Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-29-25_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Nat Segaloff, screenwriter and critic is author of the RAMBO REPORT, interesting behind the scenes about this series, Will Dems go for tax hikes? Former Sen. Baertschiger weighs in.

The Bill Myer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at www.clouserdrilling.com. 10 minutes after 7, we're at 50 degrees. I'm really looking forward to talking about this because behind the scenes on how big movies and big cultural icons get made, I always find that interesting. Nat Segeloff joins me. He's been a movie publicist and film critic. Fortunately, I guess not at the same time. TV producer, college teacher, reporter, broadcaster. Wow!

You're kind of all over there, NatSegiloff.com. How you doing this morning, Nat? Great to have you on the show. Thank you, Bill. I can't hold a job is really what explains all of that career. No, no, no, no, no. You're just always out there trying to experience new things, Nat. That's how you sell that, okay? All right. In that case, I'll chew on a burning stick. How's that for a new experience? Okay, why not? Why not? Yes, stick a sharp stick in there. Hey, you have come out with a new book about Rambo, The Rambo Report. And if I had to go back to, you know, over the last 20, 30 years or so of Hollywood history,

if there has been one cultural movement or so that probably had more influence both on how film was done, and also the way we looked at veterans of Vietnam era too, I'd have to say that the Rambo series did. Tell us about the Rambo Report. What got you into this? Was it the film critic business that decided to get you into this or something different? Well thank you for the important point that it really is about veterans, although not you know

slavishly so. Yes. Rambo interested me because well of course I love First Blood but I saw it back in the early days, 1982. But also, the author of the Rambo book, David Morrell, is an old buddy of mine. We met through Sterling Silifant, who was the screenwriter. And it finally occurred to us, why don't we do the book on Rambo and tell the official story of the whole thing? So although he wrote the book in 72, the movie First Blood wasn't made until 1982. And then, of course, Rambo took off and became quite different you're quite right in nineteen eighty five with the release of the sequel which is the one that gave

us the muscles to best or so long and he goes out and kills people but it's more about it more to it than that because rambo is in a sense a symbol of america rambo was the fighter who goes in where america has gone for the last forty years whether it's vietnam af, Burma, or Mexico. And he's in one sense wish fulfillment, in the other sense he's a symbol of America's

insertion into other cultures. And what happens to the people who we send over there to fight our wars and then ignore them when they come back. So it's very much a book about PTSD and about the whole phenomenon and how the public kind of has a love-hate relationship with our responsibility around the world. It's not a political book, but it is about politics. Yeah. And somehow, something tells me that the Rambo movie franchise and the video games probably came out differently from what your buddy David Morrell first came up with. Would that be fair? I think it's very

fair. The first book ends with Rambo being killed and in fact that was what the first blood was at the end of movies. He was supposed to be killed. Richard Cranight either, well in the book he blows his head off. In the movie he kind of assists Troutman in killing him for those of you who happen to see the movie go back and look at it now that I've spoiled it For you, but the best is still known on this set where they were shooting the the the death scene said He wants to have Rambo live because he doesn't want veterans watching the movie to think that the only way out is death And that's a very supportive important thing that I think the other movies have quite shown. And in fact, the last

part of the book is all about resources at the Veterans Administration, where people who have been veterans, who suffer from PTSD, and their families and friends can refer them if they need help. So I try to do the whole scope in the Rambo report to talk about the phenomenon, but also about the very real people who fought our wars. Is there a possibility that maybe some veterans weren't really thrilled with Rambo because maybe it was an unrealistic portrayal to them? I mean, how did it work? And what did Stallone think about this when it came to, you know, hey, we have to put

on a good show, but how do we make it mesh with reality somewhat? There's two different angles on that. First, I wouldn't presume to speak for veterans. I was trying to bring them home, not going over there to fight. But it's complicated. I think the thing that people have to realize is we lost the war in Vietnam. And so there's a certain measure of wish fulfillment in the second film where he goes back in and kills a lot of the people who we wish we killed.

