Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-28-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Morning news and opinion, Knox Williams of the AMerican Suppressor Association talks how Trump can protect 2ndA and author Michael Walsh of RAGE TO CONQUER - look backs at key battles throughout history, including Patton, 9-11 and more.

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. That's 770-KMED. Here's Bill Myers. Delighted to have you here on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Join the conversation at 770-5633, 770-KMED. My email bill at billmyershow.com. The facebook.com feed is up.

No, I guess it's not up. Now it is up. No, I've got to press the go. There we go. Now I've got the button. See, I thought I pressed it, and then I didn't. I'm not putting my keys in the refrigerator yet or storing them there. But if I ever do, I'll let you know.

Of course, I'd forget to tell you, right? All right. Anyway, I hope you're having a good day here so far. An interesting story going on right now that has to do with what's going on in the state legislature. I ended up talking with Senator Jeff Golden yesterday for a little bit. And there are a number of bills that are in play right now that I wanted to let you know about. He said he wanted to kind of tamp down some rumor, some rumor rumors that have been going on around it. It's three bills having to do with trying to tighten up on the ability to develop farmland. And apparently the way he's telling me about it, we'll have him on the show.

I don't know if we're going to be able to get him on this week, maybe next week or something like that. I want to keep a line of communication open there because the one thing we've got to remember is that the Democrats are in control of the state legislature. They don't really need the Republicans there except to raise taxes. So I want to keep some line of communication to how our betters, how our overlords are wishing to stomp their boot in our face. Did I say that out loud?

I really need to learn to edit my own. But actually, I had a good talk with Jeff yesterday. He called me. I was out in the field, and we shot the breeze a little bit about it. And there were some concerns because one of the bills coming up there, and I'll go through some of those numbers of the bills a little bit later on and maybe do a social media post on it. I don't want to get too much in the weeds. But there were some concerns because some of the bills that were going to be restricting development on farmland also ended up mentioning something about with high wildfire risk. And so people are going, oh, okay, this is another one of those.

We're going to lock up the land and we're going to get everybody off the wildlands in the rural areas. We're going to get them off the land. And apparently there's an amendment to get rid of that aspect of it because it got everybody really upset. A lot of people that were into the farming and living in the rural lands because it was sort of a triggering event. Jeff tells me that that has been taken out of this particular bill. But it really is a thing, though, that they're trying to slow down the development of agricultural land for other things. And one of the things I guess they're talking about has been the incredible amount of solar farms that have been replacing real farms.

So instead of growing food, we're growing kilowatt hours, you know, that kind of thing. So they're looking to hold back or rein in that particular practice, among many others. So there you go. Just wanted to let you know about that. Meanwhile, if you're a landlord, I have really good news for you this morning. In fact, if you're a landlord, I'd love to get your take on this too. Oregon courts, according to Oregon Capital Chronicle, have now purged 47,000 past evictions from people's records.

So you're a landlord and you want to go out there and do a credit check and you want to find out how good a potential renter is. And you can't know about many of their evictions. Oregon State Courts has sealed 47,000 evictions. This is according to the Judicial Department. Now, this is about another legislative action. It was House Bill 2001. Back in 2023, legislature passed this one.

And it was passed to address housing evictions that showed up on people's records, and it affects their ability to rent and access housing. And with this law, the 47,000 evictions don't show up in the background checks, and it affects their ability to rent and access housing. And with this law, the 47,000 evictions don't show up in the background checks, and they essentially disappear like it never happened. Those cases could have led to the denial of rental applications. And I'm thinking to myself, self, that's the whole purpose of a credit check, to find out who is getting evicted, who is not paying, who is a deadbeat!

Ah! to check to find out who is getting evicted, who's not paying, who is a deadbeat. But in Oregon, nobody could be responsible for being a deadbeat, right? It's always the meany landlord who had the temerity to say, you know, this house or apartment cost me money, and so you need to give me money in order to stay in it. Oh, no, no, no, not according to the Oregon State Legislature. So now we've got a lot of deadbeats that are being protected. This also reminds me of the same sort of ban-the-box bill that they passed a number of years ago in which you're a felon, you're a convicted felon, and nobody's supposed to be able to find out

about you being a convicted felon, and nobody's supposed to be able to find out about you being a convicted felon on your, you know, on your job application. It's all those sort of things. You know, it's not your fault. It's not your fault that you're a convicted felon. The methamphetamine and the dealers that surrounded you that you ended up going to work with, they forced you into it. It was a form of drug slavery. That sort of thing.

