Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-12-26_THURSDAY_7AM

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

03-12-26_THURSDAY_7AM

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. I was imagining when I was promoting today's show that, you know, when war breaks out, we always rally around the flag. That's just the way it is. And that's a good thing.

It helps us, you know, stick together, have some societal cohesiveness, I should say. And the Iran War is, you know, the action in Iran, a lot of support for it. In fact, it really looks like the United States of America's population is about split in half on this with about 20% of it undecided. A couple percent may be more on the positive go to war with Iran and do some regime change and about 40%. Not real happy about this. And so it is one of the most controversial things that a president can do, taking the nation to war. And we haven't been doing this through congressional declarations for a long, long time. And so I wanted to just grasp at the opportunity.

Will Watkins Jr. is with me. He's a research fellow at the Independent Institute. And he's author of the book Crossroads for Liberty, recovering the anti-federalist values of America's First Constitution. I'm going to have to read that one for sure. But you are a constitutional scholar. Your latest is the independent guide to the Constitution. Welcome to the show. Good to have you on, Will.

Morning. Hey, Bill, great to be here today. Thank you for having me. All right. When was the last time Congress actually declared, I mean, did a declaration of just out and out war? Yep, we're going to war and nobody had any doubt what the country was going to be doing. What was the last time we did that? World War II.

Now, after that, we do have congressional. authorizations for the use of military force where they did take some action. But to answer your question, out and out, straight up, declaration World War II. Okay, so it's been 80-something years before Congress has actually done this. What ended up leading to the situation where we've had today? Because what President Trump has done with Iran, I don't think is really any different from almost what any other president has done over the last, you know, of those 80 years. or am I wrong about that? No, I don't think you're wrong in the large sense of it.

You know, my book, The Independent Guide, came out before this Iran mess, and you will find criticisms of Joe Biden and Barack Obama over Syria, throwing cruise missiles at the Houthis in Yemen and their presidencies, never consulting Congress. So it has become a thing in recent years. that the president claims as commander-in-chief, which he is under the Constitution, that means that he can deploy and use force as he sees fit. That's his interpretation.

Okay. And that seems to be a pretty common interpretation these days. Was it always that way? It was never intended to be that way. It wasn't. No, and just a quick little bit of history. With the American Revolution, with our Constitution, with our Articles of Confederation, before that, we rejected, in totality, the European model of executive power and war power, where kings and Europe, monarchs possess the full power to declare war, to raise troops, to do whatever with foreign affairs. That was their bailiwick.

Our founders rejected that specifically, realizing that the executive branch is the branch most likely to lead a nation into war as the executive tries to grab laurels for winning battles, et cetera. But more profoundly, Bill, they believe that we're a republic. We're not a monarchy. We're not like one of these other societies. In a republic, a federated republic, it should only be the people's representative. that send young men and now women off into combat. So that was unquestionably the framers' intent. Is there a case to be made, though, that we were kind of squishy on that?

And the reason I bring this up is that the president's executive power, even though we did not want to supposedly said we didn't want to do the monarchy of England, right? we didn't want to do this. And yet at the same time, executive power seemed to be very kinglike. In fact, well, George Washington was offered a permanent kingship rather than just being the presidency of the United States. So I don't know. Is there a case to be made that maybe the intent of our founders was a little more muddled than we might think,

looking at the Constitution? I wouldn't agree with that because I would look at Washington and his use of executive power for example, during his administration. For example, Andrew Pickens, dealing with Indian problems down on the Georgia border, tells Washington, hey, you send 5,000 troops down here, I can take care of this problem immediately. Washington responds to General Pickens. I can't do that because you're asking me to initiate an offensive war. Only Congress can do that.

