Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-16-26_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Morning news and commentary, Paul Runco joins in from Parents Defending Education. Amazing the explosion in K-12 kids walking out of classsrooms to protest. Suuuuuuuuuuure, it is all grasssssssroooooots (heavy sarcasm)

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. Welcome to Monday morning, March 16th, 2026. How are you doing this morning? Join the conversation at 7705-633-770KMED. My email bill at Billmyershow.com.

Do you think we're winning, really winning over in Iran right now? How would you evaluate it? It kind of looks a little bit of a mixed, kind of a mixed bag to me. And this was the first thought that I, that came into my head that popped through my head. Yesterday morning when the president said, we're looking for this coalition of the willing or the unwilling or whatever kind of coalition it is to try to keep the straight of horn. Moos open. Now, the Strait of Horamuz is that like 22-mile wide shipping channel right by Iran. Iran's able to control it relatively easily. And there's a two-mile-wide shipping channel through this. Some of the biggest tankers can go through it very easily. It's quite deep in there, but it's

22 miles overall. And around 20 percent of the world's oil goes through that section. And the president is asking for help. And if the United States of America, America is asking for help keeping the straight of Hormuz open. To me, that was an indicator of it may not be going quite as well or swimmingly as it's being talked about in the press conferences. Is that a fair kind of just gut thing? Because frankly, none of us, I think, really know what is going on there. Do we really know what's going on? No, we can just see what the news reports come in and the news reports are.

restricted and polished and this is everywhere, whether you're talking about the Israeli news, but you're talking about Iranian news, but you're talking about United States news. This is what happens during war. I don't necessarily know what to trust on this. But the one thing that I can pretty much guarantee, if you're asking for help, that means that you don't have really control of this. Because, you know, here it is. The reports have been that we have just pounded Iran to within an inch of its life.

This is the way it's been getting reported. And like we're practically having no military targets left to hit. Like we don't have any military targets to hit. And yet at the same time, Iran is apparently able to send tons of drones in there and knock out oil tankers. And so Lloyd of London then says, no, we're not going to, we're not going to insure this anymore. and so traffic, oil traffic, grinds to a halt. And I know that there is talk that we are supposed to be escorting ships here pretty soon. Of course, that's going to be really expensive to do it with our military too.

But, you know, this is one of those things that I just don't know. You know, because President Trump has really good instincts, very good instincts. I mean, that's probably his greatest strength. If you want to talk about Donald Trump's superpower, it is instinct. He's an instinctual president. Would you agree with me on that? Probably his greatest superpower of all is his instincts. But, you know, there's tactics and also supply chains and also other things that have to be considered before you go off and you do things like what happened in what's been going on in Iran.

It's one thing to decapitate the government, but it appears that there's a lot of decentralization of the Iranian Republican Guard. in which they're able to kind of keep things going, even though they're not technically the guy, you know, so to speak, in charge these days. And I don't consider myself any expert on foreign policy. Please understand. But there are a couple of things that I found out over the weekend that as I'm reading some of the analysis of it going like,

why would you have done this? And this is one of them. All right. When you know that you're going to be doing something around the straight-of-hor moves, where 20% of the world oil supply flows through it and can be attacked or pinched quite easily, that little narrow area controlled by Iran, wouldn't control of the Strait of Hormuz been a job one, first and foremost?

That's what came through in my mind. And second, also, what's in my mind is, why would we have done this without our strategic petroleum reserve absolutely filled to the brim. That just makes no sense to me. That made no sense to me unless you really didn't think it was going to be four or five days. In four or five days, all the naysayers of the war were indicating that this was going to take more than four or five days. No contingency plan.

Now, maybe it's going to be okay, and I hope it is going to be okay. and I hope it is going to be okay because, you know, the way things are looking at the moment, it could be getting dicedier that midterm election is looking diceier in dicier all the time. Price of crude is over $100.005 this morning is what we were looking at for Brentwood crude. I don't know exactly what it is at the moment, but it's in that trading range. And this is serious stuff. And then you have President Trump asking for help. Now, I'm sure asking for help is trying to get more people, hey,

But he asked Japan. Now, Japan gets almost all of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and it's not getting anything right now. Japan gets 95% of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz. And President Trump asked them, well, would you send some ships to help patrol the Strait of Hormuz? And they said no. Japan said no. Now, maybe they don't have any oil to send the ship. That could be part of it.

