Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-01-25_THURSDAY_7AM

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

05-01-25_THURSDAY_7AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clauserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Dr. Chris DeArmit joins me. He has a book out and it cuts against the grain of what I think is passing for conventional wisdom these days. I'm putting conventional wisdom perhaps in scary air quotes.

It's entitled Shattering the plastics illusion You can find out more about this book plastics paradox.com. In fact, you can even download the book or you can also purchase a paper copy of that too Doctor it's a pleasure having you on welcome Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for covering the science. Not many people do that Okay, tell me a little bit about then your background. How did you get involved in this? And you put some 3,000 hours of research into the shattering the plastics illusion. How did this start? Yeah, that's the funny thing. This is not my job. This came about because my daughters came home

from school one day and they have been told stuff that was just blatantly untrue by their teachers. And I'm a scientist, so I think we should solve today's problems based on stuff that's actually true and has evidence behind it. So that kind of made me angry, and my anger took me to reading, in the end now, thousands and thousands of studies, peer-reviewed studies, all unpaid, unfunded, and now I've distilled it down into two books, which are free, so anybody who cares about facts in a better future can see the evidence. All right, and you said it's been unfunded. Have you worked in the plastics industry in some form or another? Yes, yes,

absolutely. Yeah, I'm a material scientist, so I am not funded by the plastics industry, but I have worked for plastics companies in the past. That's the funny thing. People say we can't trust a plastic scientist to tell us about plastics. I always say if you have a heart attack, you go to the hospital and ask to be treated by the janitor or by the medical professional. But of course, you can understand how people would say, well, you've worked for the plastics

industry in one form or another over the years, you're a materials scientist, but you have a dog in the fight is what they would probably say, right? Yeah. Well, there's a couple things to say there. One is none of my income comes from the plastics industry, as I mentioned, and none of the things I'm saying come from me either. I'm citing hundreds and hundreds of peer-reviewed studies which are completely independent and And the work is also endorsed by professors from all around the world who are also not in the plastics industry So it's completely independent. All right, it's a good question

one of the things that that runs through my mind here when people talk about well, we need to get away from plastics and And yet I've tried to de-plasticize some of my life here, Doctor, some of it. And it has to do with certain things that I would, well, plastic drinking glasses I've tried to get away from, and I've tried to get away from the plastic cookware in some ways, such as the rubber-made type of storage things, especially those that had some endocrine disrupting chemicals in it, according to other scientists, that would cause problems with metabolism. I think they got rid of most of that, but I kind of got away from that anyway. Was I dumb to have gotten rid of the plastics? And they talked about microplastics and the bisphenol A, etc. Why don't you just go ahead and set me straight from your point of view.

Yeah great question. So basically everything we do has a risk and even leaving your house every day right or jumping on a plane or in a car. So our job is to pick the thing that has the least impact for the environment and the least risk right. So given that there's no perfect solution and the only way to really know what causes more or less impact is a thing called a life cycle analysis. And that's a scientific thing that everybody uses, governments, NGOs, everybody uses that. It's the only way to know what causes more and less impact. And when you look at those, you find out that plastic is less than 1% of all the material we use. And it's the lowest impact solution

in nine cases out of ten. So nine times out of ten, if you get away from plastic, you're making the environment worse and that's a scientific fact. Could you give me an example of you get away from plastic and somehow something becomes even more impactful? What would be an example that comes to your mind? Yeah, great question. So a lot of people talk about bags, grocery bags.

There are 30 studies, peer-reviewed studies in the world on grocery bags, and everyone ever done shows that the polyethylene bag has less impact. If you replace it with paper or cotton, you've got four times more greenhouse gas, you've got 10 times more waste, you've got more fossil fuel usage, everything just gets worse. It's not just greenhouse gas. Pretty much everything gets worse when you replace plastic. And not only that, you're paying more to increase harm. So getting away from plastic is,

a lot of this is being driven by people with interested parties who have millions and millions in funding to try and scare us into buying their products instead. What about the impact, let's say the plastic grocery bag, the way it was presented to me, especially by legislators who were part of the laws to get rid of the plastic bag and doing all that kind of stuff, they would cite seeing it in

rivers and it would be in the environment, it would be causing problems with fish habitat and the litter, etc. etc. What would you say to them? That was kind of how they would rationalize going back to a paper bag. And of course, now they don't even want you to be using paper bags either, really. Yeah. So, first of all, politicians are not great sources of information no matter what side they're on there. They're not trained scientists, so they do what it takes to get votes. So, if you look at the studies, replacing the plastic bag is a mistake according to every country in the world. And not only that, they've looked at what happens when you do a plastic bag ban.

