Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-23-25_THURSDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Media presenting a very sympathetic case for the homeless removal in Grants Pass...how many used the mission?? Not many? Joe Guzzardi joins me, immigration reform analyst - Oregon ALREADy breaking Fed law on immigration. Could that be useful?

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Good morning and happy Conspiracy Theory Thursday, January 23rd of 2025. A chilly 27 near the Rogue Valley International Airport. Appreciate you listening wherever you happen to be. And join the conversation at 770-5633-770-KMED. My email is bill at billmyershow.com. Interesting for the recent stories, I've noticed that the local news media, the TV stations and the newspapers and such, they're all getting involved in paying attention to what's been going on in Grants Pass with the changing around of some of their homeless encampments

where they're no longer allowed just to be 24-7 campsites, and you're allowed to more or less sleep, and sleep at night only. And Julie Anderson's writing in the Daily Courier, with a homeless camping site next to the Grants Pass Police Department now restricted to overnight stays only, Laurie Momney sat nearby on the side of the road Tuesday afternoon not knowing where to go. Spine and heart problems making it difficult for her to carry her belongings and relocate. Homeless people required to leave the small fence property on tuesday morning so that it could close for the day well really what they're doing is complying with the supreme court

directives you know the law is saying that hey you know you don't have to set up homeless campsites then that are 24 7 people need a place to be able to sleep and rest it And it's an attempt for Grants Pass, in my opinion, to take back its city. And it is making for very sympathetic television. And I was watching both KOBI 5 and Channel 12 Newswatch 12, and both of them had stories about it. There was one I was watching on KDRV Newswatch. Like I said, I watch both of the 5 o'clocks. You know, I TVO them, not TVO them, but DVR them and then watch them.

And they're all over this. And I even know Rocky, one of the reporters, talked, oh, there's a lot of emotion, a lot of very emotional event. And this is as some of the homeless encampments are being picked up and moved on. People are having to take all of their possessions, you know, lots and lots of, you know, tarps and tents and various other things and move along. And it's very sympathetic. You know, I get that. And I'll bet you do, too, because, you know, it's a real human struggle that we find ourselves here in Southern Oregon. And yet, when I was watching on KDRV, they were interviewing one homeless guy, and he had the look of a serious drinker, right?

But the reporter had mentioned that not all homeless people are dealing with addiction. And so they end up talking with this one guy. And he was just going on and on about we're not bad people. And you could tell by looking at him that he has a serious or that he looks like he has a serious drinking problem. I could be wrong. But we all know the look. Everybody knows the look of people who are dealing with the demons we know and and this is what people really don't want to talk about and

when i say people i'm talking about government because coming out of the tina kotech office and even back with uh barack obama's whole thing about housing first all we have to do is give people houses and the problem is fixed except that you know people who are living under tarps and are not working and are not capable of working and are either drinking themselves to death or having uh you know fentanyl and other illicit drug addictions and things like that, giving people a house doesn't fix that problem. And where do you go with something like that? And they were even talking about this, what are these people going to do now that it is cold? And it's been very cold at night this week. We know this, right?

There's the Gospel Rescue Mission. I don't know if there's anybody listening who knows somebody who knows somebody. Does anybody know if the Gospel Rescue Mission had any room at the Rescue Mission this week? Was there any room or were all the beds taken? This is a serious question. I haven't had time to reach out. I'm just looking at the headlines on papers and remembering what I watched last night. What happened? What's going on there? I'm going to venture a guess that there was plenty of room or that there was some room at the Gospel Rescue Mission to handle homeless. The homeless that were portrayed very sympathetically, and we can understand, you know, you show up and you've got people that are really down in the dumps and in a rough state.

But I'd be willing to bet you that they didn't go to the Gospel Rescue Mission. And one of the reasons why they probably didn't want to go to the gospel rescue mission is that you're not allowed to drink and do drugs and smoke and do various other things which are counterproductive to getting over your addictions. So these are choices that are being made. And when I saw this one guy that was being interviewed by the Newswatch 12 crew, and he was just going on and on and on and very sympathetic, but he looked like a serious drinker.