Yeah, send me some oil. Then maybe we'll send a ship. But yeah, yeah, everybody has a plan until, what's that famous thing? Everybody has the plan until that famous Mike Tyson, that Mike Tyson plan, everybody has a plan until you're punched in the face, some words to affect. I know that's been, you know, exaggerated. But I don't know. But anyway, President Trump is putting fire under the broader community of concerned nations about this now.

And the countries of the world, he's saying that receive oil through the hormones. straight must take care of that passage and we will help a lot he said this is from his truth social posts the u.s will also coordinate with those countries so that everything goes quickly smoothly and well this should have always been a team effort and now it will be as is from truth uh social except it will be only if the other people want to join the to join the team and so far uh big people who depend on the oil like uh japaners no thanks. You broke it, you bought it, I think is kind of what some of them are saying. And you got an opinion on that, I don't know. But when I heard about him asking for help

on trying to secure the straightie or her moves, that's time I was thinking, it's not going so well. That's what I was thinking, at least. Or at least there are more problems than they perhaps anticipated. What do you say? 7705-633. Because I'm thinking like, well, we smashed everything. We destroyed everything. And, well, I know. know. But anyway, what you think in this morning? Hi. Good morning. KMEDE. KVXG. Who says? Good morning, Bill. This is Phil. Roe River. Hey, Phil. What do you think of this morning, huh? Well, I think the president is just asking for somebody else to help carry the load because we've been patrolling the Persian Gulf for like 45, 50 years. I did 10 deployments out there on a Navy ship.

And we never saw any other foreign naval ship out there to help us. So he just wants to find out who is actually going to help do this. We can't carry the whole world's load forever. Well, I would certainly agree with you on that, but it seems to me that you make those kind of contingencies you get that prepared before you do stuff, wouldn't you? Well, true enough, but, I mean, granted, even though they were saying that they could have a nuke within two weeks,

you don't have a lot of time to do stuff like that. And as far as our reserves go, I mean, we really don't rely on that part of the world's oil. It's just the global market. So we're just trying to ease it. Well, yeah, but still, but still, we, I mean, you know, you're sending ships over there. We didn't fill up the gas tank. What the hell? That's what I'm thinking, though. Well, true enough, and that's because Biden emptied it needlessly, in my opinion. Yeah. But it takes a long time to fill up that oil and you need congressional approval it up. Ah, there you go.

It's a very good point. Very good point, Phil. So you're not thinking that this is indicative of problems. This is just trying to get the world to help out. Yeah. I mean, they rely on that global market just as much as we do, and I think everybody should lend the hand supporting that. Okay, all right.

Hey, Phil, I appreciate the call. Thank you for that, too. 7705-633-7-7-0 KMED. Now, see, it struck me differently from Phil. I'm thinking like, yeah, because President Trump is very big on, on, hey, you know, our military is the most fantagulous thing. We can do it all. We can smash and grab and then keep the, you know, we can rub our tummy and pat our heads at the same time.

I would have thought that this would have been a cakewalk, so to speak, for the U.S. military on keeping the straight-of-horam moves open. Hi, good morning. KM.EDE. Who's this? Morning, Bill. Tom here. Tom, what do you think of this morning, huh? Well, you know, John B. Wells had a very interesting interview with a military man over the weekend Saturday, and this man claimed that Iran was preparing to execute by hanging 8,000 of their own citizens just before the invasion. They were planning or not would have already happened if there hadn't been an invasion. He also claimed that

Iran had killed 35,000 of their own protesters there in the country. And then he also claimed that they were having protests against the government in the hundreds of thousands. They said not the tens of thousands, in the hundreds of thousands. I don't know how you can verify any of that, but there was some pretty startling claims there. And like I said, we don't really know what's the hell going on or there at all because we have a media that is totally untrustworthy. Well, the media that happens these days is pretty much working via government press release. I mean, that's kind of the way the media doesn't, no, even on the national.

