Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-21-25_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Morning News, Ashland lets the kids do its thinking, Our democracy under attack...suuuure. DC Swamp Update with Rick Manning and a big talk on DOGE and what is next

The Bill Meyer 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. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning. Find your phone, 770-5633-770-KMED. We have a lot of good time for conversation this morning. DC Swamp Update will be happening this morning with Rick Manning in about 20 minutes

and kind of delve into all of the doge drama i think is uh probably a good way there is just a flood of news and and i almost want to take the news which is coming out in the uh in the local media and the state media kind of under the our democracy under attack. You can almost use that as the theme. Everything is about our democracy. Oh, this, generations of farmers are going to go, oh, everyone's going to starve. Oh, my gosh, we won't have anybody inspecting for bird flu.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. But at least I'll share what our democracy defenders are talking about this morning because there's just such pants-wetting terror about anything going away from the federal government. Now, I think part of this could be that a state like Oregon is dependent on, what, about one-third of its budget from the federal government and of course the federal government is borrowing a lot of this of this money that they end up sending to Oregon and so the power structure and you know a lot of services you know how your eyes glaze over sometimes when you hear bureaucrats talk within within the government here well you know we're here to provide needed services we're here to provide needed services and also to uh you know to uh to take resources and get resources out there because of investments you know it's almost like uh you know we're being

conditioned oh yeah uh services resources And, of course, investments means money which has been fleeced from people. And I think it was Ryan McMakin in Lew Rockwell today, LewRockwell.com, had mentioned how the real abuse has been the government class being the parasite on the productive class and when it comes right down to it is that every federal employee who is uh is complaining about the possibility of losing their gig right now and i understand hey you know losing gigs are tough things to do but in the private sector we have to put up with this all the time there's always the threat in the private sector that okay uh the boss may not just like the way you dressed this morning. And then, okay, I've had enough of Meyer and wearing his purple Bicostal Media shirt or whatever it is, and out you go.

I mean, that's the way it works in the real world. But it's a completely inverted pyramid or inverted kind of situation in the federal system, almost next to impossible to be fired. Or if it is, it's going to take a long, long time. And so I really do think that you're going to see ever more stories about our democracy under threat, you know, because of this. This is it. This is a real threat. How effective any of this is, how much of it's going to have to be walked back?

Yeah, you got to have the BPA engineers come back and run the damn generators and when i say damn i'm talking dam generators not you know not the expletive uh generators that's not what i was talking about and yeah yeah there are going to be some mistakes made and i would figure yeah there are going to be some mistakes made they're gonna have to walk some things back. But, well, here's just a small example of what comes in. This is on KOBI. Potential federal cuts to SNAP benefits and the Feeding America federal subsidy program could severely impact southern Oregon, where food banks and pantries are already struggling to meet the growing demand for assistance. According to Access, a 24 percent increase in households seeking food assistance

was seen between 2023 and 2024. At any time there's a change at the federal level that impacts people's wallets, we see that at the food pantries, said Marcy Champion, Food Programs Director at Access. If they lose funding lose funding from snap benefits they're going to seek out food pantries to help make for that cut make up for that cut okay so they're talking about now these are these are discussed these are not cuts which have happened yet but you have to get the uh our democracy is under attack here i think the real question that people should be asking is that why is it that there are so many people in oregon especially in oregon what is it about um anywhere with 30 40 percent of people are on snap benefits why is it that there are so many people

who have such great difficulty buying their own food and paying for their food. But nobody ever talks about that. It's just that SNAP benefits are just supposed to be a reality of life. You understand where I'm coming from? It's that the question never is, why is there so little economic activity that a lot of people are able to, or unable rather, to feed themselves? Or are unwilling to feed themselves if they are on other benefits, let's say. It's one thing if you're disabled, I get it, elderly, things like that.

But you know, the culture seems to be conditioned in which you have children. You're not supposed to be able to pay for your children. Certainly, you can't be expected to provide for your children. Hence, you have to have meals, all three meals provided at the government school system. You know, it's kind of a culture of dependency, I think, which has been brought to uh brought forward and i would also say that uh the snap benefits and all of the other uh federal gravy train which have been coming down here for quite some time cover up for really bad democrat party communism economic controls here in the state of oregon the public school system worries more about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And is there a government-paid-for surgeon ready to cut the genitalia off your children in order to provide gender-affirming care, that sort of thing, rather than, gee, are we turning out pretty smart kids ready to help build businesses and make things happen oh and then the state of oregon decides that we're going to put a corporate activity tax on on businesses that aren't making any money so why would anybody want to open up a business in oregon if you don't open up businesses in oregon you're not hiring people if you're not hiring people they're not making much money or they're on various other welfare benefits and if they're on welfare benefits they're on snap benefits and hence the attack on our democracy if you're talking about cutting any of the benefits whatsoever

shouldn't that be the question shouldn't these questions be asked over at our state legislature? Why is it that one-third of the Oregon budget is funded by the federal government? Or are you trying to tell me that this is something which is just going to have to be maintained forever and ever? Amen? What about Oregon? What is Oregon doing to improve itself? Well, we can improve ourselves. Well, why can't we improve ourselves? Well, because carbon and the climate. You know, we have to, you know, we have to shut down your timber industry.

