Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-06-25_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

05-06-25_TUESDAY_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. It's open phones on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Anything is on your mind. Hey, we just roll with this. A couple of things.

Worst movies you think that the Trump administration should tariff out of existence? A thousand percent tariff. It doesn't deserve to be seen. We could certainly talk about that. Who should go into Alcatraz? There's a bunch of things we can go. Maybe even student loans too. Why don't we, I'm going to start with student loans first.

We're going to get to everybody though. 7705633, Glen Arshambo. You wanted to talk about the student loan issue I was just talking about with Paul Oster. Go ahead, what's on your mind? Well, very politely, Bill. I'm going to tell you guys, you're all wrong about the student Oster. Go ahead, what's on your mind? Well, very politely, Bill, I'm going to tell you guys you're all wrong about the student loan business. How's that? That's really wrong is we don't have the right kind of jobs. When I went

to college, I had jobs in the afternoon, worked in machine shops and things like that, big farms. But I had the money to pay to go to school. And I didn't take the loans out. My whole family though had to work really hard to get through college and not overspend. But right now, if you're a reasonably bright person and you needed to go out and get a job in Oregon so you could go to college, good luck.

We need a whole new industry to employ people so that they don't get themselves into these troubles in the first place. And I will agree with you on the respect that the government, especially the state of Oregon, was more than happy. Remember a few years ago, I don't know if you heard Ted Kulagonski, former governor, come on and say, hey, everybody's got to go to college. And I questioned that at this point. I said, this just sounds to me like it's a debt disaster waiting to happen. Or I said, where does that affect something like that back in the day?

And so that does appear to be playing out a bit, you think? Yep. And reality is hitting is what's happening is if you're sitting behind that big school loan right now and you're sitting behind that big school loan right now and you're realizing you have to go find some kind of job somewhere in the world Oregon is not the place you're going to have to go to a different state because we have failed to provide and create those jobs that would put people into school. Well the state has been openly hostile to any real commerce in my opinion. Isn't that part of it? Yes. Okay. All right. Hey Glenn, thanks for the take on that 7705633. Kirk is here. Kirk, you want to talk

about the first residence of a newly refurbished Alcatraz if that ended up being happening. I don't know how realistic it is but what do you think? Go ahead. Oh, I've got the perfect person. George Soros. Soros you think should be the first one? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Bread and water diet too because you know I think that whatever it is has been keeping him around for a long time. I think he's one of those globalist guys that ends up getting the serum, the life-extending serum. There is absolutely no reason you look at this guy that he should still be breathing, but yet here he is.

Well, and you might as well make it a family affair and put his son right in there because he's taken over for him. Yeah, we're just going to get Alex in there just because of the crimes you're about to commit. We know you, Alex. We know your family. Okay. Perfect.

Okay. Thank you for that Kirk 7705633 let me go to Brad. Oh Brad. I need a I need a theme from you first. Here we go Come on, where's Brad's theme? I gotta get a Brad theme here. Oh There we go. I can't have Brad on without a polka How you doing Brad, I'm so glad I have polka dotted underwear. Absolutely. What's on your mind sir? Gets me in the mood. Hey I'm gonna get off a little bit of the track you're on but it's important. We're coming up on the 45th anniversary on the 18th of Mount St. Helens going off.

The reason that is interesting, is I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but the USGS, the big government agency that follows everything, they have recorded over 325 cosmic events, or seismic events at St. Helens since the first of this year. Huh. Is this indicative of perhaps future sportiness in your opinion then? Well, what's interesting though, it's not the only volcanic site on the whole West Coast that's all of a sudden maintaining some activity it hasn't had in decades. Now in this case, you know it's been 45 years on the 18th when St. Helens went off.

I was in the Eastern Washington when that event took place so I have kind of a personal experience as far as that goes but the reality of it is we're having a lot of very interesting events happening on the whole west coast including Alaska with the volcanic sites or mountains that are volcanic I guess you might say that are acting way beyond normal. And so what helps give me perspective, and I'll put this on in a context that you'll relate to, what keeps me sane is a slice of a piece of bread and a can of Rainier beer.