I will consult with them if they authorize. it will do so. And Congress never authorized him to go to war against the creeks, and he didn't. You know, Jefferson gets a lot of flack in these talks about, oh, look at the Barbary Pirates. Well, yeah, yeah, what did the issue letters of Mark, what do they call it, Mark and Reprisal or something like that? There are letters of Mark and Reprisal that only Congress can issue to privateers. But people say, well, Jefferson sent ships without congressional approval and warred on the Barbary Pirates. That's not true. Jefferson sent a squadron to the Mediterranean based on a congressional statute, congressional authorization, and any time he received information or it looked like hostilities were going to increase, he went to Congress and got guidance from them.

So I would not describe Jefferson's conduct as being overly aggressive either. I think Washington and Jefferson, some others have, you know, executive power people have tried to co-op them, but they had a very firm view of its Congress that runs the show with regard to war and foreign affairs. All right. So then let's shift it to the 1970s. Congress ends up passing the War Powers Act. You had talked about Jefferson using the Barbary, you know, when he was going after the Barbary Pirates, the Muslim pirates, you know, back at that time. And there was congressional authorization.

Is not in essence what every president, you know, in our lifetime at least has done, was using, in one form or another, authorization from Congress with the War Powers Act from the 1970s. And they're talking about, what, 60 days? You have 60 days. You go out there and you take the military and do what you need to do with it, but then you have 60 days and you have to then explain what you're doing to Congress. Isn't that, in essence, what that's all about? You know, that's a fair summary, but I will point out that the war powers resolution, essentially it starts off with three caveats that the president can't unilaterally commit troops unless there's already an act of war. Congress has somehow authorized it. And then with the war on terror, we get a little bit

loosey-goosey additional language about imminent, you know, national emergency to the United States. But you still have to click one of those boxes before you can unilaterally send troops in. So while that's a pretty fair understanding, but unless you can check the box, You shouldn't be sending troops in to begin with. You have to meet one of those requirements. Frankly, I'll tell you, the war powers resolution was a pathetic attempt by Congress to try to reassert themselves in their constitutional role after Vietnam. When really, you know, the president does treat it as a blank check for 60, 90 days. Well, you could imagine any executive, you know, Trump included, would end up, okay, if you see a way to do what you like to do as far as foreign policy goes, yeah, yeah, you'll grab it, won't you? That's just natural human nature.

No, it is human nature. It is absolutely human nature there. All right. By the way, I'm talking with Will Watkins Jr., research fellow at the Independent Institute, author of the Independent Guide to the Constitution. And I'll put up a link to that, too. Now, what I'm kind of curious about here right now is that right now, we're in the fog of this war right now. And the funny thing is that listeners will, you know, write me and they'll say, Bill, there is not a war over in Iran. And I would say, yeah, except that it sure looks like one. So I'm going to call it that. You know, I don't think they're, you know, if you're moving aircraft carriers and everybody's bombing each other and our bases are being attacked, I would say that's a war. Can we at least settle that as we move forward on this conversation here, Will?

Can we do that much? Yeah, it's a whole semantic game people are playing. But if you look at the law of nations like Emmerich Devadal and other authorities on this, our attack on Iran, on their territorial integrity, their leadership under the law of nations, that is an act of war. All right. Now, can you not say, or what would you say then to the Trump administration would make the claim? that there was an imminent threat and that an imminent threat that Iran was going to manufacture

a nuclear weapon. In fact, I guess even they admitted they had some 60% enriched, enriched uranium, you know, about a pound of it available, which I guess means a week or two is all it would have taken to have made that weapons grade. And so the Trump administration would take that then as an imminent threat that Iran was going to go nuclear. And that is perfect justification. then to take it to war? What would you say to those claims? I would say under international law, since we're sort of talking that arena, you can, essentially, we cannot attack a country unless we have permission from the Security Council or there's an imminent threat. We've either been attacked or it's an imminent threat of attack.

I would say to that that I can certainly envision circumstances where I would want a president in an emergency situation to, you know, bomb the heck out of a foreign power to protect us. However, I will say that I thought President Trump declared just a few months ago that we had bombed or Brand's nuclear program in the Stone Age and there was no danger. You know, Marco Rubio comes out and he's flip-flopping on the one hand. He says, well, Israel decided they were going to wipe out the leadership. we figured there'd be blowback because we can't control our client states, so we just went to war with them, then he backtracks on that.