We have to shut down any of your mining. We have to shut down your resource industry because of the environment. But then what do you do to take care of the people? It's okay. The federal government shall provide. The Lord federal government shall provide, right? Isn't it funny how we've been trained into or allowed ourselves, I suppose, to be trained into dependency? And frankly, the federal gravy train also has allowed a lot of incompetency to reign, a lot of stupid thinking to prevail in the state legislature

so that you end up having hearings the other day because we want to make sure and celebrate black drag queen history in the state of oregon oh yeah that's gonna put a lot of people to work and get people helping to feed their families oh yeah that's the kind of stuff that they're focused on. Just insane. In some respects, maybe the breakdown of federal government transfer payments, that could ultimately be some of the best things that ever happened to Oregon, in my opinion, at least, because then we're going to be actually forced to be

adults in the room. We're going to be forced to govern as adults and have clear thinking programs, clear thinking policies, things that actually work in the reality-based world, not in the fantasy-based gender-affirming care kind of world that Oregon seems to have been working on for a long, long time. Oh, by the way, our kids are still last place in government schools. Speaking of our kids in government schools, let me see if I can find this story, because I think there is a relation, a relationship, a connection. I'm reading Morgan Rothborn's article in ashland.news and it was also picked up by the road valley times ashland council approves fossil fuel fees on new residential

construction we've talked about this a bit before we knew this was coming so they ended up passing the ordinance establishing impact fees for the installation of fossil-fueled appliances in new residential construction, unanimously approved by the Ashland City Council on Tuesday, which shows you the brain level, the intellect of the Ashland City Council, in my opinion. But all the after parties, both in support of and opposed to the ordinance, took turns denouncing misinformation circulating around the issue. So I will focus on one part of this story here. They have Ashland High School student Kira Rettis opening her public comment

by saying that she intended to address misinformation that has been spread. Now, before I read her comment here, Rettis is a longtime member of the Ashland Youth Electrification Group, supporting the creation of the ordinance. And what Kiara said is that if you choose to install 100% electric appliances, there is no fee. This policy helps make housing more affordable by encouraging the lowest cost effective construction methods remember this is the one that if you install a natural gas furnace you're going to pay forty one hundred dollars or so it's a lot of money right and it's just going to go to the city of ashland this is all about carbon and emissions and this and that. But remember, listen to the sound of the future tyrants of America.

In fact, I think maybe Kara Redd is, instead of being a member of the Ashland Youth Electrification Group, perhaps she could be a founding member of the future Southern Oregon tyrants of America. Because listen to the sound. It's almost like she has the bureaucraties language already embedded in her consciousness. If you choose to install 100% electric appliances, there is no fee. This policy helps make housing more affordable by encouraging the lowest cost effective construction methods. Okay. Now, you can see the fake job that this Ashland High School student is trying.

And I'm sure that the adults around here are saying, well, this is what you say in your comment or doing something like that. But, you know, remember, if you install 100% electric, there is no fee. And we're encouraging you with the lowest, most cost-effective construction methods. Okay, it's the lowest, most cost-effective construction methods because the city's imposing $4,000 on top of it if you don't choose to go along with what the Ashland High School student group wishes. Now, I don't want to blame them because, you know, the city council is just happy. You know, the Marxists on the Ashland City Council are just happy to have them, you know, come along and go along. Oh, well, the kids are crying about the carbon, so we have to destroy natural gas here in Southern Oregon. You know, that's kind of their take. You know, kids are crying, shred the Constitution, you know, those sort of things.

But, yeah, she sounds just like your typical government bureaucrat. Well, you know, we just, you know, it's much cheaper to put the electric appliances in. Well, yeah, because you're throwing $4,000 on top of the cost of the non-electric appliances. But we're doing this for your own good. All of these people, they're really about being ty tyrants the worst kind of tyrant is the so-called tyranny for your own good you know that sort of thing oh she went on to say all electric homes cost an average of sixteen hundred dollars less to build and save homeowners hundreds on subsequent bills that's the homeowner's business.

You know why people like gas furnaces as contrasted to electric heat pumps? Because they actually stay warm. You know why they like gas ranges over electric ranges in some cases? Because if you're a chef, you like that instant control. No restaurant, no fine restaurant in Southern Oregon wants anything to do with electric ranges in there. There's a reason for this. But remember, the people like here at Red is are there to help you, to help you make the right choice, because we know, we know things. Yeah, this is coming out of the school system, which is number 50 in the nation.

