Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-19-26_THURSDAY_6AM

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

02-19-26_THURSDAY_6AM

This hour of the Bill Myers 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. I was talking with Kevin Stairer, text messaging with Kevin Stairn yesterday, and he said, the Republicans aren't on the floor. They left. And I said, really? I said, was it the rapture?

I was just kind of kidding with him. You know, just wondering if a bunch of, no, it actually has. And joining me right now, State Senator Noel Robinson. Good morning, Senator. Good day to have you back. Good morning. It's wonderful to be back. All right.

Explain what happened yesterday, because this is all about this Democrat push to move the transportation vote to the main election, right, with a very low turnout. Yes, it's targeted at that. We also have a gun bill, which is very repungent. You know all about that. This transgender bill. So what they're doing up here this session is not going to help us. It's just hurting the state more. So the discussions about everything.

But particularly there's a target on the electric date moving bill. And that bill, well, it's nothing but a pure political move. And they've tried to raise taxes on driving your car. And that didn't work. We got 250,000 Oregonians, they'd like to vote on this. and now they want to move the date because they think will help them politically, and everyone knows it's a pure political move. Oh, yeah.

Well, I know that the Democrats of your colleagues have claimed that this is about getting an answer from the voters sooner, and budget clarity, et cetera, et cetera. It's kind of nonsensical. It's very transparent. You look through it and you're going, okay, you don't want to run with that vote next to your name, right, when you're running for re-election this year. That simple is that. Yeah, so I don't think even if they move it to May, I don't think it's going to help very much.

much to run with your – it's the same problem. A lot of people think that if it's on the same ballot, it will hurt them more. The Democrats certainly believe that. I think it's going to hurt to me the way because they're way out of stuff with Oregonians. But that's exactly right. And it's – so we're opposed to it. The petitions, as everyone knows, the petitions had a specific date printed on them. Why would you move it?

The story that we have to find out as soon as possible so we can decide what to do is, of course, completely bogus. Everyone knows that that is going to lose at the ballot. We're pretty sure. Make that assumption. Yeah, so the Democrats need to be getting together or the Republicans and go, okay, yeah, we've got to figure out what the real budget's going to be for ODOT, right? What's the real number? That's right. Not our pie in the sky.

Yes, and I'm especially interested in trying to figure out why we're wasting so much money. The problem, of course, is that we all agree that we need roads. We need bridges. But the ODOT cost for these things are four or five times what they should be. I've looked into some of these. You can spend the Abernathy Bridge, $47 million on engineering alone. But you didn't need that much to engineer it. $800 million, and the cost to taxpayers is over $800 million at this point.

And when I add up the steel and hours involved, I don't see how you get over $100, steel concrete and hours spent. I don't see how you get over $140 million. So there's a lot of money being wasted, and that is you solve that problem. We've got plenty of money for roads. Has there been any talk about, you know, completely getting ODOT out of the actual construction side of things

in which it's just like, okay, bid on the, you know, here's the specs we have for the bridge, bid on it. Or is that the way it works? Maybe I'm, you know, ignorant about that. That is the way it works most of the, the time, and that is probably part of the problem. But then they, so you know what happens. We put all sorts of rules and restrictions. It's not so much build a bridge. You've got to follow all these environmental laws. You've got to do it the way we say. You've got to, it's a very, sometimes you've got to

use union labor. And you have to pay the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, salary, too, over at O'Don. I mean, I can't believe after all this talk, we still have one of those, and that's yet another drag on the budget over at do-da. They haven't gotten rid of that and tried to keep things going, have they, Senator? No, they have not. But so the issue is that even if you're getting competitive bid, you reduce things to the point where only a few people can bid on the project because there's no many restrictions. And then wherever the money is going, I can't say for sure, but I think everyone's keeping their prices sky high. And some of it may be just we don't want to deal with the government. But building a bridge is.

a fairly straightforward thing. We've been doing it a long time. We know how to do it. You don't need that much engineering. We did multiple examples before. We have to be able to sort this out. You've got to be able to build these things at a reasonable cost. We used to in the past. If you tried to replace our bridges and rows today, it'd be almost impossible, and yet we built them all in the last 100 years. State Senator Noah Robinson with me. So what actually drove this said, did you all just got to get together at, you know, over coffee or something and saying, hey, we're not showing up this afternoon and we're going to keep doing this? I mean, how does that actually work? How do it end up starting on? Or was it something maybe you're

always thinking about? Well, we're always thinking about these things, of course. And we decided that today, and I'm always happy to walk out. I think it's a great tool to use. You can't do it on everything. You have to pick important issues, but I'm happy to do it. And this time, Everyone got together and agreed on it. And we don't know whether we'll be there today or not. It depends upon their discussions going on right now. All right. So what is the ask then?