Thank you very much. At least, you know, if the ash cloud is coming at you, you'll go out happy, right? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you, brother. It's 7705633. Yikes. Let me go to Cherry. Cherry is our resident film critic. Cherry, I'm glad to have you here. And so, with all the movies that you have watched, I'm sure there are a couple that you would like the Trump administration to tariff out of existence. Can I give you mine first, if you don't mind? Of course. All right. The two worst movies of all time that Trump should tariff into oblivion.

Reno 911. I actually walked out of that movie several years ago when it was in. I thought it was the most just ridiculous disgusting movie ever. The second movie is The Punisher, the one with John Travolta in there. Did you ever see that? No. Okay, The Punisher is one of those Marvel comic type of adaptations of some sort. One of the most you know, pointlessly violent, misogynistic... I know that the wife was a problem, but you know the bad guy Travolta drops the wife onto the railroad track below. And of course it's the standard kind of thing in which they kill his family, hence he can go and do absolutely anything. You know one of

those kind of stories? We walked out of that one too. Okay, so the Punisher I thought was a tariff it out of existence. So there we go, and America's a better place. So that's mine. What about yours? Well, I think Clockwork Orange, I walked out. I could not believe how scary that was, how insanely violent for, know it's like x-rated yeah gleefully gleefully violent yeah right unbelievable but the one that I saw recently 2021 called nobody with Bob Odenkirk and Christopher Lloyd oh that is the best movie I've seen in a long time. And, you know, it just seemed kind of like blah at the beginning. But man, oh man. Was this the guy that every time they asked him what he was, he's like a nobody,

but he was actually really a somebody that was really good at killing the bad guys, right? Was that the one? And that's the one I thought, okay, I did see that. I did see that. I did see that and yeah it was it was quite violent but it was violent for a purpose. Right. Clockwork Orange is considered a great movie, a great classic movie, but I never felt it. You know when I watched it I I kind of had the reaction that you did to me. I felt dirty after watching that movie. Yeah I walked out I couldn't I couldn't take it it was just insane I mean it was it was the music was terrible and now what's that other with I can't remember Stephen King

anyway he's a writer The Shining, the shining. That was, again, supposed to be really good, but I felt it was too much with the violence and the poor wife and the poor kid. I mean, yeah, I can't take that kind of stuff. All right. Well, thank you for adding to the Trump tariff list of bad film. Okay? Tariff the bad stuff, right? You see, anything you tax or tariff is because you want less of it, right?

So we want less bad film. Thanks for the call. 770-563-3. Let me go to the next line. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hey Bill, it's Will Salmon.

Steve, take a bite. What do you say? You guys mentioned Clockwork Orange. That was intentionally awful, but we're living it right now. So it was a predictive movie. I wonder how much of what we see out of Hollywood at times and in the fiction world is almost predictive programming of sorts. Yeah, and I agree completely with Glenn O'Shavel. I worked my way through college. I ended up with $500 in debt because my roommate stole some money from me. Now I know that back in the day I was trying to persuade my

daughter not to go great or deeply into college debt but she's smart girl. She ended up doing okay, but she did operate from the position of someday we're going to forgive these debts, right? That was kind of where she was. And a lot of kids like her at that time, she's in her 30s now, but back when she was a kid, they really were looking at this as a vote for Barney

and he's gonna get rid of this and make this go away. My son did the same thing and he's a smart guy, but when he was going to college, first thing he met this gal and they got married and had a baby and they did awful things financially. They were growing angelfish and they spent a whole bunch of money on tanks and water filters and whatever. Angelfish. That was just an awful thing. The real reason I called was, in Trump's economy, something that's not mentioned is that almost

all manufacturing is based on just in time. So Ford Motor Company is an example. They have many suppliers of parts and pieces, and all of it is designed to end up at the manufacturing plant at the time they need it. They don't have anything on hand. This Trump deal has really disrupted the just-in-time model because one manufacturer or one parts supplier that you can't get the stuff from ends everything. So you think that what is going to happen in the Trump economy is more of a restoration of warehousing?

of warehousing? Well, I don't know what it is. I just know that many of the manufacturers are grinding to a halt right now because they can't get the parts. Now, Trump is meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada today and hopefully they'll get something worked out because a big share of the parts that go into automakers are from Canada, but a lot of them are from China. We don't have any foundries in this country. Well, we have some, but many, many of them are gone.