But boy, they sure do know how to be the future tyrants of America. Now, I'm not making this personal. It's just one of those things but this is what comes out of this system with the gravy train that has been able to uh cover up for oregon's marxist failings for decades unfortunately we're going to have to live with the products of these uh these school systems and the marxist failings because that's still in control that's why i'm saying i don't think they can be reformed you just got to get the kids out but But anyway, yeah, maybe the collapse of federal funding could be the best thing that ever happened to us. And it would hurt, though.

It's not going to be pain-free. This is the Bill Myers Show. Joel here, brother of Warden Truck Center. And I'm on KMED. Yeah, I'm just loving the Rove Valley Times story with the uh the ashland high school kids that are you know promoting the no natural gas and of course ashland went along with it because ashland's filled with marxists and uh they they're all part of the climate cult and we're all going to die unless we stop putting carbon in the atmosphere ignoring the fact that they themselves

are putting carbon in the atmosphere but i guess that's different because they have morally superior carbon being put into the atmosphere. But, of course, they're just mouthing what the Marxists around them and also in the government school system have probably inculcated them for quite some time. I know that commenter, she went on to say, all electric homes cost on average $1,600 less to build and save homeowners hundreds. Oh, thank you for helping us to make the right decision by imposing a $4,000 fee on something we might like. Riddes also takes claim, takes aim at a claim that gas appliances will continue to work during power outages, stating that because these appliances rely on electric power for ignition.

This is untrue. This is untrue. This is untrue. No, you need to be only on one thing, electricity. And then when the electricity goes down because of all of the chaotic and intermittent power that I'm sure that the same kids are in favor of, solar and wind, you need to be in the dark, too. By the way, there are ways uh back up power on your natural gas furnace and uh and by the way you can have natural gas furnaces that don't require they don't require being plugged in there are like even those wall kind of units you know everybody it's just like

i said it's just nonsense but uh the the kids are mouthing their religion, and we always let the kids control our local governments. Anyway, Tom, what are you thinking about that? Morning. Well, you know, education is the government education, I should say, is the tenth plank of the Communist Manifesto. And I think when all of us have been propagandized, if we've been through the government schools, and I think the primary function that ends up being is that we're taught as students,

you know, five, six, seven-year-old, that government is God. It's not to be questioned. It's kind of like the fish have no word for water. Government is good, knows all things, can do all things. You do not really fundamentally question the idea of government education. So as you go through life, because you were coerced under extortion to be in school, you don't think about future extortion like military service or jury duty or paying taxes. If the government says something, your role is not to question, but simply do as you're told. It just shows you, though, it just shows you how, you know, we're already in that quasi-Marxist system. We're already there.

And everybody keeps talking about, well, we have to keep our culture from sliding into it. No, it's too late. All you have to do is even look at just the natural gas thing. We're already there, buddy. We're already there. We're talking about trying to dig out from Marxism, not keep from sliding into Marxism. Exactly, yes. We're largely communist.

And I would dare say, would you agree with me when I say that maybe some of these federal cuts that are being screamed about and hissy-fitted about on all the local news channels, oh my gosh, the services and the investments and this and the other, it might be the best thing that ever happens to us ultimately because it will force Oregon to actually behave like adults rather than commie dupes, which is what I think the federal government has been able to plank of the Communist Manifesto, which is a central bank. And then we have to – the taxation is the second plank. The IRS is the second plank of the Communist Manifesto. We are there. We are there.

And the big argument between left and right right now is the role of the federal government. And, of course, to the left, government is God. It's not to be fundamentally questioned. Well, I question it. We are either going to be free or we're not. We can't be free with this kind of control. But when you have generations of children who have not been raised to appreciate being free. You know, you have to understand. I mean, I understand where these kids are coming from.

You know, they've been inculcated by their government school teachers, likely, that carbon is killing you and you're destroying the planet. You are an evil force on the planet. And so I'm not trying to blame them, but they have, in essence, been turned into the future and current tyrants of America, you know, that sort of thing. But they're only able to get away with it because they have a backstop of free funny money. And the one thing about Trump is that they're slashing and burning on the free funny money side of things,

which may be a good thing. Yeah, they certainly are. Well, I think it's really important to be able to recognize when we personally have been brainwashed. And I don't know why some people can look at it and see it and understand it. Others are just like they're so deep into the brainwash and they don't even know that's what happened to them. Just like these high school students. There's a lot of adults with the same mindset that don't even realize how brainwashed they've been. Yeah.

Let's just wait until the electricity goes off for a few weeks, and then, boy, having an all-electric home wouldn't that be great. Thanks for the call, Tom. Let me go to another one here before news break. Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is David in Phoenix. Hey, David.

What's going on? Well, the other thing, this reminds me of Sun Valley, Idaho. If you're rich enough, what's $4,100? You're going to have gas appliances. You're going to have three stories. Yes, this is an attack on poor people trying to stay warm. It is. And this last summer, because of the electric rate, I just didn't use my air conditioning, which is what they want. And now they're going after my big shade tree. So, I mean, in the summer, too bad for David. But the rich, you know, they can have air conditioning even if you put a $1,000 a month fee on them for it.

