Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-17-25_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

06-17-25_TUESDAY_7AM

The Bill Meyer 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 ClouserDrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Kevin Sterrett rejoins the program once again, Oregon Firearms Federation, and he is a no compromise guy, unlike the state legislature, which seems quite willing to compromise on all sorts of things when it comes to your Second Amendment rights.

Kevin, welcome back. Always good having you on, sir. Morning. Thank you, Bill. All right, let's hear the the latest carnage here because on your new alert here, House Bill 3076, and this is a bill which is essentially designed to close Oregon gun stores, is now moving through the gut of the state legislature. What's the latest on this, huh? Yes, we have an elevated sense of outrage this morning. The the bill, which had had actually had gotten a hearing and then was sitting there doing nothing, has now getting in is getting a work session in a subcommittee, the Joint Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee

on Capital Construction, of all things. I don't know of any reason why it would be getting an additional work session if it wasn't being moved through the building. So what I anticipate happening, what's been happening now as it gets to the late in the session, is they can drag amendments in really at the last minute so that even now of course people are not allowed to testify at work sessions but we may not know what the final version of this bill looks like until really tomorrow morning. They could bring in an amendment at the very, I mean, I have actually seen them bring amendments

in while the work sessions were going on and have had demand that legislators vote on amendments sometimes that they hadn't even seen. But this bill, as you know, is the one that basically says to gun stores, you must meet a set of requirements that you simply cannot comply with. I mean, the- Can you give me an example of what the crazy rules, as they currently read, would indicate?

There'll be physical barriers required between the customer and the guns. There'll be these mandatory storage requirements. Guns will have to have individual locks on them that you'll only be able to take a gun out of here, hand it to somebody there. All kinds of training requirements for your employees, vast expanded new fees,

just a lot of restrictions on doing business that really will require massive capital investment. And then, of course, these same restrictions would apply if a gun dealer attempted to go to a gun show, where having steel barriers, 24-hour video surveillance on every location, years of backup of that video, every employee has to be trained and vetted, and on and on and on. I don't have time for me to get into all the restrictions. I did post a link to the bill on the alert, which is up on the website now. I've never seen a collection of restrictions on gun dealers anywhere outside of Mexico

that are this restrictive. And frankly, I don't see how dealers can comply with it. Certainly not the smaller dealers. It's maybe, maybe a big box store could, although I think it's unlikely, and it would take an enormous amount of construction. Maybe that's why they put it into capital construction project, because so much construction would be involved. But the obvious intent here is to just eliminate the ability of gun dealers to to do any business. And it appears, if I'm reading it correctly, that this wouldn't just apply to gun stores. I mean, if you have an FFL and you don't have to have a store to have an FFL,

I mean, I have attorney friends who have FFLs who just facilitate transfers and things. They would need to have video surveillance everywhere in their home. And it would apply to people who had like collectors licenses where they're not really even gun dealers. So it is the craziest bill I've ever seen so far. It is the you know, it is the the work of people like Jason Krupp, who is a logically anti-gun and also unbelievably ignorant about Oregon laws, in spite of the fact that he claims to be an attorney. The comments he made in yesterday's hearing just once again indicated that he simply does not know what he's talking about. This is an astonishingly dangerous bill. It's so late in the session. Understand that the steps that have to be taken to enact this into law, meaning it has to be voted on by the full House, then it has to go over to a Senate committee, and then it has to be voted on by the full Senate.

This can be done at lightning speed. And the fact that they've scheduled this additional work session, And the fact that they've scheduled this additional work session, I can't imagine any reason why they would do that if the plan was not to get the bill enacted. Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing this. And the bottom line here is that it seems clear that it is designed just to shut down gun stores. So it doesn't matter if you have the Second Amendment right, if there's nobody available to sell you a firearm and various accessories. Well, good. Then you have the ultimate form of gun control, right? That's the way the state's looking at this.