Do you know or can you disclose that or do we have to keep that quiet right now? I probably shouldn't go into tremendous details, but it's fairly obvious. Okay. There's various variations in scenarios. There's a lot of bills that we think should not go forward. And that would include the gun bill, Would that also include the transgender surgery bill, the one that gives them legal protection? And I forget exactly what that is.

Maybe you can explain what's going on right now. It gives special legal protection to insurance companies and doctors and so forth that perform these things, including minors. And the rest of the country is starting to realize that this was a bad idea. It's obvious any rational person. Yeah, and Oregon seems to be incredibly doubling down on students. or depraved. Maybe that's a better way of looking at it. And I can't help but wonder, is part of the reason they are so into the transgender surgery deal, OHSU, and how much money they've been making out of those kind of surgeries?

I have no idea. This is one that completely mystifies me, because I don't understand no matter how much you're making, how you can promote that kind of thing. It's what's doing to children, young people that are confused, it makes no sense. And I cannot explain it. I just simply don't understand it, and I further don't understand why the legislature keeps going for those stuff. All right. So as far as we know at this point in time, if there is not a good negotiation and the Republicans don't get what they want, then you're going to stay out there, right? Yeah.

And that is always, well, we've had a lot of discussions about walkouts before. how whether they go as far as you want or end as effectively as you want is open for discussion. The hope would be that they'd be sensible. This is a short session. We aren't even supposed to be doing major legislation. Oh, but that was another big lie sold to the voters, okay, Senator. What I was wondering, though, is that how are you getting, or I guess you have to think about measure 113, you know, which was passed by the voters who were kind of fooled on that one, too, that you can only have 10 unexcused. absences, how many days are actually left in this particular session, you know?

18, I think. Okay, so there's 18 official. Now, it's every day, including the weekend, counted as a day. I didn't know if it's just business. You can do the weekend if you start. So, yeah, and that's a problem, and I don't know whether you can get, I just don't know. My opinion is that the legislation is far more important than whether you can run again. Yeah.

So I don't think it should matter. but some people view it differently. And so I don't know where we go with that. But from what I understand, there is a deadline, though, or a drop-dead date for the Democrats wanting to move this ODOT taxing bill and getting it into the May ballot, that if they don't do it and get it completely done within the next week or so, there's not enough time to make that change. Isn't that the case from what I understand?

Well, yes, that's correct. The Secretary of State has said that they need the – that he needs – the bill signed by the 25th in order to make that happen. And that's a reasonable guess. At the same time, I don't really believe that. I think that if they have that bill signed, they will somehow get it done. They'll find a way to, they'll find an exception. They will find an exception. And one of the things that you could say a lot about why we just shouldn't move that date. But one of the things that's particularly repungent is that people want to put arguments in the voters pamphlet.

There's almost no time to do it. Well, yeah, you can pay $1,200 and get it in, and I think you'll still be able to do that, but you can collect 500 signatures and get it in for nothing, and a lot of people rely on that, and that will be almost impossible, no matter how we fiddle the deadline. If they move it to May, that's going to be almost impossible. And that alone should be enough to say this should not be done. Boy, what a crafty bunch of people there. And I'm not saying that admirably, you know, but they've realized then that you can also, you can stack the deck, move it to a much lower turnout election, and then make it up really hard to put anything in the voter's pamphlet against it, too. Wow. It's like a win-win for them, I guess, huh?

Yes, and this is this is the sort of game playing that goes up in Salem that ordinary Oregonians do not appreciate. All right. We need to be straightforward and tell them exactly what we're doing. And this sort of behind the scenes settling around is exactly what we should. It's exactly, it epitomize everything that's wrong with Salem. State Senator Noah Robinson, we appreciate the update. And keep us in the room if anything goes on. And as far as I'm concerned, stay out as long as you need.

We got your back, okay? We appreciate that. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Take care, Senator. 22 minutes after 6, KMED, 993KBXG, and you are on the Bill Meyer show. The Outdoor Report is every Friday morning just past 7 a.m. on the Bill Myers Show.