Clamath Iron and Locomotive Works that was in Clamath Falls was a foundry. And I know that higher level steel milling is not necessarily a big thing here yet and I know the Trump administration working to do that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Hey Steve, thanks for that. I appreciate it. And 7705633, we're taking open phones here on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Good morning. Who's this? It's Jane. Hi Jane. What's on your mind? Pebble or else? Well, I'll tell you, I have a funny scam. What's that? There's one I get in Texas from supposedly AAA.

Uh-huh. The car warranty is about to run out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. How many cars you have, Jean? I got one car and it's not the year they keep trying to say it is. Oh, yeah. Yeah, how many cars you have Jean? I Got one car and it's not the year. They keep trying to say it is. Oh, yeah They keep trying to get you to bite don't they Yeah, only thing is the only thing they want me to contact him with is the computer I don't have and I wouldn't do it anyway So well, I'm still a big fan of drawing and quartering of scamsters. What do you think? I don't have and I wouldn't do it anyway. So. Well, I'm still a big fan of drawing and quartering

of scamsters. What do you think? I think that would be a good idea. Yeah. I mean, because it's just attrition. You know, if you just end up running, you run out of scamsters, the more of them then end up being drawn and quartered

and hanged to dry like beef jerking in the public square. I don't know if that sounds really gross and really intense, but if there's anything that just cuts me to my core when I hear about people being ripped off like that, it just irritates me. You know, it's no different than sticking a gun in someone's face and stealing from them. That's all. It's just a softer gun. Let's go back to Tom Feather.

But I wish that Trump would bring back the radios that work more than a few more, a little time. Okay, make radios great again. All right, thank you Gene. 7705633. We're having some fun and some serious stuff from time to time. It's Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Good morning. Who's this? This is Minor Dave. Hello Dave. I have a pet peeve and I have a favorite movie. No, it's a pebble, not a pet peeve. It's a pebble in your shoe, okay? Right. So it's a pebble in my shoe and I have a really good movie. I don't know if you've seen it. It's called Quincy Down Under with Tom Sillick and the guy that acted in God Hard, Ron Scroober.

All right. But what about, we were looking for a movie to tariff because it is so bad. What's the worst one ever? Well, there's too many of them to list. Okay, we'll give it to you, alright? Thanks. So now, the pet peeve is there is evil in the world and they're called attorneys, they're devil's advocates. Now, I don't think attorneys are evil. The thing is, they're human and let me tell you, if you're going to find yourself in the system, you better hope you have a good one,

a good devil's advocate. That's all I would say. All right. Thank you, Dave. 770-5633. Although they have the best lawyers jokes. Talk to the attorneys. They usually have the best ones. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Good morning, Bill. It's Francine. Hi, Francine. All right. Well, I have a couple of little things I wanted to talk about. One is scams and the other is movies. Yeah.

And, okay, as far as the scams go, I'm thinking a really good, you know, not there's a lot of them that call and just don't say anything, you know, like I'll pick up the phone and go, who's calling, please. It's silence, you know, so I don't know about what that's all about at all. But the ones where they start trying to talk to you about something and con you into having getting into a conversation with them, the I've come up with the perfect response. You say, if you're legitimate, please send me a letter. I do not accept phone solicitations and just hang up. That's all. And if it's that way, if it's a legitimate thing, they will reach out back to you. You know, what I would do is that if you have someone trying to

engage you in a conversation, do it. All right. But talk about things like, you know, I really get hives when I eat cheese, you know, things like that. And I have a burning itch in my crotch. Do you have anything that can help me with this one? I mean, it bubbles and blisters and this and that. And just see if you can gross them out. What do you think? Well, you know, Bill, I just think that was really fun to do sometimes, you know, come

up with, you know, really just play them, you know, play with them. Yeah. But I've decided that that really is useless because so many people do that. They are just totally immune to that stuff. They could care less. They know. Okay.