Yeah, there's a little shaky on that because it doesn't say, oh, wait, wait a minute, you went to war because Israel did? It's like, okay, yeah, that didn't play well, did it? No, it didn't. So I don't know what the truth is. I mean, the founders, I will tell you, certainly, Congress originally had the power to make war, and they changed it to declare and the debates say, well, if there's an emergency, for example, if Great Britain invaded the United States, we would want the president to be able to take defensive

measures until Congress could convene. And that makes perfect sense. That makes perfect sense to do something like that. You know, somebody shows up on our shore, someone's lobbying missiles at us. Someone is, you know, invading the country in one form or another. Absolutely. I don't think anybody would question this. but this does appear to be more of foreign policy, like a war action really masquerading as foreign policies. Is that a fair assessment of what I'm looking at here right now, really?

I think that's a very fair assessment because, you know, Trump's talking about regime change, and he's not, the U.S. should have had a say in the successor of Ayatollah. Again, not that these are great people over there, that there's a lot of love for us. I mean, Trump. But that would take me down that road then, Will, about, listen, they say we're the great Satan and we want to kill you. Is that not, in essence, you know, even if we don't think we're at war with them, they think they're at war with us, you know, to start with. What about that? Maybe that's, you know, I get out of jail free card when it comes to impeachment over war, whatever the case might be.

Yeah, I would say I cannot point to any Iranian aggressive action that Trump can put on the table and show us in the last ever how many years. Now, certainly Israel has a beef with them as Iran's a big Hezbollah supporter. And I get that, Israel, whatever Israel's foreign policy should be Israel first. And they do what they need to do. But that doesn't mean we need to back them up or we need to be in it with them. We should have a true America first foreign policy. So what do you believe then is President Trump's risk here moving, especially if we get past the midterms here? I would think that if he is successful and he defangs Iran and everybody's happy, oil prices settled down, I think Congress would more or less just kind of let it go.

But what if it goes the other way? What if it ends up being more problematic as the year goes on? What do you think? And it really could be more problematic. It certainly could hurt Republicans in the midterms because Iran is going to make as big a splash as they can, which you're doing right now with tankers and other things trying to go through the straits of Hormuz and oil prices going higher and higher.

They're going to try to get their money's worth and inflict as much down. damage on the economy as they can right now. And frankly, without boots on the ground, all Trump can do is eventually declare victory, hope Iran let ships through the straits and go off from there, and nothing's really going to have changed. I would agree with you on that point, only because you really can't dominate a country just by air power alone. You're not going to really just subdue a nation just with air power, right? You look at the country. You look at the history of it all? No, that's one, you know, your air power, artillery, combat infantry, all work together in the sort of American system of battle. You take one element out,

and then you end up in a situation like Ukraine where you don't have, in that case, the air power. You've got infantry, artillery, but not a key ingredient, and that makes for stalemates. Do you think that over time there is going to be an effort from Congress to retain or re-retain, I guess, or maybe revitalize its war power action or its war-making power under the Constitution in your view? I think if we're going to remain a republic, there has to be, because right now we're stuck in this world of red jerseys and blue jerseys, as long as it's my guy violating the Constitution. it's okay. Oh, that is, you are so right on about this because, you know,

we are a purpley area here in southern Oregon, Will. And when a Republican president is sending the bombs, then we have the protesters out of the streets of Ashland, which is more of a left-wing city,

all right? When the Democrats are, you know, are bombing, then the Republicans are all upset and they're talking about, you know, the need to have some congressional oversight.

It is quite interesting. It is very tribal, isn't it, in the way we react to all of this? No, and that's, you know, one big problem in our country right now is it's so tribal. Every issue is a national issue, and if we could just have our good old federal system back, where we local decisions are made locally, we have limited involvement overseas. Maybe we could all get along better, but that's just my take there. How do you think we get back to Congress reversing their surrendering of the war powers to the presidency? How do you think that would look?