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It's conspiracy theory Thursday. One conspiracy I'll throw out there. So they arrest the former Prince Andrew, right? Is this the limited hangout? Nobody who actually has any power will be exposed. I don't know. Just a thought that ran through my head this morning. Yeah, Bob Epstein.

Yeah, the Epstein files. How you doing, Tom, and Talent? Good to hear from you. What's up? Well, yeah, that was quite a discussion there with Noah Robinson about, you know, the machinations of the porcelain mausoleum up in the Salem. And, you know, I keep saying over and over again that people cannot make correct decisions without correct information. And all this jockeying going around up in Salem, they're hiding so many things. I think Richard Emmons of the Oregon Eagle came out and said that Portland is spending something like $97,000 per homeless person up there.

You know, that's over $8,000 a month for each homeless. Well, what that's telling you is that the homeless rackets have to skim off their take. there are a lot of people then getting their paychecks, you know, the NGOs, the various groups out there to provide the services. Yeah, and I don't think it's entirely a racket. It's this whole thing about misplace empathy and so forth. I mean, people, you know, some of these homeless look pretty darn desperate. And I agree. see where so that.

Well, I think it, well, I disagree with you on one thing. I think there is, it is racketeering when it gets to the point that the Democrats in the state legislature will make sure that these, that these NGOs are paid. They're also going to be reliable political donation sources for that reason. The Democrats will always pay for their friends. Yeah, well, that's the old thing. If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count them Paul to vote. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And on Armstrong economics, he has an article, Mom Dany to Drain Rainy Day Fund and raised taxes. You know, I've been describing Mondami as the new slumlord of New York. And what's going on in New York is kind of just like what's happening up in Salem. You talk with Noah about, you know, you got a project there, but you have your DEI coordinator. there and so forth. And all this crap that's going on, it's the Democrat one-party system up there is just thinking they can tax and spend forever with no repercussions. And, hey, people are leaving Oregon. All the businesses are leaving Oregon.

Yeah, and they'll be running out of tax meals over. They'll be running out of fat tax meals over time to be bled. Okay? Good point, Tom. Good point, Tom. Very much so. Let me go to Steve. Steve's here, too. Hello, Steve. You've been holding on? Morning. Hey, good morning. Good morning. The rumor of my demise is greatly exaggerated, so. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that nobody told me that you had been demised, but I'm glad you're gone. Or you're here around. You're not gone. All right.

Yeah, I'm glad to. What's going on? Anyway, as far as Salem in this election, I think another reason, they want to move it is because they can cheat easier. Oh, cheat easier in the May, huh? Well, the mail-in ballots, yeah, if there's, you know, they can manipulate the vote more easily with the mail-in ballots. And it's funny, I was just talking about the United States Postal Service already saying, well, you know, we can't really tell you when you're going to get your postmark on your ballot, right?

Yeah, yeah, that whole thing. is so corrupt. I can hardly believe that they keep pushing it and keep supporting it. I don't know what. Trump is trying to outlaw mail-in ballots. I don't know how he can do it, but I think what are you a great thing if he could? Yeah, that's a pretty tall lift, but yeah, the federal government could actually put out rules regarding federal elections only. And it would be interesting to see if that happens, because it would really push our hand to get rid of balloting that way, because would they really want to have a two-tier system? I don't know if the Secretary – well, of course, I don't know Secretary State would always like to be able to have a cheatable mail-in option. We'll see.

I think that's the case. And, you know, going back to history, you go back and read Alexander, Solzhenitsyn, this is what the communist did in Russia. And I told you this story about the railroad. They destroyed the railroad because they put too much weight on the cars. The engineers couldn't get coal into Moscow. And so the Politburo decided, well, we'll fix this problem. We'll double the amount of coal that they can haul. Well, what they do here is that they just double the amount of windmills to go on the bridge, on the grid rather.

All right. Thanks, Steve. I'm glad you're here. Okay, 770KM.E.D. Chris is here. Chris, you're talking with former Senator Berchiger about something, I guess, huh? What's up? Well, I'll talk to him some other business that I didn't get to talk to him about why from Tom home and down to any of them.