And it just so happens I had listener Jim who wrote me overnight, and I think this is interesting because he saw the same story that I did, right? And Jim writes, Bill, KDRV did an interview with a homeless guy, Jeff. I'm going to leave the last name of it out right now. But anyway, Jim says, I know him well. My wife and I took him off the street. Lived with us for five years. He chose to move out because I had rules.

He stole from us, drank booze that I brought back from Germany that I can never replace. He has a brother that lives close to us. He won't let him live with him due to him always being drunk and wanting to fight. So much more we did for him. That story they reported on is nothing but BS. Jim, I saw that very same story on Newswatch. And I have a feeling that when you have, especially young reporters going out, young reporters don't have a lot of institutional memory. And I know how I would have looked at that if I was a 22-year-old reporter that just came out of school someplace, you know. Of course, now that I'm 63, all the reporters look to me like they're in high school,

like they're teenagers, you know how that goes. But it's very sad. I'm sure that if I'd gone out there with a camera and my iPhone and I'm getting ready to write a heart-rending or heart-wrenching story, rather, for the television, I'd look at that and go, oh, these people, they're suffering, they're suffering, and they are suffering, and they are suffering. But with rare exception, most of it is still a self-inflicted gunshot wound,

and it's very sad that people are doing this. There are homes, there are places to go to get help, but you have to want to change. You have to be willing to forego drinking or the next shot of fentanyl. Now, there is another problem, though, with the homeless so-called community that is worthy of discussion is that many of them have dogs. And I understand why many of them have dogs, because if you're living out on the streets or living out in the encampments, you want something not only that is probably going to be your companion, but also for security issues, too. Because, let's be honest, it is dangerous to be out there a concrete camper all the time.

That complicates, I would imagine, that complicates the ability for someone to be able to take and go into a shelter, wouldn't you think? I mean, that's a tough one. There's a lot of complexity to this, but I remember watching that Newswatch story the other day, and I'm singing, and he's saying, you know, like we're all bad people or we're all addicted. And no, you're not all addicted, but there's a real, real good percentage addicted. And the guy that I saw on Newswatch, I'm pretty sure is the same one that Jim was talking about in the email to me saying, hey, listen, we've been helping this guy for years because he looked like a heavy drinker. We all know what the look is. We know what the look of the tweaker is. we know what the look of the tweaker is we

know what the look of the drinker is and i don't blame the liberal kids coming out of journalism school to come out there you know they got big hearts and they see this but it's a little more complicated than just oh isn't the city of grants pass being a big bunch of meanies because they're not uh having everything next to the police department being a big bunch of meanies because they're not having everything next to the police department being a 24-7 campground, you know, set up for people who, honestly, many of them don't want to follow rules. They don't want to follow rules or they think they can't follow the rules and they're not willing.

In other words, they still, they love the booze and the drugs more than they would love being properly housed. They haven't learned to dislike the booze and the drugs more up to this point. Now, granted, there are some. There are some in these encampments that find themselves older, disabled. They really have no ability. Rentals are in short supply, and when they are, they're very expensive. Those are tougher cases. I get that.

And they would probably be worthy if you had affordable housing, if they're still able to function responsibly. But if you're drinking and drugged out and involved in all that kind of activity, you're probably not responsible enough to take on whatever housing might be given to you if there was a house to give to you. And so I understand why the television folks go out there and cover it, because it's very sympathetic and it grabs the eyeballs. And, you know, eye blubs, rather. I was nicknamed eyeballs, you know, the eye blubs out there. It gets our eyeballs out there. But there was housing for a lot of those people that most likely went unused because they don't want to follow rules.

And that's a choice. That's a choice. And I'm concerned that as time goes on, you know, maybe some of those people will die, you know, from those choices. But these individuals have to be caring for their lives or caring about their lives more than we do. This is the Bill Myers Show, 22 minutes after 6. Just a thought about that.

And Jim, thank you very much for writing. I'm going to give Jim an email of the day, emails of the day, sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson at Central Point Family Dentistry. CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. It's right next door to the Mazatlan Mexican restaurant in Central Point. Good people, good experience over there too. 22 after 6. Oregon Truck and Auto Authority is LifeLock.com

and save up to 40% off your first year with promo code CLAY. Terms apply. Hi, I'm Mark with Oregon Truck and Auto Authority, and I'm on KMED. Okay, it is Conspiracy Theory Thursday, 770-5633. Tracy's up in Mount Vernon. How are you doing this morning, Tracy? You had a question. Go ahead.