Well, I think it would look. One, you've got to cut funds off immediately for this military action to stop it to force the president's hands. Two, I think rather than these silly impeachments we've had with Trump over his last two impeachments over the, you know, his last two impeachments over the, Zelensky call and that mess and then the riot at the Capitol, this would be actually a good ground to have a debate on where proper power lies, whether it be impeachment, censure, or something that ought to be bipartisan. If we can't agree, if Congress can't rally the troops and say, this is our domain. Look at, we have seven or eight foreign affairs powers delegated to us, not you, Mr. President.

back off. If they can't do that, then Lord knows what they can't do. Essentially, any president, not just President Trump, has the war powers that Congress won't punish him over. Isn't that really what we're talking about here? Bill, that's a great way to sum it up. You are correct. Yep, that's what I thought. And I'm glad to hear that from a constitutional scholar. And the book is the independent guide to the Constitution. Can you get that at all the usual suspects will all the usual places amazon barns and noble etc all right very good well uh are you getting any traction given what's been going on with uh you know the iran action of lately i know we're only a couple of weeks into it but who knows how long this will go on we'll

see yeah let's hope it doesn't go on too much longer but uh i don't know there's always mission creep possibility yeah always that possibility we'll see where this goes and we pray for for good things for all involved here in the United States. All right. Will, thanks so much for your insight, okay? Thanks for being on the show. Have a great one. You too. William J. Watkins.

I'll put all his information up on KMED.com for the independent guide to the Constitution. It's 731. You're on KMED. Are you a veterinarian looking for something more meaningful? You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Facebook, for some reason, is down. That's why there's no Facebook Live. Sorry about that.

But we are streamed on KMEDA. dot com everywhere else. This doesn't have my pretty mug on your screen, okay? And of course, you can listen on 1063, 1067, 1059, 993 during the morning show.

Brian is here. Hello, Brian. You wanted to bite on the administration, the VA now talking about civilly committing homeless veterans or veterans they think that are homeless, drug addicted, and they're putting some muscle, I guess, into

VA lawyers, and they would then be pushing, I guess if you end up going to a VA center and the lawyers think that you belong in a program that they would forcibly commit you. What do you think about that overall? I thought I'd pose that question. The news broke about that yesterday. Well, I just don't think they should force a lot of these people that do things like that, especially veterans that have committed to serving our country and protecting our country and putting their lives at risk. I just, a lot of years of welcome homes down in California right after the Iraq war started 2003. And I noticed a lot of veterans coming home.

The VA solution was take these opioids. It will deal with your PTSD and your depression issues. Right. And all it did was make people, a veteran, very addicted. And then they became alcoholics or drug addicts. and they turned into homeless and no one was really helping them other than the VA giving them drugs. And then there's an organization called 22 Too Many, which I support every year. 22 veterans were taking their lives every single day in America because they couldn't get the proper help from VAs or any institutions for their drug and their depression issues.

Okay, well, to your point then, Brian, isn't a civil commitment through. the VA, if you're drugged out and raving at a problem, isn't that ultimately maybe the kindest thing to do to forcibly commit someone rather than let them continue as they had been,

given what you just described, right there? Well, yeah, I mean, I do think that they should be provided with some help, a lot more help, instead of just... Should they be forcibly... Should they be forcibly provided, though, if they're not

willing to accept the help being generously offered? No, I don't. Okay. Here's another thing that a lot of the veteran organizations at our welcome homes would remind these soldiers of like the American Allegiance and some of these other groups, please our moms, don't put in writing anywhere that you're suffering from PTSD because they will remove your Second Amendment right to own a gun. Yeah, everybody knows it.

That's the unwritten rule right now. Don't put it down, right? If they ask how you are, I'm just, I'm fine, right? Yeah. I'm fine. Yeah, that's kind of a sad note. Well, I know Trump did a lot in his first term there in 2016 to really stop the over-drug addiction problem with the VAs. They were just doling out opioids like sugar, and it was not good.

