Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-03-26_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

02-03-26_TUESDAY_7AM

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 Klausordrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Taking your calls at 7705663 on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. I was talking with Michelle Steep last hour and visiting Homelessness Initiative fellow over at the Discovery Institute. And she was talking about in her opinion that misplaced individuality or individualism needs to be countered here when it comes to the drug addicted and very sick homeless and that we need to strengthen civil commitment. And I don't know if you have an opinion on that or not.

I know that we have this, I think, built in, you know, taking the long arm of government in shoving more people. and, you know, I've gone and visited people in Two North, so, you know, I know what that, now I know that Two North is not a civil commitment, but a lot of times, you know, people are going in there for the 24 or 48-hour hold of some sort or something. But do we need to be a little tougher on that when someone is drug-addicted, raving, lunatici in their behavior? And Steve's here, too. Steve, good to have you on. Wild Sam and Steve. Good morning. Hey, Bill. Great subject. The reason I called was half a century ago, if you can believe that, I worked, I was in the military and I was trained as a nurse, but I ended up in a unit in Korea.

And I was working with a doctor who was a psychiatrist. Well, they just listed him as a doctor in the, I don't know how you call it. And he said, don't ever have me fix anybody physically because they'll kill him. He was a psychiatrist. The military said, you're a doctor, so we're going to bill it you here in this Field Army Hospital. Well, there was a lot going on there, but it was really boring at night. He'd be on call a lot of times, and we'd sit and talk. And he had just – well, in the mid-60s, he'd completed his residence or started his residence.

He had completed his schooling to become a psychiatrist. And as a resident, he got sent to Bellevue Hospital in New York. And the problem was that the hospital was completely full. And it was like raving lunatics. And what they were doing was drugging everybody to keep them under control. Yeah, it was more about warehousing and not really trying to figure this out. And this is nothing unusual when you look at our history. Sure.

No. Well, the thing that's interesting is in his residency, they gave him the task of figuring out a way to clean this out without, you know, causing huge damage. And what he told me was that in order to solve the problems, you had to wean people off the drugs, and then you had to sit down and talk to them. and you know people could be on drugs for all kinds of reasons mainly because of some sort of pain now could be physical pain it could most likely be mental pain and he said you have to individually figure out the best route for people and you can you can wean people off of drugs by putting them in a situation where they can make choices to have a better life they don't like being incarcerated so you you hold that out there and you start incrementally moving them away from drugs to solve their problem,

and each individual being different, you have to figure out what they need and what they feel like they need. And he was very successful, but you can't cookie cutter it. You can't. You start out with getting them off the drugs, because the drugs is like you're familiar with relay circuits, right? Okay, in our brain, there's a relay. that tells us, you know, when we're hungry, we need to eat or whatever, if you've gotten so far into drugs, when something comes up, the only thing that you get is I need more drugs. So your brain is shorted out. I mean, that's maybe not a good...

Yeah, but it's a simple way of looking at this then. It's possible. It's possible to make their lives better. And he said he even got people who were mentally ill out of the incarceration system, some of them needed supervision, but, you know, he told me, he said several people he talked to that were psychotic, basically. They were hearing voices and things, but they wanted freedom. So they would take their medications, and he told them, you can think anything you want to, but you need to not wear dirty clothes, and you need to not talk about the things that are going on in your head, and you can have freedom, which... In other words, trying to train a mentally ill person to be at least functioning to some level

in a civil society, right? And he was successful at that. That's interesting, because the vast majority of mentally ill folks are not violent. It's actually a very small percentage. Of course, the ones that are violent, they're very violent, you know? They're violent towards themselves. Yeah. But generally speaking, the vast majority are not. Yeah, that's true.

But they're not really particularly functioning well. Now, this sounds like a pretty wise doctor at this point, is what he was discussing, though, scalable. You know what I'm talking about, scalable for mass consumption, because, you know, that's the way bureaucracy's always looked. They're looking for an answer or the answer. You know how that goes? Well, you know, throwing money at it obviously is not working. and there needs to be some structure, and there needs to be a structure that rewards good behavior and helps people become or get away from their addiction to solve whatever problems that they had. But the first things first, though, is that you think, though, Michelle thinks that there needs to be a stronger cudgel to put...