And I'm using we in a sarcastic manner. The other part of it is that Stallone plays a character who is a very wounded person. He really only feels at home when he's in battle. Now, the fact that Stallone himself did not have military service but was in Switzerland teaching at a girls' school made it important for him to portray Rambo in as honest a way as he could And kind of avoid the issue of what he was doing during the war It's very hard to become a poster child for something where you weren't the poster Yeah out of curiosity. What was Stallone's relationship? Did he always want to do Rambo?

Was it like he pushed the Rambo or did producers take the book and then go after him, you know, behind the scenes to make this happen? You have to understand that Sylvester Stallone was only Rocky at the time that Rambo was being formulated. That's what I was wondering. It took 10 years between 1972 and 1982 to get First Blood made. And Stallone was just the guy who put on boxing gloves. He wasn't a phenomenon.

The real star of the film is going to be Kirk Douglas who played the role eventually played by Richard Krenna. But when Douglas showed up on the set for the first day he had rewritten the script to favor his character and they told him to take a hike and he went home and they had to find Richard Krenna in a matter of hours. But Stallone, although he's become known for Rambo, was just another actor which is why I think his performance in First Blood is so riveting. He, before they get into the violence, gives a wonderfully naked and sensitive portrayal of a man who has finally cut adrift from everything he ever knew in battle, everything he ever

knew in his past. It's quite a performance. But Stallone was not a major star at the time. He was given a lot of money to do it, and maybe even to help rewrite the script, but he was looking for a job as an actor. I didn't know that because you know I thought that you know after the Rocky series that that sly had already written his ticket but I guess at that point he was still yeah he was known for that but that was it at that point. Okay I didn't know that. Well he he was writing, he'd made a couple of films, they didn't really take off. I mean, Fist, Paradise Alley didn't quite work. Nighthawk did

some business, but he really crafted himself. And of course, by the time of the second one, in 1985, he'd built himself up as well as crafted himself. And by then was a phenomenon. And that's really the film that kicked off franchises. You didn't have franchises in those days, you had sequels. Now they call them franchises. Exactly. I want to talk with Matt Segiloff and his book is out The Rambo Report. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff here. Of course that's one little nugget. I never knew that Sylvester Stallone was just an actor. I heard to play the part. He's quite a good man, Bill, when he wants to be. When he can, when there's room for it.

But he kind of got painted in. Listen, the Red Bull Report is all about that stuff. It's about all the movies, the cartoons, the knives, the phenomenon. I'm trying to talk about not only veterans a little bit, but also America during the last 40, 50 years. And I have to tell you, when it comes to the veterans, some things are not changing. Or maybe it is changing a bit, but I just had a friend of mine a few weeks ago who was a veteran, a golf war veteran who killed himself and it seems to be something which is not

getting any better but do you think we're getting more serious about dealing with the veteran aspect of this and I guess we'll read about this in Rambo report too. Well I'll tell you something that isn't in the book and it's a horrifying story. I called my friend at the Veterans Administration to make sure that all the URLs and all the information I had was accurate and he said yeah it's accurate and he said but I'm getting laid off next week because of Doge so I don't know who's gonna be here. And that's our veteran as ladies and gentlemen. We send them out there, we train them, we teach them how to kill, we give them weapons, and then they come home and there's nobody here to help.

Well, I'm hoping that and praying that that was just a temporary situation and Doge mistakes can then become Doge corrections in some cases. And I've heard that they are looking at some of those ones. It seems a little weird too. Was he involved in treating veterans or providing some sort of medical or mental health service? Just curious if you don't mind. He was my, he doesn't want his name being used but he was one who was able to give me information that is accurate by the way. It is accurate in the book. I mean you can go online and find it too but the important thing is when people want help they have to be able to get help.

And since people who've been in battle tend not to talk to people who haven't been in battle because they don't understand, it's important for people who are suffering from PTSD and other war-related injuries to get help and to seek help. And the help is out there. They just have to go for it and find it. And I'm hoping that in, I mean,

I hate to do a segue into a book, but I'm hoping that I'm able to shed some light on that situation because Rambo is a walking example of PTSD and what happens if you don't take care of it. Nat Segaloff, Rambo Report. I'll put all the information up. You can also find out more on Nat's website, natsegaloff.com, S-E-G-A-L-O-F-F. Thank you, Nat. Good talk, okay? Appreciate that. Thanks very much, Bill. Thank you. 19 after 7.