And the answer is you end up selling way more plastic because you can no longer use that very, very thin bag you can see through. That's no longer available. They've taken that away from you. Instead, you have to go and buy a much thicker trash liner. It's like five times more plastic. So ironically, when you ban the bag, just as predicted, you get vastly more greenhouse gas and ironically, you end up selling way more plastic.

And so that's why these bag bans, which are enacted before people check the facts, end up getting reversed. And the politician ends up with egg on their face for having made a stupid decision that cost their voters more and made things worse. They haven't reversed it in Oregon yet. They don't care if it's more expensive, doctor. They don't care here. Okay?

Yeah. Well, you made a great point with the litter though. That is the real reason people are against plastic because they see it and it's ugly and I agree with them. But scientists have studied litter too and they've proven that we drop it on purpose and then we turn around and blame the litter because we're never going to blame ourselves, right? So the cause of litter is people.

That's a scientific fact and the courts agree. And the way to solve that is education, deposits, and fines. So we have the solutions, we have the evidence too, but people are not seeing it. Dr. Kristi Armit in his book is Shattering the Plastics Illusion. You can find out more at Plasticsparadox.com. What about the the discussed danger of microplastics kind of flooding the overall environment and you even just look within the blood of humans and you could find plastic chemicals festoon throughout various body parts. This has been a you know a lot of famous internet stories I guess we could put it that way. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, there was one a couple of weeks ago that there's a spoonful of plastic in our brain. I mean, even a regular person must realize that's just completely nonsense. And when you look at that study, they use the method which is literally proven to not work. It's a study where you, it's pyrolysis, right? So you take the sample of brain or whatever,

you burn it pretty much, you destroy all the molecules, and then you take the pieces and you try and work out what that material was based on the fragments from heating it up at a very high temperature. And they literally know that that method doesn't work for detecting plastics in the body and so that study was just complete nonsense. If you look at plastics as a whole, just like sand or glass or paper, it degrades into smaller particles, right? Plastic is about a hundred thousandth of the particles that we're breathing and it's non-toxic. We have 50 years of study, so the public think that this is something new and scary and it's exactly the opposite. Particles in the body has

been known since the year 1844 where the Germans first reported it. So particles in the body sound scary, but every kind of particles in our body, whether we like it or not, plastic is a hundred thousandth of the non-toxic kind. And some of the other things are actually toxic and actually cause cancer, but we're not talking about any of those things because we're too busy obsessing over plastic. This tiny, tiny fraction. What about the endocrine disruptive potential of many plastics, especially when it comes to stuff we're using in foods and not in foods but you know to cook food, have food, drinking like I was talking with you about. Here it is, I made this effort to go to steel

drinking cup as an example. Yeah, well there's no evidence for it. So we've been studying BPA and all this stuff. BPA isn't even in most plastic. The BPA is created in incredibly small amounts only from polycarbonate, which is the kind of plastic we don't even use for drinking water bottles anymore. So people are scared about a thing that was A, never a problem, because exposure is incredibly low. And if you type BPA from plastics, you'll go to phantomplastics.com where I have the most detailed page on the internet about BPA, where it you'll go to phantomplastics.com where I have the most detailed page on the internet about BPA, where it really comes from. Where it really comes from is thermal

paper. You get a receipt from Starbucks, you touch that, so it depends on the particular Starbucks. But basically, thermal paper is where you get the BPA from, from touching that paper and nothing to do with plastics. That's really interesting because I was looking at study after study back in the time that was talking about the characteristics of plastics with BPA that made them very flexible, which is why they made it into baby bottles and certain drinking cups and such. And you're saying that that never happened? You're thinking about phthalates. Phthalates are what makes things flexible. Oh, pardon me. Yeah. So I was thinking that BPA is bisphenol. So bisphenol A is not a phthalate? No. Okay. I'm not a chemist, so.

Sorry. That's all right. That's why we have scientists. So yeah, BPA is not an issue. It could be, if it was a, like anything, if the concentration was high enough, it would be toxic. Same as oxygen. But the concentrations we're exposed to are way too low and they're not coming from plastic anyway. And the same thing with thing with palates we've got decades and decades of studies the fd a look at this year after year after year and even in place the only place where you see any effect from palates is like in the factory where people are dealing with it all day long there were you literally breathing it all day long you might have enough to do

something but regular people it's not in most plastics and it's not affecting anything according to science it's just people try to scare us into buying glass and metal, which has worked in your case. You went and bought the metal, which is like 10 times worse for the environment and no safer than the plastic was. So the metal that I bought is 10 times worse than the, than the, why? Look at melting metal. It's glowing red hot, right? The amount of energy you may need to make metal is insane compared to plastic plastic melts at a couple hundred

