Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-07-26_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Some oopen phone topics and Kevin Gill from Clouser Drilling digs into well and water issues in our dry time. Former Sen. Baertschiger and I kick around the news, the war and more.

This hour of the Bill Myers 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 clauserdrilling.com. This is News Talk 1063, KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Fascinating that focus that the Oregon Department of Human Services has on elderly LGBTQ. Well, was that what you were thinking, too? Wild Sam and Steve, good morning. Welcome to Pebble and your shoot Tuesday. What's going on? He is just thinking about your last guest and what he was talking about and came to mind that Dr. Ezekiel

Emmanuel, who wrote Medicare, was talking about allocating resources. And he said when Medicare was first proposed that 75 was probably a good age to die, recently he was on the news and he changed that to 72. Oh. So, in other words, I have eight years, according to Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel. Okay. Wow. Yeah, and I've been dead for six. Okay. You know, it's interesting. But this kind of, to your point on this one, Steve, when you hear the medical world talking that way, I think we have to take them at their word. And I agree with Dr. Mustard when he was talking about this, this is the, this kind of death cult is infecting a good portion of the medical world. Not everyone, okay? I'm not trying to cast aspersions to everyone, but I would dare say that if at all possible, work to keep your health outside of the health

system. Would that be a good tip here this morning? Well, yes, except for one thing. As you get older, you know, your body just kind of, doesn't work as well as it used to. So there's things that happen, and you're going to... Well, maybe keep our contact with the medical world to a minimal amount. That's probably a good thing. Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting. In other words, work hard to keep your body in as good as shape as possible.

You know, supplementation, exercise, all the usual stuff. And, of course, here it is. I'm talking about, you know, I'll get the weight off. I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I've been doing that for 50 years. but still. My wife died last year of metabolic syndrome, which is the result of diabetes. It's just basically she had organ failure as a result of metabolic syndrome. And she had hospice. I think she was treated pretty well. I had an issue with one doctor. They just wouldn't explain to me what was

going on. But anyway, and I've had. great medical treatment. So I can't really complain now. I think that people have done really good things. But there does appear, I think though, to Dr. Moster's point, though, there does seem to be a real focus on, okay, we're looking for any excuse we can to take you out. You know, when they talk about these end of life plans or when do you want to be revived, et cetera. So that's just kind of a warning claxon, you know, in my view. Appreciate a call there, Steve. Let me grab another call or two here before news. Hi, good morning, and who are you? Welcome. Good morning. This is Brenda in Medford.

Hey, Brenda. It's on your mind. And a few years ago, my mother was, she had terminal cancer. And it was the third time it came back on her tongue. She had two surgeries already. Oh, boy. For the first two times, the third time the doctor said that they would have to remove her entire her tongue. She wouldn't be able to eat. She could only drink and she wouldn't be able to talk. And at that time, my mother was 92. She had all her faculties together. Yeah, but she also had a pretty good life, too, from the sounds of it, right?

Yes, she did. And she decided her quote was, I'm just going to let, she wouldn't go through the surgery. She says, I'm going to let God take me when he's ready. How much longer did she last? Well, what she did, she didn't last too long. After that, she lasted about a year. But she wanted, when she got to a point, she wanted to die. And we talked about it a lot and went through all the stages that you have to go through here in Oregon. in order to get assisted dying.

And it is not a short few steps that you have to take. You have to find a doctor who is willing to sign off on the prescription that you need to take in order to self-suicide. What was your overall take on this, your point to this, that situation would happen? I think the government should stay out of it because it's too easy to kill off people that way who the government doesn't like, doesn't want around. Yeah, history may not repeat, but it does tend to rhyme. Yes, and I think it's the choice of the person, because you have to go through steps here in Oregon, and it's not easy, and you've got to have friends.

friends, neighbors to sign off with notarized statements that, yes, this woman is... But that is the government putting that standard there. Do you think that government should just take its way completely out of it or take its fingers out of it completely? No, because the steps that we had to go through and the expense of the meds was the right thing for my mother to do. She knew that she had this if she wanted it when she wanted it. All right. Brenda, I appreciate you sharing your personal story with this after that talk with Dr. Mostert this morning. All right. Let me go to next line or two here. Hi, KMEDE. Good morning. Good morning, Bill. This is this is a dark cloud on a sunny day. Sunshine David. How are you, David?

Go ahead. Sunny David. My friends have been consistently losing in Oregon since 1972. I would like to put out that I really hope they can redeem themselves by voting no on major 15-240 and let that RVTD temporary addition to the money they already get a sunset. This is very deceptive what they've sent. out here. They're not just asking for the levy. They hide it with several happy fun things. They say, vote yes for major 15-240. And here's what they say. Keeps current routes, prevents more cuts, likely service expansion. Then they slip in renewal of existing local levy. No new taxes.