We've got the same temperature up here as we do down there. So this impacts the local Medford area and southern Oregon. So what's that? I don't know if you've been tracking the news and the trades that Allen Media Group, Jay Allen and all those folks that own a whole slew of TV stations, including Channel 12 in Medford, the one repeater over in Klamath Falls, and Channel 9 up in Eugene, are all ditching their local weather meteorologists. Yeah, that was a big story. It has been. In fact, I had it. It's so funny you brought it up. I have it in my hands.

I printed out a day or two ago. I know that Greg Roberts over at Rogue Weather has been covering this story a bit, but it's now kind of broken out in the national news. And what they're going to be doing is ditching the local meteorologist and replacing it with a reporter from the Weather Channel because they own the Weather Channel. And you can see what's going on. It's a cost reduction move, which is happening, no doubt. So I have seen this done before.

There's outfits out of, like, Louisiana or whatever, and they would do national spots, local weather produced for, you know, very small markets, very small markets. It just doesn't work. And the poor folks in Southern Oregon, I mean, come on, the weather down there, it never changes. Let's face it. It doesn't? No. I'm being facetious. Oh, oh, oh, okay.

All right. Because I can almost see that in Southern California quite often. But, you know, around here, this is actually one of the more difficult, one of the top five most difficult markets to forecast weather in, which is why I think that, you know, the local weather meteorologists have had, you know, such good runs there. But what it's really indicating, Tracy, it's, I'm not blaming the company that owns the stations because having been inside the radio broadcasting industry, many of the same kind of pressures have hit over a number of years with legacy media.

And a lot of this, some of it is Google. Google has more or less been eating everybody's advertising lunches. And, you know, this has been going on for a long time, you know, but it's not considered a monopoly, of course. It's kind of funny how that works. But it is – a lot of the news is very labor-intensive, which means a lot of people. And that's exactly what has become insanely expensive. And you can see where this is going, can't you, honestly? Oh, yes. But sadly, this is a place where the younger generation of broadcasters would learn their trade, their craft, and it's not going to be there for them.

Nope, not as a meteorologist. to KDRV 12 right now is what happened to Channel 10, KTVL, a little while ago, in which they practically ditched all the local coverage. Everyone has had to find ways, and I mean everyone, everyone, has had to find ways to trim expenses. And one of the ways that, well, even look at me. I'm a one-horse guy, right? i'm a one horse guy i'm not sitting around here with uh staff i you know and and i'm not complaining i'm i'm proud to be able to continue to uh you know to be here and perform this uh the service but i do everything here

including engineering for the various uh radio stations stations that we have in here, too. And everyone's having to wear multiple hats. And it's finally hitting television in a much more direct way. Radio already had that hit us back in the late 1990s. So I'm more or less used to it, Tracy. So I understand what's going on. It's not happy, but that's just reality. It's the money. Okay? All happy, but it's just reality. It's the money.

Okay? All right. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? It does. But there are places like I had a relative in Port Orford. They would get hit with hurricane force winds all the time during the winter. And that local automated weather just doesn't really tell the big story.

And it doesn't really have that soul satisfying. I mean, I know as funny as it is, you know, to have the local meteorologists go out there in the middle of a big storm. You know, you've seen the kind of television like that. I mean, we laugh at that kind of stuff. But it's like, all right, it's organic. It's somebody that's in on it. But I would imagine that what has really also happened, which will hurt the KDRVs and various other folks, is that the rise of streaming media in television

has really probably put ratings and the number of eyeballs at any one time in uh in jeopardy because you just don't have to sit down at certain times to be able to see the shows anymore like you once did and i think that has affected the ability to monetize a lot of this and yet the costs are still there it's still expensive in fact it's it's ever more expensive to uh to run the transmitters and the studios and everything else, and something has to give. And probably what it is is they want to make sure and keep the news coverage going. So what is the lowest hanging fruit that they can save a buck or two?