degrees and metals a couple thousand degrees so yeah I guess I don't look at energy used to make something that that is good as necessarily a it's an impact I'm not one of the climate change folks so maybe maybe I'm wrong you know on that no no that's a good point yeah I'm ambivalent on that too but a lot of people do think that greenhouse gas is a big thing. And just the energy, right? The energy it takes, the fossil fuel you need to burn, the resources it takes to make metal

is just so much more. So yeah, it's unfortunate. I'm a scientist, right? If you ask me to pick metal or glass or plastic, I would pick the metal or the glass every time because it looks nicer, it feels nicer in the hand. But if you really are passionate about the environment, then the plastic is the way to go. What about the environment when it comes to the amount of, you know, the landfill economy, as I call it? It seems that it's a shame that we have a whole lot of plastics that don't seem to be easily or economically recyclable. Is that

something which is an issue or not in your view? I mean for the longest time we were sending a lot of this over to China to be remanufactured until they couldn't find a way to make it work either. Yeah, yeah. So I've looked at, there's a couple things you brought up there. One is landfill. So if you were to take the next thousand years of waste in America and you wanted to bury it, that would take 0.2% of the land area of America to bury a thousand years of waste. So anyone who tells you we don't have enough holes to stick our waste in is just misleading you. So when we're hearing this all the time, the landfills are filling up, we don't have any room for our waste. It's just pure fiction. And that's covered

in the book, Shattering the Plastics Parallelusion. If you go to Phantom Plastics, you'll find a book. And it's a free download, so I'm not trying to sell anyone a book. It's all for free with hundreds of studies. So this idea about landfills is not correct. The other thing that's incorrect about landfills is people think that plastics are supposed to degrade there, and that's the exact opposite of what landfills do. The point of a landfill is to bury stuff with no oxygen so it can't degrade and give off global greenhouse gas, for those who believe in that stuff. Yeah, you're absolutely right about it. It's all anaerobic activity down there, really.

Yes, exactly. You can pick up a newspaper from a landfill 50 years ago and still read the date and read the newspaper. People have done that experiment, so even paper and food doesn't degrade in a landfill. Well, I'll tell you, archaeologists in the thousand years in the future are going to have fun looking back at what we were doing. That's right. That's what this book did. They did archaeology on landfills to see what was in there. You're exactly right. I'll tell you.

What about, you know, I was just thinking about this the other day. I had a syringe, a plastic syringe, and I was thinking about what would happen if we got rid of plastics, if everybody had their way, the environmentalists had their way, we had to get rid of plastics. I don't know if the medical world could even function today. I'm looking at this plastic syringe that I purchased at a veterinary supply store for like 50 cents, you know, that sort of thing. It's sterile, easy to use. I was using it to measure out some liquids here, you know, doing it that way. And I was thinking, gosh, you know, do we

would we have to go back to the days of glass syringes and autoclaving everything and then having to have... Well, didn't we also sharpen needles repeatedly in order to reuse them in the hospital? I don't know. What would that mean for the medical world if we were to cut back on use of plastics? It's a funny thing. Everyone seems to be against plastics, but even these people who claim to be against plastic, they're typing their angry letters on their plastic keyboard, right, with a computer that's made of plastic.

We shouldn't have electricity to our homes without the insulation that goes on every wire, right? There's no substitute for it that works. So these people who claim to be against plastic, they're not really genuine in what they're saying anyway. They're just out there virtue signaling, trying to look like good people. They're not really against plastic. Because if they were, as you said, they'd be living in a cave somewhere with no internet, no TV, and no way to tell us how angry they were. They'd be sending smoke signals and hoping that somebody saw it. But would it be wise in the long range, because there's a lot of energy in plastic too, because there is a lot, most of it is from petrochemicals.

Isn't that where most of it comes from? The carbon chains? Yes. Okay. Isn't it kind of a shame to bury that? Shouldn't we be working on formulations that could be more economically recycled just because of the economy of things? Yeah.

You've hit the nail on the head there. So I did a study on that and if you look at cost versus what's green, you find out that the really expensive stuff like gold, you create 25,000 kilograms of CO2 to make one kilogram of gold. It's insanely bad for the environment and for the same reason it's insanely expensive because it's rare and it takes so much energy to make it. Plastic is on the other end, and paper is on the other end of that spectrum. It's very cheap and very low impact and so that means that it's rare and it takes so much energy to make it. Plastic and paper is on the other end of that spectrum. It's very cheap and very low impact.