Sure. And I hear from a lot of people say, well, I will not comply. Well, you have no choice but to comply if there's no place to make a purchase. I mean, that's that's simply how it is. And when you look at how difficult it is to run a small business in Oregon anyway, I mean, even that crackpot Steve Dewan from the formerly wrote for the Oregonian and, you know, the failing Oregonian now writes for Willamette Week just did an article about how businesses are simply, I mean, he's a far left guy and he's pointing out that businesses just cannot survive.

Big businesses can't survive in this state. So there's simply no way that a small business is going to survive this kind of attack. Now, you know, if you're sportsman's warehouse, you might stay in business selling, you know, camp stoves. But I can't see any practical way to comply with this and stay in business. Yeah, you can see how this is what's happened. This is just this morning. I mean, this doesn't even get into what happened yesterday with 243, which is the bill that

says that concealed license holders are now going to be banned from virtually all government property. Which will make it next to difficult. Well, and the other aspect of this is that it seems designed to catch people who, let's say you are involved in a traffic stop and you're on government property, you're carrying concealed, boom, there you go, you're a felon, that kind of thing? Well, I think it mostly involves building,

actually being in the structure, but what people have to understand is, this bill is designed specifically to protect criminals. Now think about this, they said we've got to keep CHL holders out of public meetings because apparently some of the, you know, the moms demand action, the red shirted grandmas, they're uncomfortable that somebody could be carrying a gun. So the bill says if you come into our building, you're committing a crime, even though you're a licensed and you're not doing anything wrong.

They couldn't point to a single example of a CHL holder doing anything disruptive at any government meeting. But there's nothing in the bill that actually prevents a dangerous person from walking into one of these meetings well armed. And so now what you've done is you've advertised to crackpots that they will meet zero resistance.

And you said to people who obey the law, you are now locked out of this system. That is what it is designed to do. And if the Republican legislators cannot get that through their heads, they are simply sub morons. And this is what I wanted to talk about next. I understand Kevin Sterritt next. I understand, Kevin Sterritt by the way is with me here, Oregon Firearms Federation. You can read up on these alerts that we're talking about on oregonfirearms.org. Kevin,

everything has been predicated around, oh we can't walk out now. Measure 113, we have to be there to do our jobs. You know, you've heard this sort of nonsense. And I remember how the Republican Party, Oregon Republican Party, said nothing against Measure 113 when it was out there. And I've always had this suspicion that it was designed to get rid of the most steel-spined and conservative people out of the state legislature,

the ones that were, well, like Herman is an example, who were willing to back out for a purpose and stop the worst of the Democrats. And now the caucuses, according to Noah and Duane, they're telling me there seems to be no appetite for any of this. But you're making it very clear that they could stop these bills by denying quorum, just even the two bills that we've been talking about right now along with other things, and it wouldn't cost them anything regarding measure 113. Isn't that true? Well, the legislature is required constitutionally to stop business on the 29th.

Today is the 17th. Yes. That means that, and you know, you can do the math, they have to have 10 unexcused absences before they are subject to the restrictions of measure 113. So in what, two or three days, that 10-day window will be closing and then they can absolutely walk out. So the question now is how quickly will they ram these things through? But look, as I pointed out in the alert I did yesterday, Drazen, who was the House Republican leader, is telling people to write to her, well, there's no point in us walking out because if we do, they'll bring the bills back next year.

Well, so what? They bring the bills back next year. Who gives them? That was one of the most stupid responses that that could have been made we have the bill right now. The bills right now. You know completely absurd. But what they're saying is there they're telegraph and to the Democrats that you can do whatever you want because we

will not walk out because maybe you can do it again well I guarantee you they're going to do it again and again and again, although soon within the next session or so, I do not see what will be left to take away. And you know, watching the hearing yesterday with Drazen and that committee whining about amazingly whining about how she hears from all these gun owners, but she can't understand why the democrats aren't hearing from them.