All right. Oh, someone's going to try to have fun with me. We're not going to let them. Okay. Getting back at them. All right. Yeah. So, okay.

So the movie thing. Okay. Trump. What the heck is Trump interfering in what we choose for entertainment? Admittedly, there are more people that have really bad taste in entertainment, but that's on them. They also have bad taste in everything else in their lives, usually, if they're that through that. And they also have bad taste in the politicians that they then elect in California, as an example, which destroys their movie industry, right?

I mean, honestly, here's the challenge that I have with Trump going after this and trying to tear off movies. He can't tear off foreign movies into making Hollywood successful because the issues that we face and I would also add in manufacturing and everything else is the lack of competitive advantage due to high wage, high regulatory and permitting state. You know, the state says no all the time, right? You know, what else? And unless you're going, you have to strike at the root in my opinion if you're going to try to make Hollywood great again and also get rid of all the left-wing ideologues, which means there's nobody left. There's like Tom Selleck.

There's like Tom Selleck and Mel Gibson, the only two people left in Hollywood. I know. There's a few of them, Eastwood. There's a few good people still in there and all that. But the thing about Hollywood is the corruption has become so ingrained. It's like the roots are just all, it's like cancer that is just all over your body. It's metastasized.

You're not going to be able to root it out. And it's always been kind of corrupt. I not going to be able to root it out. And it's always been kind of corrupt. I mean, you go back to the 20s and 30s and it wasn't clean. There was all kinds of nastiness going on. Hey, all you have to do is read the old book. I remember this is a book when I was a young man called Hollywood Babylon. You ever read that book? Yeah. No, I never did, but I've heard about it. But yeah, it talked about all the smuttiness of the so-called golden age of Hollywood, 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Yeah, it was quite interesting. Well, you know, you have an industry that makes people very, very wealthy and very,

very famous, and you're going to get people who are going to be willing to do anything to achieve that. And you know, whether the Illuminati is running it or whatever I mean there's a lot of evidence of some really really sick stuff going on in there. Alright, point well taken. Alright, point well taken. Francie, thank you for a great Pebble in Your Shoe Call Tuesday. Alright, now then we still have a little bit of time left. Let me see, 7705633. Let's see. David writes me, Bill, the movie I would like to see tariffed out of existence is Hitler the last 10 days.

It is the worst... Now, Hitler the last 10 days. This is not the one that they made all of the online memes about. Is it, Dave? But anyway, Hitler the last 10 days is the worst movie I've ever seen on the subject the German Army officers had British accents all right Dave thanks for that 7705633 we're here with Susan a clauser drilling customer Susan what was the most impressive part of the experience actually seeing the trucks come in and get everything set up and getting started on the drilling itself. And did you watch them perform the job? I did watch them drill the well.

I was so curious about it. And when they hit water, I burst into tears. I had my own waterworks going on. It was a tremendous, tremendous relief. Visit clauserdrilling.com. Hi, this is Bill Meyer and I'm with Charisse from No Wires Now, your Dish Premier local retailer. It's time to switch to Dish. If you have Direct TV or cable TV, call me today to see how I can save you money. Plus, I'll lower your

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News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Michael's here on Pebble in the Shoe, Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. What's on your mind, Michael? Go ahead. Hey, good morning, Bill. First, I'd like to play devil's advocate for the teachers because everybody's picking on them so bad. You know, play devil's advocate for the teachers because everybody's picking on them so bad.

But you know, what happens when you ask the teachers, tell the teachers you want your children to read at an adult level? Well, what happens if you do ask a teacher to do that? You get what you got. You'll be reading at an adult level in fifth grade. Okay, well, the thing is though is that it is a possibility. Now, I'm just talking about my experience, but I had a parent that actually helped me learn to read when I was four, so I knew how to read quite well when I was

already going into first grade. It was not that big of a deal. It helped out a lot. But wouldn't you think to some extent though, Michael, that teachers are left off the hook because they have great political power. There is no more powerful union in the state of Oregon than the teachers union. If unions wanted their kids to have real proficiency and great instruction. Couldn't they have forced that issue? Oh, of course they could do it, but their idea of adult-level reading is different than yours. That's my point. I wanted to get to my pebble.