Some people are just obsessed with their lawns. They'd cut their grass with a pair of scissors if they could. 815 Gold. Visit HannityGold.com or call 855-815-GOLD to learn more. That's HannityGold.com or 855-815-gold. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063 KMED and you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. 723-770-5633. A bit of open phone time here before news. We'll talk some politics here with Herman coming up in just a few minutes. By the way, speaking of politics in Josephine County, I did want to give you a little update on this one. I hadn't had a chance to watch the entire video of the meeting yesterday, but Chris Barnett and others popped me a link to this and I'm

going to have to do more of that when I get off the show this morning. But apparently they are reversing a little bit of the challenges that have been going on in Josephine County. I think it's actually a good move that has been happening. Chris Barnett writes me, he wrote me last night, board restored. There is no contract, no contract about Michael Sellers, apparently. And there was an investigation per Wally Hicks on this one. And Michael Sellers goes back to being their IT specialist and may have some other deals too. So the board ended up rescinding. Remember, he had Ron Smith

and Chris Barnett voting to have Andreas Bleck end up doing most of the hiring, firing, and the administrative side of the hiring, firing, and the right sizing of this. I think that was a really good move. I'm gonna have to watch more of the video to get a better feel about where that is going, but I would say, guardedly optimistic, that I think that was pretty good. That was a good idea, Chris, and thanks for letting me know, okay? Transparency, transparency, transparency is so important.

Even if everything had the best of intentions, anything which gives the appearance of not being as transparent as it otherwise might be, will end up hurting you, and we don't want to hurt you or the county or anything else. We want just to move forward. Everybody knows that there have to be changes done with how Josephine County is arranged, the money is just not there. I get it. And everybody knew that coming in.

And we knew that we were at 2025 and really 2026 is going to be, as they say, may you live in interesting times when it comes to a government. All right. as they say, may you live in interesting times when it comes to government. All right. 7705633. Trump does an executive order. Oh, by the way, we'll still take calls if you wanted to grade Trump's first 100 days in office. I would love to get your take on that.

My take on it has been pretty simple. A, on the border, incomplete because we just don don't know it's too early to tell on the economy And when it comes to the culture wars, I would say a B a B is where it is You know working hard that we are not forced to believe absurdities like a like a dude in a wig in a Miniskirt is somehow a woman. He's working that. Got a lot of fight against him here though. Another order this morning, Trump has ordered that all truckers be proficient in speaking and reading English. Now I thought they

already were. So what's going on here? Apparently existing federal law requires that commercial drivers read and speak English, but it hasn't been enforced. It's a hell of a note, huh? You think if you're driving around the United States with all these signs in English that maybe it would be a pretty good idea that you know how to read the signs and that you can converse in the tongue.

Yeah, he's going to do this. He signed that order. All commercial vehicle operators in the United States be qualified and proficient English speakers and he actually has the authority to do this, no doubt about this, because commercial driver, the CDL, is actually a nationwide license here. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road are going to ensure that our truckers are all able to speak English.

I'll be curious to see how they're going to attest that but I think that's positive. That's a positive move. Now he's also going to be drawing... I don't know if this will necessarily help us in Southern Oregon when it comes to the Grand Stream funding, but he's also put out there executive order that we're going to draw up a list of all these sanctuary states and sanctuary cities in the sanctuary jurisdictions. So Trumpy Claus is coming to town. He's making a list and checking it twice. Good to find out who's not helping ICE Trumpy Claus.

Yeah, it could be an interesting time here. Because all of our cities, all of our cities are just, you know, part of Oregon. Sanctuary state needs to happen. The battle needs to happen. And I hope Trumpy Clause wins this one, even though it may hurt us on a temporary basis. I think so, at least. 728, let me go to line one. Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is Gene. Hey, Gene. What's going on in your world? How would you rate Trumpy Clause, huh? Well, I would really agree. good, except for a few things.

