internet connection at home. So he goes to the library in order to, to get his fix, I guess.

So that's where we find ourselves right now. He's not going to be using the computers in the library. That's still a lifetime ban. I do think that at some point you'll be able to go back into the library, but it's not going to be to use the library district computers. Now, as what will happen to the library director, given the fact that there was actually no law being broken, does this mean that the library director will,

keep her position. I don't know. The Jackson County Library Services Board will be getting together in a few days and they'll probably make that decision. Maybe there'll be some kind of discipline. But even then, the point being is that Nicholas, although he may not have been violating the law specifically, according to the Jackson County District Attorney, he was still violating policy. He was violating the district's policy. And that was something that that Charlene Princeton, a former librarian and a manager and area manager

over in the upper rogue, whatever it is, used to work over at the Eagle Point Library branch. And she said, hey, you know, this has been against library district policy forever and ever. But so there's still maybe some disciplinary actions taken on the library director

because remember the library director famously seemed to be more concerned about the privacy of Nicholas. Johnson and his privacy is gone now. But yeah, that's where we find ourselves this morning. I don't know if you have an opinion about this. If you have somebody admitting that it turns them on, I mean, does that then make it child

porn? I mean, should the law address something like that? Do you think that maybe some legislation needs to be done about this? Or is it just one of those things where you sometimes just have pretty sick free freaky people out there and you probably can't tighten up everything. I mean, they're, well, you know, I'm sure there's some porn site for, you know, there's probably, you know, kids getting washed.com for all I mean, I don't know. I've just, it seems like there is, you know, weird fetishes for practically everything,

whether it's, you know, toes and feet and, oh, we got a glove fetish. Have you got this and any other? Well, I like to watch kids getting a bath. I don't know. But there's, how would you handle it? I'm not angry at the district attorney. I, you know, we went there and did a careful reading of Oregon's law. The whole idea is that you're supposed to enforce the law.

But just watching, well, I mean, think about it. We used to watch videos of kids getting baths all the time. It's kind of like our baby videos. Remember the old super eight things? You know, you used to do that. used to have pictures of us naked as kids, even. That has been changed. I mean, it's at the point back when you had to go and develop film.

You know, it was one of those things where you heard about people that were getting in trouble that were just taking pictures of their child, which people have done for a long, long time, forever. And it wasn't done for sexual or purient interest. But the culture has certainly tightened up on some things, and I would certainly not have. to advocate loosening up on actual real perverted activity, but do you have an opinion on this? I'm uncomfortable about that. I really am, because he did say that he was watching these videos and he was being stimulated by them. But then there's lots of things that people could watch that we would think would be weird,

and it can be stimulated by that. But, you know, with kids, we were always thinking about kitty porn, sexual exploitation, et cetera, et cetera. We have a, you know, a big concern about that in our society. But we can certainly talk about it if you want. Number here, 7705663-3-770 KMED. Last night on Facebook, people were not real happy about it, and they were mentioning things like, well, the district attorney, you know, is there some relationship to it or something? No, I don't think there's, I don't think any, but believe me, I think the district attorney,

was looking for something to hang on the guy. But the way that Oregon law is right now, you know, you know, we're talking about videos of parenting, kids are naked in the bathtub, whatever it is, you're washing,

and then the fact that he zooms in on the stuff, admittedly, is creepy, pretty creepy, so we know what we're dealing with, and he is a registered sex offender, but I almost would have thought that being a registered sex offender,

that would be something that would violate his probation, assuming that he is on probation. Maybe he's not on probation. When I was watching the K-O-B-I story on it yesterday, they did have some of the VES CAM audio or the officer cam video talking to him. And I must say the guy sounds like there may be, and I'm just giving an opinion on what I heard,

according to the audio, it sounded like he may not be, well, may have a developmental problem. them. That's all I can say. That's what it sounded like. And I'm wondering if that's also why the DA is not going any tougher on this. But anyway, that's where we find ourselves on this situation. Jackson County DA, no evidence of illegal conduct at the talent library. So Nicholas Johnson will continue to, I guess, do what he does. And maybe he's going to start a go fund me so that he can get his own internet connection at home so that he can. watch the kids in the shower or whatever it is. I don't know. I'm being a little sarcastic. Sorry, I can't help myself.

