Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-04-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Great talk with Network Corrsespondnet DON DAHLER and his fantastic memoir SOUVENIRS OF AN ABSURD LIFE. I also talk with Kevin Starrett from Oregon Firearms about an exchange with state Rep. Paul Evans - showing contempt for small counties.

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. It is Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday, which means you can join in at 770-5633-770-KMED. And my email is Bill at BillMeyersShow.com. Pebble in your shoes when, you know, something is bugging you, irritating you, and you just can't get that pebble underneath your heel to shake out.

Shake it out on the air here. 770-5633-770-KMED. Tonight, President Trump going to be addressing Congress, joint session of Congress. And it's probably going to be a pretty interesting conversation. Well, it's going to be a monologue, not a conversation, right? Kind of a, well, a conversation to the American people, and available on all the cable channels they'll be covering this. It is not a State of the Union, per se, because State of the Union does not happen until you've

been in office for a year, and then you have a State of the Union, and you can look back at what you've done over the last four years but it will be uh fascinating to hear what president trump has to say because the tariffs are on in uh canada and mexico and they're saying they're going to do pretty much do the same sort of thing and 25 a tariff on, this also includes Canadian lumber, which comes at an interesting time, given that there's a lot of lumber needed. We have pretty much allowed our timber industry to go fallow. forest lands as far as uh you know rhetorically i'm issuing and not literally uh salting the uh the forest and saying that the only good use for a forest is to burn and to employ people like the loma katsi project to do prescribed burns in fact actually speaking of which i wanted to i had a story oh yeah here mr x sent this to me yesterday because everyone's been talking about

oh north carolina's on fire carolina's on fire and what is going on here this is something that is coming from their own government agencies in north carolina and it is the uh nccribedfirecouncil.org. The prescribed fire council. I kid you not. And this sounds just like the same gangrene response that has infected and taken over Oregon's fire policy. We're not supposed to get rid of fuel. We're supposed to, you know, we're supposed to have prescribed burning putting putting fire

on the landscape and here's what they have from this website fire is an essential part of the north carolina landscape prescribed fire ensures the health of our ecosystems wildlife and human communities fire practitioners across the state are putting fire back to North Carolina. The prescribed burns, known as controlled burns, are conducted safely. No fire is lit until experts on the ground have determined that the conditions are right to protect the firefighters and nearby human communities. This prescribed fire crap is everywhere. We don't harvest for us. We don't get rid of the cheatgrass. We don't want to put moo. We don't want to put any cows don't get rid of the cheatgrass. We don't want to put moo.

We don't want to put any cows on the land eating things or wild horses. You don't want to do anything like that. We have fire practitioners that are going to put fire on the landscape. Where's the evidence that it's protected anyone? Where's the evidence that it's protected anyone here in southern oregon so far it just seems to me to be the uh the latest uh the latest new grift it's like i have a feeling that the feds are realizing uh-oh okay so uh we had the sue and settle situation equal access to justice act and we're going to um just sue and they they sue us then we settle and then we're not going to do uh we're not going to do logging anymore we're're going to just sue. They sue us. Then we settle.

And then we're not going to do logging anymore. We're not going to do much timber industry anymore. And we'll just buy it all from Canada. You know, that's pretty much what we've done over the last 30, 40 years, given that the vast majority of timber harvesting is done, especially out here on the West Coast and in the Northwest, just not. And the forest continues to grow. And so we have these fire practitioners, otherwise known as professional arsonists, that are paid by taxpayers to try to remove fuel, rather than removing fuel by harvesting like

we used to do. Now, I know that the industry has been essentially salted and fallow, like I just mentioned. But, you know, we're told everywhere, even in North Carolina, which is burning in many dry places right now, that prescribed fire would have made the difference. I don't think so. Still trying to find out what the... It's almost like a state religion at this point. Oh, well. Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. That's my pebble in the morning here.

Let me see it go to the phone. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Good to have you on. Hi, Bill. This is Vicki from the Applegate. Vicki from the Applegate.

Now, see, you're such a nice woman. You couldn't have any pebbles in your shoe. Nobody could be doing anything wrong to you. What's up? Oh, God. It's like filled with gravel but gravel all right um my um comment is when we go the back way to we love charleston so we go the back way from round uh prairie uh and then we go through roseburg which has one of the largest mills, I think, in Oregon, and I think it's like a mile long from one end to the other. That's the one that's bordering I-5, right?