And so that means that it's harder to make money recycling it because there's not much money in it in the first place. There's not much energy used to make it. There's not so much water used to make it. So that's the irony. If you use something that's green, it's less economical to recycle it because it doesn't have as much value in it in the first place. So people are trying to trick us into doing like buying a metal cup, buying something

that has a lot more energy in it because it will be more valuable to recycle, but they're just tricking you into spending more money. And the analogy I use is this, right? Imagine your friend said to you, don't buy a Fiat car, buy a Ferrari instead because it will have a higher trade-in value. And that's the same trick that they're playing on us. They're telling us to buy a Ferrari instead of a Fiat a higher trade-in value. And that's the same trick that they're playing on us. They're telling us to buy a Ferrari instead of a Fiat, because the trade-in value will be higher.

And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, a Ferrari costs $200,000 or whatever it costs, and a Fiat's $20,000. Why would I spend 10 times more money just to have a higher trade-in value at the end of it? That's a false logic. It's false mathematics. But that's what they're doing when they're trying to sell you the glass or the metal. Okay.

So here it is. I'm going to have to smash my Contigo cup. Well, you know, the thing is though it's half metal and half plastic. You know, even though the cup itself is metal, the top is plastic. Oh boy. You know what? I've got a whole closet full of those things too. I love those things. I don't blame you for buying it, but just don't buy it for the environment because that's what... That's my point. Do what you want. We're all grown-ups, right? But don't do something because you were lied to. That's what I'm against.

I'm a scientist. I want people to make smart decisions based on stuff that's true. Three thousand hours of research. You have read the studies so we don't have to, but you have compiled it all. And you can find out more about this book, PlasticsParadox.com. It's shattering the plastics illusion. You can purchase a copy if you wish, but you can also download it for free. making this free for the world plastics paradox calm Dr. DeArmond it's interesting. It's a certainly a

Point of view that we don't hear a lot about the plastics industry and I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you Thank you, Bill. Yeah, the truth is a lot less interesting than the fiction unfortunately, so thanks for helping to share it Okay, be well. Take care. It is a 732 at KMED 993 KBXG. battery or gas options. And with Echo's rock solid warranty, up to five years for homeowners and two years for commercial users, you've got power, performance, and reliability in your corner. This is Gold's lawn and garden equipment, your full service Echo dealer

for the best selection in the region, serving Southern Oregon for 50 years. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable, sleek metal option? Look no further than Stephen Westfall Roofing Ink. With our state-of-the-art snap lock machines, we bring precision and efficiency right to your doorstep. No need to worry about transporting materials. We come directly to your project property. Visit StephenWestfallRoofingInk.com and discover the ease and quality of metal roofing done right. Transform your home with Stephen Westfall Roofing Ink. Call today to

get an estimate tomorrow. 541-941-3736, CCB number 250730. We've heard it all. That power pole wasn't there yesterday. White cars blend perfectly with the snow. It was either the cat or the mailbox. It's the first time I've been in a roundy round. But the reason you need auto body repair doesn't matter to us, as much as making your car look new again and the process easy for you. At Lithia Body and Paint we've been

getting southern Oregon drivers back on the road since 1946. Service, speed, accuracy. That's Lithia Body and Paint on Bullock Road in Medford. It's time to swap those breakfasts in bed for something a lot more exciting. This Mother's Day give mom a Hellgate jet boat excursion. With 50% off for all moms, you can afford to miss watching her smile as she rides the jet boat through the Hellgate Canyon and hear her laugh as she takes in the sights and sounds of nature. Plus, you can still get her brunch or dinner at the Hellgate River Lodge.

That's 50% off any excursion for moms. So make it unforgettable. Make it a Hellgate jet boat excursion. Book now at hellgate.com. Restrictions apply to hellgate.com for details. News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Meyers Show. And I appreciate you being here.

Hey, well, we have some open phones here for the next, oh, half hour or so. Or are we gonna have Commissioner, maybe we're gonna have, I forget. Let me talk with. Oh, no, I take that back. We will have some open phones a little bit later. We have to get back into the circular firing squad of what is known as Josephine County.

We'll do that here in just a little bit. I forgot if I was going to talk with Ron Smith at 730 or 830. He's going to be talking to me here in just a few minutes. But anyway, we'll get into that. And then I also want to take your calls on what you thought about the plastics fellow here in just a few minutes. But anyway, we'll get into that. And then I also want to take your calls on what you thought about the plastics fellow here in just a moment. I want to do some emails of the day, emails of the day sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson at Central Point Family Dentistry. They take pride in same day crowns made in office or crafted at the local lab. Very, very high quality. It's next to

the Mazatlan Mexican restaurant in Central Point. Nice spacious and comfortable dental office, but they take care of your time. They get you in there pretty quickly. I showed up there for a cleaning yesterday. It was just like, hi Bill, I'll tell you that I'll tell them that you're here. And then boom, I was in there, I think about two minutes, just long enough for me to use the bathroom and go in there and boy did I get clean. Alright, that sort of thing. We have Randy who writes me, Bill, the left loves to twist language, changing the meaning of words.