And I'm looking at this, shaking my head saying, look, that's like you call the cops and say, Antifa is burning down my house. And the cops say, well, have you discussed this with Antifa? You know, I mean, the Democrats are psychopaths. They're dangerous psychopaths. And if you listen to the comments that Democrat House Rep Jason Croft made, and he's one of the primary pushers of these things, it's like, well, I don't understand why somebody needs this many rounds when you only have three rounds in a hunting shotgun. And by God, I have looked at the US Constitution and I have looked at the Oregon Constitution and try as I may, I cannot find the the US Constitution and I have looked at the Oregon Constitution and try as I may,

I cannot find the word hunting in there anywhere. But it just doesn't matter to these people. And you look at the severity of what, so what they've done with 243, which bans CHL holders from public property, bans, quote, rapid fire actuators, because God knows the thousands of people who own these devices in Oregon and have used them legally for years are only interested in mass murders.

And now 3076 comes back, and that's just what I've seen this morning. There could be more later today that says, we will close all the gun stores. And you have Christine Drazen talking about, well, why haven't you been getting in touch with the Democrats? Because we know what we're dealing with with the Democrats. The point is they have the tool to stop it. They have the tool to stop them dead in their tracks and it would be hard. I'm not saying it's a, you know, it's, I'm not, it'd be a lot of pressure on them to come back, but I'll tell you what, you know, it's almost like Republicans, the Republican caucus leaders don't want to actually lead. They just want to have an

excuse to say why they couldn't do anything. I could be wrong about that. Just feels as well. The whole thing is so absurd because you have people like the leader, Dan Bonham in the Senate, Christine Treason in the House, saying the Democrats are not hearing from you. Okay, now what are they basing that on? They're basing that on what the Democrats are telling them. Now, one thing we know about Democrats, it's certainly from the deal that Tina Koteck

passed, made years ago with Christine Treason is they are liars, pure and simple. But even if they were not hearing directly from constituents, anybody can go online and look at the testimony that's been uploaded on any of these bills. And all of the testimony or most of the testimony is absolutely against it. So the Democrats are aware of this, I'm sure, Kevin. Of course they are. In some cases, there's thousands of pieces of testimony in opposition to bills.

In some cases the only testimony is in opposition to these bills. And I don't expect any legislator to actually read anything that a mere voter writes, but all they have to do is go into OLS and look and see how many pieces of testimony that are listed in opposition and do the math. And so while we're constantly being told, well, you know, legislators need to hear from you, they do hear from us, they ignore us, and the people who we hire to protect us are saying, well, that's fine with us, you know, because God knows we like these cushy offices and we don't want to give up our jobs where we get all these wonderful perks like directing money into our personal nonprofits or having

the opportunity to get a lot of press for our next run for governor. And this reminds me of this whole thing about, oh yeah, get in touch with the Democrats. Like I get in touch with with Pam Marsh and that means she's going to vote against the gun bills, right? Which is total nonsense because they're all in favor of this kind of stuff, okay? we know it. And I was talking with Noel Robinson, state senator yesterday, and he was talking about how, you know, he brings in, it had to do with the bill. Remember the bill, which is going to force climate change curriculum into the schools so that all the kids are even more scared. And he was bringing in all the science. Here's the charts, here's the science.

You guys are full of nonsense by trying to do this. It's not science. It didn't matter. They voted for it anyway, Kevin. This is these are the people we're dealing with right now on these politically hot topics. You cannot reason with these people. You cannot bargain with them in good faith. All you can do is stop them from doing it. All you can do is take away the legislature from them for the time being. They're about to pass a resolution recognizing the great

cultural contributions that have been made by black drag queens. They are going to put that into, they're making this part of the the actual Oregon record this will be a house resolution and if you look at the the latest version of that it's kind of laughable because it's just three pages of lists of the names of famous black drag queens so what we've got are a bunch of sick perverted people who are going to be recognized as having made great cultural contributions and this crap is being taken seriously. You know they just passed a bill to recognize the Persian New Year. Now okay, nobody gets hurt. Why do we have... this is the business they're worried about? And banning guns and