And it wasn't your fault that COVID came. And you decided that. Hey I'm just going to take the stimulus checks. And I'm not going to work. And I'm not going to pay the rent. Because the governor said I don't have to pay the rent. We're not going to count that. We're not going to count that eviction.

And then Oregon wonders why. There's a lack of affordable housing. All right. Now, here's yet another one in that same kind of example of your it's not your fault. In fact, I had to pull out that song. Was it the Brothers Osborne? It ain't my fault. Blame the world for the legislature. All right.

But this one from Alamut Week this morning. Lawmakers will actually consider unemployment benefits for striking workers. The bill comes as Oregon's largest ever health care strike continues in Providence. We're now past three weeks now, and they're still, you know, I've noticed that the nurses are starting to look a little, not downtrodden, but a little less energetic now. Three weeks of standing out here and waving at people and hoping people honk back. Yeah, I don't blame them. It's kind of like, it's not a fun time. But Nigel Jaquis writes in Willie Week, is nearly 5,000 Providence health nurses, doctors, midwives, and doctors still on strike.

They're now looking at some benefits. Lawmakers are now considering extending unemployment benefits for striking workers. Senate bill nine 16 written at the request of AFL CIO of Oregon, who of course owns the legislature would amend current Oregon law, which deems strikers ineligible for unemployment. Does that make sense to you? I always look at what a strike is, is you're having an argument with your boss.

You and your boss are having an argument, a disagreement, and then you as the worker are then saying, well, that's fine. If you and I are not going to agree and we're arguing together, I'm just going to take my ball and go home. That's really what it is. And then you're going to suffer because I'm taking my ball and going home and not going to work in your hospital, in your factory, whatever the case might be. So you're having an argument. So the state of Oregon is actually considering taking your unemployment benefits, which, by the way, employers have to pay into. Employers pay into the unemployment fund.

And then it will then enable workers to more easily argue with their employer. Huh. Isn't that interesting? But of course, given that this was requested by the AFL-CIO of Oregon, which of course contributes mightily to Democratic campaign coffers, this may actually get a hearing. Now, it hasn't been scheduled for a hearing yet, according to Nigel Jaquis, but he's been assigned to the Senate Committee on Labor and Business. And the chair, State Senator Kathleen Taylor from Portland, is one of the bill's chief sponsors.

It's probably going to get an airing. And it also adds that it doesn't hurt that the labor group that requested the bill, the AFL-CIO, represents 288 unions, which in turn represents more than 300,000 Oregon voters, which also means that it controls a lot of campaign funding. Now, there are already two other states that do this. And, of course, it's over in the East Coast, corrupt, unionized New York and New Jersey. There we go. All right, so we will continue the wholesale purchase of the state of Oregon by SEIU and the other unions. Very, very interesting times.

So there's some headlines there. We also have some headlines from California, too, we'll be touching into, along with your calls and opinions. 770-5633. This is the Bill Myers Show. The Best of Southern Oregon magazine, presented by Dusty's Transmissions, is online. To find out who won gold and silver medals in a... Hi, I'm Amber Rose with Siskiyou Pump Service, and I'm on KMED. 22 minutes after 6, Bruce is on the line.

Bruce, you are in Michigan, but you used to live in Medford. Still listening. We appreciate that. And you have some rental properties still in Southern Oregon. Tell me your story here, because you heard me talking about the fact that 47,000 evictions are now just purged from the records. You couldn't see them as a landlord. Yeah, you might even remember my wife, Brenda Edwards. You interviewed her on the business segment you had years ago.

But, yeah, we have seven units on Hawthorne Avenue, and we're back and forth to Medford quite a bit, just to service and, you know, maintain stuff. And in October, I was driving down Hawthorne Avenue during the rainstorm. It was still dark. And here's somebody wrapped up in plastic laying on the sidewalk. I'm like, whoa. I mean, people are getting used to this, I guess.