That's how they word it. It's so. Yeah, he just keeps the, the status quo that you're paying RBTD. Got it. Yeah, I don't want, it's supposed to sunset. That's what the promise was. They don't want it to, remember we always say they never get rid of a tariff. It's always temporary and then keep it. That is certainly the goal.

Well, I'll agree with you on this, David. I appreciate the call and be sunny, as always, okay? Thank you. One more call. Hi, KMEDE. I'm running behind. Kevin Gill, by the way, is going to join me from Klausur drilling here in the next few. Hi, good morning. Who's this?

Hello? Good morning. Hi, who's this? Bill, it's Dave. Hi, Dave. Go ahead. So, thanks for approaching this subject this morning. I think it's really important.

Thank you. I'll just go back up to 30,000 feet for a minute and just tell you way back, you know, in the 70s and 80s, as, you know, it's Rovers, as Wade and abortion just, you know, kept growing and growing. There were a few people, I was one of them who said, like, this is a slippery slope. Okay. And it's going to lead to, you're going to see the same thing on the other end of life, rather than just the beginning. And people laughed at me and pooh-pooed me. And now it's actually happening.

It's nothing but a culture of death, okay? And it really, you know, it's been around for a long time. Eugenics has been around for a long time. But what brought to the forefarmers, Roe v. Wade, don't be deceived. That's what's happened. The other thing is, now you have with the managed care climate in this, in the, this country, what you have is just a complete focus, not on medicine or well-being, but on costs.

And if you look in places like Canada and Britain where they have socialized medicine, everything's rash. And you get to a certain age, you don't get a bypass that. Because you have lived a good life, right? You've lived a good long life, according to our Dr. Emmanuel formula, you should have been dead eight years ago, that kind of thing, right? We have a single pair. Look at Britain only has, what, 60, 70 million people? I mean, look at what? We have 340 million people here.

It'll never work. And people who want it, if it ever does have. Yeah. Well, when it comes right down to it, though, though, there is reality that has to be acknowledged on this, though, is that the only way everybody gets absolutely everything they need, no matter what, up until the very, very end, is if there are unlimited resources and their own such things. So there will be rationing in one form or another. I mean, that's just going to be expected, wouldn't you say?

Well, not, but I'm just saying, you know, we've had... It's been a real conditioning. It's been a real conditioning process. And I will agree with your point there. Thanks for the call. And let us just touch on a few other things here. We'll get back to that. But I think, gosh, good conversation on that for sure.

We're going to shift gears here in just a moment. And going to the drought that we're looking, it's been called in Jackson County. I imagine maybe Josephine. will declare one of those at some point. What about the well-in-water supplies? Kevin Gill will join me next on Pebble in my, well, Pebble in our shoe Tuesday, all right?

KMED, KMED, H.D-HD-EG-GG, Grants Pass. I haven't seen Daisy's Hubberts this full in a long time. What's going on here? Now more with Bill Meyer. Water is life. So it's electricity, really. You know, can't live without either in our modern society. Let's talk about the water side right now,

because that could be a little bit dicey for some people, especially if you're depending on a well. We have Kevin Gill joining us. Great sponsor. Clouser Drilling. Sponsors are my podcast. I always appreciate that. Kevin, welcome back to the show.

Always good to talk with you. Morning. Good morning, Bill. Well, why don't we set this up here? What has been happening out there in the real world when it comes to well drilling right now? Are you having to be going deeper and deeper? What's been happening because it was a relatively warm, dry, didn't get nearly the snow in the rain that I think we were hoping.

And every now and then we'll get a storm. Yeah, we'll get some more showers and we'll get a little bit of snow up at Crater Lake. But nothing's going to save the water year from the looks of it at the moment, huh? Yeah, and just to set the stage, the Snowtel network, which is USGS's tracking of snowfall. It's the second lowest on the 46-year record. So the other year that was greater was 2014-15. So we're at the second lowest snowpack, but remember Earth time's a long time. Yeah.

And different aquifers recharge slower than others, and some are quicker recharge levels. So in our area, in the Rogue Basin, one to four years, is kind of a recharge cycle. So some of them recharge very quickly. In the Klamath Basin, thousands of years, millions of years, there's some old water there. Really? Yeah. I had no idea. In other words, it must be water, trapped in the rocks, I guess, that are kind of impervious, just kind of sitting down there?

Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of open space, and people forget most of the freshwater on the earth is, well, most of it's in glaciers and inaccessible. And then the other largest portion, like 30% of the freshwater in the world is in groundwater. And only 1% or so is in the streams and rivers and stuff. So most of the water that we can access is in the ground. But you need snowpack, you need rainfall, and we're at 24% in this snow season of median in Clameth and Rogue Basin. And then for rainfall, we're in the Rogue Basin, we're at 77% of median, 83% in the Clameth Basin.