And so he did a lot to control that now. But the end of the bottom line is these veterans need more help, mental health, than just giving them opioids or whatever or no help at all. All right. Brian, I appreciate the opinion. That's why we have it out here on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Thanks for the call. Everybody else who is online, I will get right to you after we catch up on some news

and taking your calls on this or anything else on your mind, too. The Bill Meyers show on Conspiracy Theory Thursday, open phones. Winter rain wreaks havoc on your homes foundation. Drive off Violet Road. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-633. That's 770 KMED.

A lot of issues in the air. Let's hit them all. Try to be as pointed as you can here. Louis, I'm giving you a second bite. You called in a little earlier and I just didn't have time for you. You want to make a good point on the war issue in Iran. Go ahead. Yeah.

If I only get to say one thing, I'd say that there's, I read online a Netanyahu quote, that if, that if Iran keeps hitting their country and their cities, that we're going to show them something they've never seen before. Now, the people that wrote this, this column that I was looking at interpreted that to mean that that's the nuclear option. And you keep, and you hear it elsewhere, too, that, you catch. optical nuclear weapons, you know, they're not really big bombs. They're just nuclear bombs that you can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy kind of thing. I think that's come, you know, I think that's probably part of the plan, is to just test out the possibility of using nuclear weapons on Iran, because there's no way boots in the ground is going to do it. And if it does, it's going to be an incredible quagmire. Well, we don't know what we don't know here at the moment here. But the one thing I will.

say is that let us pray they did not go there. How about that? All right? Yeah. And let's say, why are we letting Israel continue to have nuclear weapons and not even be in the nonproliferation treaty and not even admitting they actually have them? You know, why are they so privileged? And yet, that's best their deterrence, you know, that's what they're trying to use now. Well, I think you also have to look at Israel. Israel has always been kind of a foreign policy cat's paw for the United States. When you say? Absolutely. I mean, really, it's just been kind of proxy too along and sometimes the proxy bites us too. Let me go to Roger. Roger, good to have you.

You wanted the bite on the VA. The VA begins this drive to put homeless veterans into guardianships, forced guardianships for drug and alcohol treatment. Do you have an opinion on that? I bet you do. Well, I'm not so much the homeless thing, but my son was a veteran and he's got some injuries that he has. He was telling me yesterday when I was talking to him that the VA is sending him some medication.

And if the medication works and takes away the pain, it doesn't necessarily take away the injury, that they're going to start reducing their compensation for the injuries that they've got. And he's getting kind of concerned that if he doesn't take the medication, then they're looking at it as a fraud issue and maybe just take him off anyway. So either way, he's going to lose his compensation, and they're not really trying to deal with the medical issues that he has. Now, this is a service-connected injury, I'm assuming. Yes, yes. Something that happened while he was in the service.

Okay. And so they're saying you take the medication. If you don't take the medication, then we think you're not being cooperative and you're just actually committing medical fraud. Does your son, is your son looking for a different kind of treatment rather than just? just pop a pill and have a good day or what? Yeah, he wants to resolve the issue correctly, not just cover it up. Oh. And my oldest son, he had an injury as well.

The VA balked at him for six years, and then finally his back injury resulted in him being paralyzed from the waist down. Yikes. Fortunately, we had a doctor here in town that took him in as an emergency, and he's walking now. but his back injury was bad, and the DA just kept denying him his access to even the doctors that could treat him. Well, given your experience then, would you be comfortable with VA lawyers working within that system actually taking over the lives of veterans and putting them in guardianship if they think it's for their own good?