Now, I don't know this. I'm just saying from the outside and being in the media industry, that's probably what the company was saying. What's the lowest hanging fruit? What can we most live without without uh without cutting the meat well while we already own all these mill these uh national meteorologists that do reporting for all over the country we'll just plug them in here and so i guess that's what we're going to see how that will be received i can't say yet okay i appreciate the call. Thanks, Tracy. 630 at KMED, 99.3 KBXG.

Now then, other big national news here. Some immigration raids have been happening. Oregon, meanwhile, is suing the Trump administration, along with 21 other states, over the birthright citizenship issue. And they're also trying to strengthen our administration here in the state of Oregon to resist Trump and to make sure that state workers resist Trump. Funny thing is, I'm going to talk with Joe Gazzardi about this. He's an immigration analyst, has been doing this for a long, long time. And the state of Oregon is

actually breaking the law. And I'm wondering if perhaps the United States of America will start coming after Oregon in a big way. Joe writes about this, and I'll talk with him in just a few after our local news here on KMED 99.3 KBXG. Short and chilly days are an opportune time to work on the interior of your home. Send off your first year with promo code CLAY. Terms apply. Hi, I'm Mark with Oregon Truck and Auto Authority, and I'm on KMED. Okay, it is Conspiracy Theory Thursday, 770-5633. Tracy's up in Mount Vernon.

How are you doing this morning, Tracy? You had a question. Go ahead. We've got the same temperature up here as we do down there. So this impacts local Medford area and southern Oregon. So what's that? I don't know if you've been tracking the news and the trades that Allen Media Group, Jay Allen and all those folks that own a whole slew of TV stations, including Channel 12 in Medford, the one repeater over in Klamath Falls, and Channel 9 up in Eugene, are all ditching their local weather meteorologist. Yeah, that was a big story. It has been.

In fact, I had it. It's so funny you brought it up. I have it in my hands. I printed it out a day or two ago. I know that Greg Roberts over at Rogue Weather has been covering this story a bit, but it's now kind of broken out in the national news. And what they're going to doing is uh ditching the local meteorologist and replacing it with a reporter from the weather channel because they own the weather channel and you can see what's going on it's a cost reduction move which is happening no doubt so

so i have seen this done before uh there's a there's outfits out of like uh louisiana or whatever and they would do national spots, local weather produced for very small markets, very small markets. It just doesn't work. And the poor folks in Southern Oregon, I mean, come on, the weather down there, it never changes. Let's face it. It doesn't?

No. I'm being facetious. Oh, okay. All right. It doesn't? No. I beat physicians. Oh, okay. All right. Because I can almost see that in Southern California quite often. But, you know, around here, this is actually one of the more difficult, one of the top five most difficult markets to forecast weather in, which is why I think that, you know, the local weather meteorologists have had, you know, such good runs there. But what it's really indicating, Tracy,

I'm not blaming the company that owns the stations because having been inside the radio broadcasting industry, many of the same kind of pressures have hit over a number of years with legacy media. And a lot of this, some of it is Google. Google has more or less been eating everybody's advertising lunches. And, you know, this has been going on for a long time, you know, but it's not considered a monopoly, of course. It's kind of funny how that works.

But it is, a lot of the news is very labor intensive, which means a lot of people. And that's exactly what has become insanely expensive. And you can see where this is going, can't you, honestly? Oh, yes. But sadly, this is a place where the younger generation of broadcasters would learn their trade and their craft, and it's not going to be there for them. Nope, not as a meteorologist. Well, essentially, I'm just kind of wondering if what's happening to KDRV-12 right now is what happened to Channel 10, KTVL, a little while ago, in which they practically ditched all the local coverage.

Everyone has had to find ways, and I mean everyone, everyone, has had to find ways to trim expenses. And one of the ways that, well, even look at me. I'm a one-horse guy, right? I'm a one-horse guy. I'm not sitting around here with staff, you know, and I'm not complaining. I'm proud to be able to continue to be here and perform this service. But I do everything here, including engineering for the various radio stations that we have in here, too.