You drive by it? No, yeah. When you get off I-5 and you go to Round Prairie, that takes you the back way to Coos Bay. So my, and they're always, they've got stacks and stacks of plywood everywhere and there's people working everywhere. And when you drive at the mountainside, you can see the progression of the trees that they've transplanted after they've clear cut. There's like baby trees, then there's older trees, older trees, and they just go up. So it kind of is a great thing for somebody to drive by and see

that you're not destroying the forest, you're harvesting for what our needs are as far as plywood and stuff like that. But you can see the progression of what true timber management and replacement is i think that's essentially what president trump's executive order of um last week he was signing executive orders and he's talking about freeing up oregon's forest now he wasn't speaking about oregon specifically but he was talking about the United States forest. In other words, he's looking at the forest as something which should be a benefit, not a cost to the people. Right. Unfortunately, though, all I'm getting at, though, is that it's probably going to be a much longer time than the president has

to be able to kick the industry in the pants, wouldn't you say, given how badly it's been allowed to decay? Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. I'm amazed that the way they do it works so beautifully, and I don't know why we can't adopt that here. You know, just like... You want to know why? You want to know the people that it would take to change out to be able to make a difference?

I know, it's so sad. It's frankly the West Coast. That's what the Rogue Valley was. Okay, Vicki, it's the West Coast. People are saying, why can't you get back in the woods? Why can't you do anything? There's no political support from the West Coast and Northwest senators. Every senator up and down the West Coast pretty much holds sway over this.

And I've had this from numerous September people saying that nothing changes until those bozos are vanquished. OK, exactly. So let's get them out and do what Oregon was meant to be done to, which is harvest our natural resources and replant so we're not shooting ourselves in the foot. I just, yeah, I just wish the college kids could go down from Portland and look at Roseburg's mill. And see it actually, and doing something constructive with this. And that not having college kids thinking that furniture comes from Ikea. Thanks for the call. 18 minutes after 6. Dave, you got a quick one here?

Fire away on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Yeah, it's Minor Dave. I know, Dave. That's why I said Dave. Okay, I didn't hear that. Anyways, yesterday I went into jury duty, but it was canceled. And while I was in Wairika, I had one of my new tires from Alan DeBoer go flat. And so when I pulled in to get gas.

You know something, Dave? Every time I hear about this, it's like that old hee-haw song back when I was a kid, gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep, dark depression, excessive misery. What's going on there, buddy? Well, anyways, it turned out I picked something up in the road. Okay. When a guy at a gas station bumped it up, I got the last wads, and they're so nice in there,

they replaced the tire for free. Okay. On that note here, so it started off with gloom and despair, and it worked out well, right? Right. Yeah. It was so underwarranty and made my day. Thank you. Well, see, there it is, a pebble removed from your shoe, or maybe it was a shard in your tire removed from the tire tread.

All right, good. I'm glad it worked out there. Dave, it's like every time you call half the time lately, Dave, it's just been, oh, my goodness, what is next? All right, well, he's okay now. This is KMED 99.3 KBXG. March is the biggest sales month here at Plan Z. Hi, this is Zola from planzdiet.com.

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dessert twice a day. You don't have to suffer your way through a diet. Our dieters lose an average of 31 pounds in 50 days, and that's faster than the shots out there for losing, and cheaper. Check us out at planzdiet.com. Hi, I'm Charlene, owner of American Industrial Door, and I'm on 106.7 KMED. 21 minutes after 6. I am so proud, and I've been looking forward. I've started reading this book. It's Souvenirs from an Absurd Life. Network correspondent Dawn Daler. And Dawn, you've been everywhere, been on practically every network. I mean, just incredible story that you have here.

I'm really enjoying the read. How are you doing this morning? Welcome to the show. That's so great to hear, Bill. Thank you so much. I'm doing terrific this morning, and you probably know that in one of the little chapters, I was living in Klamath Falls, Oregon, so I do know that area. I was going to bring that up, and of course it wasn't necessarily a happy time.

You grew up in a—it was kind of rough and tough scrabble, and Dad was a bit abusive, right, from what I read in the book. Yeah, he—you know, if this had happened today, I think he probably would have been diagnosed as bipolar because it was just irrational, violent temper. But as I was trying to explain to some friends, you know, everything forms who you are, and I wouldn't change a thing. So even though it was a difficult childhood, I'm grateful in some ways for what it did for me. Yeah, I don't know if it would be probably easier to say which networks you didn't work, but Fox, CNBC, ABC, CBS News, I mean, just something like this.

By the way, did you intend that cover on Souvenirs from an Absurd Life? It kind of reminded me of a sweaty, hot, Ernest Hemingway type of look. Was that intentional when you did that? It was very intentional. We wanted it to look, you know, wrinkles and scars and everything. It's not the years, it's the miles kind of thing. So we found one of the only photographers on the East Coast who still uses the old tintype method like they did back in the Civil War. That's what gives it that gritty look.

I was wondering where that came from. I thought, yeah, it's perfect. But, Don, now you are not the Anderson Cooper-style guy who had wealth and connections and, like you said, modest and a tough background. And you said in the book here that, I didn't want to be famous, but what did you want? What was it that you wanted and drove you? You know what? Honestly, Bill, from the time I was as far back as I can remember, I wanted an adventurous life. It was that simple. You know, I was reading all of these terrific Jack London novels and and a wrinkle in time and things like that.