They've been hostile toward vets for a long time, in my opinion, based on just the accounts of my two sons. Okay, well, that's kind of what I was wondering when I hear that. wonder. Thank you for the story here and sharing your family story, Roger. David is in Phoenix. David, good to have you here. And you wanted to talk about the glyphosate or the roundup spring in Ashland, the controversy over that. Go ahead. Briefly, but I also want to comment on the veterans. Okay, please. So about 15 years ago, we went through this in Ashland where people didn't like using herbicides. And so we voted in Ashland to do mechanical, you know, crawl on your hands and knees like a kid digging, digging weeds and pulling weeds by hands and that sort of thing. And it was the same thing about spraying the boulevard.

And you don't want your workers walking around with a weed eater in traffic and blocking off traffic and only one lane of cars and blocking up downtown Ashland and whatnot. And so that's what we did. All the people who wanted to pull weeds, we had volunteer days. You only get three or four people to show up. And most of them just wanted to stand around and talk and visit and make the scene. But yet the whole town comes up. We have to do it by mechanical and whatnot. You never got the whole town out.

And I'm just saying this is just recycling again. I guess there's just nothing to protest right now. That's as big as this will go away. everybody be patient and just go ahead and spray. It'll it'll all calm down. So I wanted to talk about how these things recycle. It's just an ash one. All right. Now then on the VA, go ahead. The way I felt about the ballpark vote in Medford when it was like so long as somebody else is going to pay, I'll vote for it. If it had been for sure, Medford people would have paid. They might not have voted for it. I have a jaundice eye on this. So we do civil command.

commitment for veterans. It opens the door for civil commitment for the homeless. Maybe I don't care about either one of those. But what happens when somebody called and says, you know, that David's got a couple of shotguns and a few hunting rifles? And you know, his political point of view is a little extreme in some ways or a little concerned, right? Yeah. And all of a sudden, we can do that. You know, David, we need to, we want to just bring you in for just a few days of observation and counseling, okay, because your neighbors were concerned. So I'm just saying these things flip and flop, so it's always, it's a dicey situation either way. No, I don't want to be panhandled. Yo, bro, you got a cigarette at the bus stop, but on this, and see the same people,

but on the same token, I'm just saying I think people need to just take a breath. It may be the way to go, but just look at unintended consequences. All right, very good. That's a great call. Thank you for making it, David. You know, kind of looking at both sides of this all. Ron's in Grants Pass. Hey, Ron, what's on your mind? Well, a couple of things. First, I want to deal with the gas pipeline issue.

Yeah, Glenn R. Schambeau called in earlier. He's on the pipeline safety board. And he was saying that the pipelines that crisscross Southern Oregon, you know, those big ones, are going to be going up in pressure and just advising that people really call. 8-1-1 before they start digging because sometimes they could be as shallow as three feet underground, depending what the field is. Yeah, it seems very strange that the private companies can use eminent domain to go through private property to achieve monetary ends that the private property owner loses some value

because you've got this right away through your property. Yeah, and I agree with you, but one could. certainly say that the delivery of energy, which is the lifeblood of civilization, would be a public good, wouldn't you say? Or wouldn't you say, rather? Yes, but then I would also say that Dr. Pry and Dr. Robinson have come up with recommendations to FERC that they hardened the grid over a last 25 years or so, and FERC has done nothing but sewn wall or say, yeah, we'll look into it. And Here we have a threat for 11 potential nuclear bombs from Iran, and they say, well, let's say it's a, you know, our way or the knife way.

Then we have a choice of waiting until they produce either inland bombs. You know, he only takes three of them, one on the West Coast, one of the Midwest, one of the East Coast, and that's, you've bought the Green Weenie. So anyway. Well, yeah, yeah, you definitely brought us to. Gosh, what is it, Bill Forston's book, one second after. Then we're living that, in essence, right? Yeah, so we need, I think, to kind of look at the big picture,

and that is the long-term potential that Iran could have, and it is right now, as a matter of fact, bombing boats that are in the harbors and straight of Hormuz. You know, that's an indicator of threat. But they've also knifed a lot of innocent people cut their heads off and so forth. So this is not a group of people that you can deal with on a logical, rational basis. They have Death to America as their mantra. And see, that would strike me as Death to America.