It's like the old Russian probative, I think, in Russian means truth. And I can't tell you how untrustworthy I think our media is. I mean, I've had that opinion for decades. I don't even watch the mainstream news any for decades. Okay, but just let me ask you, though, asking for help, is that a sign that we just want to spread the load out there on people? And Phil makes a good point about that, where is this indicative that there may be more challenges

than we may have anticipated there? Well, I kind of also have to ask a question, what in the hell are we doing over there in the first place? I mean, where's a terrible way to settle differences and so forth. You know, the United States has something like 800 military bases around the world. I mean, it's just nuts what we're doing with our resources. You know, one of the things that got my attention about Trump is when he walked out of

his towers there in New York and said, well, what would America look like if we weren't spending all our blood and treasure in the Middle East and now look at them? So, I don't, you know. Well, you'll see, you know, maybe ultimately Trump has an amazing ability, though. The one thing, like I said, one of his main superpowers, like I mentioned when I first opened up, though, is that he has very good instincts, right? He has usually very good instincts, and that's a big superpower of his. And he also has an amazing ability to pull rabbits out of the hat that you never think could possibly be pulled off.

So I'm not, I'm not bagging on things right now. But I'm just saying that when I hear him asking for help, that struck me as it's not going so well. That's all. That's, that's the way I interpreted it. Yeah, it's certainly, I mean, his ability to survive everything that's been thrown at him. It's just been nothing short of totally amazing. I think I should have been toast in any other. Anybody else would have collapsed long ago.

Yes. Yeah, I mean, that's true. I mean, point we'll take. I appreciate your call. Thank you for that, Tom. And we're just kind of kicking around, and, you know, how are you feeling about the way things are looking right now now that we're going into the third week? Hi, good morning, KMEDE. Who's this?

This minute, Dave, what do you think? Well, this weekend, I was at my brothers for celebration of life for my sister-in-law passing away. And I watched Fox News. I can't believe anything they say because it's raw, rah, rah, war, war. And, you know, I'm not saying that Trump's do, has any problem, but to get anything that isn't propaganda, I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea who to believe or what to believe. I don't feel that way myself sometimes.

Appreciate the call there. Thank you very much. Let me go to next call. Hi, good morning. KMEDE, who's this? This is Wayne. Hi, Wayne. What are you thinking this morning?

What's up? Well, tie into what Tom was talking about on that John B. Wells interview with that military guy. The one thing that was brought up is Lloyd's of London insurers all those tankers going in and out of the past. Yeah, and they pulled their coverage. So they did. Yeah. And then the interesting thing, it's, I don't know if our government. took that contract over or somebody else here in America.

But what it did is it siphoned off a lot of money that the Royals received. And without that the shipping revenue that they would receive on that insurance, that dried up one of their funds. And that goes clear back to, gosh, like the 15-16-hundreds, I think the guy was talking about. Very interesting. I didn't hear that interview Saturday night. I had missed that doing some other things. But I'll go back and take a listen. All right? Thank you. Yeah, I thought it was quite fascinating. All right. Yeah, I'll tell you, John B. Wells was a great addition here. And we have him here now having replaced Ground Zero Monday through Friday. Well, actually, now it's Monday through Saturday. Let's see. So Saturday night it is 7 to 9 and Monday through Friday it is 8 till 10, right? Arkton, Ark Midnight, or Caravan to Midnight is what it's called against Arc Midnight on Saturday night.

Hi, good morning, K&D. Who's this? Hey, Bill, David. Hey, David, what's on your mind today, huh? Well, something that people should consider when they, you know, are always surprised that the globalists go into a country and have a hard time. I want to tell an Aesop fable. Is that okay? Do I have time to do that? It's a quick one. Okay, sure. Go ahead. There's a crow sitting in a tree, and the crow is watching as a fox chases of rabbit. through the forest and the rabbit goes around the tree and through a briar patch and out through

a field and the fox is just chasing in the whole way. And finally, the rabbit escapes and the fox is walking back and the crow says, you're a fox, you're so much faster than a rabbit. How did you let him get away? And the fox says, I was only running for my dinner. The rabbit was running for his life, you know. And when we think about these countries and, you know, we're always so surprised at these issues, you know, we're the globalist, man.

The globalist should be able to go in there. this money and technology, and we should just be able to, you know, push Russia around, and we should be able to just take over any country in the Middle East we want, blah, blah, blah, you know. In other words, the Iranians have a vote on that, huh? Well, just remember the ferocity that these people have, you know, we're just sitting back, you know, yeah, our gas is expensive, you know, even though we don't rely on Middle Eastern oil, our gas is somehow so expensive now.

And we're sitting back, you know, watching the news and, you know, every American knows of the straight to Hormuz's, you know, magically. know where that is somehow because we're going to be given this explanation of why our gas is expensive. But yeah, other people in other parts of the world that don't have it like we do here, you know, they're pretty vested in their survival. You know, we're just watching TV right now. And I guess I pray it stays that way. But, you know, I suspect people are going to have a real different opinion of the globalist agenda

when it finally ends up in their front yard, you know, and which it is in different ways. But I mean the actual, you know, military drones and bombing and all that stuff, you know. We all think it's great. Knock over Syria, knock over Libya, you know, knock over Gaza, knock over Iran, you know. You know, besides the oil price, what's the number one worst part about living in the United States right now, long aircraft lines or long airline lines, right? Yeah, you know, I mean, I just think people that like war and your reality check sometimes, you know. All right. Hey, appreciate your call as always.

Thank you, David. 629 at KMED. Oh, by the way, speaking of the airlines, the air lines, the air. airline lines. You know, for years I've been saying, why do we have federal employees as TSA? Why should that be at the whim of the Democrats in Congress? That never made sense to me. There was never any reason to have to have Department of Homeland Security. Well, of course, airlines could actually do something the way they used to would be provide their own security. Something tells me that their insurance companies would be way, way, way interested in making

sure that they don't bring terrorists on board, wouldn't you think? This is the Bill Meyer show. Kelly's Atomoto Service, when you have our platinum fuel system cleaning done, you'll receive a free bag. With your help, St. Jude continues its mission, finding cures, saving children. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. 637, Paul Ronco joins me. Paul Ronco is the senior director of strategic initiatives at defending education, defending education, defending, I believe it's defending ed.org. Isn't that your website, Paul? Welcome back to the show. Yes. Yeah, good morning, Bill. Thanks for having me. You are an educational watchdog, and boy, we need more of that ever.

It's than ever, rather. It's fascinating to watch the school walk out and protest rackets, in my opinion of what have been going on here over the last few weeks here. Oregon seems to be a hotbed of all of a sudden, you know, we have especially K through 12 kids, especially middle school kids here in Southern Oregon most recently. And I remember as a middle school child that, you know, I didn't know a whole lot, certainly about geopolitics, skulls full of mush as the light rush Limbaugh used to talk about it, right? And then it's just interesting that all of a sudden when it comes to immigration and custom enforcement, gosh, you know, the kids are active and they want to fair and it's a grassroots student-led movement. Now, twice they've walked out here over the last

couple of weeks at Oakdale Middle School here locally. How is that looking around the country? I have a feeling there's a lot more of this going on and it's all just been popping up recently. What say you? Absolutely. After the anti-ice protest started in Minnesota earlier this year, my organization defending education, we started hearing from parents all across the country. of their districts, this happening in their districts, students walking out of class, walking out of the school doors to protest ICE and immigration enforcement efforts. And so we looked into this and we wanted to know, you know, is this a phenomenon that's just a few random schools in, you know, blue states, or was it a little bit more pervasive than we were thinking? And what

our investigation found was that these political student walkouts have occurred over five 500 times in the past five years, 350 times this year alone, and it's in 48 states across the country. And like you mentioned, it's not just high school, it's middle school students who may not, you know, they probably don't have a great grasp of these, you know, geopolitical issues. And parents are rightly asking, why is this happening and how did we get here? What have you been able to figure out as far as the organization of it? because the one that happened at the middle school here that I was referencing Oakdale, the news reports came out there and talked about these were student-led,

but there were some parents. There were a parent or two that was involved in this too. Yeah, it's a combination of outside groups, third parties, and the schools themselves a lot of the times sanction these events. So, you know, you probably noticed for a long time, and your listeners are probably, you notice for a long time that schools, have an ideological bend. And so we see schools either endorsing these or passively allowing them to happen or at a minimum they waive the consequences for students who walk out to protest ICE.

And as you can imagine, we certainly don't see the same support either by adults outside or the schools themselves, the same support for students who would support ICE or immigration enforcement efforts. So the first real big issue with these students, walkouts in the student process is viewpoint discrimination. You know, if schools are going to allow these, which I would argue they shouldn't, to protest ICE, they should allow students to protest other things on the other side of the aisle. Are any of these of these almost 500 protests, were any of them, what could be construed as right-wing or conservative issues being protested in the school, or any of these in your study?

The only ones you can maybe make an argument is school funding. We've seen a couple of those where they need to build a new school, perhaps. You could argue that those are nonpartisan at best, but most of these are to protest ICE, to protest in support of transgender ideology or against Israel or climate change, things like that. Okay. Now, I'm looking here on the tool. By the way, this is the tool that you were talking about over on defending ed. ORG. And it shows all of the protests that have happened in the state of Oregon and all the other

states here, too. So you're right. And you caught them too. January 30th, North Mefford High School, anti-ice. Then March 2nd, Oakdale Middle School, anti-ice. They also had another one from Oakdale a week or two later in which they, but they did that on their own time, which I would have thought would have been the best way to have done it in the first place, but that's not nearly as much fun, right, Paul? You know, doing it on your own time. Well, and you bring up another point is, you know, if students are walking out of school off campus without permission during the school day, and if there's no consequences, I mean, it's essentially a field trip, right? True civil disobedience, like ones we've seen in the past with the civil rights, you know, movements and things like that, true civil disobedience requires sacrifice. And I think most parents would agree that, you know, if your students breaking the school code and the school policies, there should be consequences for these.

Well, they charge them a day off or not a day off, I guess. They suspend them for a day, which is give them another day off, right, from classes? Well, there's a – in some cases, that's the case, but in most cases it's, you know, I know it's state law in Virginia that students be given a day to, you know, participate in civil discourse or something like that, but gives them a path to do these things. And so this is where parents really need to be involved and alert to not only understand that these things are happening, but what the consequences are for their students, not just for attendance, but for their academics. I mean, every hour that the students are outside the school protesting ICE is, you know, they're not learning math. They're not learning reading. They're not learning writing. And the nation scores on those subjects are not good.

I wonder if Oakdale Middle School students figured, we might as well protest ICE because we're not learning anything anyway. here. You know, you know how Oregon's teaching or Oregon schools' ratings are not all that great overall. I'm sure you've read about that. Well, there's a great video I saw recently of a mom who, you know, saw the anti-ice, the school sanctioned, the anti-ice walkout happening at her daughter's middle school. And in the video, she marches right up to the main office and demands, you know, that her child be pulled from the school altogether. And so, you know, parents send their kids to school to learn, you know, reading, writing, math, science, history. They don't send them to participate in the coordinated political protests.

Is there any evidence that there are actual political parties or political organizations that are through the back door organizing these walkouts out of K through 12 schools? What say you, Paul? Yeah, sometimes it's organized. Sometimes it's a little bit more, you know, an individual. maybe an activist in the community. It really depends on your area. But this is where parents really need to dig. And, you know, sometimes your student could be in a group chat on their phone, who's coordinating this. And it's important to know who they're talking to about these. Like you mentioned at the beginning, they're talking to some adult. It's very rare that these are

really student-led and organized. And so that's another interesting for parents is who has access to my child and who's getting them to do these things that I probably don't agree with. I noticed that in the Portland public schools and your group defending education ended up getting to the bottom of what organized those school walkouts, and that's the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Take Action McDaniel Club, but we're not seeing anything for the Medford classes. So thinking it could be just an adult or two, maybe a family member, you know, affected by the ice walkouts, and then they, maybe it maybe it was a little bit. little bit of a grassroots or more of a grassroots or does the lack of a group name mean that

there was no influence. What would you think? Not necessarily. We try to go as deep as we can on these resources, but parents also ask us all the time. You know, I want to know what's happening across the country. And so we do a thorough investigation, but oftentimes it's just the tip of the iceberg. And so, yeah, if you're on our K-12 student walkout tracker, on our website, defending ed.org, and you don't see something, you know, please shoot us an email and let us know what, you know, you're seeing in your district, and we'd be happy to look into it. So there are a bit about 500 of these over the last few years here, but 360 or so of that 500 just in the last couple of months this year, right, Paul?

Right, absolutely. So we've seen a high uptick, and like I said, it's probably a tip of the iceberg. We could spend days, weeks, months, digging back into the past. But, you You know, it's interesting. We're starting to see these student walkouts of schools, these student protests go from specifically anti-ice. So, you know, they're issue-based immigration enforcement to now they're just generally anti-Trump administration. And so it starts to become very obvious. These aren't about, oh, we care deeply about this issue. It's just using students as political pawns.

What about the evidence of teachers, unionized teachers, sort of leading this through? the back door through a classroom instruction. Any evidence of that or do you go into it or not? Absolutely. One of the things that we focus very heavily on is course instruction under the guise of what they call ethnic studies. And it doesn't have to be a course titled ethnic studies. It could be really anything. But specifically in those classes, which have become very popular in states like California, Minnesota, Boston, Massachusetts, where they encourage students to be civically active and where you and I might think that's, oh, go vote, be, you know, go maybe right to your, your congressman about an issue. They really push this idea of you need to be out in

the streets, you know, causing chaos and being loud and having this sort of leftist, you know, rhetoric. And so they're teaching that in schools. And it is pervasive. in a lot of what they're teaching our students, particularly in the high school level. And so, yeah, it's not an accident that these students are out there doing this. Although I will say, you know, if you look at the videos of these students protesting, a lot of them are probably just out there because I don't want to be in school. So I might as well go join this, you know, group that are leaving. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I've always kind of wonder that too. Oh, a free get out of school jail, get out of school jail free? You know, fine, you know, do that kind of thing. You know what I am kind of curious about, though, what is coming out of the teaching colleges today, you know, the K-12 education colleges? And is it as progressive and left-leaning as Oregon schools would tend to indicate that? Or is it different in different areas of the country, do you know? Yeah, that's a major issue that parents and grandparents are starting to grapple with and really push back on.

And unfortunately, a super majority, if not most of, you know, all of them, the teachers' colleges, these future teachers just marinate in things like critical race theory and gender ideology and, you know, these ideas that come from a certain political perspective, they just marinate in them for four years. And then, you know, you have to assume that they bring that into the classroom. and even teachers have publicly said this, and this isn't all teachers, obviously, but some of the more radical teachers have said, you know, it's my job to awaken these students and make sure that they believe my political ideology, the ideology that I believe is true. And so the teachers' colleges are a huge, huge challenge, and I don't know that there's been a great solution posed yet for that. Yeah, I'm kind of curious, do you think the Trump administration might be, you know, Well, of course, has been quite noisily going after educational institutions for DEI programs.

You know, they don't want this and also trying to enforce Title IX the way it was intended about your actual sex, not your gender identity, you know, all these kind of things. I'm just kind of wondering if maybe the Trump administration should really be focusing on in what's going on in the teaching colleges because, like you had said, it's just in the mother's milk of the teaching world right now. Not all, but I'd say 90 to 95% of them from the looks of it. Yeah, I think the solution is probably twofold. One, you know, parents have really been refreshed to see an administration in Washington, D.C., have their backs, especially on these types of issues of DEI, racial discrimination. Title IX, you mentioned. So it's nice to have an ally in Washington, D.C., fighting for parents and students on that front. But I also think, you know, some states are looking into alternative pathways for certification.

Oh, now that would be something. That would be something if the certification could be taken away from the woke academic, you know, credential folks. That would be very helpful in the long term. Right. And there's plenty of smart people who have degrees in, you know, science and math that they have to go earn a master's in education just to be a teacher. and there's tons of veterans that are highly qualified to teach in schools that that can't currently. And so, yeah, I think there's some creative solutions that states are exploring there. Paul Ronko, once again, from Defending Education, DefendingEd.org.

They have the K-12 student walkout and protest tracker. It makes for a very interesting reading. And I really appreciate you coming on here. What do you think is the number one effort that defending Ed is focusing on at this point? because there are so many lines of bad influence in public education right now these days, Paul. Yeah, our number one goal is just to get parents knowledgeable and active. And so we have also a resource on our website of questions. Parents can ask their school about these walkouts.

And so if it hasn't happened in their school yet, they'll at least know how their school will respond if it ever does happen. So we encourage parents to know what's going on in their schools, and they can let us know about anything concerning. if they do find it. Paul, I'm kind of curious, is one of the biggest challenges that parents have

the normalcy bias in which, yeah, I know in Chicago, the schools are really bad, but my public schools are just fine. Do you work that a lot in the organization? Yeah, one of the things I personally love to highlight in my work as the director

of the K-12 initiatives is highlighting these efforts going on in, you know, what would be... Yeah, what was that? What was that, Paul? We just lost yourself for just a minute.

What are you working on there? Try it again. Yeah. Yeah, so highlighting these things going on in red states, right, or Republican states. So the first few states on this tracker are Alabama and Arkansas. And so I think parents do sometimes think, oh, I live in a Republican state, and so this can't be happening. Yeah, I'm living in Tennessee. Everything's fine, right? That sort of thing. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that. to take and thanks for sharing the results of this. The K-12 student walk-out and protest tracker, learn the truth about this.

Defendinged.org. Paul, a pleasure, and thanks for talking with us this morning, okay? 6-54. And you're on KMED and KBXG. Solar energy companies. Free KMED. Call Bill now. 541-770-5633.

That's 770 KMED. Great having you here. Monday, March 16th, 770563 to join in. Terry, you wanted the way in on that conversation of the school walkouts I was having with Paul Ronko from defending Ed. Yeah, good morning, Bill. Hey, yeah, I was wondering, you know, doesn't Oregon have one of the highest funding for students? It's pretty high if you were to go on an average. Now, going on average, of course, is difficult, but anywhere from the numbers I see bandied about from $15,000 to $18,000 per year.

So it's pretty good money, not bad. And our graduation rates are horrible. Our testing rates are not rates, but our testing scores are horrible. I wonder how the schools would think about the kids protesting the education we're getting, you know, in the state from the schools. Hmm. Would they be as supportive if they were going out? Yeah, let the kids go out there. You know, if I would imagine they would be supportive of it if it was structured around they,

we're getting out and protesting because the state of Oregon is not giving us enough. money. There's not enough money for us to do our job. Maybe they would be okay with that. What say you, huh? Yeah, no, I agree with that. That's crazy, though. Yeah. Did you ever walk out out of school when you were a kid? I'm sorry, what was that? Did you ever walk out of school when you were a kid? Because, I mean, in my 12 years of it, I never remember once walking out of anything other than a field trip. That was it. It was the bottom line. I probably would have. You know, I thought Bill Clinton was awesome when I was a kid and I was in my team. So I thought that was I probably would have, but, you know, looking back now, I shouldn't have.

And the only reason we ever got to get out of school once, and I grew up in Gold Beach, is because we had a bomb threat. Oh, okay. You know, I remember getting out of school for a fire, someone pulled the fire alarm. It wasn't a bomb threat, but a fire alarm. Yeah, but that's kind of different, right? It's a different sort of thing. Somebody did it.

It was a fake one. All right. Thank you, Terry. 7705-633-7-0-7-0-K-M-E-D. 658. Emails of the day. Those are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson and Central Point Family Dentistry.com.

And while you wait, crowns, especially. I had one put in a number of weeks ago. Dr. Steve is my dentist, and I really enjoyed it. I think you'd like them too. It's on Freeman Road right next to the Mazadlaan Mexican restaurant. And I'm going to give an email of the day to Douglas Dean. And Douglas Dean writes, Hey, Bill, when it comes to all this gender-affirming care

that Oregon is paying for and putting out and promoting. How come there are only two genders? You know something, Doug, you are right above that. As far as gender affirming care, there's only two, right? You know, the state doesn't go out there and say, okay, we're going to perform surgery on you and work this into the Oregon health system, and you are two-spirit.

We now deem you two-spirit, or whatever, the various forms of nonsense that come forth. That's a good point. Thanks for making that. Jerry writes me this morning, Hey, Bill, I've heard three sources mentioning a potential false flag in our near future. Gerald Salente and Michael Yun and the Iranians themselves. Yon said that a nuke could be set off and then blamed on Iran.

Let us hope that they are incorrect. I would agree with you. Granny writes me about the Strait of Hormuz. Strait of Hormuz block A could trigger a global food crisis. Quite possibly, this is one of the reasons the Strait of Hormuz was not secured, Bill, as it should have been in the first place. Yes, when it comes to logistics, logistics, Granny, that's something that is kind of running through my head. It's like, you know that, yeah, 20% of the oil and a lot of, gosh, a great percentage of urea.

Of course, urea being a feedstock for a fertilizer. That's a big part of that. You know, ammonia, urea. And, of course, when we think about urea, we're probably thinking about those DEF things. We dump into the diesel tanks of the newer vehicles like that. You know, there's another part of the Strait of Hormuz. I think it's one third.

I've got to look up that number. I think it was about a third of the world's helium goes through the Strait of Hormuz. And that is a critical gas. Yes, indeed. Yes, it is more than just blowing up balloons at birthday parties. But, yeah, that has put a crimp on that. So there are a lot of things, urea, natural gas, oil, helium.

And if I understand correctly, also, no, helium is part of that. That's right. It's also being used for integrated circuits. In other words, a computer chip manufacturer. So you need good helium, and they have a lot of that in that neighborhood that goes through there in the tankers. So something else to keep in mind. But, well, President Trump is looking for additional help on that one. That is for sure.

Virgil writes me, hey, Bill, I was wondering about this as well. If someone is in the United States legally with temporary or permanent lawful status, Oregon can issue a limited term real ID driver's license or ID card. These are marked limited term and expire when the person's authorized stay in the United States ends or after one year if no specific end date is listed in their immigration documents. In contrast, non-citizens without lawful status can still obtain a standard non-real ID Oregon driver's license or ID card, but they are not eligible for a real ID compliant card, which requires proof of lawful presence.

Now, Virgil, the way that I'm looking at it, though, is that Oregon, got squishy on its real ID and does not make the real ID indicative of being a United States citizen. Now, I have not been able to find anything which says differently, but that Oregon is one of those states, and there are a handful of states that did not lock down their real ID only for citizens and for citizens only, okay, and leaving the other forms of ID for the other people like the non-compliant ID and or driver's license court. Okay.

Appreciate the call. 770563. And, oh, Richard Blanco writes me. He wrote me over the weekend here. And this is about the involuntary VA commitment of veterans with substance abuse and issues. And Richard writes, Bill, one of your callers simplistically suggested that anyone getting government funds should be drug tested just like him. Okay, why just veterans?

How about Israel, Ukraine, Mexico, et cetera? Congress, too. I've wondered for years why someone working on a mine site or Amazon, in the Amazon, like I was, or was subject to drug testing, but not Congress. Let's test them randomly for drugs and alcohol. This system of serfs and masters makes me sick to my stomach sometimes. Trust me, as a former Dom resident, the last people one would want to have the power to involuntarily commit anyone would be VA attorneys.

That guy's nuts. That would be a 99% last straw toward a shooting war to me. Great show. R.S.B. Thank you so much, Richard. I appreciate that email. Good conversation one way or the other. Everybody making their points here.

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