It won't matter. So, yeah, it's not really it's not a help it's a big lie yeah but i'm sure the kids from the ashland uh from the electrification or what do they call it here uh it is the ashland youth electrification group and see they're acting as if electricity is just naturally a clean you know source of clean reliable source of energy not the direction we're going right now david appreciate the call we'll continue this conversation here you have a whole hour of open phones next hour we can certainly talk about this and other things on your mind here too dc swamp update and we'll talk cash patel we got also dr because it was dr john lott jr talking about things that he would like the fbi to do in order to reform and that would be a good thing,

to have the Federal Bureau of Investigation actually just start being an investigator again instead of being the, well, the boot of the police state, I suppose. Well, that's a good conversation on that. Rick Manning joins me from Americans for a Limited Government next. Since 1938, Blue Star Gas has been serving Jackson and Joseph on Crater Lake Highway, the customer's favorite choice. Next. Since 1938, Blue Star Gas has been serving Jackson and Joseph. On Crater Lake Highway, the customer's favorite choice. It's the Bill Myers Show on KMED, Southern Oregon's place to talk.

639. This is the craziest party there could ever be. Don't turn on the lights because I don't want to see. I'm not talking, let's go. The D.C. Swamp Update, that is the theme. And no matter what, his mom told him not to go, but Rick goes in the beltway every now and then. He has to do that. He said, Richard, I told you not to do that! As a young boy, and then you went anyway. Rick Manning is president of of americans for limited government

daily torch.com it's actually half her fault half my dad's fault so okay cherry will blame but anyway um yeah we got lots of stuff going on yeah i was telling you before we came on how ashland ashland city council of course approved fossil fuel fees on new residential construction so in other words you want to put in a natural gas furnace which actually stays and actually Ashland City Council, of course, approved fossil fuel fees on new residential construction. So in other words, you want to put in a natural gas furnace, which actually stays and actually keeps you warm, unlike the sainted electric heat pump, which they really want you on. Because, you know, we want you on electricity and electricity only. So that way, I guess everybody will freeze equally. Natural gas doesn't create pollution, so you might as well not, you don't want to burn it. You want to instead get electricity from around the world,

around the country, burning coal. Yeah. In other states, in other states, but it doesn't count as Oregon. Well, no, remember, we're told, though, that we're not allowed to buy coal-fired power any longer. At least that's what they claim. Good luck.

It's a grid. I know, I know. The electron doesn't care uh with that what kind of does not care how it was generated it's going to flow into your into your light switch and you'll uh and uh maybe they'll put some uh dots put some tracing elements on electricity generating from coal fire yeah unfortunately it's difficult to do that i wanted to just this up. The reason I was bringing it up to you, though, is that it's fascinating to me how government education systems manage to so thoroughly inculcate children, especially in semi-getting-harder Marxist Oregon. And there is this group called

Ashland Youth Electrificationification usually a lot of high school kids that are all getting together and they've been trained that they're the scourge on the planet and that the carbon dioxide is killing the planet meanwhile while the dope growers are piping carbon dioxide into the greenhouses to get bigger yields but you know you're supposed to ignore you know all that kind of stuff right And and so they encourage the Ashland City Council then to put these fees like forty one hundred dollars on a natural gas furnace. And they ended up I'm sure the Ashland City Council just wanted to do this, but they love the cover of having the children crying. Right. Isn't this the just a typical left wing kind of approach to governing? Yeah. I mean, let's face it. The same people are complaining that Doge has a bunch of computer geniuses who are in their 20s going through the government with a fine tooth. until she had absolutely no knowledge except for what she had been force-fed as a young kid, and to be the big national spokesman for the youth trying to defend the environment against all the meanies who actually want to have warm homes. I think the Ashland Youth Electrification Group should be renamed the Future Tyrants of America. Remember, they used to be like FFA, Future Farmers of America, things like that?

Yeah. Future Tyrants of America, because all you have used to be like FFA, Future Farmers of America, things like that? Yeah. Future Tyrants of America. Because all you have to do is listen to the public comment. And I'm not trying to make this personal, but, you know, I just love the, you know, you know how bureaucratese is spun. You understand that, right? You've been involved in this stuff. But the Ashland High School student opens up her public comment by saying, if you choose to install 100% electric appliances, there is no fee. This policy helps make housing more affordable. Hey, Rick.

Oh, my gosh. No, no. Okay, well. No, but it gets better. It gets better, though, Rick. It says, this policy helps make housing more affordable by encouraging the lowest cost effective construction methods. Yes, construction methods that were made artificially expensive with a $4,100 fee on your natural gas appliance if you made the wrong choice, Rick. See what I'm getting at?