OK, what's that? Well, I got a few points more. Speak American, not English. Well, speak. Well, what's the difference between American and English? American. Gene? But anyway, one point, well, a couple of points I wanted to bring up is if you think about it, dictator starts with a D, Democrats start with a D, Put the two Democrats and dictators together for the politicians, not the people. Special entrance group, yeah, you can put them as dictators.

And another thing to bring up is how many years after the Korean War ended, did it take the government to admit it was not a police action, it was a war, and they didn't get celebrated for coming home. So they talk about the Vietnam War constantly, and I agree. They did not give them any celebration for coming home alive. I would dare say, though, there was, unlike the Korean War vets coming home, now you're right, that was called a police action. In fact, I think it was technically a police action still. There was no ceasefire forever up until recently when they finally ended up drawing that to a close just a few years ago, really if I recall correctly, Jean. But I would dare say I remember as a kid, I was only a kid when the

Vietnam War was wrapping up. I was 14, you when the Vietnam War was wrapping up. I was 14 when that was going on. But I do recall that many of the soldiers coming back at that time were not treated all that well, especially their own peers. I don't remember the spitting on kind of stuff that some people have talked about, but I do remember the, you know, some of the college kids, you know, had it, oh, you're a baby killer type thing. I mean, I remember that kind of stuff going on. I do remember that. Well, I know that after the Vietnam War, they did treat them badly. After the Korean War, they more or less ignored them. And the way the war came to presumed in was a treaty.

And some people that actually fought in the war would rather have had it closed without a treaty which gave the North Koreans anything. Okay. All right, Jean. I appreciate the call. Thanks for that. 770-5633. We're going to hold calls here for a little bit. Herman's going to join me. I think the Democrats are going to raise our taxes in this legislative session. We'll find out. We'll kick it around. Herman has forgotten more about our state politics than I think I'll ever know,

which is why I consider him a good hand to talk to every Tuesday we do that. time with friends and family and not a septic disaster. Give them a call at 541-821-1426 or check them out online at swsmodoc.com. Sweetwater Sanitation, their service is the difference. As a business owner, you likely do a lot of driving around town, so turn your business vehicle into an attention-getting rolling billboard. The Wash Buggy, Rap Lab, brands and restyles cars, pickups, vans, even big

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Progressive cash to insurance company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states or situations. Hi I'm Charlene owner of American Industrial Door, and I'm on 106.7 KMED. Well, I was sitting around just to shoot the breeze on topics of politics in general, and that is, well, I guess one of our area sages, in my opinion. Now, sage doesn't mean old, you see, mean wise.

Just wise when it comes to politics, and that is... Should I just stop now, Herman? Former state's editor, Herman Barrett-Sugar. How you doing Herman? Welcome back. Well, welcome. Yeah. I think it's going to be a beautiful day. It's a little cloudy again. Yeah, I think so. I think so. A little cloudy when it comes to our state legislature action too. And every time I talk with either...

That's what I was talking about. Oh, you were? Oh, okay. Good. Here it is. I'm thinking, you know, maybe you're being literal out there. But hey, before we get into the state politics, why don't I ask you, Trump's 100 day today, all right? What grade would you overall give him? I would say, you know, and I've already said it's an A on border. Border enforcement, I think, no one has done more, even though he's being fought at every term. Economy, I consider it incomplete. We don't know. We're not going to know for a while here because there's a lot of up and down. It's hard to say where that's going to go. Culture war, I would say B. How do you see it overall? Well, yeah, I think I'd agree with that. And on the economy, one thing I'd like to interject, he's the first president since

Bill Clinton to actually being addressing the national debt. Now, he's not talking about it a lot. In fact, nobody's talking about it a lot. And I think the reason they're not talking about it is they don't want to start a panic. But he is tugging in. He wants this year, he wants to stop a lot of spending and to raise revenues so they don't have to borrow any money to keep the lights on. I think that's in my world, being a revenue guy, I think that's a big, big deal. I really believe it is.