recognizing the Persian New Year and and of course black drag queens contribution to society. This is not the business of the legislature. Okay, you could say this isn't hurting anybody. We recognize Chinese New Year and all that. Okay, but fine. But even if you, it's not an American holiday. I don't see other countries celebrating Independence Day. It should not be the business of the legislature because one one legislator Farah Chi Chi gets this bug up her butt that she wants this bill and then they've got to spend thousands of dollars in staff time and waste time to pass this because now we've got this one senator I don't like plastic spoons we're going to ban plastic spoons because I don't like them. Now we got a black gay legislator who wants to honor black drag queens.

This is what the states devolved into. This is what we're taking time with. You've got James Manning who wants to eliminate the word militia. No support from anyone on this bill, none whatsoever. A hundred percent opposition. But the Republicans being present, let him do it. It's absolute madness. Now, I think that bill may not move forward at this point, but there's so many other examples.

The state is in the toilet and this is the crap we are wasting time on. It is absolutely astonishing. And I'll tell you what, 3076 in the configuration it's in, and we won't know till the last minute tomorrow morning what the final amendments are going to be, is devastating to the population, to business owners, clearly unconstitutional. Not that that will matter, because we've got email alerts going out by people like House Rep Jeff Helfrich saying, well, we hope the courts will overturn this. No, that's your job is to stop this. The courts are not going to overturn it.

And if we do have to go to court, who the hell is going to pay for it because it certainly isn't you guys. And so this is the marching orders to get in touch with Republican legislators because now I know that Dwayne, I know Dwayne's willing to walk. I have no doubt that no one would be willing to walk in a situation, but you have to have more than one. You have to have a whole bunch of people. They need to be denying quorum, at least once they're within that 10-day window, and that's what as of Saturday, I guess, right? Well, okay, so there's the 17th and we've got the 29th is signing dies, so we've got

about two or three days left that they can, you know, do whatever mischief they wanna do, which they'd have to do very quickly. But the fact is, is look, this is my issue and the issue for a lot of people, but there are so many other things that are going on that are devastating this state, the tax bill that they have in mind, gas taxes going up.

You know, people can't afford what they're dealing with now, restrictions on water rights. Oh, and by the way, Jeff Goldin wants the kicker, of course, for wildfire. Don't forget that. Of course. The mismanagement that's gone on in this state, the lies, the personal, all these people are in it for their own benefit. Sure, there's exceptions. There's Noah, there's Kim Thatcher, are in it for their own benefit. Sure, there's there's exceptions. There's no where this Kim Thatcher, there's Dwayne Younger.

They are clearly in the minority. And of course, people like we've got Republican legislators. You know, Cyrus Javadi is supporting child porn in libraries. He's a Republican. Why is he supporting that? Because his son is gay. It's insane. It's absolutely insane. And we keep seeing Republican legislators. Look, he was one of the sponsors of this Persian New Year bill. What is that really our business? And is that what Oregonians

should be paying thousands and thousands of? We don't even know how much a bill actually costs. But imagine what the lawyers are being paid to write this crap. And then the staff time, the time that's spent on the floor, these legislators are being paid every minute that they're there to pursue this nonsense. Meanwhile, the streets are covered with deranged fentanyl addicts, and they're probably still handing out tents in Portland, you know, a city that's completely broke. Yeah. And don't forget the big companies like Dutch Bros taking off, right?