But anyway, that's a big local story here. There's some other ones going on, too. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Good morning, Bill. It's Francine. Francine?

Well, you go to the talent library. You are a patron. Good morning. Yeah, I don't go very often. But yes, I do on occasion. And remember, I told you I had a meeting with that gentleman who was the, oh, God, was he the resource? manager or whatever, and you were cracking up about the title.

But he was a resource manager, resource. He was actually a very responsible person, and he was really concerned about all this. But anyways, I have a couple of questions. Like, he's, okay, he's a registered sex offender. Yes. What did he do to get, you know, to become a registered sex offender? I don't know. didn't, I don't know if the stories actually looked into that.

I don't think they did. Let's see. Because that would be, that would be an important thing too and how the, how maybe the community reacts to him or treats him. Because if he's actually been accused and even convicted of messing with children, that's very, very important to know. Yeah, that would be an important distinction. Nothing in the Rogue Valley Times story.

I guess we could probably do a little bit of background searching on that, but I don't know off the top of my head why he was. There are so many things they can get you on the sex offender list. I understand. I realize that, you know, you've heard the stories where they're unjust, you know, in the past of, you know, the 18-year-old guy and the 17-year-old girl who later got married after he got out of jail for being with her, you know, that kind of story. Yeah, exactly.

And it's kind of nonsensical, nonsensical, yeah. I don't think this is going to be one of those, you know, he was so innocent because obviously he's here in the library looking at children's general. So he's got a problem. Now, if he's developmentally disabled in any way, I'm, you know, sorry for his situation. That's too bad, but that does not excuse his behavior in any way whatsoever. You know, he still has to be treated like anyone else. If he commits a crime against a child, he should be that, you know, I mean, first of all, the community is supposed to know when a person is a sex offender living in the community. Isn't that the law? Yeah, I think it is that you know that there is a sex offender and you have the address of the person who is the sex offender. But I don't know if it says exactly on the state map. I've never really gone looking it up. I mean, you're now making me asking a few questions.

They're good questions. You know, they really are. I don't think that they sit there and say, okay, you know, accused of having sex when he was 19 with a 17-year-old. I don't know if they put that kind of stuff in the, in the math. Yeah, back in the day when that happened all the time, you know, not all the time, but that was an occurrence, you know, a sad, tragic occurrence. They didn't have sex offender roles and identification in the neighborhoods. I mean, I'm talking about back in the, you know, 40s and 50s and, you know, stuff like that. But, but.

Yeah, that was also the day, that was also the day, though, when a guy could walk into the, into the secretarial pool and smack a woman on the butt. So, you know. I know. I'm just making a reference to, you know, the way. that there's a distinction now a little bit more of a distinction between, you know, a consenting, you know, I mean, that technically they can still arrest someone for being with a 17-year-old girl. They can arrest a guy for that or vice versa. Yeah, of course, you know, to be fair, I'm starting to wonder if this whole thing about someone being under 18 not being able to give consent, my gosh, they can go get abortions, you can go get your gender change, you can do all sorts of other things. It's kind of odd. It's a weird state, weird state. You know, I'm surprised, though, that they haven't, that they haven't, that they haven't. closed this kind of a loophole. This is a loophole, I think, in the law, don't you think,

here in Oregon? Yes and no. I mean, there's also, you know, the older men and women that take advantage of youngsters of that age, too. So, you know, you can't make a cut and dry rule that fits everything because it just doesn't. You know, and that's the problem with a lot of rules, not all rules, but a lot of them is they, there's always something. There's always an exception, yeah. And yeah. And so I, You know, I'm... Well, obviously, his past behavior was serious enough that the criminal justice system decided to declare him. They convicted him and then put him on the, you know, on the offenders list there.