Yeah. The odds of him being able to find $2 trillion to not spend, because that's the way about it is right now. You've got $6 trillion dollars and we have four trillion in taxes and two trillion extra that is just borrowed the odds of fixing that one year what's a tall order wouldn't you say oh it's a huge order if he can achieve it in my book that's one of the biggest achievements of any president. People just don't, people do not understand how dangerous we are right now with the whole country living under a debt bubble, both nationally and personally. It's not good, Bill. You have to understand, and not you, I mean I know you do understand this, but when you have the reserve currency, which we are, the United States dollar is the world's reserve

currency, still settles about 56-57% of all international trade, it's an amazing privilege to have, but it is also a burden. I think President Trump is one of the few people who started actually acknowledging that as being a bit of a burden because you have to in essence run deficits in order to feed dollars to the world. Do most people understand that? I don't think they do. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, history tells us that every country going back to ancient Rome and Greek, when they become broke, they collapse, every single one. And you know, you can look at just modern history, look at the countries of Zimbabwe and Cambodia and stuff like that.

Look, I mean, I read two books now on what happened in Zimbabwe and I just amazed how fast it happened, you know, and most people don't realize, but kind of plunged this help plunges into depression is what happened to Germany. So Germany was in such massive debt because of the Versailles agreement after World War I, it finally took them down and it's really spilled over. Yeah, it was a sovereign default.

A lot of people don't talk about that, what led to the Great Depression. They always point to the Smoot-, holly tariffs, which is not true. That's not really what caused the Great Depression, but it ended up being the triggering being Germany defaulting on their bonds, on their debt, on their war reparations, right? That's what lit the fuse and what really threw us into the depression is people borrowing money to invest in the stock market. That didn't help. Our stock market went, and then the commodity prices went.

When the commodity prices went, the farmers couldn't make their mortgages and they lost the farms. It just starts cascading. Yeah, cascading, interlocking. This is the one problem when you have these tightly knit agreements and organizations. One person goes broke, another person then is asking for their money. It's almost like when everybody asks for their money back all at the same time. Wouldn't that be a good way of putting it?

Yeah, something. You know, the people that I talked about that live through the depression, they're all gone now, but when I was a younger person, I used to... The one common thread they all said, and they were for all different walks of life, okay? They always said nobody had any money. walks of life. Okay. They always said nobody had any money. Nobody had any money. So anyways, so I think my hat's off to him for addressing that because, you know, if we could get that down to around, I don't know, 40, 35, 40% of the gross domestic product, I think we'd be in pretty good shape instead of 137% of the gross domestic product. Yeah, exactly. And that's why everybody was looking at the bond market when the bond market cracked for

a little bit or was showing that weakness when the tariffs were first announced on Liberation Day. Remember that, how everybody went nuts. That's why that was so important. It's not the stock market, it's the bond market. It's the... Yeah, people quit buying bonds, we got to quit printing money. Yeah. If we quit printing money, we have to quit spending money. And that brings me to what is possibly going to be going on here in the state legislature. Have you been keeping your ears to the ground on tax increases? We know that there's been the push for a

1.9 billion dollar tax increase to take care of transportation issues so that way we can get another bridge with lots of light rail that nobody will ride on it you know crossing I-5 you know I-5 over the Columbia and all the rest of it. But anyway there's a lot of that. What are you hearing? Not much. There's over 350 bills sitting that are related to taxes. And I just, I went through the Senate revenue and finance and everything assigned to them is still in committee. So that tells me this is going to be the 11th hour massive push to pass bills relating to taxes. So do you understand they're not talking about it? They don't want to cloud the discussion in the legislature with taxes.