So tracking behind on both, particularly snow. Kevin, is there any kind of rule of thumb on what's going on in the well world right now? because you're one of the biggest, you know, around here, Southern Oregon, Northern California. Yeah, so knowing how this is really going to impact as kind of like a whip effect, Bill, there's a lag time, you know. So I do hope we can chat a little bit more in the July to November time frame because that's when the issues will really start to manifest. But the last 25 years or so, you know, wells have needed to be deeper in the Rogue Valley to source. better aquifers. And another way to track well health is the static water level in a well, and that's the resting water level when not being used or pumped. It will reach somewhat of an

equilibrium, and if that water level declines significantly over time, that's your first warning sign, you're going to have trouble. Is that something that a well owner is able to check easily, or does it take some specialized equipment to do that, you know? That's really a question I appreciate. They should get it done by a qualified pump technician or a well driller. We have special equipment where we can get accurate measurements and not get tangled up down there. Because the old outage, the more you put in a well, the more that might be there unintended. Yeah.

And so it can be checked. The other thing I'm just going to tell your listeners, water resources has some observation wells. and they can go on the water resources water level portal and check water levels in observation wells near. There's an interactive map with dots, and you can find a well near your house or your well or ranch, and check those water levels, and it's pretty good information. You know, I'm going to ask to something. I hope this is not too much off in the weeds here. I'm just kind of curious about the technology right now for deep well pumps.

Are most of the deep well pumps these days, you're actually putting a pump, down the shaft and then running power to it. Or when I was growing up, we had a well in Ohio in Myelin, and it was 150 200 feet deep or something, and it was like a Meyer jet pump of some sort, two pipes, like, you know, one pipe going down, and then you'd kind of pump water down into it and take water up the other side. I think is how that worked, if I understand correctly. Yeah, yeah, you were really paying attention to things. So shallow wells can use jet pumps.

Some can use a single pipe jet if they have a high water level, you know, like 20 feet or less. They can use a single pipe. That's not real desired technology these days. The submersible pumps with variable frequency drive motors, they're electronically controlled with protection features in those controls. And those are the industry standard now, particularly for deeper wells, obviously, the submersible pump. Oh, okay. So that is state of the art. you put it down there.

You know, back then in the 70s, I don't think the submersibles were quite as compact as they can be now, I guess. Yeah, and the pumps that are using the wells around here generally, they're a four-inch nominal diameter. But one thing I did want to say today, we're seeing an uptick of do it yourself first because the economy is a little tight, and we've seen some people cost themselves a lot of money with a – they may have a neighbor with a strong opinion and overconfidence. and they get in trouble losing pump equipment down the hole or getting it stuck,

just not understanding how to do it correctly. Oh, that's a bad day. That's a bad day. We're seeing a lot of it. Oh, no. So are we looking at static levels dropping here in Southern Oregon from your observation when you go do maintenance on people's wells? Yeah, right now they're pretty stable still because, like, that whip effect hasn't hit us yet.

So I looked at the hydrographs and the charts on the observation wells, and then we check a lot of wells ourselves. And we're seeing pretty stable readings right now, but the real time we'll tell segment is July and November. It's kind of like, yeah, we have high oil prices right now. What's the economy look like? Check back in 90 days, right? Yeah, yeah.

Same sort of thing that delayed effect. It's not the way it's looking right now coming out of winter. It's going to be in the middle of summer. Yeah, the driest time for wells is really, it starts to begin in July, August, but the really driest time is early fall. Okay. All right. You were mentioning to me yesterday that, oddly enough, you're finding more artesian wells.

What's going on with that? How's that happening? Yeah, and so there's two types of artisans. There's the definition of irregular artisans, if you're one, well has a higher static water level than the typical water table in the area. So if everybody's well has a 30-foot or so static and your static water level is 10 feet below ground level, then that's by definition artesian. But a flowing artesian means it's got enough pressure and the aqua for the source is high enough for the recharge area to cause that well to flow

over the top. And we've been running into a lot of them and some of them with significant volume in pressure. We've even had clients that didn't even need a pump. They were able to use a float system with a tank and just use the well. Boy, how cool for them, right? That's great stuff. Now, what

causes that? Is that kind of like more volcanic activity going on putting pressure underground within the rocks and the water? I don't know. How does that happen? I have a hunch that we're just drilling in some places now. Or,

I think it'd be arrogant to say everybody knows where the water is, and, you know, of course, we don't and what the quality is going to be, but we're finding some good aquifers that were there, and most likely would have always artesianed. And the flowing artisans kind of a pain, really. I'd rather not have one myself. I'd rather have a high static. Okay. So the idea of having to cap it all the time, or, all right, well, I was thinking that it was an embarrassment of riches for water there, but, well, well, we'll say. that aside. Let me get... The old saying bill that says water wins, and it can be a real challenge if there's too much of a good thing, too. Point, well taken. All right, point.