So there's something going on. This is something that, you know, the people of talent need to know about because he's living amongst them. And there's a lot of people, you know, in the areas around the library that live there that have small children. There's a little playground right outside the, you know, the doors of the library. There's a little tiny park. You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, if people need to know what it is, he's, he was accused of and convicted, apparently of, because he is a registered sex offender. And I don't know why that wasn't, that's not been brought out. Okay. What, well, taken? And I appreciate the, the question, because you'll get me asking a question or two on this one, too, but I can't exactly say I was shocked at this. I just wasn't sure what the legality, because it, it's one thing that we're really upset about this, that this guy makes us feel. that this is a really creepy sort of situation. But what is creeping us out, making us uncomfortable,

and what is actually illegal, aren't necessarily one and the same, are they? Exactly. There you go with the rule thing again. Yeah. Thank you, Francie. Good call to start off, find your phone Friday. 626. This is KMED 993KBXG. If you have an opinion on this or anything else, this is Bill Meyer's show, we'll talk about that.

And a great piece of good news, the DA thing, Not such good news, but there actually is some good news to report, and I'll do that. Do you hesitate to heat the whole house when you spend most of your time? Great news, and this was something I was wondering about, because, you know, I've been talking with various people, Herman and other politicians, that, you know, the only people who really want the state legislature to repeal that big ODOT, the gas tax hike and all the other things, raising all the fees, you know, this whole thing, the whole thing that we all got together. and a quarter of a million, more than a quarter of a million signatures to get this on the ballot for November of this year. Get it on the general election to repeal it. Now, there's really only one group of people that wanted the state legislature to repeal it in this upcoming short session. And that is Democrats and Governor Kotech.

Governor Kotech and the Democrats definitely did not want this on because it's reminding everybody, even other Democrats, that would be voting. that, oh, the Democrats care about me so much, and I'm a Democrat that they wanted to just screw me with taxes, right? You know, it's what a Democrat voter would be even looking at. And they knew that this is what it was going to be like. This is why Governor Kotech a few days ago was musing, well, you know, it'd be really nice if the state legislature just repealed this whole tax thing, you know, in this upcoming session. And then we find out there was reporting in the Willamette Week, Willamette Week, into the reporting. yesterday, a 1935 Oregon Attorney General opinion, which indicates that once Oregonians invoke a constitutional right to referendum, once we gather that quarter of a million signatures like we did,

the legislature has no authority to repeal the measure before voters have their seat. This means that a very unpopular Tina Kotech will be running for re-election at the same time that her very unpopular tax is on the ballot too. Will it make a change? Will it make a difference in the outcome? I mean, you know, I know Republicans have often thought about that all it has to do is get bad enough. And then Democrats will vote for Republicans. I don't know if it's going to do that or not, but one way or the other, the Democrats are going to have this around their neck in the November election.

And that is a good thing. So once you do all that work, they can't then say, oh, we're going to. to repeal it so you don't have to do this ballot measure, this citizen initiative. You don't have to do that. No, citizen initiative is going to move forward. Now, the challenge that we're going to be running into is that it could be repealed by the people and then the Democrats get together in next year's long session and just pass something like that again. But one battle at a time. All right. So some good news this morning. Okay, this is the Bill Myers show. We'll catch up on the rest of it. Next.

The purchase of another gutter manufacturing machine has spurred speculation at the offices of Fontana Roofing. Yes, Willcustoms.com slash Mike. The Bill Myers Show is on News Talk 1063, KMED. So the top two local or area stories, of course, is that the state legislature could not stop us from voting on the tax repeal this November. So that's a good story. That's a great story. Then there's the other one. It's not so good. Jackson County District Attorney is choosing, or I guess, can't find anything to go after the library patron, I should say, in Talmud.

You know the Talmud Library story, and they find no evidence of illegal conduct. And it's probably right about this because apparently this guy was watching videos of parenting with taking care of naked babies, things like that. but he would zoom in on the private parts. And yeah, it's really, really, really creepy. And do you think that's something that should be tightened up on a loophole? If you have a registered sex offender and this guy, Nicholas, is a registered sex offender, for what he was registered for, I can't tell you right now. I'd have to do a little more research on this.

Maybe somebody else has covered it. And if you heard about this or saw something, let me know. 770563-3-77 OK-M-ED. But even though the guy admitted that he was stimulated by this, and the reason that he was watching these videos at the Talent Library was because he was stimulated by it, that doesn't make it illegal under Oregon law. It doesn't actually rise to the level of, you know,

kid porn, watching kid porn and, you know, taking advantage of the kids and things like that. And yeah, I suppose that's right, but if you say that you tell the police officer that you are, but of course this is the part of it that makes me wonder if he's really all there because he admitted to the police officer, the talent police officer came in and talked to him, he admitted that it turned him on. And I don't know why any sensible person would say that it did.