That's interesting because I was talking with Noah yesterday and Dwayne Younger Saturday when he was over at the House, and he was talking about this being the quiet period. It's like this little interlude. I guess is this the calm before the storm in your view? Right. In fact, I'm a little surprised, you know, looking at the Senate committee, you know, nothing is, they haven't even passed anything out and then it usually goes to ways and means and it's set there for the 11th hour. But they definitely want to raise money, like you said. I was just kind of looking at, there's way too many bills to look at and I, you know,

a lot of them are technical fixes bills, that's pretty normal, but I just really haven't had time to go look at all the different bills. But I know, yeah, the transportation, now Bill, when I was in there, we passed the massive transportation bill. And that was supposed to be the fix-all of everything for ODOT. And now 10 years has gone up. And in that 10 years, gas prices went up every year. So they were smart. They did a little bit every year. Well, we're to the end of that, so they're done. And nothing's... everything it was supposed to fix is not fixed.

Was this because they didn't contemplate or, you know, they weren't able to predict the inflation that was coming from the COVID money? Well, I'm that hell, obviously that's going to be part of it, inflation, but nobody's addressing the spending side of the ledger. They just address the revenue side. I was just looking at the state of Washington. Some of the bills that they're trying to pass in their legislature this year, at the end of four years, the Democrats have learned, when we do these bills raise taxes, and let's

not do it all in one year, let's have the bill do it over a period of years. So in the Washington legislature, they have one to raise taxes. And they said at the end of four years, it'll add $2,000 a year to an average household. That's real money. That's a lot of money. That's a huge amount of money. Yes.

There goes your vacation in Washington, right? Your summer vacation. Yes. So, you know, it's never about, you always notice it's never about spending. And that's what I used to just flip over when I was in the legislature. I says, when are we ever gonna sit down and have a conversation about how we spend money?

I'm wondering if the reason that the state legislature is not really talking about the money right now, Herman, is because they're waiting for the federal government to find out how much or how little pass-through is coming. Might that be part of it? They don't feel like they can plan it right now because they don't know what's coming? Yep, that could be. And you know, I probably need to pick up the phone and make a few phone calls and talk to a few people that are in the know and see if I can't pry some information out of them. But you know, I don't know what the politics are right now. I don't know what the horse trading is going on. But I am kind of fascinated that everything's just kind of sitting in committees right now.

Yeah. Just kind of poised to strike us like a cobra, right? Once they get passed out. Yeah, there's only one bill awaiting third reading and that's just a technical fix. Oh, it shoves a little money towards the Oregon Youth Corp, which is Golden's baby, you know. That's just so they can take our kids and indoctrinate them over environmental questions. And addresses some things for higher education and stuff, but it's pretty much a technical bill.

But other than that, everything's just kind of sitting. Kind of interesting, you know? Yeah. This is the one that I'm wondering about here, and Oregon health plan, because we're hearing all sorts of rumbles coming out of Washington, DC that there's going to be some right sizing of what we call Oregon Health Plan and what other states, well, they call it, you know, meta, what is it, not Medicare, but Medicaid. Yeah, Medicaid. We should tell you what is going to be

going on there, because it was expanded hugely under the Biden administration. They took so many people and put them on under the Biden administration, they took so many people and put them on Oregon Health Plan, and now we're running out of Fed money to do this. Where do you think this goes? Right now, the federal government takes up the lion's share of that, and I think that's going to get severely reduced. And so the state's going to have to backfill that, or they're going to have to cut parts of the program. That's where that's going. And I'll bet my hat on that. The federal government's not totally going to go away, but they're going to back out

a lot and expect the state to pick up a lot. So we're going to have to find some way to either cut what we're doing here and then backfill what's going on with Oregon Health Plan to keep people's health care coming or else raise some taxes ourselves here, right? Yes. And how are they going to raise the tax? So what are they going to do? They're going to raise their income tax It's already one of the highest in the nation. Yeah, don't we get the 10% pretty quickly if I recall? 9.9. Yep. Yep

9.9 if you make a hundred and twenty five thousand for a person or two hundred fifty thousand for a couple it's nine point nine percent That's where you hit it. Yeah Where do you think is going to be the ripest pig to stick with a pin, with a tax pin, you think out there in Oregon? Property tax. Really? Yeah, I say hate measure five and measure 50. And I'm just, I'm worried that they're going to figure out a way to work around that. Hmm. Isn't that in the Constitution?