Absolutely. You've got to get them off the drugs, and then you've got to talk to them. All right. Steve, I appreciate the call. Thanks for your experience with the head doctor. Early you were talking about. 770KMED. It's open phones and pebble in your shoe Tuesday. We can talk about that or anything else on your mind.

Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Good morning, Bill. Hey, it's Scott. Neal Point. Hey, Scott. How are you?

I'm doing pretty good, I guess. You know, I'm a professional driver. And way back in high school, I had a, they call it a mental break. Hospital and all that. Okay, yeah, I lost your cell. I lost your phone call for a second. there, Scott. So he had a mental break back in high school. All right. Please pick it up from there. A break. Yeah. I had a mental break in 1985. Ended up to state my loss. Went up to two north.

And then now it's called Three East. Oh, it is? Back two, yeah, back in 2020, I had another episode. I went up to the last of two north and then three east. Well, I'll tell you something. the county has no idea how to handle in the jail. They throw you in a detox, which you can still commit suicide in the detox. And I went through a suicidal period sometime back. And it's really true what Sam and Steve has said is that you have to dry out somebody, and you can only do that up at 3 East or a mental facility. It needs to be done by force.

It needs to be done by force if you're looking for the voluntary side and it'll never occur then. Right, right. I mean, there's some force involved, but, you know, I'm not violent. You know, I just was like ticker on steroids, you know. Are you, have you, now I know that that's the reason I ask Michelle, though, about what Sheriff Nate Sickler has been talking about, the need not only for expanding the jail, but for expanding. Mental health treatment and addiction facilities, would you agree with that? Yeah, I observed this not letting them dry out enough, getting them up to Three East. You see, there's so many people out there right now are self-medicated, Bill.

It's incredible. In the wintertime, it fills up at Three East up there at the behavioral unit, and they're not. violent. They're just trying to get through the day and get through either suicidal thoughts or they're so manic that they don't even know that you're there. They're in a different world. And that is that syndrome. I know Michelle was talking about that syndrome. My concern is that I don't want everything being medicalized. That tends to be, you know, it happens. Oh, you know, there's a brain disease. They throw drugs at you. But now that's where you go through a process through the hospital. And then by the time you're you're there on the ward, you're pretty well, there's nothing

there except the chemistry in your brain. And then they try to manage the chemistry in your brain to help you out. Is there, you know, is it the chemistry in our brain or the chemistry of our soul? Any thought about that with a spiritual component? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's both happening there. All right. Now, what is keeping you on the straight and narrow these days? What has helped? Oh, my gosh. I always put God first, and I keep with my medicines. I have a traumatic brain injury, so I use a product called carbanzepine, and it's working

really good, and a boost bar. And that keeps me bound, so I'm not suicidal and I'm not traumatic. Well, that's good. Now, you said you had a traumatic brain injury. Is that also what caused your high school break, or was that a different incident? My psychiatrist said that was part of it. I messed up the chemistry in my brain. At nine years old, I hit my head playing a game called Prison Ball.

Oh, boy. You know, dodge ball. I hit my head on concrete. I went back and I fell catching a ball. But, you know, I've had some rough, I've had some rough times here. And I'm getting through it out on the ranch out in Eagle Point and looking at horses and waking up and just being in nature. Nature is, it cures so much, Bill, I'll tell you. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, Scott.

Good hearing from you, okay? And God bless you and keep on that path, okay? 770563. If you are on hold, I will get right to you. I want to make sure you get everybody's calls in here. And this is one of those subjects that I think strikes a chord because, you know, hopefully we're all mentally healthy and not drug addicted, but there's a lot of our folks around us who are having those challenges,

and they end up being homeless at a very high rate, too, and how to respond to that is very important. 770 KMED, right back on the Bill Myers Show. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Glacier Heating and Air, making sense of the heating and air business. Freddy's Dinder and Old Town Eagle Point is a family. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. 26 after 7705-633.

It's pebble in your shoe Tuesday. A little pulpery of topics, but we've been focusing for the last few minutes on mental illness, drug treatment, homeless. Jim's and Grants Pass, Jim, you have some rubble tips that are in the system, right? Yeah, well, yeah, I've got a couple stories here. I've got a couple nephews out in Midwest, Ohio. They're older now. When they were very young, they got both diagnosed with age. D-HD, put on the Adderall and all that good stuff.