Sure, go ahead. Yeah you know when you when you rule by executive order nobody's going to invest in you know like say they just opened up the Pacific fishing ground from they've been closed for years right put a lot of people out of business I mean I know people in Hawaii that pretty much lost their whole thing, you know, because of this. And so he's going to open it back up for three years, and he expects these people to invest millions and millions of dollars to restore their fleet, right? And nobody's going to do it, sadly, because in three years, they're going to shut it back down. Because when you don't address the issue, you just, by executive order, you expect everybody to do all this investment.

Same with all the steel industry and everything. If you don't change the root of the issue, nobody's going to invest a bunch of money in a steel mill that's going to be shut down in three years. Do you understand? That has been a concern of mine too, with everything being done by executive order. Executive order makes for great headlines. doesn't necessarily mean long-term policy, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. And so you have a Congress which I think has only done about five or six bills at this point since going into power, so they're a little bit behind the curve, I guess. Yeah, I don't think they're ever gonna really do anything about it. It's all by design, it seems to me, but I don't know. All right Michael appreciate the call let me go to Brad. Hello Brad you wrap it up this segment. Hey Bill good morning Brad here. Yes. I really enjoyed your discussion

regarding credit and economic things earlier and you know it just really reminded me how important it is for people to work with their young people, you know, their kids, their nephews, nieces, by any way imaginable that they can become property owners instead of renters. You know, in Trump's first term, Ben Carson was the guy that ran HUD. They did a study and they found out that homeowners have a net worth that is 195,000 more than renters. So the average renter had $5,000 of net worth, the average homeowner had $195,000 different. What does that mean then when you have the state of Oregon and even the city of Medford

seeming to want to focus so much on climate friendly, equitable community and everything's rental housing. Doesn't that strike you as odd? Bill, it really does. And the bottom line on this thing is really simple. Apartment living is manufactured future poverty. If you cannot enjoy the benefits of being a homeowner, and can I give you just a real quick personal example? Sure. being a homeowner and can I give you just a real quick personal example? Sure. Okay. My wife and I, our first home, we closed in September 1977.

It was $25,000, 9.5% interest loan, so on and so forth, three-year amortization. $25,000 in 1977. Today that home is worth $365,000. So the difference is $340,000. $340,000 roughly 47 years later. That is about a, hard to believe, but true. That is about a $7,000 increase in value every year for all of those years. But I would add that, but I would also add that at the expense of the lack of growth in the price of labor.

So what we've experienced, and I'm not disagreeing with you that this was the ticket to go, which is why so many young people were hungering to get into this, but I think you have to look at the overall monetary system, which has been corrupt, especially since the early 1970s, more corrupt than usual since the 1970s, and we just inflated and inflated and inflated. And essentially, labor, the price of people working for a living there, has not even begun to keep up to the explosion of the price of an asset like that. Fair enough? Well, what you say is true. And what I would say along with that is that residential property is going to continue

to appreciate over time. It's not going to be the same amount every year, but it's going to continue to appreciate. The only question is, who gets to keep that appreciation? And in communities where the residents, where the people actually own the dirt underneath their home and they get to keep that equity, your economic environment, which is kind of what you're talking about

when you're talking about credit and things as you did earlier this morning, the economic environment that you're going to live in, that your family is going to live in, is much healthier in communities where there's a higher ratio of home ownership. Point well taken. Brad, thank you for that.

742. Former Senator Barrett Shicker standing by. We always have a kind of talk on the various issues of import too, all on the way. So you're a batteries plus go-to guy. But can you replace the battery in my smartphone? Yes. What about my employees' phones?

Yep. Can you power my business day to day? Yes. What about my employee's phones? Yep. Can you power my business day to day? Yes. What about my delivery truck? Let me put it this way. If it needs a battery, we have it. Well, that's all you had to say. Batteries Plus, the expert's in charge.