Uh-huh, yeah. And then we've been having trouble finding good renters to rent those units because once they find out it's proximity to the island of misfit humans there, a.k.a. Hawthorne Park, they say, ah, no thanks. But we have had trouble. It's almost impossible to try and evict somebody. You've got this raft of online paperwork and you make one little clerical error you have to start over yeah if you could

tell me bruce how do you i've never rented out property okay so i don't really know how this process goes i've rented apartments and i've rented the townhome once in my life but that's about it but what if somebody doesn't pay the rent how does the law treat the landlord right now in oregon from your experience what do you have to do you have to you have to report that and then you have to give them a period of time brenda does brenda does most of that stuff so i couldn't tell you exact figures but uh you have to give them time to try and, you know, rectify it. Okay. And if they don't, then you can start the paperwork process.

And it takes quite a while, so they can live for a long time without paying rent. What's the longest that you and Brenda have had to deal with someone living in the apartment and not cleaning or not paying? Several months. Several months. Yeah. And then what we ended up doing is we told her that we're not going to renew the lease. And she was kind of whining about that, but eventually knew we were serious. And then she found another place. So it worked out okay in that sense. But in addition to rent control, you have that issue of next impossible to evict somebody. So yeah.

When you run a credit check on a renter then, do the evictions come out there really easily or is it something you have to dig into? Because, like I said, the Department of Justice in Oregon has now purged 47,000 of these from the records. Yeah, I don't know how that's going to affect us yet, but Brenda is really good at bird-dogging, that kind of thing. She's really good at sniffing out stuff on people. And so far, we've been able to to screen effectively even though that's not technically legal to do you know because you're you're supposed to uh rent to the first person who qualifies really oh that's right they passed

that law a number of years ago too right yeah you know something bruce do you ever get the impression that you no longer own your property and it's only, that you only own your property in partnership with the state of Oregon Apparatchiks or is it just me? Yeah, well, it's worse here in Michigan. You were thinking we would, you know, exchange our properties there for ones here. But here, if you own properties that you do not live in, the property tax is double. So we bought a duplex here, and you have to charge really high rent to cover that. I mean, you're six months into the year before you start making money because of that. So it's not just there.

Michigan's politics is as messed up as Oregon's in a lot of ways. Yeah, would you say it's as messed up as Oregon or more messed up? It just depends or whatever. What are you thinking? Well, we've got Gretchen Whitmer. That's pretty bad. Now, is it just me? Have you ever ever thought this have you ever looked at gretchen whitmer and thought that she looks like one of those um like like she's wearing a flesh suit

over a devil body have you ever thought that you you must have seen that video of her feeding a dorito to some you know buddy on their knee some girl on her knees yeah yeah yeah that was creepy man that was creepy so she makes uh tina kotech look pretty good by comparison or not well i don't know you know we've we've been out of there since tina took office so oh all right okay but but uh oregon politics makes the national news all the time yeah i wonder why because uh well you know and the thing is though it used to be the cal that California was all the influencing, but now it appears that Oregon has taken its place for coming up with some of the craziest stuff. But, yeah, so I guess it's going to be even harder for you as a landlord in southern Oregon, then,

to ferret out the deadbeats, right? That's just what's going to happen here because of this. Well, we'll see. We've got all our units rented right now. But remember, you're only a tank got all our units rented right now. But remember, you're only a tank of gas away from the Bay Area. So we got plenty of people coming up. Yeah, gotcha. All right. Hey, Bruce, thanks for sharing your experience, your Michigan and Oregon experience, okay? Be well.

Yeah, I stream your show several times a week. I love it. I love your show. Thank you very much. I'm glad you're staying in touch. Thanks a bunch there, Bruce. 28 minutes after 6, and say hi to Brenda, too, for that matter. This is the Bill Myers Show. Coming up, how to protect the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment.