Kevin Gill once again, clouds are drilling. Kevin, what could well owners in Southern Oregon and Northern California, what could they be doing right now to take care of their well best and make sure that they're taking care of what they do have right now and keeping an eye on this? What should they be doing right now and thinking about? Yeah, a private well owner, farmer. Anyone that has it, it's a significant investment, and nothing really can make a bigger difference to your quality of life or your resale than your well health and production. So I would tell people to know what the guidelines are for how they're supposed to use their well.

We've got some resources on our website. There's guidelines for domestic well use, and they're very generous, but some people want to fill ponds and irrigate in excess of what they're allowed. and you really shouldn't be doing that when we're looking at a drought and a water budget. So that's one thing. Use water responsibly. Keep good records of your well. Have your well log and your pump equipment records handy. Get that water level checked by your favorite pump company or driller.

I would check it annually, minimum. And then have your system checked annually because some people have leaks and problems. They got water going places they don't know about. Overall, though, it sounds like, once again, we'll have to have you back in a few months, and then we'll see where it's going at this point. At the point we're looking at right now into the beginning of summer season, well levels are pretty good, but we don't know what the recharge is going to be like or the recovery on those wells as time goes on.

Yeah, it's like there's some dark clouds out on the horizon, and we don't know if they're going to go around us, or they're going to hit us. That's my analogy. But the good water areas are still going to be good, and the bad ones are going to get worse. That's my prediction. So, yeah, we don't want to be, before this war in Iran,

I don't know if anybody was really following that, but they have essentially water bankruptcy going on there, mismanagement, droughts, and overdoing it. And here our regulators are trying to, to regulate us to death and fee us to death and cursors a legislative preview coming up later this week. We get to see what may happen in 2027. So we're going to be joining that. Is this going to be another attempt, do you think, to slap meters, state mandated meters on everything? No, I think that one, you were with us on that. We were talking about that. They floated that out

there and then inclaimed innocence when caught with their hand in the cookie jar. But that would be a political nightmare for them. That won't fly in Oregon, I'm sure. Not on domestic wells. Would you see then a summer in which there will be more of a crackdown on illegal irrigation? Could you see more of that coming, given the drought situation? I hate to give you the honest answer, but this is the only one I know. With more fees, more regulations, there's becoming bootleggers out there.

And so you're still going to have that element, but the state has really gotten after the grows. They've got money to enforce it. And of course, once they started taxing it, some of the shine was off the system there. So a lot of the grows are either gone away or they're all legit now, but there's still some that are. bootleggers, but I think that, I think there's going to be a lot of stuff going on with this, but the best thing we could do is just manage what we have well and be good stewards of the resource. Yeah, and that would mean that, if at all possible, just because you have the water, I would still go with low water landscape if you could.

I guess that would be a good advice right now. Yeah, yeah, and use, you know, early morning watering times and maybe back. back off on your, maybe your lawn doesn't need to be perfectly green, but reasonably green. But I did have a quote I thought you would like from a really good textbook. I found a lot of the online stuff now is so biased. And so I like reading older textbooks, but this is a hydrology textbook from 1942. And it says, man can do little to modify the natural climatic phenomena that combine to cause droughts. He can, however, do much to less than their impact on activities through foresightness and

maintaining holdover storage that you're going to get on the dam thing there. But, yeah, we're kind of shooting ourselves on the foot there. And in digging deeper wells or lowering pump intakes to groundwater supplies. Nothing's changed since 1940, right? No, and I like these old books because they give you the real stuff with less bias. And, you know, people try to insert their bias to support whatever position. Yeah. Well, there was less politics in it.

It's kind of like, okay, what makes it work? That was really the question, I think, of science back in those days. How can we make this work? What's really going on? Kevin, I appreciate the take on it. And keep us in the room, if anything really changes, if you're seeing anything out there that we need to know, especially when it comes to that legislative thing that you were mentioning,

because I'm sure there's going to be some very interesting behind the scenes float of legislation to, once again, scary air quotes, help us when it comes to groundwater, okay? You know it. I concur, and we'll be in touch, Bill. All right. Kevin. Kevin Gill, Klausor drilling. Clouser drilling.com.