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no fluff, just results. Get started at KMED.com. Click the Advertise Marketing tab. News brought to you by Millett Construction, specializing in foundation repair and replacement. Get on solid ground. Visit Millett Construction.com. From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. Grants Pass representative Dwayne Youngker is under investigation in the Oregon House under House Rule 27. It prohibits harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. At issue, Younger was giving a speech in opposition to Senate Bill 1098, which

aims to restrict book bans in schools. His crime was reading a scene from the 2016 book, The Haters, which was challenged in the Three Rivers School District but ultimately remains on school shelves. In essence, he read from a book which is considered appropriate for middle schoolers but is too lascivious to be heard by adults in the legislature. A bill headed to Governor Tina Koteck aims to make it easier for Oregon nonprofits and local governments to preserve open space. Supporters say it'll protect land from development. Oregon is joining a lawsuit against the Trump administration over cuts to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The suit argues Trump's actions violated federal statutes

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North Riverside in Medford, parking an entrance behind the building. Hi, I'm Lisa with Pacific Survey Supply and I'm on KMED. 747 and change and former state senator Herman Barrett-Sugar, we always sit around and kind of shoot the breeze. Of course he used to be in government, he's now taking a well-deserved retirement and taking care of the ranch or farm. What do you actually call that, Herman? Welcome back. Well, I guess technically it's a ranch because we're hay and cattle. Okay, good. Would you have a choice of a movie for the Trump administration to

terrify out of existence? I know you're having some fun with that one. Anything come to mind that's so bad it should be, you know, just destroyed financially? I don't know. You know, how do you think that... Hey, I got some good news. Okay, what, the legislature walked out? What? What's the good news? No, the Ethics Commission dismissed another one of the complaints against me. I'm still dealing with that. Still? Okay. Yeah. All right. You know, and the lion's share of that was filed by J.J. Schofield, our former human resource director, you know, and he left on kind of bad terms. I was reading that.

Some of the complaints he'd say is, we're having an illegal meeting because he felt we made decisions too quickly. So obviously, we would have had to have discussions. Oh, so we have people filing complaints because they think that they're psychic. They're psychic then about what's going on in the government back when you were in it. Okay, so it ended up getting dismissed. You, on the other hand, have talked quite often about how, in your opinion, the Ethics Commission in the state of Oregon has been weaponized,

mostly against conservatives and conservative Republicans, but Then how do you figure? We had the Shemeah Fagan former secretary of state, you know getting bags of cash from Lamota, you know, that sort of thing Lamota Back when she was in there. I mean Do you think that she was treated fairly? Her name what's that now? She has a D next to her name. What's that now? She has a D next to her name. So she's got, what was it like, $10,000 a month she was getting from LaMotta?

And what did they fine her? $1,000, something like that? I think it was $1,500 that she ended up being fined by the Ethics Commission. Do you think that was a fair assessment? You know what? I thought it was a great business deal on Shemeah Fagan's part. She got hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't know what the total was, but $10,000 a month for Howard every many months.

And she only had to pay a thousand dollars in fines. I'll take that deal. Is that the only ethics complaint that was filed against her? Are you aware? Do you know? I, I, I don't know.'t know. I'm not really following that. Okay. Yeah. Well, given the fact that how many of you had to fight off over the last few years? Oh, God, there was 20 some when I was in the Senate as the Senate leader,

and they were all dismissed. And I think I'm up to six or seven here as a county commissioner. And I got one more to go which is scheduled for the 25th of October believe it or not. Boy, wheels of justice in the Ethics Commission grind slowly, huh? Yeah and you know what that one's about. You have to do a declared conflict of interest. So we're working on fee changes for different fees in the county. So I said out of abundance of caution, I may have a conflict of interest because I may at some point, like every other citizen in Josephine County, have to pay some of these