They're not even addressing, okay, but I went into Rogue Credit Union on 7th Street yesterday. By the way, the A.m. got demolished there by a car. Yeah, I know. Got smacked pretty hard, I know. Yeah. But there was foreigners in there, and they cater to the Hispanic that don't even speak any. English. I said, you know what? They don't belong here. No, that doesn't make, you know, not speaking English is not an indicator of necessarily illegally present, though. I mean, you can

get green cards, and there are agricultural visas and things like that. So I'm just saying you can't just look at it quite that simply, you know, A equals B, you know, that kind of thing. All right? Well, I look at it as A equals B, and when they don't speak in English, it probably don't belong here, probably don't have their paperwork, probably don't have a green card. And I ask him, hey, they come outside the bank, and I say, hey, S.A., you speak any English? He's like, uh, Pikita, why? And I said, because you're illegal and you shouldn't be here. Uh-huh.

And you know what? We should be able to, we should be able to turn these people in and have them looked at. You can't, you can't. So I called the ICE detention facility in Portland. it's so clunky bill these people are all on the grift even in the system you can't get a whole some yeah we're right on it we'll be right on it well you can't there's no one in grant's past you can talk to okay so all right so what you're doing is that you call up ice and you're saying hey there's people here that are only speaking that are not speaking english come get them

it's not exactly actionable intelligence i'm sorry well they should be checked out you should be you should be able to turn people in. But you don't know. You're just assuming. Well, I assume, I assume right a lot of times, and they should be turned in. You say, hey, check these people out. If you go to Amy's Kitchen. Okay, okay.

All right, all right. I'll tell you what. Let's just go to the absurd then. Should I be able to call up the Josephine County sheriffs and say, hey, Chris, I think Chris is a child molester. Go check them out. It's like, come on, man. You can't do that. I get it, Bill, but I've got firsthand knowledge about hearing David.

They've taken so many illegals the work there, and they don't question them. They don't want to know. Yeah. Oh, I can assure you of that. They don't want to know. However, what I would advocate then, I think that's why I'm really kind of upset that they have backed away from the E-Verify system, because E-Verify would pretty much take care of most of this. that if you had to be, you know, verified in order to get employed,

that would tend to whack those kind of employers hard, okay? Yeah, purge them. All right. Appreciate the call. Thank you. And by the way, no, Josephine County Sheriff's, did I go after Chris? Not this, not for that. Like I said, I was using an absurd example, okay?

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only. Plus stop by to build your flock with our new shipment of baby chicks perfect for backyard chickens and farm fresh eggs. Coastal farm is just what the country needs. See you on February 21st for a day and a bucket full of beers. Here's the latest from KMED news. Getting a little spicy in the Oregon legislative session with Senate Republicans walking out and boycotting the afternoon session yesterday. This denial of quorum means no business takes place, delaying action on the Democratic. plan to move the referendum on the transportation tax from November to the lower turnout May election. Dems assert the move is to get an answer sooner from the voters. Republicans say it's more about not having

voters reminded in the general election that the Democrats voted for those big taxes and fees last year. Democrats only have a week to get the bill passed and on the governor's desk before they run out of time to move the election vote to May. This morning at 9, the temporary board of elected officials in Josephine County meets to pick two new county commission. to fill the vacancies created by the resignation of Andreas Bleck and recall of Chris Barnett. The temporary board spent all day interviewing nine finalists for the positions yesterday. NBC 5 News reporting Mike Beagle, the alumni relations director at Southern Oregon University, has died. Sunday, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office located Beagle near the summit of Wagner Butte Trail outside of Talent.

Police announced that he died from a medical event after hiking in steep mountainous terrain. No foul place suspected. a new superintendent for the Rogue River School District, which says Dr. April Harrison will take the place of Patrick Lee. Harrison's been the district's director of special programs and student services for the last 10 years and will start the superintendent's position in July. Bill Meyer, KMED News. Imagine a vehicle speeding through your workplace at 65 miles per hour, passing within a few feet or inches of you and your coworkers. That's the everyday reality of being a highway worker. I'm John Zay,

maintenance manager at O. Dot in the Rogue Valley. When you see emergency responders or other workers on the highway, please remember to move over and give us space. And if you can't change lanes safely, please slow down. It's the law, and our lives depend on it. A message from the Oregon Department of Transportation.

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To my right, an exemplary insurance. agent, an independent, which means... I can help you research multiple insurance plans, giving you a much better look at who actually has the better coverage. Well, that's not fair? That's not what our customers say. Oh, I can't compete with that. Home, auto, health, life.