And I wanted that kind of life. The tricky part with anything, when you have a goal and and aspiration is figuring out how to get to that point. You know, what can I do to achieve those dreams? And for many of us, it's not that easy. I love the part which got you into television news, and it was you being a bartender and a famous sportscaster sits down at your bar, and then you dig into a conversation. Could you tell me a little bit about that? It's great. I loved it. It was an amazing moment, honestly. I was working in the bar trying to just save up money to go back to college and figure out how I was going to achieve the adventurous life I wanted. When Dick Enberg walked into the bar and he was honestly the Jim Nance of his day. He was so warm and knowledgeable and likable, very, very popular man. So he sat down and we struck up a conversation and he started

asking me about myself. And one thing led to another. And he said, well, that if you like adventure and you like writing and photography, you need to be in television. And here's how you go about it. So he kind of gave me the counseling advice that I didn't get from anybody else in high school or college. What is different about doing this kind of job today? I mean, are there even people like you who exist today, or have the budgets vanished in the network news world for doing the kind of work that you're famous for? The world has really changed in that way, Bill. That's a really good point. On one hand, we have more outlets, right, for information news, streaming, online podcasts, etc. We have more civilian journalists, as they call themselves.

Everybody has a cell phone, so you can take videos and live stream and everything. But what we see less of is the structure of journalism with these different people, the getting the second source to make sure that what you're saying is truthful. And that, I think, is the main danger here. There's so much misinformation and deliberate disinformation out there that if all you're getting is your news from one stream, you're not getting the full picture. Yeah, you really do have to skip around. There's absolutely no doubt about this. Don Daler with me. He's the author of Souvenirs from an Absurd Life, famed network correspondent, when network correspondent really meant something, okay? And I guess, what do you mean when you say an absurd life, though? Because I'm looking at what you did, I'm just going, damn, I just can't believe everything.

I mean, even, I mean, seriously, that part of there in which Ellen DeGeneres asking you about, what was it, family? Not family planning. What, did she want you to be the baby daddy or something like that? What? Yes. And to be clear, I was very honored. We had gotten to be friends with Ellen and Anne Heche when I was living out in L.A. working for CNBC's West Coast Bureau. And they were thinking about having a family, and they'd asked if I would be interested in donating. And that was an incredibly wonderful, moving evening.

I just ended up not being able to do it for various reasons. Oh, okay. Yeah, but that was kind of the crazy L.A. thing, right? I mean— Okay, well, see, Don, you know, my mind is going to the point where it's just like, all right, Ellen comes up to you and says to Don, Don, you could change me. Okay, I know. Come on, just, you know, you and me.

No, no, no. It wasn't that. They wanted to have a baby together and i wasn't really going to be part of the baby's life okay i wasn't i was not changing ellen she's very happily gay and god love her all right uh but anyway is that part of what you mean by the souvenirs from an absurd life because there's a lot of stories like that in this, right? Yeah, it's two things. It's honestly, it's the crazy stories of almost thinking I had to kill someone in Iraq to get out when an Iraqi citizen was joking around about giving me away for a big reward. Oh, boy.

The walking through the parts of Africa or Central Asia where very few Westerners have been in a very long time. Those are the absurd moments that I always dreamt about having. But getting to that place where I could have those adventures, that's really where the title comes from, because I was a teenage runaway. I had no money. I had no idea how to have that dream of an interesting life. And then through a series of just absurd happenstances, that's where I got to be. So that's really where the title of the book comes from. If you were a kid today,

would you have become a TikTok influencer instead? Just curious. Would that have been exciting enough for you? Oh my gosh, I don't know. My kids would say, no, I'm the uncoolest guy on the planet. But I do think that that is a tool. But as we discussed, it's a tool that I think can be very dangerous if it's in the wrong hands

or somebody who's got bad ideas about what kind of information they want to get out there. Well, if I had four thumbs, I'd give it four thumbs up. But I can only give it two thumbs up. But it's Souvenirs from an Absurd Life. Great story, and I just really enjoy reading about the stuff going on behind the scenes and those absurd stories. They are a great read, and also a lot of the coverage of the wars that you ended up covering over the years. Thanks so much, Don. Great talking with you.

Be well. Appreciate it. Thank you. That was great. Don Daler, Souvenirs from an Absurd Life. It's available at all the usual sources. And believe me, it is worth your time to see what was going on over 25, 30 years of network television. Back when, frankly, there was a little more going on there. I shouldn't say going on there, but the budgets were bigger.

And I think that there was actually more real journalism going on at that point. It was before we got to the point where, gosh, I was just reading, was it last year that Gallup ended up putting out a survey? It says that the trust in the news media, the news media at an all-time low and apparently getting lower. It wasn't that way when he was, you know, he had it in those days. It's 630 at KMED. The Rogue Gardener, not a big fan of spraying for weeds, maybe with one exception. If you're dealing with a bunch of difficult to control weeds like Bermuda grass, knock those down with glyphosate, I should say, like Roundup. And you could do that spraying, but don't neglect the fact that now you have at least three and possibly even four seasons of weed seeds in that ground wanting to come up.