fees. Well, the ethics commission says, oh, you need to be more specific of what fees you may have to pay some of these fees. Well, the Ethics Commission says, oh, you need to be more specific of what fees you may have to pay. I said, well, how would I know? And I said... Okay, okay. No, no. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on here, Herman. So the Ethics Commission is claiming that when you declared a conflict of interest, so you declare a conflict of interest, saying there could be a conflict of interest because I might pay these fees, but then they say you have to be more specific, but you haven't come up with the fees yet. So how can you be specific about what you're declaring a conflict of interest over? I'm just trying, I'm confused here. So help me understand this. Well, join the

crowd. I mean, I have no idea what fees I'm going to pay in the future. If I never go to a county park, I'll pay no county park fees. If I never do any development on my property, I'll pay no planning fees. I have no idea what fees I'm going to pay in the future. So out of an abundance of caution, you declare that and then the Ethics Commission then smacks back on you on this. Well, it even gets worse because months prior to that, months, I had Wally Hicks, our legal counsel, sent them a letter asking them, what do you want us to say? What do you want us to declare? How do you want us to approach this? See, in the Senate, you know, we have to go to Senator's school and they tell us. And in the Senate, you know... Now, when you go to Senate school, is that where they treat Republican senators or teach Republican senators to always be there and

help Democrats pass their bills? Is that where they learn? Yeah, they do some of that. That's called bipartisan. Oh, okay. I just always wondered because I always hear about this reaching across the aisle thing. So there's a school for this. Great. Okay. Yeah, so on issues, if say I'm a realtor, okay, and now I am going to vote on a bill that affects realiters, I'm in a class because I'm not the only realtor. And if you're in a class, you don't have to do a conflict of interest. And so I asked the ethics commission, is it the same, you know, at the county level, you know, like the fees. I'm going to pay fees like everybody else in the county. So am I in a class? Well, they couldn't answer the question. But yet they still went after

you for asking the question or for declaring this? Yeah, so I asked the investigator, I said, hey, I got to remind you of something that we asked you in a letter, how do you want us to do this? And you never responded. And now you're doing an investigation. When, when you never gave us direction, we asked for direction. You didn't even give us direction. I did the best I could. I said out of abundance and caution.

I may. And now you say I did it wrong. How's that all work? So anyway, here we go. I'll let you know the rest of the story in October. Okay, so that'll be five months from now. Five months we'll get the... But I guess the... And I'm out of office, so there's nothing they can do to me anyways. Well, they could fine you, I suppose, like Shemeah Fagan. And what are they going to do if I don't pay the fine? Take my birthday away? So, I'm not worried about it, but this is how corny... Well, what I'm concerned about here, Herman, is that as much as the Ethics Commission seems

to be willing to give a pretty soft pass on Shemeah Fagan. Shemeah Fagan actually made lots of money with her ethics violation. Lots and lots of money with her ethics violation. And they only docked her $1,500 out of that. I would have thought that there would have been a little bit more out of this. But it does appear to be the ethics commission in the Republican world is done as almost like pinning you down or death of a thousand cuts. Still, that would seem to be the way it's being

operated. Would that be fair? There's people in power in Oregon that would love to see every Republican leave the state, Bill. That's how vicious they are. And when I kind of just briefed through some of the remonstrances in the Senate, as I'm always kind of focused on the Senate, they are constantly going nuts and getting up and talking about Donald Trump. Their obsession with Trump, we never had that in the eight years I was in the Senate. I never had that in the eight years I was in the Senate. I never heard that But they are they've lost their minds over Trump

What do you think about Some of the most dangerous bills coming up here before we wrap up because you've been keeping an eye on what's happening in the Senate Okay All right. So Senate bill 243, which is the gun bill It's sitting in rules and the, it's sitting in rules. And the reason it's sitting in rules, they don't want to talk about it right now. They'll wait till the end of session because it'll be, they start talking about it now, be too big of a distraction. So it's coming to a theater near you probably in June.

House Bill 3789, that's another bill that makes the unions stronger. The unions had a slew of bills that just makes them much more stronger in Oregon. The Supreme Court ruled that you don't have to belong to a union, so what they have done is they've made a bunch of rules and stuff that makes it more awkward and cumbersome if you decide not to belong to a union. Probably the biggest... Well, wouldn't that be in violation of the Janus decision from the Supreme Court? Well, they kind of nibble around, no, because you can still not. It just kind of makes it harder, makes it more cumbersome.