Skypark insurance is your local independent agency that shops for the best coverage for less. Steve makes insurance easy. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Jeff Dornig, founder and CEO. of Pickax. It's a ground banking social media platform. A couple of ones, compromising principles, freedom of speech, freedom of reach. Of course, that's been the big one. And there's a lot of talk lately about social media, given that Zuckerberg was out there testifying yesterday in a couple

of big lawsuits against him. How you doing this morning here? Jeff, welcome back. Doing really well. I've been looking forward to chat with you again. Yeah. All right. Tell us a little bit about Pickax, and then we'll kind of move forward here because one of the things that you have made clear about this is that it's not about an algorithm deciding who gets to see what you post on your account. Is that a fair way of saying what makes you different? Yeah, exactly. When you go on to all the rest of the social media platforms, you're always chasing the algorithm. If the algorithm doesn't like your content, then you're not going to be seen. And the new open source code that Elon Musk recently released that shows how they decide what content gets seen,

they actually showed that it has zero bearing on who follows you because that doesn't matter anymore. And so your following has zero to do with what your content actually gets seen on these social media platforms. And it has everything to do with the algorithm, which is learning everything about you doing what you want to see, and then also doing what they want you to see. And so if you're not posting content that the algorithms like or that's within their origin window, they're not going to let people see it. So what we're doing with Tickax is the exact opposite. We're leaning heavily into you building communities, you know, you engaging with people that you follow. If somebody follows you, that means that they're actually going to see your content.

And so it's just it's we're making social media social again and allowing you to build, you know, relationships with actual human beings as opposed to something like 65% of accounts. on these other big tech platforms are bought. So we have our way of weeding them out, making sure that you're interacting with human beings, and that we can create community again within a social media platform. I know last time we were talking about, you say you were updating the app or something was going on that you were getting ready to release.

Have you done that at this point? Yeah, so on Tuesday, actually, come up on the 24th, we are officially launching the app in the app store. So it'll be available at Google Play and iOS, and so it will be available. We're going to do a big massive life stream all day on Tuesday. Tuesday, and then, you know, we've been getting a lot of amazing people, you know, join the platform where everybody from Children's Health Defense, Rampage, Jackson, Dr. Pierre

Corey, Vigilant Fox, some amazing people that are already on the platform. And so, you know, it's going to be a lot of fun as we launch. All right. That's good to know, because I'll download that and check that out and get myself an account and move on and I'll get back with you and see what we think about this. Now, let's turn our gaze then onto Mr. Zuckerberg, the big Facebook guy, Meta Guy. on trial, a lot of things such as, I guess, engineered addiction. And I'm a little, I have mixed emotions about this because I was kind of under the impression

that the whole purpose of social media is kind of an engineered addiction thing. Am I right or wrong about that? How do you see it, Jeff? Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And so, you know, specifically with this case that Zuckerberg is, you know, how to testify. and yesterday and that Facebook is dealing with right now. It's basically over a case where, you know, a family is suing Facebook. And I think there's like 1,500 other people that are also filing lawsuits as well.

But if his family is filing a lawsuit against Facebook because the daughter, you know, by the time she was 16 years old, was so addicted to social media that she was on at 16 hours a day. Wow. And so the way that I look at this is, you know, two things can be true at the same time. Number one, you know, that Facebook and these social media platforms, you know, are, in fact, making the platforms to be addictive through a variety of means. Part of it is also the algorithms because they are learning about you, what you like, what makes you tick, and then they will feed you information that will keep you engaged, keep you going, keeping you watching the next video and the doom scrolling. Also, on top of that, they're also creating, allowing teenagers and children to create accounts. on the platforms, and, you know, which I think is very, very dangerous anytime that you allow

a minor to be able to engage with other people, open them, open themselves up to all sorts of exploitation and blackmail and stuff like that, as we're seeing with a 764 group, that the FBI is prosecuting and going after and all that kind of stuff. So there's that. Yes, it is addictive. The social media platform should not be allowing minors on the platforms. At the same time, there's also this thing of personal responsibility. and parental oversight. Yeah, that seems to be something which I think was kind of lost in that trial testimony yesterday, right?