You know what I'm getting, you know, but I don't know, maybe he just figured he had to come clean on it or whatever it is. But should that say, is that something that we need to tighten up on? Let's take your calls on that. Anything else on your mind, too? 7705633770 KMED. Boy, you know when President Trump ended up doing this thing, he wants to have this birthright citizenship argument. Of course, it's in the Supreme Court.

And the Supreme Court is going to be making some sort of decision about this, that just by being born here in the United States, you are magically, just because of the magic dirt that is surrounding you, you are automatically an American citizen with all of the privileges. All of the privileges. Just, I mean, you could be, you know, you get off the plane, pop the baby off, boom. That's it. Well, there was a story which came out in December, and it didn't get a lot of coverage right now.

Revolver first did it. But this is just a fabulous story. It was in the Wall Street Journal. The Chinese billionaires having dozens of U.S. born babies via cert. surrogate. Do you hear about that story? It happened during the holidays. It came out right before Christmas, and so it's one of those things where it could have gotten just kind of slipped through the cracks of your attention span. But I saved this just because I couldn't believe that this is what's going on. From the Wall Street Journal story, clerks working for family court judge Amy Pelman were reviewing routine surrogacy petitions when they noticed an unusual pattern. The same name again and again and again and again. You see, there's this Chinese billionaire that was trying to get parental rights to at least four unborn children. And the court's research was showing that he had already fathered, or at least was in the process of fathering, at least eight more.

And it was all through surrogates, all through the test two baby type thing, right? And so Amy Pelman calls this guy, this Chinese billionaire, Zhu Bao, or Zhu Bo, maybe that's how you pronounce it, called him in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023. He never entered the courtroom, according to people who went to the hearing. The maker of fantasy video games lived in China and appeared via video speaking through an interpreter. He said he hoped to have 20. Now, this is what the Chinese billionaire, this is kind of like Elon Musk, except at least Elon. He Musk lives in the United States and is an American citizen right now. But this beau billionaire says that his goal is to have 20 U.S.-born children through surrogacy, boys, because they're superior to girls,

because he wants them here in the United States to one day take over his business. So he's not having them naturally. it's the surrogacy. He hires women, in essence, to do this. And it's perfectly legal. Several of his kids already being raised by nannies in nearby Irvine, California. That's over by El Toro, Southern California, where this is going on. And they were awaiting paperwork to travel to China.

He hadn't yet met them. He hadn't met them, he told the judge, because, well, he'd been busy at work. Pelman, this court person, was very alarmed, according to people who went to the hearing. Surrogacy was a tool to help people build families, but what Zhu was describing didn't seem like parenting. Now, the judge denied his request for parenting, which is normally quickly approved for the extended parents of babies born through surrogacy, according to the experts. This is in the Wall Street Journal. The decision left the children he paid for to be born into legal limbo. And the court declined to comment on this.

and something tells me if we had this billionaire, Zhu Bao, or Zhu Bo, doing something like this, there's probably more of this than we think. But they're starting to look at this latest little loophole and wrinkle that I'm a Chinese billionaire. I can have as many kids as I want. I pay Americans to have the baby. The babies pop out. And then they're instantly citizens. But they're also dual citizens because I'm a Chinese citizen.

So we have this dual citizenship. They're American citizenship. Chinese. The kids could go into China. No problem. They're fine with this. And he's going to use it so that they can take over his business. Little Chinese surrogacy bots, little surrogacy robots, I guess. Man, I'll tell you, if we end up getting rid of birthright citizenship, then these billionaires can't do this. And I would be quite in favor of this, wouldn't you? I would hope so. at least at least Elon Musk has it the honest way he gets with him he's a girlfriend with him buys him a drink maybe a mansion or two and uh and then the kid pops out and then Elon's going to pay for it for the rest of his life but he's what a trillionaire you know all that kind of stuff he's fine everything like that the kids are around here and and then the freaky girlfriends

tend to go away the one that really freaks me out is uh that that Grimes girl of Elon Musk. Yeah, that's the one that makes me go, ooh, man, woman looks a little semi-Satanic, but he must have a type. I don't know. But I digress. 7705633.