Equality versus equity is one of their pet twists. Equality is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was preaching. Equality is what the founders of the United States incorporated into the United States Constitution. Equality is what every human is born with in terms of equal opportunity, yet depending upon where one is born. That may be limited. Equity must be earned. It's not automatic.

When one buys real estate by taking out a loan and makes payments over time, they earn equity, a greater ownership of the property over time. Lenders aren't granting equity, it must be earned. We on the right wing, meaning in our right minds as opposed to the left who abandon sanity, must hold the left to account when they mangle the meaning of words. Equity isn't a birthright because equality is, whereas equality is. Please take some time to help your audience differentiate the meaning of the two words, so when leftists attempt to indoctrinate our youth with misleading concepts, they're able to discern the difference between truth and lies. It's Randy and Ashland. Randy, I really appreciate that.

I'm Mark from Grants Pass writing about this. And it was about a listener who called yesterday, they were talking about the people wearing turbans, the truck drivers wearing turbans. And Mark Johnson writes me and says, Bill, they're enjoying the rest of the amount of B.C. running the I-5 are actually Indian, Hindu. The script on the back of their truck celebrating various India heroes is Hindi, not Arabic. It's kind of the same misunderstanding Mark writes after 9-11, when the Sikh convenience store gas pump operator in LA was shot where he stood as a Muslim terrorist. That's as big a mistake as saying that Pakistan and India are the same tribes, which is not. I appreciate that. All right, good to have you on here, Mark. I always appreciate that. John Birkeveil writes me, he sent me a little note here from Technocracy.News and how back in the

1930s the technocracy wanted to merge the US, Canada, and Greenland. Huh. And I wrote it back and I said, well, that's kind of fun. Isn't that odd that it's being considered again? And John Wright's feedback is, I know, right. What is it with billionaires who can't seem to help trying to play God, such as the demented idea to block the sun? It's also astounding how many people who call themselves liberal Democrats claim to hate billionaires, but then tend to buy whatever BS narratives billionaires push, be it on climate change, Trump, Russia gate, COVID, etc. Thank you very much. Reverend David writes to me this morning, Bill, I turned you off this morning because

you were going into your sky is falling routine again. David, you thought that was a sky is falling routine? God love you. But anyway, I just happened to tune into the White House morning briefing and Stephen Miller answered a reporter's question on tariffs in Amazon. They went after Amazon because they were not being fair in their reporting of costs. Imagine that. According to the White House, David, they have dogs in the fight.

I don't like my own team trying to spin me either. All right? That's all I was getting at and I'm irritated by it and just because it's Stephen Miller, I like Stephen Miller, I like the Trump administration too, but I can also smell BS sometimes when I see it, okay, when I hear it and I thought that's BS. You know, this whole idea that I saw this in the first Trump administration too. You can talk about all the wonderful things that he does and you bring up the one stupid thing or something which could be a little bit shaky and then all of a sudden the sky's falling. Okay? Please,

just take a breath on something like that. We're okay. We're allowed to disagree. I gave him, once again, David, and you know, you and I agree on 99% of stuff, but we gave him our vote. I did not give him my brain and I refuse to give any politician my brain on these sort of things. He's done so many things as far as I'm concerned, home runs. The economy?

Open? Question? We don't know. I don't like political arm twisting going on. Now the White House can claim that they weren't calculating the tariffs correctly, but I think it has more to do with trying to manage the narrative. The narrative being that China will pay for it or India will pay for it. And ultimately, that's economic nonsense. Ultimately, it's always going to be whoever buys the product will end up ultimately paying the cost. That's just the way it goes.

Now there is manipulation of currency that China uses to sometimes hide some of that baloney. But I don't even want our own administration playing hide the baloney on tariffs. I have no problem with them saying, okay, this is what the tariffs cost. This is what it cost last week on T-moon. This is what it cost this week because of a tariff hike. Why are people afraid of the truth if that's the case? All right, so it's not the truth you want to hear.

Okay, I get it. I love it. Dale writes me, morning Bill. It still comes down to about the microplastics. This is going back to the plastics guy in his head on. It still comes down to living as hazardous to your health when we hear about microplastics or most of everything else that doesn't meet the expectations of those looking for utopia or the Garden of Eden. And even then there was something there that was hazardous to health and affected living.