The false choices being presented. Yeah. Well, first of all, if a 17 year old wrote that, they have a they should immediately apply for for the federal government so they can write in the appropriate narrative in the next, if there's ever a Democrat administration again, or maybe they should just move to Salem and just fit right in as a cog in their machine up there. Bottom line is, no kid wrote that. It's a, you know, this is something that's handed to them, and using chat GPT, they probably just came up with it. But anyway, yeah, they're being indoctrinated. It's no different than any other time when you see a bunch of kids go out and march and say whatever the teacher wants them to say because, you know, they're in a sustainability elective in high school and they want to get an A. Yeah, yes, you're right about that.

So what you do, you march around and you hope they're – if you're a guy, you hope there are the a so what you do you march around and you and you hope they're if you're a guy you hope they're girls in the class who are attractive well yeah and now i understand that i understand why some of the uh you know the the dudes would end up going into the left-wing protest because i think the whole heck even back in the 60s i think there was a little bit of that going on it's like well all the hot chicks were there so you know but whatever whatever it takes man i i i could be anti-war if it gets me laid you know even though they can't identify them by any gender they they still they still have eyes yeah agreed rick um let's turn our attention to go to doge because uh about uh 50 to 60 percent of the news coming out of our

oregon state media is all kind of the same theme of oh my gosh oh my gosh our democracy is under attack our services are being threatened in the resources are there may not be resources and and we're going to die we're going to die we're going to die uh but you know about a third of the oregon state budget does uh come out of the federal government gullet you know yeah out of that cloaca i think would be a better way of uh of describing it and you know in some ways they're they're right about it it's like a lot of states that are dependent on the feds we're going to have some issues in the coming years, don't you think? Yeah, well, okay. It depends on how the reallocations go.

If the reallocations are getting rid of federal bureaucrats and transferring money straight to the states to decide, so states can decide what they want to do, that's one thing. But if you're sitting there and you're saying, we won't enforce federal law, and the federal government says, well, if you're not going to enforce federal law, then we're not going to give you money, then states are making a political decision that in order to enact their policies, they prefer to tax their own taxpayers rather than force people in Wyoming and Idaho to pay for Oregon's stupidity. Seems like a reasonable way to approach it. I'm opining that maybe some of these federal resources going away could be some of the best things that ever happened to Oregon,

because then you're not going to be able to hide behind Marxist failures by having the feds bail you out. Any thoughts about that? Yeah, the bottom line is if you're accountable for the money and the taxpayers who actually vote for the state legislature and for the governor have to pay for the policies that the governor and state legislature say they want, and school boards for that matter. There's going to be a lot more accountability of those people for the dollars. And the thing that Doge is going to do is it's going to create a demand for conservative or liberal. You know, if you want environmental policies done, you don't want the money wasted either. You don't want the money stolen. So it's going to create a demand for, you know, colonoscopies for governments at all levels

to try to make certain that monies are being spent on things that people want them spent on and aren't just being wasted. And that kind of accountability is reasonable whether you're right or left. You want government to spend the money on what you want and not have it stolen. I'd love to have Odoge go through the Oregon Department of Transportation. It's an agency which has billions of dollars and 5,000 people, doesn't build any new roads, but yet just can't make anything work. We're just out of money all the time.

My guess is the challenge here is going to be, yes, they're going to end up doing that, at least from a look at the federal monies that were sent and what happened to those federal monies. So there will be some attempt to provide accountability for it. And if the states don't provide accountability, then the politicians in D.C. can say, well, given that the states aren't providing accountability, we're going to cut the amount of money we're giving them because we have to assume that there's 20% waste. Hence, we're going to cut everything that's going out to you by 20% because you won't prove that you're spending it properly.

I would dare say then over the coming years that mines will be sharpened. Is that a good way of looking at it, or it will be focused? Well, I think so, and that can be a challenge with Doge is this, and people have to remember it. Doge is they're essentially being systems engineers. They're looking at, is the system working? Is money leaking out of the system? And how do you stop that?

And they are doing some policy things in terms of determining that, you know, some spending is stupid and wasteful. But by and large, that's really not their job. The president's job is the president's job overall to do that. And that's fine. And that's a proper thing. But overall, they are focused on making certain that we're not spending $100 billion, sending it to people who don't have a Social Security number.