Yeah, it's just kind of like how the Measure 114-style bill is there that you were talking about. It doesn't get rid of your Second Amendment right. You just have to be rich and well connected to have it, I guess, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, the biggest one that really supports the unions is now if they go on strike, they can collect unemployment. That is the big one. That is one of the most corrupt things that I have heard that you would actually have the state government paying out of employer funded and unemployment comes out of employers pockets, right? They're the ones that pay the premiums that go into here. Yeah. So your workers have a disagreement with you and they get the employers to pay them to be able to walk out for the disagreement. That's amazing.

Exactly. Who would want to set up business in the state of Oregon that has any kind of unionized help whatsoever in it? How are you going to attract big business to Oregon? It ain't going to happen. These people are insane. They don't understand that we have to have a prosperous state, we have to have commerce. And to have commerce, we have to have big companies. Yeah, small companies help, and that's great. Yeah, but you see, the small companies though are where most of the real hiring goes on in this country, even today, Herman. Yeah, but you still need the big companies too to have a lot of jobs.

Because the small companies usually give services or products to the big companies. Okay, they're subcontractors. Okay, that point will take. All right. Yeah, so you're going down here. Let's see. Oh, this more rent control, more rent control, and more rent control. Oh, I'm sure this will help increase the availability of housing, no doubt. Yeah, that's right. So you know, when you live in a mobile home park, now the owner of the mobile home park can't make you take care of your lawn and pay for aesthetics. So yeah, I don't know how that's going to work. House Bill 2957 makes it tougher on

employers concerning bully complaints, so it gives more power to the person filing the complaint and less rights to the employer. But here's the big one, and nobody's talking about it. Which one? Senate Bill 686. I call it the Google bill. So what that does is that you can no longer cut and paste articles from newspapers and put it on your Facebook. And if you do, well I guess under the guise of this, the way it's working is that a fund will be created paid for by like Facebook, Metta, and the other online platforms and they will go and pay local newspapers. Isn't that what's going on? Right, but what they've said is they're just not going to allow it. And it's really interesting because they give the power to the universities in Oregon to to kind of create a way of saying what is an article and what is not.

And I don't know why the universities are involved with that. Well, you know, the thing is I talk about all sorts of articles every day that I read. And I'm wondering, will I then be taxed in addition to my already fees that I pay to subscribe to new sites because I talked about their new stories? So when LC testified, they said that it would probably be a violation of free speech, probably be a violation of the commerce cause. But it would have to go through the courts and you know what that is like in the state of Oregon. And the Democrats just said, it would have to go through the courts and you know what that is like in the state of Oregon.

It could take years. And the Democrats just said, yes, let it go through the courts then, let the courts decide. They do this all the time. They get advice from their own attorneys and they snub their nose at it and do it anyway. It's the most amazing thing. I watched that when I was in the Senate. Well, all I can say, Herman, is that the bankruptcy of the state of Oregon government can't come soon enough because, you know, as it is, they spend an awful lot of time passing laws that

seem to do everything to hasten the bankruptcy. We'll talk more next Tuesday. How about that? All right? Be well. Be prepared. We're getting closer to June, and the closer we get to June, the more the sparks fly in the Oregon legislature.

Indeed, it's kind of a quiet period at the moment, but we'll be back. Thanks, Herman. Take care. All right. See ya. Former state senator Herman Barachuk of Josephine County. We always kick around these kind of issues every Tuesday if we can. Indeed. All right. This is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. A little bit later this hour, we will have a Diner 62 Quiz that you can win. It's a fun one. It's about some television. Very famous TV show in the 1990s that we're going to go back on, and there's some history

involved in that. We're also going to have some open for business talk here, and I'm also going to be talking about a group which is going before the Supreme Court and they want the ability to not have lawyers be forced to join the American Bar Association. There's an interesting reason for that.