And everyone's having to wear multiple hats. And it's finally hitting television in a much more direct way. Radio already had that hit us back in the late 1990s. So I'm more or less used to it, Tracy. So I understand what's going on. It's not happy, but it's just reality. It's the money. Okay. All right. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? It does. But there are places like, I had a relative in Port Orford, you know, they would get hit with hurricane force winds all the time during the winter. And, you know, that local, you know, the automated weather just doesn't really tell the big story. And it doesn't really have that soul satisfying. I mean, I know as funny as it is, you know, to have the local meteorologists go out there in the middle of a big storm, you've seen the kind of television like that.

I mean, we laugh at that kind of stuff. But it's like, all right, it's organic. It's somebody that's in on it. is that the rise of streaming media in television has really put the, you know, probably put ratings and the number of eyeballs at any one time in jeopardy because you just don't have to sit down at certain times to be able to see the shows anymore like you once did. And I think that has affected the ability to monetize a lot of this. And yet the costs are still there. It's still expensive.

In fact, it's ever more expensive to run the transmitters and the studios and everything else. And something has to give. And probably what it is is they want to make sure and keep the news coverage going. So what is the lowest hanging fruit that they can save a buck or two? Now, I don't know this. I'm just saying from the outside and being in the media industry, that's probably what the company was saying. Okay? What's the lowest hanging fruit?

What can we most live without cutting the meat? While we already own all these national meteorologists that do reporting for all over the country, we'll just plug them in here. And so I guess that's what we're going to see. How that will be received, I can't say yet. Okay? I appreciate the call. Thanks, Tracy. 630 at KMED, 99.3 KBXG.

Now then, other big national news here. Some immigration raids have been happening. Oregon, meanwhile, is suing the Trump administration, along with 21 other states, over the birthright citizenship issue. And they're also trying to strengthen our administration here in the state of Oregon to resist Trump and to make sure that state workers resist Trump. Funny thing is, I'm going to talk with Joe Guzzardi about this. He's an immigration analyst, has been doing this for a long, long time.

And the state of Oregon is actually breaking the law and i'm wondering if perhaps the united states of america will start coming after oregon in a big way joe writes about this and i'll talk with him in just a few after our local news here on kmed 99.3 kbxg short and chilly days are an opportune time to work on the interior of your home single Eagle Point, Jacksonville, and everywhere in between. VM Auto Works. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. 22 states suing the Trump administration for his executive order ending birthright citizenship. Oregon is one of them now i'm not surprised that oregon is doing this but

are they actually already violating united states law and it appears to be so and it'll be interesting to see where this goes and so i wanted to talk about joe gazzari a friend of mine he's an institute for sound public policy analyst he has been writing about immigration for what more than 30 years you've been doing this? Isn't that right, Joe? Welcome back to the show. Unbelievable, but still at it. I know. And you've been hammering away and hammering away and hammering away. And it looks like finally we may be actually getting some positive movement and getting some control

back. Wouldn't you agree? It looks as encouraging as it has in any time during those 30 years that i've been covering the issue that's good that's good the thing being though no doubt i i could have almost predicted it like three two one boom our attorney general our new attorney general uh kami attorney, decides to sue the Trump administration over this birthright citizenship thing. Now, I have a silly question first off to you, is why would any state care about the birthright citizenship issue in the first place? Why, you know, why is it a state fight is what I'm kind of curious.

Doesn't that surprise you, honestly? Well, of all the things, of all the things to get hot and bothered about? It is extremely surprising because if you were to make a ledger and say, okay, now what, you know, and view it from an American citizen's point of view, what are the pluses and minuses of birthright citizenship to me, the taxpayer? Well, you know, I can't really see any right offhand. Well, one of them, I think to me, the most important benefit here in Southern Oregon is that we fill the schools with very expensive English as a second language students in many cases.

You would have all of those costs. You would have the cost of education. You would have the cost of medical care. You would have all of the, you know, with people whose parents have no ties whatsoever to the United States. And, of course, birthright citizenship is a huge inducement to come to the United States illegally. We have seen countless pictures during Biden's four years of extremely pregnant women crossing the border and coming into the United States to, among other things, have citizen children, which in turn makes the illegal immigrants who have had those children much more difficult to deport or have historically made them more difficult to deport. And perhaps that's the reason why the state of Oregon decided to join in on this lawsuit, because if you make it more difficult to deport illegal aliens, period, all the better, because

of sanctuary status, sanctuary state and sanctuary city status that has actually been a part of state law since the late 1980s really it's how long we've been doing that here well we're hoping that president trump takes a good hard look at that because uh that certainly is a violation of federal immigration law and the supremacy clause should take care of that. But the important thing is that the Trump administration dig in on this, you know, dig in and hang tight and see it through. I want to talk a little bit more about that hanging tight and maybe things that the Trump administration could do to Oregon to persuade us to actually follow the law. And, no, one thing I wanted to mention, though, is that the supremacy clause can sometimes be misinterpreted by people, Joe, and I think you would agree on this, is that, well, if it's a federal law, that means it trumps state law.