And I guess you don't want to be accused of blaming the victim, I guess. Is that what we're looking at? Right. Yeah, possibly. The problem that we have is that what the family is alleging is that at six years old that this daughter got addicted to YouTube and was watching YouTube videos for hours every day. And then it progressively got worse. And then by the time that she was 16 years old, she was all.

on, she was online for 16 hours a day. Now, the way that I look at that is, number one, how is a six-year-old able to watch YouTube videos and get addicted because a parent doesn't have to get their kid an iPad or a computer or a phone, especially at six years old? So, so there is a certain level of personal responsibility. Are you using a screen as a babysitter? Are you using it to keep them entertained while you go about and do your thing? Or are you giving, are you giving them a book? You're giving them a toy. You're giving them a game. You know, something like that. And then, you know, then, you know, the kid grows up, becomes 16 years old and is spending 16 hours a day. There's all sorts of solutions that you can have as a parent. There's take away the phone, take away any device. You could shut off Wi-Fi. You could, you know, require you to have an Ethernet cord and not use Wi-Fi. There's all sorts of things that you can do in order to limit or get rid of their access. And I would strongly encourage parents, do not get your kids in front of screens. It's horrific for their development with their brain, but then also every single time that your child has access to any platform, whether it's a gaming platform or a social media platform or even an email that gives you access to interact and engage with somebody else and especially strangers,

you are opening your child up to all sorts of exploitation and addiction and a lot of horrific things that happen online that parents would be utterly shocked at. Jeff Dordock once again, and it is just an amazing story here. He's the founder and CEO of Pickax. Now, what you had just mentioned here, don't let kids get online. And imagine there are many parents that say, there's no way I can possibly do that. What would you say to them? You can. It's what we do with our son is we don't allow him with screens.

You know, there's a study that actually came out that, It says that the more time that you allow your young child to be in front of a screen, the more stunted their brain development becomes. It's affecting IQs. It's affecting ADD. It's affecting all kinds of things because it's overstimulation for their brain. Also, when you think about it, if you're sitting down and you're reading a book to your child, what does your child have to do?

Your child has to imagine the scene that you're reading to them. So they visualize what the characters are doing. They hear their, they make up what they think of the character, sound like in their brain, their brain is having to work. It's critically thinking. If you're watching a show or you're watching a movie, what is happening? The TV is feeding all the information into your brain, and then you see this glazed look over your child's face because their brain is not having to work because all they're doing is consuming without having to use any critical thinking skills. So that's actually leading to a stunted development when it comes to brain

development of our children. And so, you know, realistically, the best thing that you could do is take the devices away. Take the screen time away. Your children will get very upset when you do that. It's kind of like going through drug with. Well, I have to tell you, you know, to your point, though, as far as the addiction goes, Jeff, I've known about people who the parents took away the phone and then the kid kills the parents. It's happened several times. It's not just once. Yeah, it is a legitimate addiction, very much, very much like a drug withdrawal to a certain degree. But you see, then, of course, that brings up then, should we be going, should we be going like what Australia did? And I'm not a fan of Australia because it's kind of just a growing police state tyranny.

But they say, you know, if you were no social media accounts for minors, they just don't do it, not allowed. Yeah, honestly, like, you know, I don't like the government stepping in, but I feel like the social media platforms should. So, like, for example, with Bickax, we require you to be at least 18 years old to be on the platform. Okay. So specifically for this reason. You know, sometimes I, and this is just my own personal opinion theory on this, but sometimes I feel like what these big platforms are actually doing, if they take things to the extreme in hopes that the government will come in with some kind of regular. regulation. And because, you know, if you remember back when there was the fight over Section

230 back after the 2020 election and all that, you know, Mark Zuckerberg was literally testifying before Senate begging them for regulation and to change it. Why are they doing that? Well, because anytime that there's regulation, these big corporations actually have lobbyists, and then the lobbyists will then dictate what the regulations say. So they write their own rules in other words, right? That's what you're saying. To eliminate, to eliminate competition. So that's kind of what I feel like is happening. here is they're pushing the boundaries in hope that there'll be legislation that they can help in to craft under the guise of what we're going to protect the kids.