733. You're on KMED. Don't Portland, Southern Oregon. What works for Portland. Talk to the road gardeners. Saturday's 10 to noon. Here at the Sunday morning encore at 9 on KMED. The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063, KMED. Of course, what I'm thinking about with my lawn. Gosh, I fantasize in the front yard at least of just taking 200

bags of mulch and just covering it all up, just doing that. I don't know how well that would work long term. Let's talk with Ron. Ron's in Grants Pass. Hey, Ron, what's up? Yeah, talking about the water issue and water levels and so forth, I think there's a need for the state to give us who have irrigation district water that's replenishing the ground table in the area and maintaining it a tax reduction because we're giving everybody in the area an assured continuance of available water. Oh, that's interesting. So what irrigation district are you on right now, if you don't mind me asking? Yeah, no problem. Graspass irrigation. All right, so you're already paying for that. And the source of grants pass irrigation, is that the pump in from the river?

Correct. I wonder if the state would then say, hey, we are permitting you to take water from the State Waterway, and hence, why should we give you a break? Well, we ought to ask them a question back. How come they can tax something that God gave us free? Because it's his government. It is the magic paper of Fonthe, Ronald. You know that. One last thing.

Why is it that we're given the choice of pleading not guilty instead of innocent? I don't know. I can't answer that. Must be some legal term. It has to be a rule there, Ron. Thanks for the call. Good luck on that. KMED.

Hello, Dave. Hello. So today is a good day because I get to go in to the county supervisors and bring up why they should open up Lakeview Road so that we have more than one way in and out. This is over by the old Iron Gate. Iron Gate estates right. And so you're going to make your case. And so you're going to, it's a redress. You're going to redress.

You're asking for a redress of grievance, right? Right, right. And I took a film where they said they had a thousand people working, but I didn't see anybody there. It's an old office and house of PPNL that was always since stopped. But now they put a new bridge. to go there and then they cut us off the old bridge. Well, I mean, now that they have completed their job here of destroying property value and the ability to live around there, sure, their work is done, I guess.

Right. Well, they have the RES, whatever that is, it's there for five years for, we call it, reclamation. Uh-huh. They're going to be spreading grassy, things like that. But I don't see anybody working. All right. Well, keep us in the room. Tell us what the Council or what the Board of Supervisors has to say.

It's not a Board of Commissioners. Here in Oregon, it's a Board of Commissioners. It's Board of Supervisors because everyone's in need of supervision in the state of California, apparently. Speaking of which, coming up after 8 o'clock, Mark Ray Kromer joins me. He's written a really interesting book. California Twilight. Memories of the End of the Golden State. We'll talk about that.

should be good stuff. All right. Herman, Democrats, what are they thinking? What's going on? We'll have that coming up after news. When it comes time to build your dream home, your top of the hill masterpiece with style, luxury, and fancy. The glacier hacac.com.

News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Every Tuesday, sit down, have a little chat here with former state senator Herman Berger. We kick around the politics of the day here, the craziness and were you just telling me, Herman, that you went to buy a bolt the other day.

What, a couple of bolts, some mechanical work around the ranch that you were doing? Yeah, well, it's one of my restoration projects on a vehicle, and I was ordering a bolt and it was coming out of a company from California, and it said, warning

may cause cancer or reproductive harm because California has that law. And I'm thinking, how in the hell is a bolt going to cause cancer or reproductive? I suppose it would have you ate it or something. Well, yeah, I suppose. Is there maybe an anti-rust coating on it, maybe a teflon or, you know, what kind of a bowl? Anything special?

Is it chrome? Maybe chrome-plated bolt? What? Oh, it's just a bolt. So anyway. Well, don't suck on the bolt, okay? Don't do that. Don't stick it in your mouth.

Yeah. And then it says, so it says, warning cancer reproductive harm. W.W.p65warning. dot California.gov. Yeah. I think what they do, I think what they do in California when they manufacture or ship anything, they just automatically put that on everything just to cover their own behind, just in case there was something. Hey, we warned people.

We warned people, don't eat the electric motor that you just brought up, okay, that you just took out of the box, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. It drives you crazy, you know. What do you think about the current political situation here in the state of Oregon and some of the craziness? Because the one thing I've noticed is that I've had questions about the way the Iran War has been prosecuted. Okay. I don't think it was done in my opinion as wisely as it could have been.

I think we're having the unintended consequences could be much more than we thought. I think there was a reason people were advising President Trump, and maybe some of those were fired, to not do what he's doing in Iran right now. Be that as it may. Democrats are actually rooting for Iran to win. You're seeing this now? You know, first we'll touch on Iran. You know, my nephew's here from – he's just out of the Air Force, and we're having the discussion. And I have to remind him, always remember, you're only being told.

what they want you to know. Okay? So that's, he's got to start there. Um, if you look at, you know, I can, I, I, I hate, I'm anti-war. I've said that before. I think war is a waste of time. And by the way, war is the health and the growth of big government, whether we like it or not. That's always been the history. Doesn't matter if it's a Democrat war or a Republican war, Herman. That's it. Exactly. Exactly. But I also keen the words of General McCarthy, As long as you have people that have the ambition for power and aggression, you're going to see war. And so that's what we got going on. So we have some religious fanatics and anybody that has, you know, kind of read the Quran or read about it or what they believe in everything.