So we have the Chinese billionaires having dozens of U.S. born babies via surrogate. Hey, there you go, future Chinese spies, too, right, with ties to the fatherland, as the case might be, okay? All right, 770-K-M-E-D. It's open phones this hour. Hi, this is Bill. Who's this? Good morning. Good morning. It's Mike Kacharski. Oh, hey, Mike. Hey, good to hear from you.

Hey, you're on a different topic, but I'm glad you checked in here. Good morning. Oh, good morning. How you doing? Okay. I'm doing fine. Hey, let me take a quick break, and then we'll talk about this because this is another federal government story, which is really interesting. Can you hang on just a moment? I'll be right with you. Yeah, Mike Chakarsky. We'll talk about this here in just a minute, okay? When it comes to buying or selling a house, you don't take advice from artificial intelligence. Hey, it's Lars. A good... News Talk 1063, KMED.

You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. You may have heard the story recently how the Department of Transportation in D.C. is holding California to account because it has refused to revoke 17,000 illegal alien truck drivers, their CDLs, their commercial driver's licenses. They have not, well, I guess that, you know, we need illegal truck drivers to do the work that legal truck drivers. to do the work that legal truck drivers won't do. And that's why I invited Mike Kacharski to come on the show. He's the co-owner and vice president of JKC trucking. Mike, I'm glad you called in this morning and we get a chance to meet again.

Tell us about JKC trucking, if you don't mind. Pretty big group out of Chicago, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, thank you for having your show again. So, yeah, what we do at jiggy-ecee trucking, we're based out of the south side of Chicago. We specialize in LPL, which means less than truckload. We do a palette or more from the Midwest, the whole west coast. We have two terminals in California, and we go to the whole west coast, to southeast, and obviously back from the west to the Midwest.

And we feed the American people every day. Okay. Well, from the south side of Chicago, according to that old song, it's the baddest part of town. Is that true? You know the bad bad Lee Roy Brown? It's a little rougher on the edges. Okay, all right. That's where the trucking thing will be.

That's fine. Hey, over at JKC, you probably have a dog in this fight then when you see this story that Gavin Newsive is not wanting to bend the knee to the Department of Transportation. And they said, hey, you know, you can't have these illegal aliens and these shifty people with commercial driver's licenses. Did I characterize it correctly, Mike? No, you characterize it. You hit the nail right on the head. You know, what has happened is, you know, Sean W. has shine the light on these undocumented drivers getting commercial driver's license. than what he did, he caught California.

He actually went to the DMV, and the person from the DMV said they issued 17,000 CDL licenses, commercial driver licenses, that was CDLB, to people that they knew had expired work visa. And Sean Duffy, being obviously the gatekeeper of the federal moral carrier, said, hey, you need to revoke these licenses. And California is struggling to revoke these licenses. I don't know why. But, you know, this is a problem because this is an eye-opening and concerning problem, because there's a serious safety crisis on American roads. You know, you guys see it on the news every day.

Sure. And pretending it's not happening is no longer option. You know, the trucking industry runs on trust. You know, from a safety standpoint, this kind of enforcement matters to me, to my family. Think about it. Every morning we put our kids on school buses. Millions of commuters had to work in their cars. Millions of families will be traveling for the holidays.

And they trust the professionals driving 80,000-pound trucks around them can read road time, understand safety command, react in emergencies, you know, commercial, houses. Well, yeah, rate a road sign that says bridge out or something, right? You know, those kind of things, right? All that kind of stuff. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Or runaway truck ramp, you know, this obviously is in the mountains, but all these things are necessary that drivers must be able to read.