And we'll do this, but we'll also crush the pickaxes of the world. Do you think that's the suspicion here on your part? Well, there is that for sure. But then even on top of that is that then they can claim, then they can claim that, look, we're doing everything by the book, but they crafted it in a way that allows them to continue to have the addictive nature, but then it gives them, you know, basically a claim of immunity when it comes to losses like that. It's kind of like when Walmart would go to the state legislatures and say, yeah, I think

you should raise the minimum wage, right? You know, because they have the scale to be able to wash out those expenses, but they know they kill mom and pop competition. It's well known as part of the... Exactly. Exactly. And I think that there's a certain level of that as well. And this is the hard part of dealing where, dealing with these big corporations,

how they are so tied in with the federal government that they're the ones that are impacting legislation that benefits them, not necessarily what benefits the American people. Jeff, when you take the influence of social media and the addictive nature of social media, and then you combine it with the growth of artificial intelligence, and certainly the growth of AI slop, I swear about half of the videos that you'll see on most social media platforms now are, you know, SORA or some sort of, you know, AI slop, act, app, you know, kind of created things. Is it about just, are we just outsourcing human thinking? Is that the danger we're kind of running into these days?

Yeah, that's definitely the direction that we're going. I mean, you know, Elon, he spoke to Benjamin Netanyahu a couple of years ago talking about the endgame of artificial intelligence. He said it's either going to be Terminator where the robots take over everything or it's going to be heaven on earth. He basically described the movie Wally, you know, which would be his description of heaven on earth, where we just become consumers. The AI will generate the entertainment. The AI will generate your experience. You don't have to actually travel somewhere. You can just visualize it because your brain's connected to the internet. You just close your eyes and you're there.

Yeah, that sounds like another movie, though. That sounds like another movie to me that I hope that we don't ape, and that's the Matrix. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that's Elon for you. Yeah. Do you think that Zuckerberg will be paying? We'll be paying a big settlement in this particular trial. What do you think is going to happen if you were a betting man on such things? Honestly, I'm not sure because a lot of it depends on the opinion and which is more persuasive to, let's say, like a jury.

Just because, you know, the everyday person doesn't necessarily understand the technological implications. of everything, so it's going to be which side is more compelling when it comes to all of this. So I think it's kind of up in the air on which direction the case itself would go. But I think that if I'm looking at who is morally culpable for this issue, it's both sides. It's a combination of the social media platforms and the lack of parental oversight and making the right decisions for children. If the current social media model is broken, then, what do you think ends up replacing it over time? Well, I think it's going to be platforms like what we're doing with Tickax, what Rumble's doing with their video platform. It's creating human-centered, you know, spaces.

You know, we're hurtling towards this world of artificial intelligence where, you know, AI is projected within the next decade to replace all human beings in the workforce. And so there's me no more working. And that's where these guys are taking it. And so I think that there's, as time is going on, music is being overtaken by AI, film is being overtaken by AI, writing books is being overtaken by AI. Everything is being taken by AI. And I think that there's going to be a, there needs to be a space for human-centered platforms and businesses and areas where we can actually engage with each other.

And I think that that's where, you know, pick X comes in. and fill that void within the social media space. Rumble is doing that within the video space to where we're not going down this path of just, you know, AI, AI, AI, because ultimately the end game of AI is replacing humans. I mean, for example, Facebook just invested $65 billion this last year into developing artificial intelligence for the purpose of actually replacing human content creators with AI-generated content creators. Why?

Because they just want us to be the consumers. they control the AI content creators, which means they control the narrative, they control the Overton window, and then it's best for them in selling advertising. And so that's the path that these platforms are going. We need more platforms that go the opposite direction like what we're doing. Do you think that that's the problem? What you just mentioned is that this is about AI-generated content in order to sell advertising. And the challenge is that when you have a free social media platform, you end up being the problem. your information, your habits, that's the monetization of it, is the only way we're going to

have a true free, you know, truly free communication to actually pay for social media that we want. What do you think about that? To actually pay instead of having your information sold off to Satan? Well, I mean, you're already doing that with X and they're still collecting all of your data. I mean, you know, X is the city area of X-A-L. eye. Why? Because, you know, it's just a big data collection scheme. And so, you know, what, you know, but then everybody, if you want to get seen, you want your blue check marks, you get to pay anywhere from $8 to $60 a month. Yeah, but all that is is about verification. But I mean, in other words, in order to actually be on it, and in other words, just pay a monthly fee, this is

mine. I know that what was happening is that, the reason I bring this up, but you ever talk with George Gilder, your guy was involved with Google years ago? No. Okay. I haven't know. Yeah, get them on your show sometime. It's been a while. he's getting up there in ages, but he told me a number of years ago that he thought that the whole idea of surveillance, the surveillance capitalism of this was a, was going to end up being a broken and dying model over time, and that it was going to have to be replaced with something else in which you own your information. If you can't own your information, then there's not going to be any of that future in the, or that liberty in the future. That's the way he was looking at it when