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The countdown is on for when you can nominate your favorite business in Bicostal Media's annual 2025 Best of Southern Oregon. Nominations for Southern Oregon's Best begins March 12th. You can visit bestofsouthernoregon.com to browse the current magazine and get ideas on what businesses you'd like to nominate to win gold or silver in this year's edition publishing in August. Nominations start March 12th at bestofsouthernoregon.com. That's bestofsouthernoregon.com. Presented by Dusty's Transmissions. John Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is closing more than 100 IRS field offices, including two in Oregon.

Doge says closing offices in Bend and Salem will save the federal government around $450,000 a year in lease payments. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden issued a statement saying the consequences for families in Oregon and across the country are real and dire. Telecommunications topped the list of consumer complaints last year to the Oregon Attorney General's office. Imposter scams were second, followed by auto sales and auto repair. The Attorney General's consumer hotline received over 22,000 calls and 9,200 written complaints. A former Oregon Youth Authority counselor was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for having sex with a young adult in her care. Emily Etchenkamp was responsible for the victim's substance abuse and mental health treatment.

She met the victim in places she knew were not monitored. Bill London, KMED. For Destorin News, I'm Rich Thomason. President Trump pays a visit to Capitol Hill tonight. He'll address the American people that take place at 9 p.m. Eastern. The president has followed through on a threat to impose additional tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico. 25 percent levies on goods from Canada and Mexico, an additional 10 percent on Chinese imports. China and Canada are imposing retaliatory tariffs.

The president pausing U.S. military aid to Ukraine. It follows the Oval Office dust-up between Mr. Trump and Ukraine's Zelensky and the latter's refusal to sign a rare earth minerals deal with the U.S. Computer chip giant TSMC will be investing $100 billion expanding semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., primarily in Arizona. President Trump says it's a move that will create tens of thousands of jobs. Stocks opening lower this morning on Wall Street. More details at SRNNews.com.

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Your intelligent heating and cooling solution is at MyAdvancedAir.com for details. Your intelligent heating and cooling solution is at MyAdvancedAir.com. This is the Bill Maher Show on 106.3 KMED. Call Bill now. 541-770-5633. That's 770-KMED. Kevin Starrett joins me for a few minutes because Kevin popped me a note from Representative Paul Evans, a Democrat from Monmouth. And I got so, I mean, you know, this is pebble in your shoe Tuesday, right? And the pebble got so large in my boot, I ended up staying up late.

Just so I'm furiously on my phone. I'm doing it on a phone. I almost never do this kind of stuff late at night on a phone. But I'm writing a state representative and just throwing stuff at him, I guess, effectively, what I was doing. And I just thought I'd bring Kevin Starrett on because you're the one. It was your fault that I stayed up late last night, Kevin, from Oregon Firearms Federation. How are you doing this morning? I had the same exact reaction, I have to tell you.

And, you know, I mean, my tolerance for these hateful, bigoted slobs who run the state of Oregon has never been high. But I just can't, I mean, it's just absolutely driving me crazy now. You know, Evans is a far-left, militant Marxist who despises everything that matters, you know, anything positive, creative. Anything good and beautiful in Oregon, and anybody, you know, work is a bad thing, I would say, in Paul Evans' world, that sort of thing. Well, it's so typical of the people in control are urban liberals, and they have nothing but contempt for anybody who is not an urban liberal. So if you're a farmer, a rancher, a fisherman, a truck driver, a logger, you are a stupid knuckle-dragging hillbilly, and you have to be stomped on. They believe that food, I guess, created, wrapped in cellophane in the supermarket.

They just despise. Well, it just comes to the co-op that way, and it just comes to the Whole Foods in Portland, or whatever the case might be, right? This is the world. It's an unrealistic worldview, but yet they have the political power in the cards right now. This is what we have to deal with. And now what he's saying is, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to punish those rural counties who are tired of not being represented, tired of not having anybody stand up for them, tired of being attacked by the urban elite, and we're going to cut off the

funding, what little funding they get, to make sure they're as miserable as possible, while we tax their tires to pay for buses they will never have. It's just so enraging. Was this about the tire tax that this came up here? No, this was the whole long email he put out was how horrible life is going to be under these Nazis who are running the federal government now that life is over. They want to do nothing but destroy us. It's this dystopian nightmare. And, I mean, the guy is a buffoon and a fool and a liar. But this is where – but the one that just set me off here, and this has to do with the eastern Oregon counties that have expressed interest in wanting to become part of Idaho, thinking that this would be a more amenable political solution for them rather than dealing with people like Representative Paul Evans, Democrat from Monmouth, right? And he was, which bill was he talking about that he wanted to amend here?