You've already declared war on us. So that's why I was talking with Will Watkins about that a little earlier this morning. It's kind of like, all right, even if we don't declare war against them, I think the war was already declared on us a long time ago. Of course, I would also say we declared war on them in a different way in the 1953, helping out Great Britain with the 1953 coup over there in Iran. So I don't think there are any clean hands. Would you agree on that much?

Absolutely. You're right. But then, you know, it's about survival, basically. And that's what we're up against right now. Who knows what cities have these pre-established nuclear bombs set in a cargo container someplace. Boy, let's hope we don't have. have to find out about that. I know they're talking about, I know Fox is reporting right now. The concern is maybe some sleeper cells out here on the West Coast. So keep your head on a

swivel there. All right, Ron, you do that. Appreciate it. All right. See you later. I'll grab one more call. Anyway, I enjoy conspiracy theory. Well, of course, I enjoy any kind of daily call with you. But anyway, hello, who's this? Good morning. Good morning. It's Francine. Francine. Welcome. What's on your mind today? Well, I want to talk a little bit about not just the war, but war. in general, and then I'd like to touch on the veterans. Okay.

Okay, so most wars are, throughout history, have been started by false flags on some level or another, because that's how they get the people to stand behind them and be willing to sacrifice their children. Oh, it is very common. Yeah, you're right. And you have the people at the top, and it's a great way to change the conversation in the country, right? Right. And then these false flags are backed up by the manipulative press, media, et cetera, et

And it's all just a bunch of lies. And that's why, if you recall, I last time we spoke, I think I was telling you how I just, I can't even come up with an actual realistic opinion about what's going on because I don't trust anything I'm hearing. And it's mostly all just opinions based on partial truths, semi-truths, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So just making judgments about what's going on and how right or wrong it is, it's kind of impossible to do this accurately at this point in time, because we don't really know what's going on and who's actually benefiting except for probably the usual players, you know, the usual suspects. Well, certainly the United States government is and always has been good, frankly, at propaganda. We know this is well known, and this is not a

Trump phenomenon. This is nothing new. This is just the way the system has been, at least in my lifetime. Of course, you know, Israel has a news blackout in what's going on. Oran has a news blackout on what's going on. Anybody tries to actually say what's really going on on the ground and you're in big, big trouble. So, you know, we're kind of having news reports from, yeah, you'll get the occasional, you know, you'll see the occasional missile lifting off a United States shift. you know, and you're watching them on TV, right? And you'll see the same frame, you know, fired off, what, 50 times in a five-minute interview? Oh, yeah.

I mean, I mean, this morning on the news before you came on, they were saying how they've now come to the conclusion that there was a misfire or mistargeting, and the U.S. did really blow up the teenage girls in the school. Yeah, the preliminary investigation is indicating that there was old intelligence being used in that that school, that girl's school, they believe used to be part of a military base there or a military building. And that's so they're claiming that's a mistake. President Trump's not happy about that, of course.

Well, yeah, but, you know, I still don't actually believe the spin of all these things. I just can't. I'm just, I'm so full of it. I mean, you know, there was, you know, 9-11 and bin Laden was the really bad guy. And what did we do? We went to war with Iraq, not Afghanistan, okay? You know, and then Trump is blowing. of Venezuela in drug boats and then he goes to war with Iran.

It's like it's all this sigh-up stuff to kind of get people's brains into a different place, you know? Well, I have tended to look at, I've tended to look both at, this is just my opinion and just take it for what it's worth. I just one guy, just like you're one woman and, you know, we're sitting here shooting the breeze about the stuff that we don't know all the details about, and we probably can't know. But I think it is a good, I think ultimately what's really driving this is squeezing

energy supplies on China because that's looked at as the big prize that needs to be contained right now. And I think that's what's driving it more than anything else. And there has to be whatever justification is made to go after China. If we have to tell the people that this is about keeping the mushroom cloud from the West Coast, the system's going to do that. They're going to tell you that. Okay. And didn't Biden, didn't he give a bunch of our oil supplies to China or sell to China or something like that, if I remember correctly? I forget what the Husk did on that. I'd have to look at up.