Well, as they got over, they started getting into other drugs, meth, heroin, never got into Fiddle. Well, ended up having half of them, but both of them, they ended up having girlfriends, lived in separate houses. Both, right around the same time, they both ended up overdosing, almost dying twice. The only thing, and they'll tell you now, the only thing that ever helped them get off the heroin, the meth, everything. One spent two years in Ohio State Penitentiary, the other one spent five years. While they were in there, they completed their education. They got off the drugs. They got mental health counseling.

Now they're both out. They've been out. They're married. They have kids. They have protective lives and jobs. Now, on the other aspect of it, with prescription pill medication, my wife and I ever just talking about this. We just celebrated 33 years of marriage. And she had a prescription pill problem for bulk of our marriage.

The only thing has helped her is I am very anti-any drug. I've never taken a head off of a joint or anything. in a very anti-prescription meds. She was having prescription pill problems, and she overdosed a couple times. I've got to lock her pain pills up and give them to her on schedule. We've had her issues and arguments about it,

but she'll be the first one we were just talking about. She'll be the first one to admit, if it wasn't for me, being basically the polar opposite of her, her, she'd probably either be dead or homeless. If she had married someone more like her, then, yeah, dead or homeless. Now, to your story of your nephews then, this is kind of going down that road that Sheriff Nate Sickler has been advocating for getting more treatment in the jail, in the county jail.

Would you feel comfortable with that? Do you think it's a good plan? Yeah. Yeah, I call it the touchy-feely stuff because nobody ever really wants to get hard on it. They don't want to be the bad person. They both went to, you know, diversion programs and got to go out and, you know, show up once in a while to get their methadone and leave and go back about their very ways. So the soft one doesn't work then. Okay, I get it.

Hey, Jim, thank you so much for sharing that experience there and let us know what worked for you, all right? crazy jean's here we well we called them not so crazy jean but i'm glad you're here jean what's on your mind huh well i would just call and say that these people hear these voices these crazy people didn't uh the by isn't the bible full of people listening to god speaking to them that heard voices how do we know that they're not coming from somebody that we ought to be listening to well how do we not know that it's uh not the the voice of the of the other guy not God. Well, well, of course he speaks, too. I mean, you live forever. You've got to say something to somebody. Yeah, all I'm getting at is that I wonder if sometimes a lot of what we call mental illness isn't a sickness of the spirit in some cases.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it is. But yeah, Satan can speak to us too when we can't tell the difference because we forgot how to. Yeah, and be careful who you listen to, right? Thanks, Jean. Lucretia, Lucretia, good to have you here and a couple of things here, but what do you want to bite on? Go ahead. Well, I just wanted to quickly comment on what to Harvard scientists, medical researchers, who one had really bad depression, wanted to commit suicide all during high school, found that the most effective thing right now, they say that's out there for depression, for anxiety, is the carnivore diet and eating high. fat, I mean, up to 80% saturated fat. One lady just ate 60 eggs a day in two to three weeks. Her MS was gone.

It's also, you know, the brain, the nerves are all super in need of healthy fats. Yeah, well, super healthy fats and high protein. One of the more expensive diets you'd have to agree with that, isn't it? Not as expensive as not being able to work and not being able to even function or be a mother or in a relationship that, you know, a lot of relationships, people can't handle it. And they break up and then their children have no parents and that destroys them too. Point well taken. Of course, World Economic Forum does not like that idea.

Oh, boy, we don't want a high protein. We don't want, actually, they probably don't want healthy people. We're supposed to be eating bugs and be happy about it, I think. You know, it's interesting that they're funding and supporting what is clearly science that lies. I mean, they're putting people ahead of the FDA and the AMA and allowing the drugs to take over and literally destroying doctors. Yeah. Hey, I know you wanted to mention something. I knew when I was talking about the weather control this morning.

Go ahead. I'll give you a quick bite and I've got to go, though. I'm just running out of time. You know, they can cool the planet. They use urea. and nice like nine pounds per mile up to that's, you know, spraying us with urea or potassium nitrate or potassium nitrite or ammonia nitrate. Those are used.

They also use dry ice carbon. It can cool it down, I think, to minus 78.5. Okay. I guess the point is, though, who are the they's? And then if they are actively doing it, who's the controlling authority there then? You know, I imagine NOAA, and you can go there and they even admit that the airplanes are what's really warming the planet, but they can use things like black, carbon carbon of black that, you know, LBJ talked about, to milk, you know, snow as well, but they can make it so it just rains.