he told me that number of years ago. I don't know if you have an opinion on that. claim or not. Yeah, well, it's like, you know, with us, with pickax, so we actually put it into terms of service that you as the creator, you as the user, you actually own your data. So you actually own the content that's being put on there. You're basically licensing it to us, whereas on the other platforms, they own your content. And so, so we're focused on that. We also, we're not data collected, we're doing data collection in order to target ads like

the other platforms as well. So instead of collecting your data, which everybody's doing, so that way they can pay point, you know, advertising. What we're doing is we are posting ads that are based on the content you're viewing, so then we don't have to actually stock you across the internet. So there's different ways to be able to do this in a way that is ethical and moral and does not require a surveillance data, as you said. But it just takes thinking a little bit outside the box, but it's not that complicated to do, and all of these platforms could do it. The one thing I can tell you is that all the big high-tech people that you talk to, they do not let their kids consume their own products.

I find that fascinating, don't you? Yeah, it's a tell as to what's actually happening because they know how addictive it is. They know how manipulated it is. And I think that that's another problem is that they are able to manipulate you into thinking a particular way. based upon the information that they feed you. And that is a major problem. I think that they realize that they know that. A lot of them are sending their kids to schools that don't have screens.

They're going out and they're playing out in the dirt. They're playing outside and they're learning and all that kind of stuff as opposed to just being stuck on screens. So even as a parent, it's like if you're sending your kid to a school and they're just sticking your kid on an iPad all day and having to have to do all their work on an iPad, I might try to find a different school in or have a conversation with the teacher of the principal and say, like, look, I, you know, here's a study. You can pull it up.

I do with NIH posted this recently where you can pull up the study to show them that says the more time that a young child spends on screen time, the more it's done their brain development. And so, you know, the more that we can kind of take a cue from what these tech guys are doing with their own kids, I think, you know, we would be much, much better and much wiser as parents. Jeff, I'm a few years older than you, but I never thought that I would be looking back at the 1970s, the crazy 1970s when I went to school, as being like the good old days, right? Because I thought I was kind of nutty, you know, even, you know, at that time. But I can still remember when the math teacher ended up bringing in the first computer that we had there. I think it was, what, an Apple one or something like that the very first Apple computer. I can go back in time saying, no, no, don't bring it in here. Don't give it any.

don't give it any oxygen. I don't know. It just couldn't help but think that what has helped revolutionize us also seems to be designed to enslave us at the moment. And I don't know. Which side do you think ultimately wins, the enslaving or the revolutionary side of it? I think in the end it's going to be the human-centered, you know, people. I think it's going to be very, very difficult for a long time because the powers that be want, want AI because it centralized the power and gives them a lot more control.

But I think at a certain point, you're going to see the people say, enough is enough. We're desperate for human connection and not this sterile, technological space that they're developing. Jeff Dornick, he's the founder and CEO of Pickax. Pickax.com. And you can sign up. I guess you're going to have that app coming out next week. And I'm going to check it out and download it. And I'll have you back.

We'll talk about it. How to give a review on the platform, okay? Sounds good. Looking forward to it. Right, Jeff, thanks so much for the call. It's a shade before 7 o'clock. KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KVXG, Grants Pass. If you're turning 65.

We're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. We'll catch up with the national news here in just a moment. Hand of the update. Kevin Sterrett's going to join me from Oregon Firearms Federation. I wanted to catch up on some things. Reading all sorts of weird stories about the gun bill, you know, the gun bill that was moving on, that we have some legislators that are going there

in berating and beating up on a female legislator and she was in tears and voting for it. And that, I heard Lars talking about that yesterday. It didn't make sense to me. And so for, and Kevin just watches this stuff all the time. I don't think he has any life when the legislative session has it. He's going to tell us what really happened. We'll have that coming up too. Sam Borgie's also going to join me from Investors Business Daily.

and we keep hearing about how young Americans can't afford what their parents had, and it's all the boomers' fault, you know, those kind of stories? And Investors Observer ends up analyzing 115 years of data and says that this whole idea is that the boomers have ruined life for everything is more than just a little bit overstated, and he's going to break that down for us. Sam's interesting cat. We'll talk with him in about a half hour, okay? Along with your calls and opinion, too.

This month, Pure Talk is honoring Jackson. Thank you.