That's not always true. And it has to do with whether or not the state or the federal government is in its lane. I think the term is, you know, under its jurisdiction or within its enumerated powers, you know, that kind of thing. You understand where I'm coming from at this point? But the thing is, it's very clearly known, a court precedent over the years that immigration law and policy is supremely set by the federal government and the federal government only it's not supposed to be a state government issue which is why the courts have always knocked down other states like texas who have tried to enforce immigration law right that's how they've

been hurt on the other side of that of of the supremacy clause, correct? Yes, yes. The issue is, as you point out, immigration is definitely under federal law, and all of these sanctuary cities and sanctuary states and all of these other things, which now the governors and the mayors boast about. You know, they are, we're up to something like 300 sanctuary cities. You have, what, at least a dozen? Oh, yeah. In the state. And the entire state is considered a sanctuary state by state law. However, tell us about these U.S. code laws.

I'm not even aware of these. And here it is. I just thought, well, hey, we declared ourselves a sanctuary state, Joe, back in 1987. And that's all there is to it. The federal government can't do much about that. What's the law actually say in D.C.? Well, the law says, are we talking about the funding programs now? No, I'm talking about USC 1373 and 1644, which you write about. And I'm going to post your article today.

It's an excellent article. Okay. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Bill. Well, the laws say that no state or local government may prohibit or in any way restrict local officials from communicating with immigration authorities about a person's immigration status. I think 13 other states throughout the country are doing. You know, they have these laws which say, basically, look, you're not you. The local officials are not allowed to cooperate with ICE or any other immigration officials that may be coming to the jails or may want to come to the jails to remove a criminal. So that's, you know, that's where it is. And that violates two federal immigration laws, 8 U.S.C. 1373 and 8 U.S.C. 1644. So there's no question that that's what's going on in Oregon and, you know, many other states across the country. cudgel that can more or less just beat Governor Kotek politically over the head with a law

which would seem to just completely knock the stuffing out of the sanctuary state staff, the laws that have been put in place here. They have, for I suppose political correctness reasons, never really decided to, you know, look, we're coming in, the law is on your side, is on our side, I'm talking now about the ICE officials, the law is on our side, and we are coming in no matter what you say or do. In fact, you could conceivably arrest the people that are refusing to allow ICE to enter the local jails and remove criminals. Would this even rise to the level of going after county sheriffs and police departments, things like that? Sure.

Anybody that interferes? I think Tom Homan has suggested that he would be willing to do that. He was, I think, referring to Governor J.B. Pritzker in Illinois and also the mayor of Boston, Michelle Woo. He said, well, you know, if you want to stand in the way, that's your decision. But I would have absolutely no difficulty in arresting you. It's a violation of federal law so well hallman's a bulldog you have to laugh when you watch him say yeah i'm going to come in and uh take care yeah we're going to take care of uh reuniting we're going to make sure that we don't have to reunite families we'll deport the family with the guy

you know that kind of thing it's just like well yeah does. It does seem to me that he would be the guy to go up against because as you point out, he's a, he's a bulldog. He's, he's been at this issue for a long time. You know, have you ever seen that video online here? And I know I'm bringing up almost like a meme video. Did you ever see the honey badger video that people would joke about? Did you ever see that in your life, Joe, the honey badger? No, but I will. There's a famous video, look it up, in which there's a honey badger,

and the honey badger is going through everything. And basically, honey badger don't give, well, an excrement, is it? That's the line that's repeated time and time again. That's what Tom Holman reminds me of, honey badger. You're going to call me names. I don't care. I'm going to come in. I'm going to arrest your butt anyway.