And, well, I'm just one of those strange people that doesn't look at a warming planet as a problem. You know, they're trying to reduce the population. They don't care about us anymore. I mean, Edward Bernays, or Bertrand Russell said that. Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda, the Florida, you know, what's his name? I mean, these guys are just sick. Well, I'll agree with you there, okay? Thanks to the call, Lucretia.

I'll grab one more before news. Herman's going to join me here just a minute. We've got to talk about the session and a bunch more. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Yeah, Ron Grant's Pass. Hi, Ron. Grant's Pass.

What's you thinking? Yeah. Well, a couple of questions. A couple of statements first. I want, like John B. Wells, where you put him in the two-hour nighttime situation. That's a great thing. I'm glad you enjoy it. And then secondly, real quick, the people who are having a problem in dealing with society,

I think if the psychiatrists would get together and ask them questions and determine after they've been drug rehabilitated, who they admire most in the world and what they could do. if they were to follow that person. And then ask them questions about if they ever handle a hammer or use the slide rule or something of that nature so that you could kind of get a feel if they're interested and then build upon that. Yeah. Well, certainly I think the first part of the process of healing is got to get out the drug, right? You've got to get out the drugs first.

Yeah, because other than that, it doesn't matter whose hammer or what hammer they're holding if they're not off the drugs. Thanks for the call there. Ron. Appreciate that. 734 at KMED. Former State Senator Herman Beardshiger talking the special. You know, it's not a special session. Well, they think they're all special sessions, but it's the short session.

And what sort of nonsense is being promoted? Where are we headed? We'll talk about that coming up. What happens when you bring in 40 ounces of peanut butter and 12 ounces of jelly to Kelly's out of mutton service in grants back? When workers thrive, Oregon thrives. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063. KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show.

739, check at the price of precious metals because, boy, it got smacked hard on Friday. It does appear to be recovering to an extent. Gold just up about 4917 is where it is, not at the 5,400 that it was last week, but up 6% this morning. Silver, of course, that wild ride, up 11% this morning to $87. cents. Hmm. So it appears that the tale of Golden Silver's death, which happened on Friday, have been somewhat premature.

Head over to Jay Austin Company, Golden Silver Buyers in Ashland, 1632 Ashland Street in Ashland, 6G in downtown Grants Pass. And it is just crazy busy with people trading right now. So get an appointment. It's probably the best way to do it. 482.3715. 482.3715. and they'll get back in touch with either team.

We'll get in touch in. In fact, I'm going to have an appointment sometime this week and do a little bit of stacking. As far as I'm concerned, when it was at 120, I wasn't really a buyer. But, you know, 87? I'm thinking about maybe stacking a little bit more. I'm looking at things long-term.

And even though the short-term market may be sitting there a little choppy, I still look at the dollar as an issue, which is not being really dealt with, in my opinion. I'll just leave it at that. But either side, buying, selling, go ahead. Talk to the recognized experts, rather. Jay Austin and Company Golden Silver Buyers, okay? All right.

Fortune Reserve.com. Former state senator Herman Barrett-Sugar, Herman, welcome back. What are you doing this morning? Good morning. Well, the legislature is in session again. How do you like that? Nobody is safe. Nobody is safe for sure.

And I find it fascinating that the first thing that they're talking about is how we need to get another $340 million that otherwise would have gone back to Oregon taxpayers and decouple from the big, beautiful bill from that tax cut. They want to do that. It's a big deal. Oh, yeah. Well, they can decouple from not just that. They can decouple from everything.

So we'll talk about that in a minute. But let me just give you a history of how the short session came about. for over 120 years, the legislature followed the Constitution that said that the legislature will only meet on odd number years for six months. And then in the 90s, a group of senators, Peter Courtney, was kind of the tip of the arrow, said that we need to have another session on the even number of years for this particular one reason. historically the budget always have to be amended so when the legislature meets on the odd number of years they create the budget but then things happen things change yeah and you have to touch it up because you know maybe there's not enough money here or there's another need that popped up right that kind of that's correct and so how it traditionally was done is you have a what we call the e-board

emergency board, and that's made up of House members and Senate members. And they would make those adjustments on the even number years. Well, their justification was, well, they're really not the legislature. What it really was is they wanted to have a full-time legislature. So they put it in a referendum to the people and the wise people of Oregon voted for it. and they created this. So what they did is they subtracted 30 days from the regular session and took those 30 days and put them in the even-year session.