Or if they do have a Social Security number, they're 150 years old. I wanted to ask about that because the reporting on it, I've had difficulty grokking some of the reporting on the Social Security. Because I will hear, okay, well, we have some Social Security numbers that are in the system that indicate that people are 150 years old. It's like, okay, well, we have some social security numbers that are in the system that indicate the people are 150 years old. It's like, okay, all right, fine. And yet I don't want to throw babies out with a bathwater because in some cases I would say there are perfectly reasonable explanations why this would still be in the database. You have old COBOL-coded-based mainframe computer-created stuff going back years, and probably coded

that way and not recoded for more modern systems. There may not even be a more modern system, for all I know. All I care about is how many of these are actually getting paid. I mean, it's not a matter if there's a 150-year-old Social Security number out there. It's, is that person getting paid? Now, do we know for a fact yeah we don't that's what i was getting at say for a god's honest fact that anybody's getting paid what i can say is this the argument that's being used systemically that one of the things is a check

against that is that when you go you know if you go to a funeral home they fill out a piece of paper and they send the social security administration saying this person's dead. Right. Okay. Now, and that's true. That happens. I mean, there may be some funeral homes that, you know, don't do what they're supposed to do. But you don't risk your license over that unless you're stealing money. But by and large, that's the rule.

And that's the safeguard of dead people not getting money. The challenge here is, and it's a pretty decent challenge, is somebody on the other side has to do something with that. If nobody on the other side is actually plugging that information in to the system or is deliberately not plugging it in or rerouting the money somewhere that they would like the money to go, like their bank account, you know, that's where your potential fraud on this is. It's not coming from, you know, funeral homes have things they're supposed to do. And I always

hear this when, well, there's a system in place. It's usually funeral home directors say there's a system in place. And my question I just want to ask them is, well, do you know that anybody on the other side is actually putting that your information, the information you're sending into the system? And they don't. So that ultimately, the fraud in this case, if it exists, exists on the other end of the chain where, you know, are people actually, is anything being done with the forms that are being filed? And my guess is that there's a lot that slips through the cracks. But I don't have, the fact is, you see the reporting, the sensational reporting of, you know,

people on Social Security who are older than the country. Yeah. Social Security didn't start until the 1930s, so it's a 90-plus year program that has people on it who were 100 years dead before the program started. Those are type of graphical errors. I agree. You see, I don't want to get too excited about those things. My only concern is how many of the so-called old age people are still getting checks right now, which would be a biological impossibility.

That's all. Well, that's my concern, too. to and um i one of the things that we're going to have to kind of increase expectation on doge is that is you know okay you provided a headline but now you have to provide the you have to show your work that's what i you see that's what i was getting at and that's why uh sometimes i feel like i'm being manipulated a little bit a little little bit of three-card Monty by Elon Musk. Just saying. Well, I'll defend it. I think they're doing great work.

And I want to believe that, you know, we've got really smart guys, Russ Bottought and other guys who are head of OMB. Mark Peraletta is the chief, not chief of staff, he's the general counsel of OMB, Office of Management and Budget. And Doge is supposed to be working through OMB. And they know to ask the questions, well, okay, how many of these are receiving checks? How much are the checks that have been received? Let's show the throughput so we can actually put a real number on it, not just we have 390 million Social Security cards active, and we only have 335 million people. That's an interesting fact.

Yeah, and I have to say, and the other thing, though, is that I get concerned, though, that there could be either cartel rackets running these extra cards if they are actually getting payments, or black box government programs that find a way to finagle this, too. I'm confident that the cartels have figured out how to get paid. How to fleece it, yeah. And we know that during, at least there were a lot of reports during COVID, that a lot of the cartels figured out how to plug into the COVID payments. Because it was a program, just a lot of the support was put together for an emergency. They just applied and got lots of money, and money was supposed to be paid back. And nobody checked. It was supposed to be used for something else, and it just went away as waste. So that's a likelihood.

And when you're sending millions of people across the border unfettered, you know, and you're saying those people are signing up for every program they can sign up for, you know, why wouldn't they? They're already illegal. Why wouldn't they sign up for two or three Social Security numbers under different names and down to different offices and get or sign up for different programs from different places and just push it through the cartels. Cartels are a business. They're smart, and they're an illegal business. And they are, like all illegal businesses, they go for the weaknesses of the system in order to be able to exploit those weaknesses to make money. The cartels don't care if they're selling drugs,

if they're selling people, if they're stealing from the government treasury. They want money, and they want power that goes with money. And so, yeah, you know, once again, of course, they're, of course, they're cartels involved in getting this. We've got a system that's got absolutely, you know, no checks and balances in it, or very few checks and balances in it, and we're discovering that we're bleeding money in ways that we never thought was possible. We thought somebody was watching. And it does make you wonder that all this talk about Social Security Trust Fund running out of money in 2030, how much of this was bled off by fraud? You have to wonder at this point, don't you? And whether that number gets revised, because a lot of the fraud is now not being done. And if you can identify the fraud using RICO statutes, because I suspect it's –

you get the onesies and twosies, but I suspect there's, like, cartels and gangs and mobsters of all types who are sitting there, you know, leading the system and taking advantage of it. So you use RICO statutes, you claw back the money, you take all their stuff, and you make them, you spank them, and you send them to wherever they came from, or if they're here, you send them to Leavenworth. It's a, you know, it's pretty simple. And a lot of that money, you know, is probably in really big houses and lots of cars.