Officially saying, hey, we're out of here. But yeah, we're gonna worry about, but we're gonna worry about Persian New Year, right? Yeah, I mean, we shut down the logging industry. Now the high-tech people are leaving. But by God, we get to celebrate Persian New Year because we have one Iranian, I don't know if Javadi's Iranian, but because Chai Chi's Iranian, we got to have an Iranian New Year. I'll tell you. Okay, what else do we have to have? I know, the thing is though is that you're not going to convince Democrats not to be Democrats. All you can do is convince Republicans to deny the quorum. This is the only tool. Voting

no, being president voting no is not going to fix this, Kevin, on all this nonsense that we've been talking about. Being president voting no is just voting no. And- It's voting yes is what it's doing. And I mean, Drazen's all, you know, her last email to a constituent said,

you know, a walkout is no substitute for winning elections. Well, Drazen, you won an election, okay? What difference did it make? When we have people like Manix and Anderson and Givati and others who are actually supporting this nonsense, what do we care if we're electing Republicans? The Republicans are really not, you know, there are some that are trying to do the job but they're still showing up and there are others that are deeply embedded with the Democrats. They keep sending out alerts saying, look at the bipartisan efforts. Here's a picture of me with the governor. It's like,

they do not grasp the severity and the gravity of how bad things are. They're bad for the people, but for the legislators, it's just business as usual. That's the Washington generals versus, you know, the Harlem Globetrotters. Well, it's the Washington generals versus, you know, the Harlem Globetrotters. Right. And I guarantee you on the 29th on sunny day when it was sunny, die when that legislature's over, they're going to both walk together in one house and hug each other like it was a softball game that one of them won and one of them lost. And now we're all going out for a beer. And meanwhile, Oregonians are being crushed and going bankrupt and their businesses

are closing or moving out of state because nobody will step up and say this crap has to stop. Well, there are some people that have to that are willing to stop it and you need to encourage them to do this including Christine Drazen. Christine Drazen of course is a total failure unfortunately as a house leader in my opinion but we will uh you've uh told us pretty much what's going on here, Kevin. Oregon Firearms Federation, you can actually read what's going on. Kevin's got it there. Get in touch with these people.

Within a couple of days, they have 10 days left, less than 10 days. They can walk out, they can deny quorum, they can put a monkey wrench into the situation. If they're not willing to do so, then I don't know where we go next on this one, Kevin. But I appreciate you coming on from Oregon Firearms Federation. Thanks so much again. Wish it were a happier way to wrap up, but you're just telling us the way it is. Okay? Thank you, Bill.

All right. 7.35. By the way, Herman Barichiger, former state senator, does want to talk about this exodus of businesses, big businesses leaving the state of Oregon. We'll have a little conversation on that and a bunch more, too. Good Guys Guns is gearing up for a big move, and that means a massive store-wide sale. All-in-stock firearms, $25 off. Holsters, 40% off. Ammo, 20% off. Optics, 20% off. Magazines, 20% off. AR-15 parts, 20% off. Targets and target stands, 20% off. Everything else in the store is 25% off. Sale starts June 20th. I've been running my business over 30 years, built on word of mouth, handshakes, and hard

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I was going to ask him how he ended up pulling off that walkout because Herman was the one that actually led the walkout against the cap and trade back in the day and was successful about it. What's the difference between then and now? I think it's worth a conversation about that and so much more. All coming up on KMED and 99.3 KPXG. Also, by the way, in the next hour or so, Diner 62 Real American Quiz. Always a lot of fun. question today looking at this this question and it has to do about President Hoover caught in an Insurrection back in the day, you know, they were having trouble even back then

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I'll be one of the emcees for one of the nights of the multi-night competitions. It's going to be a lot of fun. Former state senator Herman Bershiger back on the program. Herman, how the heck are you this morning? And you know before we even get into the situation right now with business, what was the difference between when you ended up leading the walkout a number of years ago and stopping cap and trade and everything else and you kept it all together and the absolutely feckless, weak Republican leadership that I'm seeing this time around in the state legislature, or maybe I'm being unfair about that. What are you thinking?