Because this is what, this is the part that I cherry picked out of it. And I want to make sure I'm being fair about it. But he said, I fully intend to amend the bill to include all funding, ensuring that counties wishing secession would receive lowest priority funding for services they apparently want to be delivered by another state or territory. What bill was he actually talking about at that point? Yeah, I'm not, it might have been a bill to, I think it may have been a bill to, to, to, to deal with the public defender crisis. I'm not absolutely sure because for me,

that quote stood out as well. Because it still showed, it showed the worldview of this communist there, right? And of all of these people. So what you have is you have a group of people who basically said, OK, look, we live in part of the state that you people in the valley despise. You don't like us. You hate us. You want to do everything you can to make us miserable. We get it. Why don't you do what you do and let us just get out of your hair? Let's just have a nice, peaceful separation and we'll go on with our lives because we think that the structure and the government of Idaho probably likes us and you hate us. So we just don't want to bother you anymore. But what this really is, this is an abusive marriage where there's one person who's the abuser and the other person is the abused.

And if they leave, they're beaten or killed or, you know, or punished. And it's always like you you will stay here and you will you will be miserable. And, you know, Eastern Oregonians have just said, look, we're different from you. Let's just have an amenable separation. Yeah, exactly. Make it make it friendly. It would be negotiated. And yeah.

And we have essentially the the wife beating husband here under the guise of Representative Evans, played in the role by Representative Evans. You know, you're not leaving me. You're not, you know, if I can't have you, nobody will have you. Right? I mean, this is a guy who wrote violent sexual attacks in the pornography he helped produce. This is what he's known for. Of course, this is the way he's going to be, but it's not just him. I mean, it's all of them. It's all of these, like, we are so intelligent and we are so sophisticated. I'm from Monmouth, I'm sophisticated. And we're the elite, and the rest of you people are fools. And it's so hateful and contemptuous. And of course, people want to get away from that kind of attitude. And so this is, I mean, for years, I've had conversations with county commissions across the state and said, basically, why don't you just stand up and rebel against these attacks

on you? And the answer is always, look, we rely too much on the funding that comes out of Salem. And now what it's going to be is we're going to starve you. We're going to make you miserable. And then as your quality of life declines, you know, we're going to be here in Salem, you know, bemoaning the fact that the quality of life, we're going to make it as good for you as we've made it in Portland, you know, where dysentery is on the rise because the streets are covered with feces. Exactly.

And that's something which is not being reported all that loudly, by the way. Have you noticed that? It's almost been like a silence aspect. No, we're talking about Portland's on the upswing. It's hilarious. A great place to come visit. Come visit the wild animals in semi-captivity, that kind of thing. Meanwhile, the independence reports say that Portland's in a doom loop. Anyone with any ability is leaving the business, leaving the

buildings are being emptied out. They've turned it into a toilet. And that is their hope for the rest of the state. And this is how they plan to do it. They plan to do it by starving and strangling the rest of the state that already has so little and doesn't really ask for much. You know, rural people are pretty independent. They just don't want to be attacked. And now they have slobs like Evan saying, oh, no, no, we control the purse strings. We're going to make sure you don't have – you live on a ranch where you might be miles from the nearest person. You can't have a firearm.

You can't have – we can't – Exactly. And we're going to starve you out. We're going to starve your county out, you can't have a fire on. You can't have, you can't. Exactly. And we're going to starve you out. We're going to starve your county out, you know, financially. But anyway, I wanted to share, this is the email I sent him, because like I said, you sent me this and I got so PO'd that I do something I never do. And I just, and I said, Representative Evans,

your seceding comments funding statement, I fully intend to amend the bill to include all funding, ensuring that counties wishing secession would receive lowest priority funding for services they apparently want to be delivered by another state or territory. Then I said, and you wonder why those eastern Oregon counties want to leave your tyrannical tender mercies.

The polite thought coming to my mind ends with, and the horse you rode in on. However, I'm not convinced you're deserving of such politeness. You've proven my theory that nothing excites a democrat in salem more than stopping his or her boot on the face of these smaller population counties and well listen i mean his comment they apparently want these services to be delivered by another state or charity of course because sal Salem isn't delivering it. Salem is squandering billions of dollars on their friends with these fake nonprofits

that have no qualifications, that the money disappears and nobody knows where it goes. And right now you've got the Portland City Council fighting with the county commissioners, fighting with Metro because millions of dollars are missing and nobody knows what happened to it. No one can explain it. But by God, they want to raise more taxes. The services are not being delivered because the Democrats don't deliver services. They deliver an endless spiel of let's dialogue and raise awareness and never solve the problem. And send money to NGOs that hand out free needles to the bombs. That's kind of where we find ourselves.

By giving people needles. Of course people in Eastern, they actually want to be part of a state that doesn't hate them. And it's pigs like Evans that make them desperate to leave. Now, I didn't let you know this at first, but he answered me this morning. He actually sent back an answer. Well, he answered me, too. Oh, he did, huh?