Ah, the apple. Yes indeed Dale. Thank you so much. Email Bill at BillMeyersShow.com. We'll talk more about that here just a little bit later. Now then, let's even get Commissioner Ron Smith on. Want to change some things about what we were talking about yesterday. Former Commissioner John West is gonna be on

the program too and like I said this you know this there's still a lot of shooting going both directions here when it comes to Josephine County and that seems to be a big deal there. We'll explore it coming up. This is an emergency alert from Jackson County Emergency Management. Imagine if instead of this ad you were receiving an evacuation notice. Would you be prepared at that very moment? Jackson Alerts in Joe Bymark, Lifer Construction and Better Built Construction. Hi, I'm Michael with Gage of Construction and I'm on KMED. 748. You know, every time I talk about Josephine County lately, especially when it comes to

the County Commission, there's a... I forget, was it in Reader's Digest back when we were kids or something like that? Can this marriage be saved? You know, and they would always, you know, bring up there. It is... It's been really controversial and a lot of drama that has been going on back and forth and kind of a circle, a circular firing squad in my opinion. But I ended up talking with Commissioner Ron Smith about this yesterday, some of the changes that happened at

the meeting earlier this week that ended up stripping Michael Sellers of a number of those former positions or titles that he had had before and taking back power of the board to all three members here when it comes to the hiring and firing. Ron, welcome back. Good to have you on here. You wanted to clarify some things that were said yesterday. Well, yeah, I do. My statement about being state law that the commissioners couldn't see the budget was misspoke by me. I did look into it and I got a statement from the Department of Revenue, exactly how that

process goes. But the former finance director, that's the way she operated. She did not let the commissioners see it until a public meeting. So I misspoke on that issue there. Okay. So you could have taken a look then at the budget before the first budget meeting then, right? Not until that document is made public.

The whole budget committee would have to see that document and it would have to be made public too at the same time. We're not allowed to see the document before it becomes public document. But didn't that state law say that you could take a look at it? I mean, I got to copy that too. If there is a problem or a question about it. I'm just, I'm a little confused. I'm sorry if I'm being a little flat-footed on this. Let me read the response from the Department of Revenue. That may clear it up. Okay.

Let me see if I can get it up here real quick for you. Jeez, I don't have a handy right here. Where did that come from? I got that. Let me get this up here on my email that broke. Let's see. Because this is what I end up having. This is from the Department of Revenue, a question asked about that at the very issue. You can release the proposed budget any time prior to the Budget Committee first meeting. As you stated, it needs to be available to the public at the same time. It's made available to the Budget Committee, that includes the commissioners. As notification required, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And your question about involvement of the governing body in the budget development process falls

a bit in a bit of a gray area. As you point out, the budget offers prepare the proposal budget under the direction of the governing body. So it's reasonable to assume the governing body can provide general guidance, direction and goals for the development of the budget. However, local budget law doesn't specify exactly what activities the governing body can or can't do in relation to the budget. Having that said, local budget law does clearly specify that once the proposed budget is delivered to the budget committee, the governing body's role changed from providing general direction for the budget development to reviewing the budget approval approved by the Budget Committee and adopting the upcoming fiscal year. I would caution against providing budget information to or seeking input from

individual members of the governing body. So this came from the state. The state would caution against doing this, but it's not necessarily prohibited entirely. Is that what I'm hearing then? No. Yeah. He said he would caution. I would caution providing budget information to or seeking input from individual members of the governing body. That means our commissioners.

All right. So it's kind of a gray area, like you said, but the former budget officer and the former finance director waited until the first public meeting when it became a public document to give it to the commissioners. Okay. Now, this still doesn't change what you talked about yesterday of concerns that the former budget officer, Simon Hare, who quit and then of course was fired by the board last week though, You're still, they're still concerned that information was illegally or unwisely or unlawfully disclosed here?

Well, he signed a confidential statement and his contract to be the budget officer. Did he remain confidential? It would appear not, no. It would appear not. No. It would appear not, yes. So anyway, later on this week, I'm going to release a public statement. I'm going to clear the air over this whole thing. I'm going to expose a lot of things that people don't understand,

and hopefully we can get this thing behind us and move forward with making Joseph County safer and prosperous. Is there anything about this that you would like to comment on air, or we have to kind of set on tender hooks waiting? Well I would prefer to do an ad-written statement because I've dealt with the press enough and I've dealt with what people say on Facebook and it's easy to twist your statements. So I'm gonna put this all in writing so there's no mistake about what I said and they can take that for what it is. Okay Commissioner Smith I

appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Ron. Be well. Well, thank you, Bill, for having me. Is there anything else you wanted to add? I didn't know if there was anything else you wanted to add before this. No, I ran as a People's Commissioner. That's exactly what I'm aimed today. I'm still a People Commissioner. I'm here to serve people. I make all my decisions based on one thing. What's best for the citizens of Josephine County? And I'll continue to make my decisions that way. Let me ask your opinion. This is just an opinion I'm looking for at this point. Do you think