And they're catching drivers with zero English, can't read the road signs and they're getting put out of service. And, you know, I thank Sean Duffy for doing this and all the states taking advantage of this or helping Wyoming, Oklahoma, Indiana, all these states are Florida. They're helping pull these drivers off the road because these guys are ticking time bombs. It's only a matter of time until they kill more people. Is the problem here, Mike, that there still aren't enough people, not enough drivers willing to become truck drivers? I'm just wondering if there's a reason that all of a sudden they feel that they have to have illegal aliens with CDLs in. California. So, no, great question. Pre-COVID, we were short drivers, right? But after COVID

happened, you know, inflation hit and truckers are dealing with something called volume volatility. All the volumes are down because inflation is up. People are consuming less. American people are eating less. When volumes go down, the price goes down, right? And what happens is truckers are fighting for the freight's been given to the lowest bear. So the truckers are struggling to begin with that. Our costs are skyrocketing. They're still high. Now we have to fight for the lowest. bidders. And then we have this illegal truck drivers coming, there's foreign competition, undercutting our costs because do you think they're playing, paying, excuse me, for training insurance or paying taxes? You know, they live in their

truck. You know, they're already undercutting a low market. And this is why when you open up the paper, last year, over 20,000 trucking companies went out of business because this is competition. No, hold on. I want to make sure I heard that correctly. You said 20,000 trucking companies went out of business? Really? Correct. Yes, sir. If you Google it, it's all in the transfer topics, all of them. Over 20,000 trucking companies.

I've gone to business, yes. Man, you know, that's a scary statistic, Mike, because, you know, you just can't crank that stuff up on a whim, right? I mean, it takes time, and the drivers go, and maybe they have to go find different kind of jobs, and, you know, things pick up, gosh, you know,

I'm just concerned that if things do start cranking up more in the economy. There's nobody to move it and ends up being a choke point in the economy. Is that a fair concern? Of course, yeah. That definitely could happen because, you know, all this is done is killed the American dream and the American trucker, which, you know, you have to remember these businesses that are going out of business have been generations of businesses, 60, 80 years in business, and they just couldn't make it. I mean, I was we're barely struggling on. All trucking companies are barely struggling on to get through it because of these

low market and high costs. We're waiting for better times to come. And this was another reason. So on top of the blow that we dealt with COVID, with low volume inflation, on top of that, they threw, they poured gasoline all over trucking business by putting these drivers in and going under, underbidding us. You know, 10 roads trucking. Only does mail.

They went out of business this January. 2,000 drivers, I want to say, went out of national carrier. He only did mail. And obviously, you saw the fraud of mail. they caught a guy, give him bids, and they obviously, a lot of this mail into these illegal truckers, I assume, you know what I mean, just by rating things. And a company like that taking a hit because of this illegal competition, I mean, it's on American. It's like a perfect, you know, scenario to destroy the trucking business in America. Mike Kacharski, once again, he's the co-owner and vice president of JKC trucking.

Now, you had said that it is still tough in the trucking industry. Now, is it one of those things where gasoline is a lot less expensive, but I haven't seen diesel come down. Is that true? Or I haven't seen it come down commensurately? Maybe it has gone down, but I haven't noticed that. No, diesel prices are definitely a Thor and ultra-tracker's side. Not only have they been high, they're coming down, but there's a huge lag. And I hate, and I understand why there's such a lack.

Gasoline will come down and diesel will come down, but very, very slowly, much slower. takes months for it to come down for the truckers to feel it. And, you know, what has happened in the last couple of years, obviously with the war, it would come down. You know, Ukraine would set off a bomb. It would go back up. I feel now it's coming down and it hopefully stays where it's at and slowly trickles down to a reasonable amount

because one of our top cost is paying the driver, fuel, and insurance. You know, those are our three top costs. So we need to save some money. so more truckers stay in business and are around to keep. Yeah, and you don't want illegal alien competition depressing it even more. Okay, so I appreciate this then. So Sean Duffy is doing a good thing then, cracking down, because I guess what he did is because California has refused to get rid of these truckers.

I guess they're taking away $160 million in safe highway funds of some sort. So, I mean, when you start talking about money, that usually gets people's attention. doesn't it? He take away the money. I hope so, yeah. It should because California is thinking that these truckers only operate in the state of California. No, they don't. Because soon as they get a license, they start traveling all over America. If they only stayed in California, it would be California's problem. But it's America's problem because these drivers are going to Florida,

killing people, doing U-turns. Obviously, you guys had the death in California. The guy, the traffic stopped. The driver didn't even know. It didn't tap the brakes. We went right into all the people, killed four people. You know, it's a tragedy. Things like this shouldn't happen. Accidents do happen, but that was, I mean, I feel that was under-trained, and the guy didn't even tap the brakes, which is kind of very questionable about that. Yeah. Like, he didn't even try to slow down.