His answer made no sense. Yeah, he said, Mr. meyer horses aside or astern i think you're missing the other part of what i said i asked aoc association of oregon counties apparently for a list of counties that would publicly declare they would remain so that they could be considered for support what logic is there in sending even more scarce 20 or 30 year bonded capital construction money to counties actively seeking departure. Please explain how triage during challenging economic conditions isn't our duty as legislators. In a perfect world, we could and would rebuild all public buildings,

but the world isn't and our budget isn't. If and when you research me, you might find that I have fought for the Port of Coos Bay, and I'm currently fighting for significant funding for rural oregon communities far beyond the boundaries of hd20 but of course and then i responded to him again and i and we'll see if he sends back i said representative evans we both know that greater idaho is a high lift and would likely require any adjustments in money due to o from bonding authority, which you have mentioned. And we know this, Kevin. They talked about this.

I've talked with the greater Oregon people. There would be negotiations of taking over some of those responsibilities. It's not like the counties leave and they get all the stuff that the state of Oregon taxpayers had paid for, right? We know this. But again, his original statement is akin to how Oregon will club the eastern counties like baby seals if you don't swear fealty and love for Big Brother. I mean, no persuasion, no attempts at rapprochement, nothing about we'll listen more to you or try to help you get more representation. And, you know, if he's trying to persuade eastern Oregon that staying with Oregon isn't so bad, he's going about it in a really weird way. So I'm seeing it.

But he's not trying to do that. Look, we know the chances of these counties escaping the death grip of Portland is very, very, very small. So the reality is, is that anybody in a position to write legislation should be reaching out to them and saying, how can we represent you better? And listen, this is nothing new. I mean, for years, when House Rep. Jeff Krupp was there, not the clown who's there now, but the conservative Jeff Krupp, when Mike McClain was there years ago before this iteration, I remember them on the floor of their respective houses saying to the legislature, we are begging you, can you please stop crushing rural Oregon? And the Portland Democrats, like Joanne Bowman and all these, they don't give a damn. There's never an attempt to say, look, what can we do to actually make you feel like you're part of this? No, you are not leaving, and we are going to starve you. And it's despicable.

And if you have even expressed displeasure that you're not really happy with the state of Oregon is what is doing that, what they're doing to small counties like that, well, then we're just going to crush you even more is what is essentially what Paul Evans is saying. Representative Evans, that's what he's saying. And he's and he speaks for the whole party. Let me tell you, I guarantee you that. Kevin, I appreciate you sharing this to me because every now and then you just see in full relief the corrupt underbelly of the democratically controlled state legislature system. And they talk about and they say what they really think. And, you know, Paul Evans is saying, well, we're having to triage all baloney. They're not triaging their own

building. No. You you know how many billions are going into their building and their comfort and their well-being you know they don't cut any cost there but essentially what he's saying there is that uh you know saying nice things about salem and then we won't beat you quite so hard in the past and and i gotta tell you it's this kind of stuff and i didn't tell him this in my response but i'm still thinking that we know that it is a uh is a high lift what the folks in greater idaho are talking these are eastern oregon uh communities that have voted for this and wanting to explore it but i have to tell you that uh you know you look at what's going on with the

united states government right now cutting back on funding to the states, and you have a third of Oregon's budgeting coming from the federal government right now. There may come a time in which, I don't know, maybe this Paul Feller will be happy to see eastern Oregon leave and go away to Oregon. You never know. And so I think it's good for them to keep the pressure on and keep bringing this up. I think they're on the right track. We'll see. Well, I hope so, because, I mean, you can only push people so far. And when you take away their

livelihoods and you take away their property and you tell them they can't defend their families, sooner or later, they run out of patience with this crap. And people like this pig really have got to go. This email from Representative Evans, if anything, almost maybe want to say, gosh, you know, okay, maybe it is time for Jackson and Klamath and other ones to join in. You need some of the larger population counties to make this tick. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think because it would require the permission of Salem, I think they're never going to let the people they're abusing go as long as the people are accepting it. And at some point, I hope the county commissioners look at this and say, OK, you're threatening us.

Here's our response. I'm not optimistic it's going to happen. But, I mean, if you just stomp on people forever and then you act like it's that you love it, you enjoy it. Well, and yeah, and like it is our duty to let you stomp on us. Right. That kind of thing. And it's well, you're really not worth any more than the stomping on, right? That's essentially what Evans is saying about these, because you said bad things, you're not really happy about wanting to stay with us. Yeah, because you're abusive. That's why. Yeah, believe me, I share your rage, Bill, and I just hope that more and more Oregonians, and even Oregonians who live in the places that pigs like this represent, are getting tired of their fellow Oregonians being abused like this.

Exactly. Now, a true statesman would have been looking at a situation like this and said, yeah, you know, I understand why some of the folks in eastern Oregon are feeling this way, and I'm going to work to really make this better. And wouldn't that have been refreshing? It would have been refreshing to have heard, you know, from a Democrat. But it's just sneering contempt, and that cannot stand. You know, they just can't get away with this, okay? I hope not. All right, Kevin, thanks for irritating me last night.