But it has really never been just to make budget adjustment. It's a full-blown policy session, only instead of six months, they do it in 30 days, which, in my opinion, is horrible, because in a regular session, things move slowly. You've got months and months and gives people the ability, the information to get out to the people of Oregon and get them to weigh in. Well, right now, everything is hurry up, hurry up and pass it is all we're getting right now. That's all this is.

You don't have time to get to your car and get to the Capitol. Well, to your point, I'll tell you, while I was talking with Kevin Sterrett yesterday, about this carve-out, this corrupt carve-out, this corrupt carve- I call it a corrupt carve-out with House Bill 4145 that law enforcement was going at after. You know, law enforcement won't come out and talk down measure 114, that ballot measure that was barely passed in this state. But, you know, retired law enforcement doesn't want to put up with having their large capacity or standard capacity gun magazines criminalize and get them in trouble.

So they want to carve out for them when they're retired. He's just like, nope, no way. You know, maybe what we ought to do, Bill, is anybody that retires out of the military or gets out of the military should be able to have a full automatic weapon. Well, why not, right? Why not? They're fully trained. The military has trained them how to use it and everything. Maybe.

Yeah, but anyway, my whole point on this was that no special privileges just because you were a cop during the time that you were earned. But, you know, they wouldn't stand up for the tyranny when the tyranny was being put on the ballot at that point. Nobody would, you know, would say much about that. No, we don't want to do that. But now they want to carve out for themselves afterwards. And I'm saying, no, no way. And but yet they were making it very difficult in this short session to comment. It's like they didn't even put the comment link up until, gosh, middle of the day yesterday.

And the meeting or the hearing wasn't. three o'clock. You're like three hours notice. That was it. Yeah, it's crazy. And you know, when I was in the Senate, people had to travel to the Capitol to testify pretty much. Now they, they, they, they don't want you to do that. They want you to do everything electronically in Zoom and this and that. And I'll tell you, it's not the same. It's not the same is to sit in front of that dais and address the senators or, or House members. And you can, you know, you know, with eye contact, and you can look them in the eyes and tell them, it's not the same, but they're discouraging it.

This state discourages public involvement in the process, in my opinion. Yeah, maybe it's that considered a, well, not a bug, but a feature. They like it that way. They just do what they want to do. Well, we have the Oregon Nurses Association pushing a bill that we'll probably get passed. that protects illegal aliens in the health care system? It's like, what's going on with that, do you think? I don't, you know, I'm not an expert on all this,

but I think federal law is pretty clear. And I think somehow some of these people are going to get prosecuted for harboring an illegal person. Something's going to happen. Yeah, you could be right about that. what is concerned me about the Oregon Nurses Association, Herman, is that they're kind of talking out of both sides of their mouth. On one hand, they're really upset because hospitals are getting closed and hospitals aren't able to be profitable enough in order to provide a lot of services here. And yet, what is the ONA talking about protecting?

Oregon Health Plan people who are illegal aliens. That's what they're talking about protecting. And it's like, these are people who aren't paying. They aren't paying the nurse's salaries. In fact, they are a burden on the system, and they're frightened. They're horrified of the thought that they might be taken out of the state. It astounds me. It really does.

It's like they don't seem to understand you are going against what you need. You need a healthy health care system. Yeah. Well, if you're trying to ask me to understand the liberal mind, that's going to happen. Okay. All right. Well, what do you think is going to happen if ICE does turn its attention to? to Oregon at some point.

How do you think the governor's going to respond? Well, it's not that, but, well, she's going to, I don't know what she's going to do. She may turn kick after what they're doing to the governor of Minnesota and that mayor. She may all of a sudden kind of just quiet down. You think so? Yeah, there's a strong possibility that may happen. But, you know, I just, there's so many things I don't understand. You know, they hate law enforcement in Minnesota.

And now down in Arizona with that lady that is missing, all they doing is praising, oh, law enforcement is going to solve this. Oh, yeah, Savannah Guthrie, Savannah Guthrie's mother, who apparently was kidnapped or abducted somehow. And gosh, we hope that she's okay. But I wonder if what they're really wondering about. And we don't know at this point, but this is right down on the border. Could there be a cartel connection on something like this?