How President Trump might strengthen some touches at the national level, while our state, of course, is trying to destroy the Second Amendment. But we'll kick that around coming up. Looking durable and custom fit metal roofing steven westfall roofing inc specializes in metal roofing with two portable snap lock machines 1063 kmed you're waking up with the bill myers show nox williams joins me he's the president and executive director of the american suppressor association now as a proud owner of more than one suppressor, I'm glad to have you on. Knox, it's great to have you. Welcome to the show. Good morning. Bill, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

I didn't realize there was a nonprofit organization set up for the suppressor world. They were getting a suppressor. Some people call it a silencer. It's not really a silencer, but it's a firearm muffler in essence, isn't it? Right? That's absolutely correct. Nothing can actually silence the noise of a gunshot, but can make it a lot safer to use. Okay. And this is something that, of course, Hollywood has made it appear that every time there's a sniper, they always use this suppressor and all it does is make a little clip and that and that's it. Right. And it's not really that way. You wrote an op ed piece the other day, the Washington Reporter.

And I'm going to post this up and I hope you don't mind if I post and link to all of this. But you're talking about how President Trump could actually go easier on the firearms community over the next few years and protect our rights and maybe roll back some of it, because I'll tell you, the state of Oregon is really going after the Second Amendment big time, especially now that we have Democrats in total control of the state legislature, very much like California, where they're having the same kind of attacks. What do you think could be done? There's quite a bit that could be done, and I think it really all stems from the weaponization of the federal government against gun owners, and really anybody that the liberals and progressives

saw as an enemy or a threat. It's something that is not unique to the gun industry, but it's something that we certainly feel and see firsthand on nearly a daily basis. So it's a tremendous opportunity for the Trump administration to make good on the promise to end the weaponization and the, frankly, persecution by the federal government. Do you think the president has learned anything from the days after the Las Vegas mass shooting in which take the guns, and then we'll talk about the due process later? What do you think? Absolutely. I really do think so. I think that he saw what happened about the due process later. What do you think? Absolutely.

I really do think so. I think that he saw what happened with the bump stock ban. I think that he understands that that was a miscalculation. And I'm optimistic that he's not going to make a similar mistake twice. Okay. Glad to hear that. Do you think this is going to be only through executive action, or might there be some legislation that could help? Any thoughts on that? Yeah, so absolutely.

There's obviously the two paths, working with the president and the executive branch and then also pushing bills through Congress. We've got two bills that are currently active. The Peering Protection Act, which was reintroduced by Representative Ben Kline out of Virginia. We also have the PARTS Act, which was introduced by Representatives Pfluger and Representative Golden, so a bipartisan measure to help clean up the serialization requirements for suppressors. The only caveat there is, I mean, we all know the razor-thin margins that exist in both the House and the Senate. It's going to make it difficult for us to get any legislation through and to the president.

Doesn't mean it's impossible, but it's going to be a pretty heavy lift. Um, so for us, we see executive actions, executive orders and regulatory reform, um, as, as one of our primary, uh, targets for, for the next few years. Knox, why did, why did suppressors become something that you had to register with the government in the first place? Because I look back at the history of firearms, and it wasn't all that long ago that you could go down to just your local sporting goods store, or a drugstore for that matter, and pick up a suppressor for your firearm. It was considered just a normal everyday thing. You could buy it for a buck or two at most. I'm talking about, you know, old back in the days, you know, like my grandparents. What happened and what changed?

Yeah, that's a great question. In 1934, FDR and his attorney general, Homer Cummings, wanted to ban guns, but they understood that they didn't have the constitutional authority to do so. So they put together what became known as the National Firearms Act, which levied a $200 tax, which was the cost of a Thompson submachine gun at the time, on the purchase of certain types of firearms. The original draft wanted to include handguns. Thankfully, the NRA at the time lobbied to get that removed from it. But as a result, you see restrictions on short barrel rifles and short barrel shotguns, which on the face of themselves makes no sense. You can get a handgun, you can get a rifle, but you can't get a medium sized gun, which just is ludicrous. But it also includes suppressors, machine guns, and destructive devices on it.