Yep. Well, it's a measure. No, it's a measure. It's not in the Constitution. It didn't amend the Constitution? Measure 5 didn't amend the Constitution? No. You know, I'm gonna have to double-check because I really don't know right now. Yeah. But, you know, it limits that your property taxes can't go up more than 3% a year. And so it goes up 3% a year, your assessed value. We know that. Anybody that owns a home, this is what you see.

Every year it goes up 3%, 3%, 3%. Now, these days it hasn't been matching inflation. And so, Salem was looking to find some way to deep-six that. How do you think they would do it? If you were a Democrat and you wanted to fool the Oregon voters into taking a property tax increase, how would you go about that, Herman? Let me put you on your thinking cap.

Just come up with a good reason why you have to do it. An absolute reason. That you can gain public support over that reason. Huh. I wonder what that could be. It could be wildland fire. Oh, okay. So we get rid of the fire map, but we have to raise property taxes because otherwise we can't put the fire out. Hmm. You think we would be fooled by such a simple trick down here, Herman? Always remember, if they can find it, right now they have to, they fund wildland fire through the general fund,

which is your taxes, your income taxes. And we know that one of the reasons why they were doing the wildfire mapping was about ultimately finding a way or justification for assessing properties differently, right? That was really what that was all about. Right. And so they want to find another revenue source for wildland fire, then that frees up general fund money. That's what they want to do. Then they can go use the general fund money for Medicaid or some other things.

Yeah. Okay. That sounds like a reasonable thing. See, all we're doing right now, folks, is speculating because this is in the quiet part of the legislative session. Nothing is really moving. Nothing is really being proposed. And frankly, this is probably when it's most dangerous, Herman. And that's why we thought we'd just throw a few things out there. Well, you always wait towards the end of session, you know, because the committees will start shutting down here in about a month or even a little less than that. But the revenue finance and ways and means and rules stay open to the very end.

So anything that any horse wrangling and all that, those bills are going to wind up in those committees because they'll stay open to the end. So, clearly anything that any horse wrangling and all that, those bills are going to wind up in those committees because they'll stay open to the end. Let me ask a serious question because I've wanted Republicans to walk out when it came time for gun bill votes in some of the worst of this. Is there any possibility that this is where you get rid of the second amendment stripping bills or something like that when the Democrats are looking for big, big tax increase votes. You think that's a possibility or they're still going to move forward one way or the other way, no matter what the Republicans say?

Oh, they're going to move forward no matter what the Republicans say. Yeah, they don going to move forward no matter what the Republicans say. Yeah, they're not, they don't need Republicans. Well, they do for tax increases. They need a couple at least, don't they? Well, just for quorum. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm getting at. Quorum.

Well, yeah, but there's no way Republicans are going to deny quorum. That's just not in the cards, Bill. Why, Herman? You just have the personalities to do it. That's just not in the cards, Bill. Why, Herman? You have the personalities to do it. Okay, all right. See, I keep hoping for a glimmer of hope that a spine will magically formulate amongst this group that's always sending out the, hey, boy, look, we're fighting for you, send me money. That's what I get in my email box. It ain't gonna happen. I remember Burdick when after the walkout and everything, Jenny come up and she says, you know, we're going to start an initiative that you can't do that

anymore. And I said, well, I knew that. But I says it also means you can't do that anymore." And I said, well, I knew that, you know, but I says it also means you can't do it either if you ever wind up in a minority. So... Well, their assumption is that they'll never wind up in the minority. And for the near future, that's probably the case. But... And there is that arrogance from the Democrats. All right. You always say, don't be arrogant when you're in public service. And I guess we're seeing a lot of that right now. All right, Armin. Guard against being arrogant. Okay. Well, guard against your pocketbook because that's where we really have to keep the eye

on it because... Oh, it's coming. That's just from what direction. All right. Very good. Hey, Herman. I always appreciate you checking in. You be well, okay?

All right. You take care, Bill. Thank you. 757 at KMED, 993 KPXG. This is the Bill Meyer Show. It is Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Thank you.