Yeah, it's clear that he is sincere about pursuing the lawbreakers, whether they are criminal aliens or mayors or governors. I mean, it wouldn't be. Think of media coverage if Tom Homan were to arrest the sheriff in Medford on charges involving protecting illegal immigrants. Well, here is what's going to be happening, though, I imagine, because the state of Oregon has been going to all of its agencies and its employees and making sure that they don't do anything to help. Now, if helping is communicating with federal immigration officials, I don't know the actual definition. I would have to find out a little bit more about this over time. But they've made it clear, hey, you don't help these actual definition. I would have to find out a little bit more about this over time.

But they've made it clear, hey, you don't help these people or else you're going to be fired. And I wonder if – but, of course, on the other hand, our elected sheriffs are our elected officials. So they probably don't have to worry about teeing off the governor in one form or another. Well, maybe they still have to worry about it, but for different reasons. I don't know. How would you handle this? This is sticky. It's like, whose law are you going to violate? Are you going to violate Tina Kotek's law, or are you going to violate the United States of America's law? You know, which one are you going to hold, is going to hold sway? I guess we're going to have to be asking ourselves a lot of questions in the sheriff's offices, huh? Well, it is going to be tricky, and it is going to be interesting to see

how it plays out. But I'm quite sure that Tom Holman is going to pursue people who violate or break immigration laws. And, you know, perhaps his mission is okay. He's talked a lot about Illinois. Perhaps we're going to go on ahead and make an example of Tom, not Tom Homan, but Chicago Mayor Johnson or J.B. Pritzker. Yeah, well, Joe Biden administration had no problem making examples of all the J6ers as they went with political prosecutions. But the law wasn't on their side, as we're out uh i mean that's a very interesting point joe biden had absolutely no difficulty uh breaking immigration law and admitting 10 million or more illegal aliens into the country and a lot of other things that we don't really have enough time to go into. So if he can ignore the law, then why can't Donald Trump enforce the law?

I mean, it's crazy. It's all crazy. The sanctuary city and state stuff and all of that, you know, I kind of compare it to not going to the dentist. Say you're a guy who hasn't been to the dentist for 25 years. And finally you go and the dentist says, okay, well, you know, we've got root canals and you're going to have to get dentures and so forth. And the bill is going to be $25,000. And then the dentist says, it would have been so much easier if you had just come to my office once every six months and kept on top of it.

And that's the way i look at immigration if only we had begun to to address these obvious problems immediately instead of letting the mushroom into this giant big headache nationwide you know where you've got in which we're told that you can't do anything just because everything is so intertwined and messed up right to do To do anything at all is just horrible. Horrible, you know, horrible beyond means. I mean, there have been all of these stories about birthright citizenship and all of these attorney generals saying, oh, you know, it's unconstitutional. Well, we don't know that.

And instead of just leaving the argument there, my view is that it's unconstitutional. You have attorney generals like the one in Arizona who says, well, this is all clearly just Trump's idea of creating a concentration camp i mean there's no no he doesn't want a concentration camp he wants them gone he wants them out of here he wants them out of the country he doesn't want a concentration camp concentration camp that's another expense on that i mean you get all of these uh grossly exaggerated uh statements about how you know people are in fear for their lives, you know, like the— Yeah, the bishop the other day. Yeah, the bishop the other day. It just—to get back to what you asked originally, how does all of this make any sense, and who benefits from it?

Okay, the illegal alien benefits, the child born in the United States benefits, and the parents benefit, but nobody else does. No citizen really benefits from it. Unless you want to look at people that were employed, people who employed the illegal aliens. Right, that. But the rest of it is just a huge cost and then there are the associated problems like crowding and so forth schools hospitals roads you know we're talking all the time here joe by the way joe gazzardi is a analyst, more than 30 years at Institute for Sound Policy, Sound Public Policy, okay?

IFSIPP.org, by the way. I'll get all your information up, as always. You know, you do think that this has been such a sticky wicket to try to take control of this now. What role do you think, though, that federal funding might play? Because I have been telling our governments, our local governments, not to take the federal grants because you always find yourself under the strings of the federal government, and yet they do it all the time.