So it was really one of those things where you had the right political circumstances at the time with a very anti-gun president and attorney general. And quite frankly, Hiram Percy Maxim, the gentleman who invented the suppressor at the turn of the 20th century he just did too good of a job marketing where he had convinced the general public that uh as he called them silencers could eliminate the sound of a gunshot and we just know that to be just absolutely untrue yeah it it certainly reduces it but it doesn't make it silent uh point being though is that this is really something that is a health issue, right? Isn't it really about the hearing? Absolutely. And you look at the CDC, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,

the Academy of Doctors of Audiology, the National Hearing Conservation Association, they all agree that suppressors are a fantastic tool to help mitigate hearing loss. And they also, many of those organizations recognize that standalone traditional hearing protection on its own, i.e. ear muffs, ear plugs, are not always sufficient to protect your hearing when you're using a firearm. Reducing the noise at the source is one of the best and most effective ways to help prevent things like noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus, which is ringing in your ears. So it really is scientifically proven. It's been studied. It's been written on in peer reviewed journals. This is something that the medical community agrees has a tremendous and

profound impact on preventing noise-induced hearing loss and other hearing damage. Knox, where can people go to find out more about this, please? Check out our website, americansuppressorassociation.com. We'd love to have you join us, member. And final shameless plug, I'm also running for the board of the National Rifle Association. Those ballots are hitting this week. I'm running as a reform candidate. I would love y'all's vote, and if you'd like to learn more, visit electanewnra.com. Thank you very much. Great talking with you. You take care. Thank you very much, sir. It's 640. Do you owe the IRS back taxes? For information, visit montanaroofingservices.com.

19 before 7 on the Bill Myers Show. We'll have some open phones in just a little bit here, but I wanted to talk with Michael Walsh. Michael Walsh has written more than 15 novels and non-fiction books, and he has a really interesting new one out there, and it poses a very thought-provoking take that we actually lost the battle of 9-11, everything that happened at that point. His book is A Rage to Conquer. Michael, good to have you on. Welcome, sir. Well, thank you for having me, Bill. I appreciate it. Michael, tell me a little bit about your travels into getting this book looked at, because it's almost a little bit of revisionist history, especially when it comes to 9-11,

I think. But talk about some of the other battles that you think have been very, very key in not just the United States, but other governments of the world, too. It's a really interesting look back. Well, the book is called The Rage to Conquer, and, rage is literally the first word of the Iliad, of the rage of Achilles. Oh, goddess, sing, is what Homer, to Patton, and some lesser-known figures such as Flavius Aetius, who was the last of the great Roman generals and fought the last battle that the Roman legions ever fought against, of all people, because you can't make this up, Attila the Hun. So it's a pretty wide-ranging book, about 2,000 plus more, 3,000 years of world history. But after each battle, things were different. The Persian Empire vanished after Alexander defeated Dariusi at the battle of gabamella um when caesar finally captured versenghetterix at the battle of alicia in what's now france uh the colony of

gaul was established as a roman province and that turned into modern France, which the French were the ones who led the crusades. So it's all connected. And you can't look at anything in an isolated way. You have to say, oh, well, that happened because this happened. For example, I work as a Hollywood screenwriter. One of the principles of storytelling, especially in movies, is you never write scenes, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. You write scenes, this happened, then because of that happening,

this happened. And then in spite of that, this happened. So everything is a link and a line and a moving train. And I try to apply those principles to Rage to Conquer, which... So in other words, you're connecting the dots through history, is really what you're doing. If I didn't want a book that was a bunch of isolated sort of short stories, it's rather a whole thesis about warfare. Well, why don't we take it to something, not to 9-11, but a few decades before 9-11,

because you cover General George S. Patton at the Battle of the Bulge. And I'm really interested in that because my grandfather served under Patton, and I heard such amazing stories from him. And how do you think that connects to even what we're dealing with today? You want to give us your quick two-minute take on this in the little bit of time we have? Yeah, well, sure. Well, Patton basically was a tremendous student of both Alexander and Caesar. He understood how to fight, how to motivate men, how to move and transport them. He learned that from General Grant, who was an army quartermaster before he became the commander-in-chief of the Union armies. Patton knew how to motivate men and how to move them.