You are a pebble in my shoe. We have flushed it out on the airwaves now. And OregonFirearms.org. Thanks for the call, as always. Thank you, Bill. All right. Yeah, that one. That was my pebble in the shoe. It was a 10-minute pebble in my shoe.

But if you have a pebble in your shoe, you're more than welcome to join in. 770-5633. This is the Bill Meyer Show. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable, sleek metal option? Look no further than Stephen Westfall Roofing, Inc. With our state-of-the-art snap lock machines, we bring precision and efficiency right to your doorstep. No need to worry about transporting materials.

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And this one came out of the blaze. I thought this was an interesting story. College student says she can't read or write. Now is she suing? I love this one. Courtney Wheel writes this story. Young college student now suing her old district in Connecticut after she she graduated with honors even though she can't read or write alicia ortiz she's 19 year old now she's filed a lawsuit against the hartford board of education in the city of hartford

for alleged negligence after she spent 12 years in the district but apparently never learned the essential skills of reading and writing. The lawsuit claims that Ortiz began manifesting problems with letter, sound, and number recognition as early as first grade and could not read at a first grade level until she was in sixth grade, but she was swept along through the system anyway. And she told CNN, they would just either tell me to stay in a corner and sleep or just draw pictures and flowers for them. Ortiz also claimed that her struggles with schoolwork caused her to act out in class. I was the bad kid, she admitted.

Sometimes I would feel proud to be the bad child because at least I was something to them and I wasn't invisible. Ortiz is a native of Puerto Rico, said her mother, Carmen Cruz, tried to alert school officials to her daughter's problem, but had difficulty communicating herself because of the language barrier. I didn't know English very well at that time. I didn't know the rules of the schools. And by her sophomore year, Ortiz was assigned to a special ed teacher and case manager. However, according to the lawsuit, Santiago bullied her, that's the teacher, and even stalked Ortiz and was eventually removed from her case. And the following year, Ortiz became more outspoken about her struggles.

It's like, oh my gosh, it goes on for two, three more pages on this one. So, yeah, do you think that someone like that has a case? And should we open up public school systems to that kind of scrutiny that if you are moved along like this and that you are graduated, you are being graduated, functionally illiterate, that you have grounds to sue? Yeah, think about that? I can see down at Medford 549C, this is like, oh my gosh, you know, champions quitting, and now you're talking about what would happen if we got sued for putting out a bad product? I could see them.

I have to ask Michael Williams about about that michael what do you think about this you think we ought to be able to sue the school district when they uh when they do a bad job educating children i have mixed emotions about this though i think where i would have an issue with this is that she was just passed along and this is once again a social promotion you know is what they've called it and they and they all claim that they don't do that anymore. But I have no doubt that because she would have been considered also a DEI student back in the day. She's only 19 right now. That, well, we can't really tell her that she's illiterate.

We can't do this because that would be racist. Could you see part of that agenda weighing in too? Hmm. So what do you think? You fail at teaching the kids? Of course, teaching and learning, it's a two-way street. You know, you do have to have a student willing and able to learn and good instruction too. So maybe we can talk about that.

I just think that's an interesting deal. She's trying to sue Hartford, and we'll see if she can make it happen. Say that, hey, it was defective. Everything they did was defective. Now, see, if only she had been paying teachers' dues, if she had been paying dues to the American, what is it, the AFTA, whatever it is, the Teachers Union, National Teachers Union, maybe they would have cared more.

It's Pebble on Your Shoe Tuesday. Let me go to line one. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hi, Cherry.

How are you today? I just have a mom joke. Okay. Instead of a dad joke, a mom joke. All right. What you got? What, where do bad rainbows go? I don't know.

Where do bad rainbows go? They go to prism where they have to stay for light and reflection. That's pretty darn good. Pretty smart, actually. Pretty smart. That's, see, that's a smart mom joke. i like that you go to prison isn't that cute and then the girl should really sue her parents for not teaching her stuff oh you think so you think that the parents should hold some liability on something like that because i started to read at nine months old.

That's what my mother said. Really? Nine months? Gosh, I feel like an underachiever. I didn't start reading until I think I was in three or so. Mom started teaching me. Maybe a little bit younger. I don't know. Of course, you are a girl, though.

The girls do develop faster than the boys. We know that early on. That's correct. All right. But eventually, Terry cherry we stupid men catch up maybe about the age of 60 or 70 right maybe 80 thanks cherry oh i love that pebble in your shoe tuesday hi good morning this is bill who's this welcome bill bill good morning brad. How the heck are you?

I'm doing fine, Brad. It's on your mind. So, yeah, two things. So I've been waiting 30 years for the thing you just talked about, the mother of all class action lawsuits, when American parents finally, especially Oregon parents, we'll just focus on Oregon. Oregon parents realize that our educational system is not designed to produce educated students. It is only designed to produce the maximum amount of union dues paying members of the OEA. That's it.