Well, we had a pretty tight caucus with the exception of Tim Kinnoke. He was always kind of a, I don't want to use the word rhino, but he thought that he, he, you know, when we walked out the first time he stayed back and said he'd be our emissary, which I said no, he doesn't represent the caucus at all. I remember that. I remember that. I'm gonna remain here, you know, so the adults can, no, we can communicate. Gosh, I couldn't believe that. I remember that. Yeah. And then after a little arm twisting, he finally joined. And once he joined, that solidified the caucus and we were able to do that. You know, most people don't realize that,

you know, when we did leave the state, I tried to send people in different directions because I didn't want them to group up. Because when they group up, I think they could possibly start, you know, maybe giving in, and they didn't. And so the caucus was solidified when Camille finally gained some sense. And of course, we didn't have the statute now that says you can't run for office if you have 10 on you. Yeah, but even with that statute, which I think is just moronic, but hey, you know, the state stupidly voted for it because they fell prey to that,

they've got to do their job kind of thing, you know, that sort of thing. But that being said, you know, Friday, Saturday, we're into less than 10 days before mandatory signing die. They could do it with no penalty, you know? Well, they wanted us to come back, the Senate presidents wanted us to come back, but you have to remember under Senate rules, you have to have three readings, and each reading has to be 24 hours apart. Now, with unanimous consent, you can suspend the rules and do all three readings in the same day. So, by only having a couple days left, that put our caucus in charge, because without

unanimous consent, most of the bills, almost all the bills would have died. When I met with Courtney and he says, oh, are you going to give us consent to move all these bills? There were hundreds of bills. I said, we will not give blanket consent. It'll be a one-on-one. And so I was able, I literally took a sharpie and started writing a line through hundreds of bills that we wouldn't give consent to. So when people are saying that it's hard to do a denial of quorum, I get that, but look at what you did. You took your Sharpie and you're drawing lines through the bill, you're not going to do this, you're not going to do this, you're not going to do this. This is in exchange for the consent to come back, right? That's how that works. That's exactly right. So, you know, a lot of pieces fell into place. Of course, there was a lot of

strategy and I had a fantastic people working for me, you know, and we put our minds together and came up with this strategy and it worked. But it was kind of getting those stars aligned. It wasn't easy, but it did happen. All right. And the thing is, though, I'm not saying it would be easy this time, but they're not even willing to even explore it from the sounds of it, the caucus leaders. They must not have that kind of tight caucus like you did, maybe? Well, I think it's more that people want to run again. And so there's always a certain level of arrogance.

I've always said to people, if you're in politics, you have to be very conscious of arrogance. But that's what you have. I guess my point would be, what is the point of being a state senator or a state rep of a state which your presence allowed to be destroyed in the 2025 legislative session? Well, you know, it'd be good to have those people answer that question. You know, I think that would be a good question to answer them, you know. I know, Dwayne. And like I said, Christine Drazen, I saw an email from Christine Drazen to

a constituent that was writing back and saying, well, you know, you need to be getting in touch with the Democrats. You know that doesn't work, right, on these issues. They could care less of what you have to say. Yeah, that's the whole purpose of having a majority there. So this, it's the only tool. Okay, I know we've covered this before, so I'm just going to set it aside here. All we know is that if the gun store closing bills pass and the kicker ends up being grabbed for Jeff Goldin's satisfaction in order to get the wildfire map done, you know, that kind all, you know, the level of knowledge in the legislature, in my opinion, has deteriorated since I was there. When I was there, there was some, there was, you know, there were some Democrats that actually

had some brains and understood, you know, that the chair, Mark Hass of Revenue Finance and myself, Vice Chair, or when Bo Kuis was vice chair and I was just a member. I mean, Mark understood, all three of us understood, and so we were able to do, you know, understood. But the people in the caucus, his caucus was constantly fighting. They could care less. So we just have Nimrods essentially elected to positions of power in the state legislature, have no idea, can't connect what they're doing to the destruction of the state. Oh yeah, that's great. That's very confidence inspiring. Let's float and shift our gears here from the caucuses into this trend of big