And so the great accomplishment of Patton was at the Battle of the Bulge, you had the American army trapped in Bastogne, the 101st Airborne particularly, with no way out, middle of horrible cold, snowy winter, and Patton driving into the heart of Germany and suddenly he stops an army in motion which is almost impossible he does a 90 degree turn to the left which is impossible and three days later uh he's at Bastogne and attacking the Germans from the rear and that was the end of the last German uh offensive of World War II he essentially accomplished yeah he essentially accomplished the what was thought to be impossible at that time, but that was what he was all...very nimble, I guess, would be a good way

of pointing it. Now, you are very thought-provoking when you say that we actually lost the Battle of 9-11. And how would you say that? Describe your reasoning. Well, I would say, have you been to the airport lately? Oh, yeah. Those lines of that intrusive screening, that didn't exist before 9-11. All of a sudden, the day after the battle, the Bush administration reacted completely incorrectly,

erected more bureaucracies if we didn't have enough already. The Department of Homeland Security, the Established Transportation Security Administration. And so here we are 24 years, 23 and a half years later, shuffling through long, long lines. Like serfs instead of citizens, right? Yeah, because what Bush did was he preemptively criminalized 320 million innocent Americans and not taking the fight to the actual source of the problem, which was militant Islam. So here we are. That's how we lost the battle. Interesting. The battle, and yet how many billions or was it trillions by the time we were done?

Did we spend there trying to reshape it? A fortune, and it's fruitless, because Alexander the Great could have told you it was fruitless to try to conquer Afghanistan, and the Brits certainly could have told us that. But, you know, we had a group of people in there who were cold warriors, essentially, who didn't understand kinetic battle warfare, and they blew it, and we're all still suffering from it. And hopefully, under the second Trump administration, a lot of that's going to change. I'm hoping you're right about that, Michael. I really am. And we're right at the beginning of that, the next four years, and it's going to be an interesting time for sure.

I appreciate your book and what you've done and what you're trying to get people to check out here, and it's called A Rage to Conquer. I will put Michael's information up there. Michael Walsh, thank you so much for having joined the show and giving us a few minutes of your time. Okay? Be well. Thank you. Thank you.

It's 12 before 7, 99.3 KBXG, 106.3 KMED. You're on the Bill Myers Show. And we're into open phones and other stories. And you can join in at 770-5633. Here at American Rent Your Garage, we respect and support those individuals who currently or have placed a talk. KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point, Medford.

I have no idea why that happened. But anyway, the machine just kind of took off without me. I don't know what that was all about. Anyway, 770-5633. And we just want to talk with you about anything you feel like discussing this morning. Before we do that, though, we had to have a California fire update this morning. And whoever came up with this was having an awful lot of fun. By the way, thank you to Mr. X for this.

All the homes are gone. Because of climate change. When the fires are out. I'll build a brand new L.A. Here's 700 bucks. Land grab is underway California's burning In the fire department's game

California's burning, I love it. Someone took it and they put the memes of Gavin Newsom and all these other people singing this song, California's burning. Burning in the fire department's gay. Yeah. Well, the latest coming out of California is that the Democrats, this reported in the World Net Daily this morning and the Daily Caller, California Democrats unveiled a bill yesterday that would allow insurers and policyholders affected by the Los Angeles fires to sue major oil companies for their alleged roles in the disaster.

My gosh, this sounds like something that could have come up from the SOCAN people down with the city of Ashland and natural gas, right? California State Senator Scott Weiner and a host of other Democrats rolled out Senate Bill 222, and this is a means to make oil companies atone for the fires and stabilize California's faltering insurance market. And they say this is because of the climate chaos that they caused. Agree or disagree? California's burning because of the climate chaos induced from the oil companies.

Yeah, the oil companies. They said they hit it. They knew it hit it. They knew it was coming. And, you know, it's not their incompetency. It's not their incompetency. And there are other issues going on there. It's the oil companies.

7705633. Your call is on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Yeah, Bill. Good morning, Chris. Hey, Chris. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Yeah, Bill. Good morning. Chris.