You know, I have another question about California trucking. I recall a rule that was going to go into effect, which was going to require them many truck drivers to have electric trucks, or there was some rule about that at some point. Did that go away because it just wasn't going to happen? or maybe it was electric trucks to service the port of L.A. Do you recall what happened with that? Is there anything new to report about that? So, yeah, they kind of put that to the side. California demanded they're going to do all electric trucks to all heavy

new trucks to be, I want to say, 2030. But the problem with electric trucks is, number one, they're expensive. They don't get the same range. Infrastructure is not there. You know, California, last two summers, last three summers, I believe, when it gets hot in California, they're going in the news and telling everybody, hey, listen, don't charge your electric car, don't do laundry, don't turn down your thermostat. You can't do that with your semi-truck, right? You can't do that. You can't do that.

Not charged. Imagine that one truck charges, so they said, and I remember this, this is correctly, one truck charging consumes the energy of 120 houses. And I want to say there's like over 600,000 big rigs in the state of California. Where are they going to get this energy? It's not there. It's not there unless, you know, California has some kind of alien technology that could power all these trucks. Well, hey, if they get the alien technology, maybe they can share it with us, Mike. But I remember also that story about the, there was that truck driver.

No, it was an electric truck manufacturer that fraudulently got everybody investing in it because they showed the video of the truck rolling, this big fabulous electric truck, and then it ended up that it was rolling downhill because they couldn't make it work. So they videotape it rolling downhill. And I got to tell you, that agenda is not working out real well, is it? Yeah, that was a scam. And it's just unbelievable that people at this age of time could do something like that. You know, it's just, you know, shame on them.

Shame on them and shame on us for believing them. All right. Now, the question I would have for you, though, finally, you know, back to this whole lot, idea of illegal truck drivers. What does the rank and file in the truck driving world think about this? Are they in favor of what Duffy and everybody else is trying to do and get these illegal aliens off the road? Yeah, I mean, so it's two things. It's safety and another thing is it's protecting American jobs and ensuring the integrity of our workforce.

You know, it's absolutely essential. Look, I mean, my primary concern, I believe everybody's primary concern is, It's always going to be who's behind the wheel. Are they a law-buying trucker, paying for training, insurance, compliance, when others, you know, cut corners and undercuttruckers doing the right thing, the right way. You know, if you, like I said earlier, if you look it up, 20,000 trucking companies have been out of business killing the American dream and trucker, you know, for small trucking business like mine, enforcement keeps things honest,

fair and protects the jobs of law-abiding citizens and puts America jobs first. It protects honest operators from being priced out by unsafe, illegal competition. If we have safe drivers on the road, run by legitimate business, this keeps American public safe, and we all win. Mike Kacharski once again, the co-owner and vice president of JKC trucking. You had mentioned 20,000 trucking companies went out of business where a lot of those small independence, and I'm warning if you just got to get big or you... You know, it was independent and big trucking companies. Tyson shut down a huge operation, the chicken people, that 600 trucks they parked last year.

Like I said, 10 roads went out of business. CRST is going out of business. That's a huge company out of Iowa. I have so many drivers. They have a great driver training program that I had so many drivers come from there. They're shutting down. CRST was the cornerstone of American, teaching American new drivers to drive. They had a great program.

They would send drivers out with trainer drivers for months of the time. They would travel all across America, really learned to be a well-rounded truck driver, a safe driver, before they let you go in your own truck on your own. It was a solid trading program, and such a shame that company's been around 100 years, maybe, maybe almost 100 years. I don't know where to start, but a long, long time, way before me. Mike, and they're going out of business. Mike, I appreciate you sharing the alert. You know, these are the kind of stories we don't really hear much about 20,000.

Not hearing much about that. I'm glad you have brought some love on this story, okay? Mike Kacharski once again, co-owner, vice president of JKC Trucking. Got a website there? People can read up on you? Yes, sir. It's jkccrucking.com. Pretty simple.

Mike, thank you so much for joining the show. Okay? Be well. Thank you for support. This is KMED. KMED HD1. Eagle Point Medford, KBXG grants pass. For precision.