that what we're experiencing or what has been experienced the last few weeks since the new board came in has been hurt somewhat by essentially all three not really having a lot of experience in the chair before coming in. We used to have at least one incumbent that would have still remained in there. What are your thoughts on that at all? I don't know if that's necessarily a problem. You've got to understand I've trained for this job for 25 years. I know all these people, former commissioners. I understand the job. We're

decision makers. I understand it. But understanding what we had to do to root out waste. I won't use the word corruption, waste, but inefficiency in county departments and restructure the county. What we've done, it was absolutely need, needful to expedite that process. Well, we've done most of that process, so we're back to normal governance now. All right. Commissioner Smith, thanks so much. Be well. Thank you. Have a good day. Yeah, you're welcome anytime you need to bend the error, folks. It's 755 KMED 993 KBXG. Hey there, it's Lisa from Kelly's Automotive Service in Grants Pass in Medford. I know, air conditioning might not be at the top of your mind right now, but summer is coming.

If your defroster isn't working like it should, that's a sign you might be low on prion and trust me, when that first hot day hits and your AC gives up early, you'll wish you'd come in sooner. So be a hero and get your AC checked before the heat hits. Kelly's Automotive Service where we service your vehicle but take care of you. Voting is being tabulated for Bicoastal Media's Best of Southern Oregon contest presented by Dusty's Transmission. Results are coming soon. Meanwhile, go to thebestofsouthernoregon.com and reserve your ad space in the 2025 edition of the Best of Southern Oregon, to be published in early August.

All information is there and flip through the current online magazine too. Thank you to all who nominated and voted in this year's Best of Southern Oregon contest and good luck to the nearly 1800 businesses who were nominated. Joel here from Butler Ford and Truck Center and it's been awesome helping a lot of people save money

with the Ford employee pricing. There's only about a month left in this program. So come down to Butler Ford and Truck Center and it's been awesome helping a lot of people save money with the Ford employee pricing. There's only about a month left on this program, so come down to Butler Ford and Ashland and I'll show you how the employee pricing program works. What does that mean to you? You can buy a new Ford F-150 for $10,000 off MSRP or a new Ford Escape Hybrid for $11,000 off MSRP. Want to haul the family around? How about a Ford Expedition for 10,000 off MSRP? Ford Employee Pricing plus Butler Discounts, you're only going to get that kind of deal here in Ashland. Plus, we're still posting invoices on all our new Fords, and if you don't see one posted, come on inside and happily show it to you.

Hey, by the way, I want your trade. Before you sell your trade vehicle anywhere else, let me give you a no obligation cash and trade quote. Ford Employee Pricing plus Butler Disc Butler discounts for everyone at Butler Ford and Truck Center in Ashland, just 12 short minutes down the freeway where you know we've got your truck, your SUV, your certified pre-owned and savings. Stock numbers TR-59832, 599-58 and 595-66. Discounts include Ford rebates and all dealer discounts.

Stock market up, stock market down. Tariffs in place. The president's policy has gotten us to a very successful place. Tariffs on hold, 90 days. Even with this pause, significant damage has been done. What's really going on? Up to 70 countries are pushing for talks, but China is retaliating. and the trade wars have no winners. We'll keep you updated with everything you need to know. This game of tit for tat cannot continue indefinitely. Always on News Talk 106.3 KMED. You're hearing the Bill Meyers Show on 106.3 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. David responded back on my, uh,

my take a little bit, uh, that, uh, I didn't like the arm twisting on Amazon over tariffs because I just don't like spin. Let them go out, let them put out what they want their website. But anyway, David said, uh, Amazon bill was being deceptive. All the States add cost to products coming into their states and California is the worst. When they don't share that information and only show the cost of the tariffs, they deserve to have their arms twisted so that they stop lying and tell the truth. I disagree with you David because the other taxes that California may add in or Oregon

could add in, actually we don't have sales taxes so we don't do that at this point, but there are corporate activity taxes for whatever it is. Those are not controversial at this point and are kind of built in. These are sudden price hikes that are built in and built in for only one reason, tariffs. And that's why Amazon was going to put that on some of their deals so people weren't looking, hey, wait a minute. This piece of crap from China was $5 and now it's $15 or whatever the case might be. The thing is the tariff was a political action and Amazon, I think,

in my way of viewing things, and I don't even like Amazon, please understand. I don't like the arm twisting to keep truth out from people. Now, yeah, you could say, yeah, breakout. Ideally, it would be great to say, great, here's the California tax, here's this and that tax, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about the tariff tax. That's what we're talking about. That's what was imposed by Fiat, okay? That's the controversy here. Yeah, and yeah yeah yeah ideally I'd love to see it broken down every time I buy something like half a penny of it goes to this jurisdiction etc etc not really doing but the tariff is a blunt force big one

that's a big one much more than all the rest of it though and all I'm getting at though is we can talk about sensitive negotiations going on this and that the other. If tariffs are so great, why would anybody be afraid of someone seeing what the tariff costs? See, this is about narrative control. And I'm not a fan of that, David. That's all.