So given that, and given the way RICO works, if you're defrauding the system, they can go after you and they can take you. They can take the, the largesse that you have based on your ill, your, your old gut and gains. I am not a great fan of RICO.

I really hate RICO in a lot of ways. I think it's ripe for abuse. But if somebody's stealing billions of dollars out of the federal treasury, the taxpayer has a right to claw that money back any way they have to. I would agree with you on that. Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government. Hey, looking forward here. Kash Patel confirmed yesterday. Pretty close.

Pretty close vote on that one. One thing I can say is that Kash, kind of like Tom Holman, too, in that respect, serious as a heart attack and very intense. And what do you think Kash's first moves are going to be to try to reform FBI and actually turn it back into the Federal Bureau of Investigation rather than the Federal Bureau of, I don't know, tip of the spear of the deep state. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think it's going to be refocusing the various agencies within the FBI. There were 600 or 700 agents dedicated to J6 investigations, for instance, those are over. So those aren't refunded anymore. So those agents are going to be put on doing something else.

And it seems to me that as long as if I were Kash Patel, and I'm not, but if I were, I'd have a big look at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and it spends a lot of time worrying about voting rights. And I would send them, and I would go, and I would look at every single state's voter rolls to make certain that we don't have fraud being perpetrated on the people through the voting system. They'll go and they'll, if you have the state legislature has a portion, goes and makes a redistricting that the left doesn't like, that that division will go and sue the state and make them redraw lines under the guys voting rights act well the real voting the real voter right is to know that you have a one person one vote principle that that holds

and by the way that it's a citizen vote and i would also add that it's a citizen voting too and only a citizen voting yes citizens those are that's something that the you can refocus and repurpose the civil rights division to do um to do that you can refocus and repurpose the Civil Rights Division to do. To do that, you have to fire everybody in the Civil Rights Division. But, you know, that's doable. Harmeet Dhillon, who is an expert on election law, is the nominee to be head of Civil Rights Division. And that, I think, is the single most important thing they can do. We talk about all the corruption of the FBI. We talk about the FBI building, talk about all that stuff. The single most important thing we have to get right in this country is that the one person, one vote principle is upheld.

If we don't do that, nothing else matters. Final question I have for you before we take off till next week here, Rick, and that's back on Doge here. Does Doge need to be a little more careful about some of what they do? In which, you know, there seems to be a lot of ready, fire, aim, and then you have to go and hire back people like engineers running the generators on the BPA dams in the Northwest. You know, those kind of things. You know, they get blown out. Oh, no, we're kidding. We need to bring you back. What's going on with that and what what could be done better you think well i'll just one of the challenges with doge is that it's it is that it's a is there it's a meat cleaver is there a focus a focus on quickness rather than making sure you're doing the right cut?

There's a focus on getting stuff done and saying, well, we'll fix the stuff that gets broken later. And sometimes very rapidly later, but later. And in D.C., you're almost compelled to do it that way. Really? And in D.C., you're almost compelled to do it that way because if you take your time and you think methodically and say, well, how would we restructure this, this, and this? Well, you go through that restructuring process, and suddenly your four years are up and you haven't done anything. And so they're doing it the different way. They're saying, we're finding waste, we're getting rid of it, and then when we see the fallout from it, we'll rehire and restructure. What I proposed back in the day was that they get Congress through the Budget Reconciliation Act process, which we're arguing

about now, to authorize a 20% decrease in the federal workforce, But over a period of time, over a period of a year, year and a half, allowing the Trump administration to then do an evaluation, do a complete reorganization based on the needs of the constitutional needs and the actual personnel needs of the government government and reshuffle. And so you might be shuffling people who were enforcement people at the EPA into the Border Patrol. An enforcement person is an enforcement person. If they don't want to be in the Border Patrol, quit. But, you know, so you're doing an orderly reshuffling based on priorities and that kind of stuff. And you can work with Congress on that and do all those little constitutional news nuisances. And I really, really, they really need to focus on now.

But that is a, you know, I, I use the word nuisance in the chest, but that's what they should be. That's how I would have done it. But maybe I'm too far inside the beltway. And,

you know, and the only way you can actually, the only way you beltway. And, you know, and the only way you can actually, the only way you can get rid of, you know, if you've got a cockroach infestation in your home, is to put a tent over the whole home, fumigate it, and then you discover, oh, man, the fish in the goldfish bowl are dead. Oh, well, you know, it's a, you know, it's, you have to have a mess to clean up afterwards.

But they're in the fumigation stage. And unfortunately, because nobody's been we've allowed. The thing that's shocking is we have allowed bureaucrats to control all the systems for payment systems without any political oversight whatsoever. And as a result of that, we have we have there's been absolutely no institutional controls whatsoever on our spending. And that is it's astonishing, but it's true. And that's what the Democrats are all whining about now is, hey, you're not supposed to be looking there. Well, this has been their power base. This has been the base, the source of power, the ability, having no control on the money, where it goes, really. You only have to look at the thing that Lee Zeldin came up with yesterday, I guess, where Stacey Abrams is affiliated with a group.