Our education system in Oregon is only designed to produce as many as possible employees that pay dues to the OEA. That's why I was half-joking that Ortiz should have been paying the teachers' union dues, and then they would have cared more about her lack of reading ability. That is great. And it's been this way for a long time. Here's the pebble in my shoe. The story on Congressman Ben's town halls is not that these so-called constituents showed up and made a big stink out of everything. That's not the story. The story is that all of this has been organized and scripted by Indivisible. Indivisible is

funded by people on the left. There's a lot of Soros money in it. There's a lot of leftist money in it. These are not true constituents. It's about astroturfing of an issue, right? It's the rent-a-mob, and that's why they can go to meeting after meeting after meeting. Real constituents aren't doing something like that. Rent-a-mobs are. Right. And the whole point of town halls is, you know what? We know you've got jobs. We know it's hard for you to reach your legislator, your congressman. So Washington, D.C., clear on the east side of the United States, he flies back and forth. Congressman Benson and his predecessor, Greg Walden, racked up more miles,

more flight miles. And they don't fly in a government-owned Gulf Stream 4 like Nancy Pelosi. They fly commercial class. And Benz is a big guy, so he shoehorns himself into these little tiny airlines so he can fly back and forth. Goes to a lot of effort to go to these town halls to be met by what? To be met by these radical activists that are funded by money that doesn't even come from the state of Oregon. Now, what I'm kind of wondering, though, and I didn't get a chance, I ran out of time with Congressman Benz by the time I thought about this question.

I probably should have asked it to him earlier. Is it legal, is there any legal problem with removing disruptive people like an indivisible who are just sitting there stamping their feet and screaming and not allowing the other citizens to talk. Are you aware if there's anything in code or issue that would preclude them being removed from being disruptive of the meeting? Yeah, that's a great question. So if it reaches the level of, and I don't know what that level is, but if it reaches a certain level of disruption the answer to your question is yes because i've seen i've seen sheriff's deputies do that at at at least two meetings that i went to

one was with uh congressman roland the other was a congressman bent yeah because if i was doing if i was behaving like that and that's why i mentioned that what happened with jeff golden even though i am completely in disagreement with uh Golden over the fire map issue. When he had that town hall, you know, the shouting out against him at that point was almost rising to that level, not quite to indivisible, but kind of going down that road, if you know what I mean. And when you get to the point where you're sitting there just yelling at the senator or the congressman or whoever it is, and you're not even giving somebody a chance to answer back, then you're just being disruptive of the meeting. You're just trying to shout down the opposition is all you're doing. And that's

not good. Right. And I agree. But the difference is, is the people that showed up for Jeff Golden really are his constituents, and they really are that upset. That's true. These people are, they are watching potentially the loss of the property that they've lived on for years because of his horribly crafted 762. This Ben stuff is exactly the opposite. These are people, most of them are comfortably well off. A whole bunch of them don't even live in his district. It's funded and organized out of Washington, D.C., and it gets downloaded to Indivisible Oregon. And maybe the best thing that can happen is with USAID and these other, you know, grifting kind of grant stream funding organizations, maybe less of that gets into the Indivisible types, and that's why they're really upset right now.

Could be why. Yeah. You know, nothing's worse than when a parasite is having uh the money cut off right hey uh brad i appreciate it thanks for sharing your pebble okay let me go to line three here before we go to news hi who's this good morning this is minor dave again dave i just talked with you what's up? I would suggest that she sue the union under RICO for failure to perform the duty to teach me to read, or in her case, to read. You think so? Yeah, I think under RICO, you know, I learned that from the teacher's union.

They sued some guy. Maybe that's better than suing the school district. That's interesting. Okay, thanks for the call, Dave. Let me go to next line. I think we got, is this Francine? I think it's you, right? Yeah, hi, Bill. Yeah, what do you think about that?

Go ahead. Well, okay, I was thinking that these people, these disruptors that are coming into the meetings that aren't actually you know part of the constituency or that live here and whatnot um i i think they're very similar to the people the uh quote unquote stakeholders who come in and say things like oh we need to take up this dam and you know that kind of thing they're they're all oh and remember we need to apply fire to the landscape right yeah there's there's all kinds of levels that they operate on with that same basic core of what they are.

You know, and that is what they are. They're not part of the scenery. They're part of the, like that, I forget his name, the man that you, that kept you up all night. Oh, Kevin Starrett. Kevin Starrett.

Yeah, they all, that's the kind of people that they bow to, you know fair enough thank you for the call always appreciate that francine five minutes after seven pebble in your shoe calls will continue after news which is coming up in 30 seconds we'll also have the hand of the update for that matter and uh former state senator herman bearchiger and i going to be talking a little bit about, there is a rising hissy fit. It's not just all from the indivisible types who even have, well, people in the farming and so-called conservative independent community wanting their ice cream. It could be getting ugly.

We'll have a little talk about that coming up. Welcome to Dustin Kerr.