They want to repave the street, and so they take this, but then they have to make a bunch of bike lanes for the bums, etc., all that kind of stuff, which goes on. And I guess the fact that Oregon is so dependent on federal funding could be used as a club with which to beat us. What do you think? Well, yes, yes. There are, the Department of Justice makes available three different funding programs that are contingent on the local governments cooperating with the federal governments on issues regarding immigration.

Okay. And what are those laws, by the way, or what are those programs? Could you just mention them briefly? Sure. The program, there's three programs. One is the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which goes by SCAAP. The second is the Burn Justice Assistance Grants, JAG. And the third is the Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS. I think that's in a lot of jurisdictions in Oregon, isn't it? I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I think I recall those grants being handed out quite a bit. Okay.

So what do you do? How do you leverage this to actually get immigration law enforced enforced or at least not openly thwarted in Oregon? What you would do is just advise the governor that, hey, we know that you are not allowing our ICE officers into the jails to do their job. So effectively, immediately, we're going to withhold the funding from these programs. And the last time I looked, Oregon was getting something like $3 million or about that, maybe closer to $4 million. And, you know, that would put a big pinch on the state government, I'm sure. Yeah.

Even though it doesn't sound like a huge amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but still, it's a start, right? Use what power and leverage they have. And it's not only a start in terms of withholding funds, but it's also symbolically a start. I mean, it's a start that says, look, we are serious. You have broken this law for years. And it also lets the other states know that, you know, this is a big deal. California, for example, got $85 million in grants. And the other thing is, while it's not a big deal in terms of the total sum, it's about 40% of all of the funding that those programs give out. So it's a big deal. It's a big

deal. Maybe it's something that should just go away under the Doge people anyway, but that's another story, I guess. Yeah. I don't think it's ever even been threatened. You know, it's just one of these programs just kind of keep rolling along

year after year. Cutting hot checks. Money taken from taxpayers. Alright. Alright, so we understand it. money yeah taken from taxpayers and then all right all right uh so we understand it so go after the funding and then start saying hey maybe i guess what we need is a test case here in which uh the federal government comes in under usc 1373 and 1644 says no state or local government may prohibit or in any way restrict local officials from communicating with federal immigration authorities without about a person's immigration status.

You've got to just come in and make a case and start throwing their weight around a little bit. Is that what you're saying, honestly, where it needs to go? I mean, yes, definitely so. It would be something that Pam Bondi could do. You know, go after these guys that have been able to, these states and communities that have been able to run roughshod over immigration law for definitely for the last four years. But even going back further, you know, Republicans and Democrats alike. So what I say is, look, this has gone on long enough. We've had open borders. We've had sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, anchor babies, and so forth for decades.

And it's just enough. I mean, at some point, you've got to say, this cannot go on. And now is that point, I hope. Yeah. Well, I hope you're right about this. It was a few months ago, and I forget all the details of the particular story, but we had a couple of drug trafficker here in Southern Oregon that got stopped by the police and got put in jail. And we're talking about one of the biggest fentanyl busts of all time that we had had here in Southern Oregon. And the individual was cut loose, or the individuals involved were cut loose from the jail

because, according to state law, the district attorneys couldn't hang on to them, could not hang on to them, right? And so he just cut them loose and said, well, you have an order to appear in 30 days or something like that, and naturally they came back you know you can understand that and so typical yeah and i wonder if there's a way that uh of course i don't know is it one of those things where maybe the federal government can then start requiring now the da was following the law the da truly was hamstrung by state law that said you are not allowed to hang on to these individuals. You have to cut them loose, give them bail, you know, et cetera, et cetera. That's the way Oregon has been run.

Anything that the feds could do to help us run a little more smartly, I would be very much in favor of, Joe. And I appreciate you pointing out these laws, i really do well let's see what happens but as i said earlier i am encouraged now for the first time in a very long time that we may at last be pointed in the right direction on immigration enforcement joe gazzardi once again institute for sound public policy and i'll put his latest article up and so so the Trump administration begins. And he talks about the various laws we've been discussing and other various issues. A way to right the leaky ship of state, okay? Joe, always a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for checking in.

Thank you very much, Bill. Good to talk with you again. Yeah, it's great to talk about something positive that might be able to come out of all this mess in Oregon, all right? The Bill Myers Show, Shade Before 7, KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass.