Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-03-26_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

Morning news and commentary to start then Dr. Steve Bonta, publisher and contributor at the New American Dot com, the magazine for the John Birdch Society - discussion includes his experience in China during covid, Bondi, The Trump Iran war dance, etc.

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 Klausor drilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Welcome to Good Friday and to find your phone, Good Friday. 7705663 to join the conversation as always. Email Bill at Billmyershow.com. Steve Bonta is going to join me.

Dr. Steve Bonta from the New American. He's the publisher of the New American. The John Birch Society, I've been starting to get a little more chummy with these people over the years because it's not just a Republican or it's not just a democratic view of things. It's kind of a constitutional view of things. I know that's very unpopular for some people these days. But I kind of like look at that stuff. We're going to talk about the Bondi firing and Bondi fired. And, you know, there's actually, you know, rumors kind of flying back.

and forth. Some are saying it all started with her talking about having had the files, you know, the client files on her desk, and that was in January of 2025, which she was on Fox. Other people are saying that it has to do with tipping off of Eric Swalwell on the Fang Fang File reduction or release, rather. Remember the Fang Fang, and I guess Eric Swalwell ended up firing or filing rather a cease-it assist saying, don't do this, but we'll talk with Dr. Bonto about that and a bunch more here too. Also, I wanted to let you know about some of the other people I'm going to be talking to an investigator from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. We've been talking a lot about illegal immigration, birthright citizenship this week.

And Fair U.S. has done a big investigation on the citizenship for sale trend. And we've been talking about this with the birthright tourism, birth tourism. wealthy Chinese billionaires farming out a whole bunch of American surrogates and creating little instant, you know, little instant citizens that go back to China and then could come back from China anytime they want as they age. I mean, are these really citizens? And Farr has been digging into this one, this constitutional loophole fueling the, it's a multi-billion dollar. It's not multi-million. It's a multi-billion dollar birth tourism in this state. And we're going to break that down a little bit after 730 this morning.

Mr. Outdoors is here also. Greg Roberts checking in and we'll talk what's going on here for Easter weekend and beyond. And also Jim Rafferty, who is running for position to Josephine County Commission. That's a jungle primary. Boy, I've got to tell you, it's a wild time in Joe County. That is for sure. And he's going to talk about what he's all about. I haven't spoken with Jim for a number of years.

So we will dig in and see what's going on. Some of the other headlines we have around here a little close. closer to town, though. We had a guy that was wanted for 18 counts of sex crimes, child sex crimes. I guess sending pictures allegedly. This is all allegedly right now because he's just been charged. But Glenn Rize ended up barricading himself in his home on South Pacific Highway. And so they had Jackson County Sheriff's officers out there, Southern Oregon child exploitation.

They got him out after an hour or so. And so he's in jail. and Daily Courier had a really interesting story. I kind of forgot about this one, but remember how $200,000 stolen from you can. That's the big social service agency in Grants Pass, and the woman Holly Pert, Holly Pierce, rather, ended up pleading, no contest plea. And so she's going to be sentenced here in a little while, too.

I also got the latest on that Medford Fire deal we had at the Metford Department. The old Medford Hotel in downtown Medford. I said yesterday there was on the corner of Oakdale in Maine. I made an era that's actually Ivy and Main Street is where that is. You know, the high-rise, a four- or five-story building there. It did end up being the dryer. And I don't know if there was lint in the dryer exhaust or in the lint trap, whatever it is. But that's what set the place on fire.

And so Medford fire is saying, hey, you really got to take care of that stuff. I know that I am pretty judicious at least once a year. I get those, you know, those duck cleaner things. You put it on your drill and you stick it down your dryer vent because I have a long dryer vent going to the outside probably about 18, 19 feet from my laundry room in my house. And I'll tell you, the first time I cleaned that out, I could not believe how much garbage was coming out of that vent

when I was pushing it out the other end. and that stuff very flammable catches on fire and that's what happened over at the laundry apparently. I'm just glad nobody was hurt in that. Also, the stabbing out in front of her, you know, the two 15-year-old girls that were tangling it up the other night. That was also on Wednesday night. And the one girl that did the stabbing allegedly, they couldn't find her. They arrested her last night. So I just wanted to let you know that she's in jail, I guess, or a juvenile detention, maybe out already.

they're only charging her, I guess, at this point with assault. I know, you know, you stab someone in your torso four or five times, and the other girl had to go to the hospital and get treated. And I don't know, do you just call that at assault? You get into a fight? You just call it an assault. I don't know what the difference is. Wouldn't you call it like an attempted murder?

I don't know. I didn't see the injuries. I don't have the evidence. But those are the kind of questions sometimes that come out of the news that had you scratching your head, right? Or maybe it's all about what the DA thinks that they could actually convict on. I don't know. All right. What else do we have here? Oh, the paralegals that write me every now and then from 399. I've talked about them. You know, they, I'm going to have to actually find out who their names are sometime, but they pop me some news every now and then. And they were

making the case that women who are convicted of having sex with students are treated much more gently than men. Now, having gone through family court a couple of times, I can guarantee you that just by having testicles, you're in trouble in family court usually. Maybe if the mother has murdered someone while the child investigation is going in, maybe you get custody. But at least that's the way it was my experience. You know, it just doesn't work. And it seems to be pretty much the same thing when it comes to men. Men having sex with a 16, 17-year-old girl in school, oh, boy, and they throw the book at you. You are in big, big, big, big trouble. And you have a woman having sex and getting Randy with a 16-17-year-old guy. And it's like, well, you know,

this is just bad, bad, bad. Well, this is a case kind of buttressing what the paralegals have been telling me. They've been claiming, hey, listen, you know, the women always get treated differently here. Max Bernstein writing in the Oregonian yesterday, a counselor who sexually abused a 16-year-old refugee from Honduras. Oh, so the counselor, the school counselor, was looking for diversity, I guess. Sexually abusing a 16-year-old refugee from Honduras at a resettlement shelter in Portland, sentenced Thursday to one year of home detention with electronic monitoring and five years of federal probation. The judge agreed to no prison time for Teresa Godinas, a 34-year-old, noting the serious impact on the woman's five children if she couldn't care for them. And she pleaded guilty to one count of abusive sexual contact.

I would imagine had a guy done this even if he did have five. children in home, the judge would have likely thrown the book at him. Just saying. 20 minutes after six. This is the Bill Meyers show, KMED. I appreciate you waking up. What's on your mind here on this Good Friday? 770563. Legendary Arms Gun Shop and Trading Post has the largest selection of quality used firearms in Southern Oregon. Most of their in stock inventory are used in new old stock firearms from walk-in sellers, estates and trade-ins. Legendary has new current production firearms too. Just visit legendary arms trading post.com and order new guns from their online gallery. Pick them up at the store. Legendary Arms, gun shop and trading posts located at Grady's

equipment on Phyllis Road between Highway 62 and Table Rock Road. If you're considering a new garage door or opener for a new home or remodel, you can't go wrong with American industrial door. With their fleet of trucks and technicians, in both Josephine and Jackson counties, they can come to you and provide recommendations and samples or you can stop by their showroom and explore all of the amazing options. Do what so many other Southern Oregon homeowners have done for nearly 40 years. Trust American Industrial Door on Crater Lake Avenue north of Violus Road and on Union Avenue in Grants Pass. If you have care experience and want to run your own small business, opening an adult foster home might be right for you.

Provide 24-hour care for older adults, people with physical disabilities or mental health needs in your home or home you rent. Make a difference by helping people stay independent and live with dignity. Visit Oregon.gov forward slash adult foster home to learn more. That's Oregon.g.O.V. Forward slash adult foster home. Sponsored by the Oregon Department of Human Services, the Oregon Health Authority, and this station. As spring projects start taking shape across southern Oregon, more homeowners, builders, and do-it-yourselfers, are planning what they need to get started. For Hughes Lumber, this is the season when being top of

mind can make all the difference. Marquis Broadcasting West helps trusted local businesses like Hughes Lumber, stay in front of the people getting ready to build, repair, and improve. To find out more, visit Fox26Medford.com and click on the contact us tab. Hi, I'm Riley with Rotary Drilling Company, and I'm on KMED. 22 minutes after 6-7705663-770 KMED 2.000.000.000.000. KM.E.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2 join in the program. We'll be talking more about the Pam Bundy firing. And there was also another firing yesterday. Let me see, I had that here.

What was it? Gosh, I just, oh, here we go. Yeah, it had to do with Pete Hexeth. Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth ended up firing Army Chief of Staff General Randy George. And he's the Army's top officer, by the way, despite him being expected to serve in the end of next summer. NBC news reporting that Hegg Seth, who has long-eyed removing George, ask him to retire effective immediately. He's also taking steps, according to this NBC News report, to block or delay promotions for more than a dozen black and female senior offices across all,

officers, rather, across all four branches of the military. This according to nine U.S. officials here, the people removed from promotion lists had no open investigations or allegations. Hegset's actions have raised concerns that he may be targeting officers because of race, gender, or their perceived affiliation with the Biden administration. I think I'm going to do a translation of the NBC News report here, because it is NBC News, so you sometimes have to run it through a translator. when they say that Hegseth is going after more than a dozen black and female senior officers and blocking their promotions, it's probably not because they are black and female senior officers,

but that they were black and female senior officers promoted by the Biden administration strictly for being black and female female and not really being qualified. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that that's what is really going on here. Not that there aren't black or female or other minorities who could be qualified to be promoted, but the Biden administration made a big deal about all that mattered was that you were female or gay or this or that anything but white and male. And say what you will, Pete Hankseth is pretty aggressive about having people who actually know how to fight wars in positions. and getting promoted and all the rest of it. So when NBC News says that, oh, it's about race and gender, he's racist. I think you have to filter it through that.

It's just the way I see it. If you wish to correct me, though, please call me. 770-KMED. All right. Jobs report came out. Boy, it's a good thing that the stock market's closed today. You know why? because they'd be even more depressed than they were earlier this week.

I swear that the stock market gets really excited when the jobs reports are crappy. Because then they're going, yes, yes, the Federal Reserve is going to be forced to lower interest rates. Doesn't look like it's going to happen. And between the inflation coming from the war and the extra spending, the $200 billion, slated to be, shoveled down the gullet of the military industrial complex to keep the splendid war in Iran going here. Well, the U.S. added 178,000 jobs in March.

The jobs market much stronger than expected. And, oh, that would be bad news for the stock market if it were open today, because really most of the focus seems to be on, well, how cheap is the money? Now, I get that. I understand that because a lot of stuff is borrowed on margin and yada, yada, yada. and how much can we borrow? Because it's not about producing anything. It's about how much can you borrow?

Borrowing is money. You know how that goes. An interesting stat, though, in the jobs report here this morning. Even factoring in the addition, they say, of 31,000, this is from the federal government, even factoring in the addition of 31,000 jobs from workers ending a strike in California, the health care sector continues to be the number one gainer. of jobs. 76,000 positions.

Manufacturing, which had been trending downward for three years, adding 15,000 jobs, construction grew by 26,000. Well, you can figure some of that might be data centers, stuff which has been politically, you know, there's a thumb on the scale from the Trump administration. I can understand that. And manufacturing, of course, Trump administration working really hard to boost some of that. I think the best news in the job system here, the federal government is still contracting. Federal government shed another 18,000 jobs in March and is down a total of 355,000 jobs, 11.8% since reaching a peak in October 2024.

All right, Biden administration. Average hourly earnings, though, for the private sector workers, according to the Fed report, rose 3%. three and a half percent over the year, slowest rates since at 2021, just barely enough to keep up with inflation. So that's about it. It had to be more productive, I guess. But the part that I get concerned about to me, when your number one job, and I'm glad we're doing more with construction and manufacturing, but the fact that we're doing 30 or 76,000 jobs in the health care world, I don't know if that's necessarily good news. Now, if you're in health care, that's good news.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you don't do honest work. The problem with 76,000 jobs in health care is that 76,000 jobs in health care is mostly paid for by Medicaid, Medicaid and Medicare. Because right now, the health care, the whole health care racket is more than half paid for by transfer payments from the federal government. It's not private insurance. Private insurance is a smaller and smaller part of this all the time. Medicare is already more than 50, 51, 52% of this. And so you're hiring a bunch of people, you know, 76,000 positions.

These are expenses on the society. And I've been saying this for a long, long time. You know, everybody will make this big deal. Ooh, we're going to get wealthy here because we're going to have, We're not going to make things anymore, making things or logging in the forest in southern Oregon. That's bad things. Making something productive, that's not really good. We don't want to do that.

We're going to be a medical center, medical center, and mostly funded by tax dollars, which are an expense on the society. I'm just saying. Now, I know that because the population is aging, maybe we have no. choice about that but you know the thought that more and more people being added to the economy who are not producing something other than fixing broken people that's kind of the position that i've been taking for a long long time uh fixing broken people fixing people with uh loads of drugs by the way i guess those drugs are going to be doubling in price if they're a name brand

drugs coming from china according to president trump that's the latest tariff news but that's another example, though, I just don't see it as the wealth generator for society in general, just yet another expense that's just thrown in the cart, and it's being towed by fewer and fewer productive people than the economy. That's my only concern. But, of course, there is good news on the construction and manufacturing, too. I just would have liked to have seen more of that and maybe less of the taxpayer-funded jobs growing in that respect, although fewer taxpayer-funded jobs in Washington, D.C. So all right, so take the good with the bad, right?

That sort of thing. Dr. Steve Bata joins me from the New American just a little bit. We'll talk about all things Pam Bondi and maybe Tulsi Gabbard and a whole bunch more. I think Tulsi's probably going to be next on the chopping block, we'll see what he thinks. You notice it when you walk it, that patio edge that dips, the

sidewalk that's just a bit off, the lip and the concrete that's been fine for the last three years. Concrete doesn't fix itself. It gets worse. Terra firma lifts and stabilizes sinking concrete, cracks, and uneven surfaces without full replacement. They can also upgrade your space with epoxy coatings or vubistone finishes for a cleaner, more polished look. Fix it now before it becomes a bigger problem.

Learn more at go terraferma.com. CCB173-547. This is the story of the one. As a procurement manager for a hospital system, she keeps every facility. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Glad you're waking up early on this Good Friday morning, 636. Dr. Steve Bonta joins me. I really enjoy talking with him, and I hope you enjoy listening to him.

He's the publisher of the New American, which is a magazine I think you would agree, well, actually enjoy reading. It's online magazine from the John Birch Society. And by the way, Dr. Bonta, that is available in print too, is it not, if you want to subscribe to that? Tell us about that, please. Well, yeah, it's a monthly magazine, and you can, described with either in print or online, whatever be your preference. Okay, yeah. At the new American.com.

Now, a little bit more on your background, long-time contributor to the magazine. You've lived abroad a lot, apparently. Argentina, Spain, India, Sri Lanka, most recently China. So you've been deep within the belly of globalist beasts, right? Yes, I've lived in military dictatorships. I've lived in, I've lived in communist countries. I've lived in people's socialist democracy type countries, Sri Lanka being the example there. Yeah.

So I've seen a wide array of political systems at work and lived in both in Western and non-Western countries. So I think I spent close to 10 years of my life overseas, which, you know, some people have spent longer than that. But I'm very comfortable living outside the United States if I need to. but this is my home, of course, here in America. Yeah. Well, that's interesting, though. I mean, I think traveling and living in different areas probably gives one a more, I guess, nuanced, nuanced, you know, approach or opinion of what goes on in geopolitics. I'm wondering how that helps you, if anything.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I lived in Argentina during the era of the disappearances right before the Falklands War. And that was a long time ago, I guess that dates me a little bit. And they experienced the hyperinflation there. And I lived in most recently in China during the COVID outbreak. In fact, I experienced one of the infamous lockdowns in the city of Shanghai toward the end of the COVID cycle. And that was really, really interesting to see how the communist government

handled that whole situation and turned, you know, use the propaganda to maximal effect and utterly, you know, controlled people's lives and prioritized everything that would make sure the Communist Party never lost faith at the expense of countless human lives. So that was very, I hesitate to use the word enlightening, but it certainly opened my eyes a little bit. Yeah, imagine so. I wanted to ask someone who lived in China during that time, and you're the first person I've talked to who actually lived in that society when the lockdowns were going on. And I heard, I read the stories, but you never know what you can believe. Did people really get sealed in apartments?

Because I read numerous stories about people having essentially bars put across their door. People were sealed in their apartments if they ended up testing positive. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, no, actually, even if they didn't, yeah, in many areas. Yeah, it was extreme. I was fortunate. I was living in the far western outskirts of Shanghai in a relatively rural neighborhood, rural by Chinese standards. And so we didn't have any, you know, the towering apartment blocks around. We were still

locked down, but I lived on a school campus. And so I was able to at least walk around on that small campus and go outside. But most people, during the lockdown phases of COVID, were unable to go out of doors except for the mandatory daily COVID check when they would, they would go down to street level and go outside and have someone swab their nose and then immediately go back indoors. And, yeah, People were starving. People were dying right and left of various diseases. You know, if you had, if you needed dialysis or something like that, you're basically dead because the government ordered hospitals to close all medical services except to treat COVID. And so that was what happened. But, you know, many of many of our students from our school, who all, of course, had to go home,

witnessed suicides. You know, people couldn't stand it. They would just jump out of their, their apartments. It was just absolutely horrific. And people dying on the streets because they had a heart condition or, as I said, needed dialysis or whatever. And they would always be told, don't you understand, you know, the party comes first. You know, you need to be loyal, blah, blah, blah, blah. How dare you suffer in public kind of thing. So it was just the utter callousness of it was just appalling for my sensibilities. And, you know, I never caught COVID, but I knew of a lot of Westerners who did, and they were, they were alike taken away to these COVID concentration camps for weeks at a time, made to live in appalling conditions. So it was just amazing what happened.

Absolutely amazing. I was there when it started, too. And I was in a large city. And what was supposed to be a vacation, we've been hearing news coming out of Wuhan about this terrible new virus. And suddenly they announced that they locked the city of Wuhan down in this city. I was in Kunming, which had like eight or nine million people on its own. Overnight, the people vanished in the streets. And we were kind of stuck there.

And the government was going around, you know, hunting people down if they had the sniffles. It was unbelievable. It was like they flipped the switch, and the whole country went into extreme paranoid mode. It was scary. And so I wrote people back in the United States. My friends back in the United States were making, you know, kind of rye, humorous posts on Facebook and things like that. Nobody believed that this sort of thing could happen there. And I basically said, just do you wait a couple months? And this is what's coming to you. Yeah. And we had a version of that, of course, in the United States of America. know if it, I don't think we ever had that situation with people being screwed into their apartments and the doors being blocked. But, you know, we had our own kind of versions of it. I mean, the part that I'll always remember was the police officers arresting a guy surfing

in California. Remember that? That's the one that still sticks out in my mind that just said, you know, what a nonsensical, what, I mean, you want to talk about a situation that broke society. And I think we're still dealing with some of the fall out of that today, don't you? Oh, yeah, a lot of the anger and so forth. And many Western countries, like Italy and particularly Australia, had it far worse than the United States. Those countries really just decide, oh, we're going to imitate whatever the Chinese do because that's obviously, you know, they know how to handle it, this kind of thing. So it was a really unfortunate version of Western values and this idea that basically we need to imitate the communist regimes, a communist regime, you know, the most totalitarian murderous regime in human history. This is going to be the standard for how we're going to comport ourselves during this pandemic.

It was really tragic. Dr. Steve Bonta is the publisher of the New American, the New American.com, of course, magazine from the John Birch Society. Steve, I wanted to shift it to the current, but thanks for sharing some of that experience. I've never had a chance to talk to someone who actually lived there during it, and it is chilling. Oh, before we get onto that, though, do you think China or the Chinese have learned their lesson or saw the downside of this? Is it still the party just has that much control? And Xi is it forever and ever, amen? And don't make fun of pandas if you're around him.

Yes, well, I think those are two different questions. I think that she who must be obeyed, as I like to call him, is in it for life. No one's going to dislodge him. I think that the communist portion of the Chinese society has not learned a thing. I mean, the lesson that was extracted from that is that after all, you know, she is always right, you know, the dear leaders and the Communist Party is always right. And thank goodness we did this. We didn't end up with all the social chaos and so forth that happened they believe in the rest of the world.

A large number of ordinary Chinese, though, have been suffering ever since, you know, the economic results. I mean, when I first arrived in Shanghai in 2018, it was, you know, a very wondrous kind of place. very attractive for foreigners. Generally, the communism was pretty muted. Business and entrepreneurship were everywhere. The economy was growing. Just in a really nice place. It was a husk of its former self when I left in 2022.

It was just tragic. And driving went down through the downtown a couple times a few weeks after COVID lockdown ended. And all of the malls were shuttered. Businesses were bankrupt. There were no traffic on the streets. And I'm told that it has yet. to really recover in any significant way, you know, more than four years on. So, yeah, millions and millions of people have suffered extraordinarily from that. But the only thing that matters, of course,

is that the party in its monopoly on power is maintained intact, quite, you know, quite similar to what's going on Iran right now, you know, but with a different ideology, a different rationale, but it's the same thing. These totalitarian regimes will kill any number of people that they have to, they will go to any extreme to preserve their power. That's the sickness that power exerts on the human mind. Speaking of the war in Iran, how do you gauge over at the new American? I mentioned you probably do polling and write several articles. What's the polling running on that?

I'm seeing, you know, if you just take out the focus on mega that you'll get through like a Fox News or something like that, I'm saying about, you know, 60, 65 against 35 or so four. Are you seeing anything about that? Any credible polling on this? I don't know what to think. I mean, hearing polling all over the map, but the more that Trump shucks and jives and changes the rationale from day to day and his enablers along with him,

I think the more Americans are getting frustrated with this because the whole thing started out under very dubious constitutional pretext, to say the least, you know, it's a full-blown war, but the president basically initiated it without any sense. semblance of a say-so from Congress. So that's very constitutionally problematic, no matter how you rationalize it. But at least, you know, the rhetoric going in was we're going to go in there, we're going to get the job done, we're going to end this terrible regime. No one else has been willing to confront them and so forth and so on for almost 50 years. But now we've been hearing on a daily basis,

oh, but we're going to go, we're going to make a deal. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And there's absolutely no time. And, you know, and this regime, you know, with that beyond any question, massacred, you know, tens of thousands of its own innocent citizens, you know, back in January. But I would add that. I mean, that's really sad, but that's not the reason why we go in and do war. That's all. But the point is once embarked upon.

My point being is once embarked upon. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, I have doubts about World War II, frankly, you know, the whole Pearl Harbor narrative is somewhat sussed because there's evidence that FDR knew, you know, about it ahead of time and let it happen. But all that aside, once the war was on, it was on. And there was no, oh, but we're negotiating with the Japanese, and maybe we'll end this. And then we're going to talk to Hitler and his people.

And we're going to work out a deal so that they can keep the land that they have, but Europe will say, you know, we'll get a thesis. You know, I mean, it's just the mentality is just bizarre. Well, is there a possibility that maybe the administration thought that it was going to be more of a cakewalk than it was, than it has been so far? I mean, you know, there was warning from people within the administration saying, hey, you know, there's a lot more ballistic missiles in Iran than you know or than you realize. What do you think? Well, I think the issue is not so much the weapons that Iran has. It's the mentality.

And I think that an extremely secular, worldly individual like Trump does not understand the nature of religious fanaticism. Well, yeah, these people, when you're talking about Islam and the meaning of the state, the merger of the state and the religion, they're serious. They're serious as a heart attack about this, right? Well, yeah, and I mean, in contrast to the Iraq war, I mean, Saddam Hussein was Muslim, but he wasn't a fanatical Islamist. And so he and his regime folded like the proverbial cheap suit, you know, because they wanted to survive, you know, but these true believer types, particularly in Islam, you know, they do have a sort of, you know, bizarre, you know, his courage. I mean, you know, these people that are willing to to strap suicide vests on and fly planes in the buildings, these are the same types of people who call the shots in Tehran, and they are not going to compromise or back down.

And so, you know, I think Trump felt, well, you know, we'll spook them and the whole thing will come unraveled after we bomb the you know what have of them. Right. And precisely the opposite has happened. What they've said, oh, see, this is, this is what we've been saying. This is the end times. Finally, the great confrontation with the great Satan. And it's going to bring about the return of the Madi and all this type of. thing. And so now you've got the people of a like mind flocking to Iran from neighboring Iraq to help

you know. Yeah. And I've been reading that that instead of getting more depressed about being bombed, having the crap bombed out of them, so to speak, Dr. Banta, that it's actually that they're rallying around the flag right now, so to speak. Well, the hardcore ones are. Yeah, the hardcore, of course. And there's a certain, you know, there's probably 15% of the population of Iran that is all in and this. And this is what they want. I mean, they're eager to be martyred. They're eager to be murdered. They're eager to do this stuff, you know, and it's just, you know, it's very hard. I mean, you know, the medieval crusaders, as religiously committed as they were, had a very hard time dealing with the assassins, you know, the Islamic radicals of their day, because of the

same reckless disregard for their own lives and utter commitment to this fanatical, I mean, it's been called a death cult, and I suppose that's not far from the truth. Yeah, so we make the mistake of thinking that they all want to live, and so they'll be willing to deal just to want to live. and that's where we've gone wrong in this particular character. You make a mistake in that case. Yeah, I mean, in this case, you're not dealing with rational actors. And so, I mean, at some sense, I do agree it.

It's inconceivable that such as people like this could be allowed to get a nuclear bomb. But on the other hand, you know, supposedly we took care of that last year. Yeah, so were they lying to us then or lying to us now is the part that I was thinking? Because, I mean, they went out there and said, yep, it is gone. It is over. And so, and I've been scratching. my head over this for a long time. I like President Trump, but I've liked a lot of the things he's done, but it's the utterly, completely 180-degree, statements that come out of there that sometimes

get us a bit confused, I think. I mean, I can understand, can't you? No, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, again, I think Trump got us into trouble, got himself into trouble when he effectively committed America to action back when the aforementioned massacres took place, you know, or actually before that. He threatened the government. You know, there were demonstrations all across Iran. These desperate people were starving and everything. And he said, don't you dare kill your people or we're going to deal with it. And he told the people in effect, you know, don't worry. America has your back. And then the government, not surprisingly, again, if you understand the mindset or this type of fanaticism, it had no effect on it. They wouldn't have to create everybody.

And killed them anyway. Yeah. Right. And so then Trump was kind of in a situation, okay, do we violate the Constitution and good common sense and start a war, or do we go back on, you know, do we make America look like fools again and basically say, oh, you know, I was just kidding. And all those people who die, it sucks for them, but too bad. We're not going to get it. So you kind of put himself in that situation by letting his mouth flap, as he always does, without thinking ahead of time. And now here we are. What do you think then about this, the latest coming from the president, he was talking about this the other day, that he doesn't necessarily even care if the Persian, or not the Persian Gulf, I'm sorry, the Strait of Hormuz is reopened to traffic again and kind of like

saying to the rest of the world, okay, you're going to have to deal with this. That would seem to indicate that Iran has much more staying power than one might have thought going in, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, I mean, the whole thing is just, and of course they're getting, you know, not so covert aid from both China and Russia, although neither of those countries actually sending troops as far as we know, but they're certainly keeping them supplied with weapons to the extent they can or trying to. You know, the goal of the Iranian regime is to simply survive this latest onslaught, and they're banking on the fact that we will not have, you know, the intestinal fortitude to finish the job.

And they're probably right, because, you know, that's pretty much been, you know, since World War II, that unfortunately has been America's track record. You know, we go into these wars that really are kind of wars of choice in the Middle East and elsewhere. And then, you know, we fight just some sort of a weird draw or ceasefire. And then the UN comes in, as in the case in Korea or something else, you know, or in, or in, or we beat an ignominious retreat as happened in Vietnam. Or we get involved in, you know, and what we did with Iraq for over a decade.

and frankly, we're still involved there. People forget that. We've got bases all through Iraq for precisely that reason. And it's just, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. And so Iran looks at this and says, oh, well, you know. They know how to play it, right? Yeah, well, well, they say, first of all, we're the faithful, you know, Allah is on our side, you know, and he's going to reward us for our virtue.

And those, you know, those worldly great Satanists, they're not going to, you know, they're just going to come in here. And once things get a little tough, they're going to leave. And we'll be able to rebuild and we'll continue a pace. that's their expectation. At this point, you know, more than a month into the war, and with Trump's constant her diversation, it's kind of looking like that's the way things are going to go. Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that, but I don't think I disagree with you on the evaluation of that Dr. Bonta, Dr. Steve Bonta, once again, publisher of the new American. I think that Americans are perfectly fine to go all in when they've seen direct attacks, that sort of thing, like 9-11 as

an example, even though we should have been attacking Saudi Arabia, if I recall all the people that actually did the attacks. But let's set that aside here at the moment. We were definitely all in on that, I think, totally in on that. We were all in on World War II after the, and whether or not we had for knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor or not, but once that happened, you know, Americans got all in on it. I don't think they're seeing that here in this particular case. Would that be fair? I think that's why there's such indifference to it. Well, again, I mean, you know, Trump and his epigones have made plenty of claims about how, you know, and some of them, I mean, you know, Iran has done a lot of things that could be construed as Casas Belli over the years,

starting, of course, with the seizure of the American embassy a long time ago. But his actions kind of belie these claims, because if the moral picture were so crystal clear, he wouldn't be shucking and jiving and changing his story every day and talking about, you know, now we're going to get a deal and now this and now, oh, well, you know, we're going to let the regime in place. we've got more rational people now in the regime now. And there's just one thing after another, after another. And I know that his hardcore supporters saying, oh, he's playing five-dimensional chess. You just don't understand.

We'll see about that. Okay. Dr. Let's shift to another bit of news coming out of the administration here. Pam Bondi ends up being fired yesterday. And there's kind of differences of opinion on why she was fired. Some were saying it was the handling of the Epstein files. Other people are saying it's about Fang Fang,

releasing or tipping off Eric Swalwell. Do you have any bead on that? What is your overall take? Yeah, I mean, the Swalwell story from what I can tell. I mean, there was a lot of talk about that yesterday. Of course, that story was broken, I think, by the British, by the Guardian or one of the British. Yeah, it was the Guardian, I think. Gardening, you see that or Daily Mail, one of the two?

One of the two did that. Yeah, and so I'm not sure that it's the most reliable source. And they had an interview this morning with the acting attorney general, and he was asked directly about that by one of the Fox News talking heads. And he came right out and said, no, that's not true. So I don't know. I'm not sure I would be hesitant. It sounds like a kind of salacious story.

I think Pam Bondi's main problem has been that she's. been kind of weak and inconsistent. And, you know, Trump really wants somebody to go out there and to, you know, to, well, essentially, it sounds like you're trying to describe, describe, pardon the term, kick ass and take names, right? Pretty much, pretty much. And Pam is clearly not the person to do that. I mean, maybe Lee Zeldon, whose name is being rooted about as a possible replacement would be that kind of person. But Trump is determined that what happened to him during the nearly decade-long lawfare saga not happen again to anyone else in the future, I think. And he feels that, you know, Pam Bondi really was kind of her lukewarm approach to everything. And, you know,

there's still no actual prosecutions and no one's doing it in the perp walk. And despite the really, truly outrageous things. It is true, of course, that the judiciary has closed ranks around their own and has set at defiance. Most of Trump's, you know, the attempts by Bondi and others to bring some of these people of justice, even preliminarily. You know, oh, you don't, you know, they dismiss cases and all this type of thing. So, you know, the legal profession is kind of a problem in and of itself because it constitutes a guild that has become, in the main, at least at the level of the federal judiciary, hostile to the two, to presidents. President Trump and to the American people as a whole.

Yeah, and we'll be here long after Trump is gone is probably the way the DOJ looks at it. Yeah, the lifers. Yeah, so this is, these things are all problematic. But that, you know, and obviously, you know, Pam Bondi was not Trump's first choice. It was Matt Gates. And, you know, Gates would have made, I think, more of the type of attorney general that Trump wanted a real attack dog personality. Yeah.

But he had too much personal baggage, unfortunately. And as we know. And so that didn't work out. He's looking for a Matt Gates type personality without the baggage. Yeah, Matt Gates without Matt Gates. Yeah, or Lance, you know, or somebody else. We'll see how that goes. How do you or how would you evaluate Tulsi Gabbard's ability to keep her gig there?

Because, you know, I know that she's a committed Zionist. She's, you know, big on the Zionism thing, which helps when you're partnering up with Israel, you know, all the time. But at the same time, I don't think she was much in favor of. the war. I'm just hearing rumors. Anything? Hearing anything from the ground? I haven't heard. I couldn't say. I wouldn't want to venture an opinion on something that I just have not been following that closely. Okay. She's been kind of a quiet figure. I think, I suspect the dismissal yesterday by Pete Heggsath, that his chief staff may have something to do with that, you know, that a lot of a lot of the upper brass and the military aren't happy about the way things are going in Iran. But again,

And that's pure speculation on my part. Do you think we're getting the truth about how it is going on there? Well, you never get the truth in wartime, the bill. And often, you know, for a long time thereafter. So, I mean, you know, kind of look at what's being claimed on all sides and split the difference. And you're probably closer to the truth than you would be otherwise. But that's the best expect. I mean, the latest today, they're claiming it up to half of Iran's missile launchers may still be intact,

which is not what we've been told over the last few weeks. So who knows? But obviously a lot of this is coming from a very hostile adversarial press who, you know, if this were President Obama or President Biden waging this war with people. They would be hiding this. They'd be hiding it. Absolutely. But right now, I'm sure the legacy press is going, we've got him now.

As in Trumpy, right? We've got Trumpy now. We've got him. Okay. All right. Dr. Steve Bata, I appreciate your analysis. And thanks for having joined the show this morning. The New American magazine from the John Birch Society will get all.

your information up. Thenewamerican.com. I go to it every morning and check what's going on with the news and I appreciate your contribution to that and for having joined the show. Is there anything else you should add before we take off? I think we're good for now. Thank you so much for the time. All right. Dr. Steve Bonta, publisher of the New American. This is KMED and KMED HD-1. Eagle Point Medford. KBXG grants pass. Don't Portland, Southern Oregon. What works for Portland politicians doesn't work here. And I won't let them force it on a I'm Dwayne.