I'm not going to speculate. No, I know, but I'm saying that it's an easy one to think about that maybe. And I would imagine they're probably hoping that there's not, right? Because otherwise all this talk about, oh, we need the migrants. And this is the other kind of flies in the face of that if it ends up not being that way. Yeah, you know, I don't have it. I'm up here. I'm just commenting on the, on, you know, how the Democrats on one hand hate law enforcement.

And then all of a sudden, on the other hand, they'd embrace them. I just don't. I know. I know. And it's hope that her mother ends up being found okay, but it's not sounding great at the moment. They're not putting out a lot of details on it. But yeah, it is ironic at the same time they're talking about the defunding and we want to get rid of masks on ice. And, you know, I can certainly understand not wanting to have masks.

on law enforcement. I can almost see the appeal of that, don't you, in some ways? That's an option. I mean, they tried to make us all put masks on just a little while ago. That's a good point. That's true. They did. They too. Yeah. Yeah. Go back five years, they would have been yelling at the ICE agents. Put on your mask. Put on your mask, you super spreader. Right? Right. Right. And it's cold in Minnesota. So maybe they need a mask to keep their face warm. I don't know. Okay. All as I do know, back. to Oregon, 36 counties, about 31 of them are bright red. What I'm predicting is when this happens, I think citizens in these bright red counties

are going to look at their sheriff and say, we certainly hope you cooperate with the federal government. I see that coming. You do. Yes, I do. cooperating with the federal government then gets you sideways with the governor and the state system. It really puts our sheriffs in a horrible position, but they don't represent Tina Kotech. They represent the people that voted for them. Did you read what the Secretary of State Tobias Reid was talking about yesterday? Do you catch that one? What did he have to say?

He says that he's warning that actions by the Trump administration, in another national figures could threaten the integrity of upcoming elections. And this is what he's taught. Tobias Reid was mentioning demands for sensitive voter data. In other words, the Social Security number that the federal government actually provides to people, right? That's sensitive voter data, according to Tobias Reid. And also proposed legislation that could limit voting access. Now, this is how OPB referred to it, limit voting.

access, allow me to translate Herman. That's the Save Act, which would require government ID in order to be able to vote. That's so much BS. You know it. Everybody knows it. Uh-huh. Everybody has an ID. I know.

You know, even most of the homeless bombs have IDs. You know, they have to get their services. They got to get their drugs. They have to get all these other sort of things. But Tobias Reid is talking about voters actually identify. themselves for the election as that's going to be reducing voting access. Well, I think Tobias, you know, I've worked with Tobias and I've never had any real, I mean, we differ on any issues, but he's, I would say, well, what he's doing right now is he's just

placating to his base because I know, I know inside me, Tobias wants to be governor one day. He didn't want to strap on Kotech, but he knew this would be her last term. So I think he had his eyes on in four years. So he's just placating to that base because we all know it's a bunch of bologna. Okay. Yeah, we'll take that to the bank there. Former State Senator Herman Beretshiger with me. You grab a call here, Herman.

I don't know if they want to talk with you. If they want to talk with you, great. If not, I'll put them back on hold and we'll wait a little bit. Hi, good morning. Do you want to talk with Herman or not? Good question. I hope it is. COTEC's been trying, as well as other governors, to come up with legislation to stop ICE.

And I'm kind of guess it's making it illegal for them to be in the state or possibly arrested. But how does that work with laws and all that stuff? You know, it's a great question. Herman, I don't think they can pass any law. They can just order ICE not to be around. Federal law trump, no pun intended. It's federal law of Trump's state law. So are they just wanting to pass a law that says ICE is not allowed here and then it just doesn't matter?

Yeah, well, they'll do things. No, they're not, they can't do that, but they'll do things like, you know, any, you know, like our Somalian referengi, who's a state senator, he's actually the head of the Democrats in the Senate. he wants to pass a law that any company that does business with ice, like hotels or restaurants or anything, will be banned from doing business with the state of Oregon, stuff like that. Okay. Well, I can see more lawsuits coming then if that's the case. All right.