And that's why you're having so much trouble getting them to compromise because it's all about Allah to the death. Well, and you see, that's just it. And you would have thought, and I think, frankly, President Trump was rather, it kind of surprised if President Trump could be surprised in a way. And I think when he's dropping the F-bombs and doing the spluttering on the truth social post the other day, I think he's really channeling how angry he is. And I think kind of surprised that, you know, I think that he thought that he was dealing with rational actors to a certain extent. Yeah, but the flip side of that bill is if they do get a nuclear weapon, at that point, the rest of the world changes forever. Okay? So apparently Kim Jong-Kuku, we look at him as a rational one, but the Islamic Republic, not so much.

He is rational compared to these, you know, radical Muslims. in Iran. At least in this particular theocracy, dying in the war is Allah's will, you know, essentially. Exactly. Okay. So, you know, I can understand, it's just not a good situation no matter how you slice it.

But you would have thought that we would have maybe war gained that out, you know, prior to doing this. And also, you know, Iran, I think, has been very, I have to hand it to them in some respect. I'm not admiring them. but, you know, they realized what we were going to do, and they had this mosaic defense. So you end up killing a whole bunch of senior leaders. So what? You got the lower-level commanders to take over, you know, from this point. And so there's no single head, no single head to cut off here, Herman.

Think of it, though, if they were close to having a nuclear weapon, and who knows, maybe they were very close, like I said, they only tell us what they want us to know. Trump had to make this move because once they have the nuclear weapon, you will never stop the terrorism. Because as soon as you say, we're going to attack you, they're saying, well, we're dropping a nuclear bomb on Israel. We're dropping a nuclear bomb here. So there's no more negotiating once they have that weapon. That's why they wanted it so bad. I'm not even sure there's really negotiating right now going on. Well, I think I know.

So you're going to have to just, you know, kind of do what Trump's doing, I think. None of it's good. And they're playing the last card. The Iranians are playing the card that they have, and that is to essentially kill the world economy. And they have that control of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a big deal. The demand for petrochemicals is inelastic, as you well know. So if you study history, think of this, Bill.

What would have happened if America and Britain and other allies would have gotten voids would have got involved with Germany in 1935, okay? Okay, now you've got to remember that that conflict of World War II between military and civilians cost 85, somewhere around 85 million deaths. If the United States and the other allied countries would have got involved with Germany earlier, how many of those deaths wouldn't have happened? Hard to calculate, but I will have a deeper question. I will go back even further than that, though.

I will go back further than Germany 1935. I would dare say that the seeds were World War II were planted with the Treaty of Versailles. Oh, I agree. So you want to go back to World War I? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, in World War I, the Americans did not, they really pushed back. on getting involved with that war.

Yeah, and we... The World War II came, they really pushed back. It wasn't until we were attacked by Pearl Harbor that we were actually to get involved with the war directly. Yeah, but what I was getting at, though, is that, you know, World War II really occurring because we decided that we were going to screw Germany to the wall forever and ever and impoverished them. And then eventually...

Oh, that wasn't us. No. That was the French. Well, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. But, you know, we were involved in that, too. But not to the extent. This was about punishing Germany at that point, right?

Yeah, we were the opposite. After that war was the Marshall plan. And if you tell you what happened with General Marshall and pushing that plan. It was very smart what we did after World War II for that reason. You're right. But the French wanted to grind Germany into nothing. And Marshall's plan, you know, the French were absolutely against that. But it was the smart thing to do.

Now, when you take this to today, though, when we take this to today, you know, what we're looking at at this point. Boy, I'm not sure how this, you know, how this ends here, you know, how this ends, because we're looking at spot. The only possible way for it to end, I mean, to actually, the conflict to end is a regime change in Iran. And I just don't have the resources. I don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I don't either. But I wouldn't believe that one regime changed to another is really going to change all that much there. Oh, it did when the Shaw left.

It changed a lot. Yeah, but on the other hand, that was in Fort. That was essentially backed by us, you know, at that time. We ended up backing the Shaw, helped him out. Of course, he had his Sabak Secret Police that was pretty brutal, which ended up seeding seeds of irritation leading in the 1979 takeover of the embassy, as you well remember. Oh, yeah. Remember very well.