He did something. He dug into our reserves that weren't supposed to be touched. Oh, yeah, no, he did that. He dug into the oil reserves when there was that last shot. Yeah. Now, the thing is, we're doing that, too. Now, starting Monday, they're going to be selling off some of the strategic reserve to try to moderate some of the price hikes.

And we're only about... What? How does selling oil to somebody else moderate or the price of gas in the United States? When you add additional crude into the system, it reduces the impact. If everything's okay, it ends up if it's successful. Now, I know the IAE, I think the International Alliance on Energy, is also releasing some 400 million barrels of oil. It is the perception in the market that you are ameliorating the shocks to it

and that you're making sure that there's enough oil entering the market for processing into the gas and the diesel and the feedstocks and that. And that's the hope of it. The news of that has not seemed to help the price of oil right now, which is still spiking again today. Okay. Question. I might have misunderstood. Is this release of oil going to the United States or to another? It's being sold to another country?

I don't think it's necessarily being sold into another country. I think it's being sold, you know, domestically into our refunds. which then would increase the overall supply of such things. Okay, but still, but still it reduces the need to, it still is adding to the supply and then the market reacts to that. If everything works okay, we'll see what happens, okay? Okay. All right.

Now, my comments about the veterans, okay? All right. I'm almost out of time, so make it. Okay, I'll make it fairly quick. Mike, the gentleman that was on a couple of people before, I think he was pretty spot on about this. The guardianship of veterans, to me, it's simply a way to control them. Part of this, perhaps, is to get them out of the public eye.

So the obvious abuse of our veterans, the not following through to take care of them like they were all promised when they signed up, it becomes less noticeable these days. You know, they don't want people really seeing how bad it is. So you don't see the homeless drugged out veteran on the street, then you're not reminded of what we're not doing that. Okay. It looks like, oh, the government's taking care of our veterans like they should. You know, I mean, like World War II, they had the GI Bill helping them buy a howloman, you know, to blah, blah. So I think that they take – but they're taking away their autonomy, and in some ways, I think they're reducing them to the equivalent of foster kids, you know, where it may not be private homes, it'll be institutions.

But in other words, they have no autonomy. They are just simply being used, and their funds will probably be taken to pay for their kids. care and, et cetera. I just, I don't trust this one at all, and I'm really concerned. All right. You duly noted, and we will put you down. Francine, not trusting it. Okay.

All right, Francine, thank you for calling. KMED, KMED, H.D. H.D. H.D.E.E.E.H.G.G. Grants pass. We're going to be digging into RF radio frequency safety, cell phones. And Kelly from Oregonians for safer technology is going to be joining me here. They're going to be putting on some seminars here in Southern Oregon. We'll talk about that here in the next few minutes.

And gosh, we can be talking about oil. We can be talking about the gold and silver markets. I haven't checked the price of gold and silver here lately, but the one thing I will tell you is that I'm continuing to be a stacker. I don't think the tensions, the financial tensions, are going to be going away anytime soon. It's not just going to go back to condition green. I just don't think we're there at this point in time. A lot of stuff in the air.

And I like the idea of a little more physical gold and silver in my vault. Maybe you're looking at that, too. Maybe you're looking to sell at this point. Either way, the people I'm hoping that you'll trust are the recognized experts that I've trusted for, gosh, what, has it been 20 years or so? Jay Austin & Company, gold and silver buyers in Ashland and Ashland and Ashland, Strait in Ashland, 6th and G in downtown Grants Pass. They can help you preserve some wealth or maybe take some profits from some wealth you've stored in the past. Great people. Call 482-3715.

482-3715. keep that transaction safe, secure, and absolutely private. Nobody else needs to know except the recognized experts. Fortunereserve.com. That's fortunereserve.com.