Oh, yeah. Now, let's shift it just for a moment or two here to Josephine County. I know last week we had the temporary board. You used to be on the Josephine County Board, and they ended up doing just like you said they were going to do. They ended up having this laundry list of suggestions of what they would like to see in a county commission candidate who would be appointed by this temporary board of elected officials here. And it's being treated like a hire. It is total nonsense. But I'm still trying to figure out, though, why Wally Hicks, who is a legal guy, he knows what the definition of a candidate.

for Josephine County is it's right there in the charter. It's pretty simple that, you know, you're registered voter here, you're eligible to run, and that you've been in the county for six months, and that you promised to remain in the county if you're elected. Those are the requirements. That's it. You know, that's it. Well, it's not just suggestions in that if you read it,

if this applicant will be considered using the following criteria. Is Josephine County just trying to get sued again? I don't know what's going on. You know, I think, in all honesty, all those people that make up that temporary board for this one purpose, that's the only thing that they're tasked to do. Well, the thing is, though, is that they don't have authority to be setting policy on hiring for Josephine County, right? I don't think so, and this is not a hiring. It's an appointment. There's two big different things, and it's for an elected position.

But they're treating it like they're hiring an administrator of some sort, okay? Yes. And sadly, I think they're trying to do their best. It's just they don't have the knowledge. And, you know, what you have to remember is we're a Democratic Republic. And we have elected offices so people can represent. That's what Republic comes from. represent. And so instead of the citizen having to represent themselves on all these issues,

they elect a person to represent them. And the reason there's no, you know, prerequisites for this is so it can give anybody the ability to run for office, whether you're the richest person in a county or the poorest. Whether it's a high school grad or a GED or someone with three doctorates, right? That's right. And usually the only stipulation is you have to be a resident of that community or something like that. And in this particular case, there's only two qualifications. One, you have to be a resident in Josephine County for six months, and two, you have to continue you being a resident as long as your commissioner. So those are the only two things. So they've circumvented that. So they've, you know, the spirit of this position is anybody should be able to,

in my opinion, anybody should be able to apply, just like anybody should be able to throw their name in a hat to get elected. That's what a republic is. And so they've really narrowed, narrowed who can apply. And I don't think that's right. It almost sounds like these elected officials that are trying to choose or claiming to want to choose a, you know, a couple of Josephine County commissioners. It looks like they're like they're in the search for, you know, kind of like, oh, we have to have the experts. We need more experts, right? All the experts that have got us in trouble up to this point. You know what I'm getting at here where instead of a representative republic, instead of a republic where anybody could run, we have to have a tyranny of the experts, the same.

people who give us road diets in Medford, for example, that kind of thing. So when you look at the historical data of when these things happen to Josephine County, and I haven't examined any other counties, but I would say they're probably the same, is that when these positions open up for whatever reason, historically, it's always a former commissioner that sits in like this. You only sit there until next January, so it's like 10 months. because those people, former commissioners, can come in and go to work right away. There's no learning curve.

Yeah, but see, they've made it clear, though. They haven't wanted you, people like you or any other past commissioners to be involved. Well, I don't know. When I look at that, when I look at the qualifications, it really limits about everybody else but people like me. Oh, really? Yeah. Because they ask for government. any experience. They're asking for people that have served in office. They've asked, you know,

all those, if you read all that stuff. And so. But I still don't think that they have the legal authority to even suggest that, do they? No. In the spirit of the, of the office, I do not. And, you know, I'm more of a process person. Issues are issues. Issues come and go. And whatever side you wind up on the issues is one thing. But you should always defend the process. Bill, because without the process, we have nothing. Well, I would like the process just to be done the way the process was supposed to be done. That's just me. I don't live in Joe County, though, so I don't have a dog in that fight, but I would like to see the nonsense come to an end.

Okay? Can we all agree on that much? Well, this is all because Commissioner Smith said he doesn't like the process, and so he's not going to participate. So is he going to pick and choose what part of the charter he's going to participate with? Seems that way so far. Yeah. It's very, very disappointing. Let me tell you. All right. It really is. We'll leave it on that note. Sorry to be on a disappointing note there, but yeah, I'm hoping they find their way through this.

This is just ridiculous so far. All right. Herman, we'll talk next week, oh, you be well, okay? All right. You take care. Yeah, put another log on your fire there in the stove, okay? There you go. All right. See you later. KMED, KMED, H.T.H.E.H.E.H.E.H.E.G.G. Grants Passes. where you are. Trucks.