Stacey Abrams, who denied that she lost the governor's race in Georgia a few years back. Stacey Abrams was part of a group that had a total revenues of $100 in 2023. At the end of 2024, Joe Biden, through a slush fund at the EPA, shoved $2 billion into Stacey Abrams' group that the prior year had $100 of revenues. Okay, so it went from $100 to $2 billion? $2 billion with a B? Really? Yep, B, with a B. Oh.

Yeah. Well, that must be totally legit. A totally legit government expense, I'm sure. Biden had a $20 billion slush fund to promote climate clean something or another. It's one of those generic-y things that, you know, you can put in and spend the money on whatever you want. And it was basically a slush fund, and they gave it out to about 11 or 12 groups in the last couple months of the Biden administration. And, you know, somebody who is an organizer, a really important organizer for the Democrats, Stacey Abrams, ended up getting $2 billion into an environmental group that didn't really exist. All right. Now, can they claw that back?

They're going to try. Because they just got it. It just went out the door in the last six months. And it's hard to spend $2 billion in that much time. So it's like Brewster's millions. So it's really, really hard to spend that money. And somebody's bank account went from, oh, I had a million dollars and I got $10 million. You know, it's pretty easy to find. So it's a, so yeah, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to try to claw that

money back as much as possible. But that's the kind of stuff that happened at the end of the Biden administration that where they were basically saying, we are going to feed our left wing causes through funneling tons of money into them. And when Doge came in there, which they never expected, they are uncovering all that kind of largesse, criminal largesse. And that is why there's a screaming about Doge and everybody saying they have to do it differently. I will tell you, I want Congress involved. I want Congress to take this as a lesson that they have to figure out a way to really look at what's being spent

as opposed to just accepting that this is their budget, we're just going to increase it by 5%. They have to be more honest in terms of doing it. They have to hire more people if they need to. But this is something Congress should have been doing. Yeah. It's something Inspector General— Well, Congress should have been doing Doge, really. Well, Congress should have been doing—

You know, the funny thing is Barack Obama created a system so he could try to control the digitization of America from the White House. He created the way that Elon Musk could be hired legally. He created the way that you could create a doge. And what Donald Trump did is he came in and he had to deal with them, and they're all lefties in the White House before. He said, wait a second, there's an opportunity to use this thing right here to do what I want to do. And so he took what was legally put in place by Obama, and he just turned it to his own purpose. And now all the lefties were fine with it when Obama had it and fine with it when Biden had it. We were fine with it when Trump had it the first time because they had lefties inside.

It was a they now are all mad about it, but they set it up. It's their scam. Donald Trump's just smart enough to use it against him. So those is fine legally, but Congress has to has to take a really, really hard look at what's happening. And quite honestly, we should be able to see on the monthly Treasury expenditures expected monies that were going to go out. We'll get a February report in March or April. So when we see the expected monies that go out, if those monies are going down, then that's real clawback money from Doge. That's money that didn't get spent that they intended to spend. And so we

should be able to see some of that in Treasury reports in April, May, June. But they're going to do a budget between then and now, and the budget isn't actually reflecting any of the Doge cuts. And the reality is what they should do on the budget is put language in any reconciliation bill that says the president can't impoundment clause and save the court fight that's going to exist over the impoundment law that restricts the president to do that, even though constitutionally the president was allowed to for the first 150 years of the country. So we're going to have a legal fight. I just prefer Congress to deal with it and say, no, we're giving him this power right now. And that way, he's not going to get his money. That way it cuts the knee off of all the lawsuits, right? Gets rid of that.

Well, he'll still get lawsuits, but they won't be as valid. And what's more, we want him to be able to say, I'm not sending money out to stupid stuff, to fraudulent things. We're going to crack down on that. We don't want there to be any kind of questions whether or not cracking down on illegally accessing our treasury is whether the president can do it or not. So we have to win that battle. And Congress doing, actually acting, which is an astonishing idea, actually acting,

would have the effect of making it so it's absolutely clear that the president had this power. And he could go to Stacey Abrams and say, Hey, Stacey, give the money back. And oh, by the way, not only do you have to give the money back, but hire an attorney. Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, DailyTorch.com. government daily torch.com a lot of writing a lot

of good thinking going on on these such matters all right hey rick good weekend thanks for the talk good talk and uh it's it's good to focus on uh doge and kids with natural gas uh hatred and various other things all right we'll catch you soon. Beware of little kids with natural gas. It's always a problem. Yep, indeed. Thank you very much, Rick. This is KMED, KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford. Ran a little bit long on that segment, though, at 7-12, but that's all right. We'll catch up with some town hall

news in just a moment, and then we have some open phones here talking your calls at 770-5633.