And you and I, I guess, are going to disagree on that. And so that's where we go. Other than that, I've been really happy with what the Trump administration has done. And you know, what he's doing may work fine, but to just say, okay, this is how much it costs, we've got to take our medicine, but yet look at all the several trillion dollars of investment which is going to come from this, etc. There's all sorts of ways to spend this. But I felt that we were being spun on that, and I don't like my own guy trying to spin me. Thank you. 7705. That's just me, David. You don't have to...but that's not

the sky is falling. I don't like I got from Jesse Rabinowitz, the National Homelessness Law Center. I couldn't call him. I didn't feel like talking with him about it. I'd probably be yelling too much. But this came in yesterday and I shared a little bit of this on Facebook. Tomorrow, which means today, the Trump administration's U.S. Forest Service will evict nearly 100 homeless Oregonians living in the Deschutes National Forest under threat of one year in jail, $5,000 in fines or both.

Recently, the Trump administration announced that the Deschutes Forest would be opened to logging. Yeah, that's my opinion, the dum-dum-dum. But anyway, residents of the forest have filed a request for a temporary restraining order. Get in line, everybody else with Don, right? Temporary restraining order surfacing nearly... Okay, there's a hundred homeless

people there, folks. Remember, even the homeless lawyer here, Rabinowitz, or the representative, saying, okay, we're going to evict nearly one hundred homeless Oregonians living in the Deschutes Forest, but out of these nearly one hundred, almost 80 of them are disability claims. Disability claims! What do you think? That honestly there's just a bunch of handicapped people living out in the middle of the forest? Or is it a bunch of drunk and addicted, essentially a bunch of drug addicts out there living in the forest? What do you think it is? You think the AP is going to mention that side of it or look at it more?

Oh, they have disability claims. Oh, I am so addicted and mentally ill from my addiction that give me disability. Boy, I'll tell you, that's something I wish they would get rid of here in the Social Security, the SSI or the disability program. Such abuse in that. I'd love for them to doze that. But anyway, yeah. So we have probably 80 really seriously addicted and mentally ill people that, well, we can't evict them. They have to live in the forest forever because, well, they're addicted and mentally ill. Oh, and get this. The government has not conducted a full environmental

impact assessment. What? These homeless people that the Trump administration's U.S. Forest Service are going to evict today out of the Deschutes forest? What, they're like the spotted owl? They're an endangered species? Is that what it is? And this is their habitat, their natural habitat? I think most of the people in Deschutes County were probably looking at this as an invasive species I would just say, but how do you think that's going to work out? I'm thinking of someone, in fact, I think this is Dave, Minor Dave over here. I seem to recall Minor Dave, I'm going to have to get Dave as soon as his call answers because I think he has something interesting to say about that. Dave, this is you, right? I know this is your number, right? Right, this is me. Okay, now weren't

you thrown in jail for a month over living on your mining claim, if I recall? Right, and under the Mining Act, I had the right to occupy. Yeah, I know we can probably argue about that, but there's pretty well-settled stuff that you're not allowed just to camp out in the forest forever, right? Well, no. If you're homeless and you're not productive on a mining claim, you can't be there. And even though I had a legal right to be there, they didn't recognize it because of Chevron doctrine. So I was convicted and got 30 days in jail. Yeah, I remember that. 30 days in the hole. But at least you weren't homeless at that time.

I'm teasing you, of course. Right. I was considered homeless, but I didn't go that route because I wanted to be productive and try to eat out a living when I didn't have anything. Yeah. Well, I know that the AP and I'm sure that O-Live and everybody else today will be detailing how the Trump administration's U.S. Forest Service is being big, big meanies to disabled people, gentle disabled people.

Yikes. Right. All right. Thanks, Dave. I knew you would call. Dave's going to call on this one. Yeah. He knows what the camping rules are out there on public land. Boy, KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass.

Yeah, the spotted owl homeless over in the Deschutes Forest are going to be removed today. What are they hiring? Barred owl people? Oh, that's right, the agents coming in from the Trump administration. Yeah, barred owl, the barred owl is going after them today. Yikes. Are you turning 65 and entering Medicare this year? The details can be confusing and it's easy to miss important facts or get stuck with

a late fee. Come see me well ahead of your birthday so you can make sure you understand the system and have time to think through your options. So if you're turning 65, call me, Lynn Barton, at 541-499-0958 or find me at SkyparkINS.com.