Yeah. So all of this, it's just history repeats itself. You know, I always – but when the nuclear weapon came on the scene, it did change the table, you know. And, you know, if you look at MacArthur's last address to Congress, when he retired, and he talked about the nuclear bomb. And he said that we have to figure out another way to reconcile our differences other than war because Armageddon is knocking at our door. So what he was saying, what he was saying is everything is now changed. It's not like it used to be. It has changed because of this weapon. And that's what I'm

trying to convey today. If Iran did get a nuclear weapon, everything changes. Yeah, except that we're supposed to tolerate Israel having the bomb there. We're supposed to tolerate that, and they open to talk about the Samson option. Hey, too much goes on. We're just going to destroy everything. What makes them any different, I would say? Well, but Bill, that's already happened. So now let's prevent it something else not to happen. So every, every country that gets a nuclear bomb makes the world more dangerous place to live, period. Okay. So the, and, and, you know, we don't have a lot. You know, we have India, Pakistan, the U.S., Soviet Union, Korea, France, England. Isn't there a case to be made that much like with regular arms, though, that when you have that kind of a firepower everywhere, people get a lot more respectful of one another.

Don't they? Notice how we do nothing to Kim Jong-Cuckoo now, you know, president, you know, after all that lovey-dovey talk. He's rational. See, he's a little bit, yes, he is cuckoo, but he's rational. He's like, you know, I know if I use this, there won't be nothing left of North Carolina. Korea. But an irrational person like what we're dealing with in Iran who believes that if we just go to Allah, you know, this is all the name of Allah. And I don't know, have you ever read the book River Wars by Winston Churchill? And that was about the wars in Sudan and southern...

No, I've never read that. Tell me about it. Give me a synopsis of it. Yeah. And, you know, he talks about... the faith is so different than Christianity, it's probably impossible for the two to live and coexist. Now, you always have to remember you have moderate Muslims, too, all right? And they're different. It's just... What does the matter? Does the moderate Muslim want to kill you more slowly or gently or what?

Yeah, they're not so much into that. But the radical, I wouldn't say the radical, the true believers of the Koran, that's a little different. It's hard, you know, it's hard to, you really need to study that. I did a paper on that in college, and it's hard to get, they just, it's such a different thought process than what we believe. So what if we were to go down the road of, like, I remember, Ann Coulter. You know Man Coulter, right? Everybody knows Ann Coulter. I remember years ago, she famously said, okay, yeah, we go to war, we just convert them. Maybe that's the only way, you know, conversion. Well, you know, in the Muslim belief, it is convert them or kill them.

That's what they call the infidel. You get it either way. There's no other way. One way or the other, though, when you're looking at 20% of the world's oil supply being essentially held hostage. And now there's the possibility that, you know, Iran is just demanding the right to essentially charge tolls in there. We don't play our cards right. They could end up having, you know, in some ways, even though they lost a lot of infrastructure and a lot of things got bombed out of existence, they could still have a control of that, right? I don't, I don't think Iran, like I said, I'm just guessing because we're only being told. what they want us to know.

But for somehow, I don't think Iran is holding too many cards right now. But anyway, let's go back to... Well, I think all it takes is about 1,500. In fact, even the United States estimates about 1,500 ballistic missiles still left to launch. They can keep things gumped up there a long time. And meanwhile, it's a world depression. Yeah. Well, what's the alternative?

I mean, we know all these things, but what's the alternative? Well, what is the best of the bad decisions, I guess, is the question to be asking, right? Let's not line the clock. Let's do like Biden did, and let's not do anything. They get a nuclear weapon, and now they say, okay, we're going to charge for anybody going, you know, through our waters, and we're going to do this, and we're going to do that. And you're going to sell oil in yuan rather than the petro dollar, right? We're going to do all that kind of stuff.

So now they have a huge argument. But what I was going to mention, though, is that already they're getting money. They're making more money now. And this is with the Trump administration taking the sanctions off the Iranian oil. You know, they're selling about a million and a half barrels a day. And they're getting full price. They're not getting the discount price that they were today. I don't know if you knew that.

I was just reading that this morning. I said, oh, my gosh, what have we done here? Well, like I said, we're only being, you know, they're smart people. people that are dealing with all these details, and you and I are talking on the radio, and we don't have all the details in front of us. I'm not convinced that they're as smart as you think they are, Herman, but all right. Oh, I am. I think they're pretty smart. Anyway, you know, we wanted to talk about, you know, in my political career,

it now goes almost 20 years, the rhetoric from the left is off the rails. I never heard this kind of. Now it's it used to be you could debate, you could say you're wrong, I think you're wrong because of this reason or that reason

or no, I believe this way or something. That's all gone. Now it's like, I hate you. I want you dead. And the anger and the hate and the language