Hey, Chris. What's going on in your world today? Well, I talked to you about the suppressors, whoever the gentleman, Bill Wallace. Yeah. He had an error. Yeah, actually, his name is Knox Williams. Yeah, from the American Suppressor Association. Okay. Well, there's a guy in Washington State.

It's a law firm. They're handling gun rights stuff, suppressors and activity like that. But it seems like what's going on is, yeah, it is the weaponization. So if you do the math, if you had 100,000 people in the public, $200 tax stamp, that's $20 million. It's a con game. They're sitting on, they're taking your money, and they're sitting on it. And these FFLs that have the kiosk, they're almost kind of like, I ain't going to say they're complicit, but, you know, they're finger-fucking your suppressor. Okay, okay. Once you start the cussing we gotta go chris sorry all right let me go to the next line hi good morning who's this hello

uh going once going twice hi good morning who's this let me try this Hi, good morning. Who's this? Let me try this line. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hello? Yeah, hi. Good morning. Oh, hi, Bill. This is Vicki from the Applegate.

Okay, gosh. I was just wondering if the phones were working here. I'm going online and nobody responded. You've got to listen to the phone, though. Maybe that's the problem. I don't know. You're 20 seconds behind otherwise. Hey, what's on your mind today?

Well, I've got a couple things. The first thing is about the rent, the people renting. When we moved into a place up here in the Applegate in 2003, we just moved out in 2003. So we lived, we were renters for 20 years, which is kind of unheard of nowadays, especially. But we always paid our rent on time. I think in that 20 years, we were late one time, which was like a $50. Yeah, you had to pay an extra fee for that late fee. Sure. But I, and the owners live in Californiaifornia so when we first moved in we were going through they were going through the commercial property and um which when somebody lives out of state that's a good thing they keep an eye on your property well they don't do crap

they never contacted us except once a year they came out for literally like 10 minutes, and they were charging our land, the owner, like $1,600 or something a year. You're talking about the property manager? Just want to make sure I'm right about that, right? Yes. Okay. And so about, I'd say maybe seven years of us renting, the owner asked us, do you have a problem with not going through the commercial property? And we said, honestly, they don't do anything for your money.

You know, if there's a problem, they contact you, but they don't send anybody out. They don't do any – yeah, it was just a big ripoff. So we ended up just – you know, we can take care of little things, like the major problems with the property. We would get a hold of the owner, obviously, if it was the heat or the water or the electric. But everything else we pretty much took care of. So where are you going with this, though, Vicki, with regard to the challenge of the guy who's renting in Southern Oregon? What was that? I think what it is is that you said earlier you don't own your property.

The government owns half of your property. Well, it seems to. Does it not? I mean, you own it in title only, but everything about how you can use it, even when it comes to who you must rent to or cannot rent to or blah, blah, blah, blah, even if you're allowed to rent, is controlled by other functionaries. See what I'm getting at? So if you don't have control over your property, do you really own it? Right.

Well, you own it when you have to pay taxes on it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's your rent. That's essentially your rent. What was happening was they couldn't find renters that... They ended up renting it to a family member because they just... You know, the people nowadays, they get in, they squat. And then with COVID, they didn't have to pay the rent. And so they ended up doing family members.

So I'm just thinking if that's going to be a new wave of, you know, just not rent to anybody but your family. Yeah, maybe that's where it's going to be going. And I don't know if I, I'm hearing about a lot of people who are selling their California rentals or their Oregon rentals rather, and just getting out of the business because they don't see a way that they're going to be able to make this pencil. Plus, you have your CAT taxes, corporate activity taxes, and various other ways of doing it. And there's rent control. Now, the rent control is pretty generous at the moment.

You know, you can raise it up to 10% per year. Right. And then you have the other side about it in which you, you know, you read these stories about people who are really running them like slumlords. So I really do see both sides of this. But I think that the scale at this point, the thumb is on the scale heavily on the side of the renter and the renter only. And it's almost like, you know, they would just be happy if maybe all the landlords went away. And maybe that's the state of Oregon's plan, ultimately, you know, in which they just take it over as a state service. I know that sounds conspiratorial. I'm supposed to say

that for Thursday, not Tuesday. Okay. Oh, that's okay. They both start with a T. There you go. Thank you.