and the things. things people say now, it's really quite concerning, Bill. It really is. It is. And I guess at some point, if they're looking at this as the battle to the death, which the left seems to be looking at politics here, maybe those are just terms that we are going to have to accept and treat them and treat people like that accordingly. What I think is going on is what I've noticed is that the Democrat Party is being radicalized, okay? And I'm not saying, every Democrat is a radical. I have a lot of Democrat friends still, a lot politicians that I talk to that are not, but I do believe that there is a certain amount of radicalation going on

with the Democrat Party. And there's people pumping in money to radicalize them. You know what radicalize means? I mean, that's really dangerous when you radicalize people. That's where they do these things. They do things that you would have never thought that they would do before. Agreed. Now, here's where I'm going to speak out to our Republican friends within, you know, elected officials within party structure. I think that they still think it's a normal time. Oh, it's not. But would you agree with me, though, that most of the people within the party, most of the people that are state legislators, they're thinking it's just a normal time. It's just, well, it's just, well, we're still able to have that debate. And if they just,

see how good a person I am, they'll see my way. Would you agree with my evaluation of the way that our state party structure is in Oregon? Oh, I definitely agree. I mean, I look at Kim Wall and some of the things that she said and stuff and, you know, given money to, you know, a person running against one of her caucus members. That was a big no-no when I was, you know, the caucus leader would interfere with that. But I guess all that kind of stuff doesn't go on anymore. But I, you're right. I don't think Republicans realize what is going on with the Democrat Party.

Well, and I think that, as you were mentioning, with the theocrats in Iran, that I think that most Republicans, are still thinking that they're negotiating and working with rational actors. I'm not convinced of that. I think so. I'm not saying all Democrats are radicalized. I'm just saying that the party is become more members of the Democrat Party are, in my view,

being behaving in a radical fashion. And that includes elected congressmen or congresspeople. and I think it's really dangerous. It's very dangerous. Look at what consists of the Democratic caucus in the state legislature and just get back to me on that, and we'll take some notes. Herman, I've got to go. But I always appreciate the conversation here.

And I think the main thing is that you're saying, hold on, we're not dealing with rational actors. My concern is that I don't think some of the people that have been making these decisions are as smart as they claim. we'll find out. We'll revisit this as time goes on. Okay? Well, like I, Bill, you know, you talk about the world being upside down with the price of oil and inflation and everything. Can you imagine when people start dropping nuclear bombs what happens to the world's economy? Oh, well, there is no economy at that point, okay?

Exactly. All right. All right. Thanks, Herman. We'll talk you soon. Coming up, we're talking about fast. standing book here. Mark Ray Kromer is going to join me. The End of the Golden State, California Twilight, some of his observations, and is Oregon on the way there. Let me go to Tom. Tom, Tom, you read an article on Lou Rockwell about the escalation trap. I had not a chance to read that yet. I was writing my FCC reports yesterday, which I so dearly love, the quarterly reports. It's a high point of my year. But anyway, what did it say? As I say, as listening to you discuss Iran with Dennis Parrish yesterday and now with Herman and so forth. There's a great article

Lou Rockwell called Into the Escalation Trap by John Leake. It was posted yesterday, so it's still up and so forth. But the gist of it is that he believes that Trump has really underestimated the craziness of Iran, the radical Muslim ideology. and so forth. His contention is that Trump is kind of trying to think that he can bomb the daylights out of them and that they, because they're still rational human beings, they say, hey, you know, this is not in our best interest to be blown up. Well, to Harmon's point, though, about it, no, I don't think they are rational actors in the same way we would tend to look at this. Fair?

Yes. Okay. So he's saying that Trump has not taken that into consideration, which, and that we tend to elect people like Trump because they're so self-assertive. Yeah, and self-assured. You know, confidence sells a lot of election votes. You okay? So we tend to elect a president who could easily fall into the escalation trap. He thinks that Trump thinks.

he knows how to really deal with it, but maybe he just doesn't know how to deal with a radical ally, uh, allah, everything for Allah. Yeah, I don't know if there's any kind of deal you can cut. I don't know if there's any deal that you can cut with that, which means that I would count on escalation. Would that be fair? Yeah. And so that he thinks, Tom, you know, Trump thinks that he can bomb, bomb them into capitulation. But if they have God on their side, side and God is never going to give up, then they're never going to give up. And that's what he's dealing with. And so Trump may not have a full deck in terms of dealing with such a radical ideology. Well, we will see how this plays out here. And I'll just prepare accordingly.

Thanks, Tom. KMED, KMED, H.D. H.D.1. Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass. K-294 ASH K290AF Road River. We'll check a quick break on the news here. And then Mark Ray Kromer, California, Twilight. Are we going down that same path? This is the Bill Meyer show. Legendary, y'all.