companies taking off from the state of Oregon. Of course the latest one, the Grants Pass headquarters of Dutch Bros. Now this has been going on for a while bit by bit, right? Isn't this something they've been tiptoeing to leaving and switching over to Arizona? I know you're friends with Travis. Yeah, and listen, Steve Dunn of the Oregon Journalism Project just did a really good article, it's called The Departure of Oregon Companies Speaks to a Bigger Problem for the State, and he's right. So now, you know, we know the Dutch Brothers of Les, now Textronix, which has been here forever. Don Voellm, who's the son of the founder now Textronix, which has been here forever. Don Volum, who's the son of the founder of Textronix, big company headquarters in Beaverton,

has now announced they're relocating to Raleigh, North Carolina. And he goes on to talk about how his father and his partner were so rooted in Oregon, but it just makes no sense to be here. The same is true for Phil Knight and Nike. You watch at some point the board of directors as Bill Knight backs out, I predict that they're going to leave. And what are the common threads here? Maybe you could even share,

I mean, I know I don't want you sharing personal conversations with Travis. I tried to get Travis on the show, but you said he doesn't like talking about these things and I respect that. But it is a real sad thing to see an Oregon created company with Oregon natives, Oregon people involved in this and then taking off for what they would see as greener shores. And you would hope that there would be hope for people to be entrepreneurial in their actions

in the state of Oregon and this seems to indicate that it's it's they're not being helped or they're actually being actively hurt or is there something else driving this is it that we're that bad or other states have made themselves much much much much friendlier about that well I think Ballum says it you know I'm gonna quote he says the combination of high taxes, poor services, poor schools isn't a winning one and that's where we are. Put these pieces together and you have a place that's not desirable for people if they're starting or running businesses.

So he says it pretty good there. Is there a case to be made that the LGBTQ agenda has probably done more to damage Oregon, both in education and in business possibilities? I know that may sound weird, but I'm looking at the schools. And the school agendas, even Dwayne's been fighting this, seem to be more focused on making sure that every transgender agenda, every LGBTQ agenda ends up being sucked up to and promoted in public schools. And meanwhile, the public schools are like 47th or so in the nation, depending on

who you talk to. Yeah, and so these companies look, hey, I got to hire smart people and maybe we're not producing smart people, you know? But let me go down this list. It's pretty disturbing. REI is closing their factory in the Pearl District. Let's see. Now, the Pearl District, is that a big homeless and Antifa area of Portland? All of Portland is a crap hole. It's just they've destroyed it. Jelwyn has now announced that they are moving to North Carolina. And in May, Jelwyn said that they are closing their Chiloquin factory, adding another 128 people to unemployment. Those were family wagewage jobs herman yeah yeah uh... we have to be part of the corpus moving some of the dog but this

person cast part teledyne player uh... and the standard other they're going let's see what else uh... echo northwest told the oregon legislature in april that i'm going to migration of high-income households out of Multnomah County alone has produced year after year over a billion dollars loss in income. So, you know, people are moving

out. Let's see, Vig Ridge Capital Partners and then, you know, there was, uh, Oh, there's, uh, let's see here. Um, uh, Jordan Pappé had a good quote where is it? Okay. Jordan cafe Pappé group, you know, a little patty machinery. Sure. Well-based started in here forever. Started in Eugene. And he says, we have so many regulations that it is very difficult to do business here. So yeah, and then he goes on and says, we need a public policy agenda that wants to lure rather than lose business investment. These are the big players of Oregon businesses and the legislature, I guarantee it. Kinnit Kotech does not care.

All she cares about is their LGBT community and the unions and kind of the environmentalists. In a way, Thomas, as if they had that big no-Kings promotion or the protest over the weekend, while Oregon is suffering under essentially essentially, Queens, how about that? We have Queens running the state. Yes. So, you know, the tallest skyscraper in Portland is U.S. Bancorp, and they have 35% vacancy. Do you think, or are there any Democrats in the state legislature in the controlling in the agencies that

understand this problem and have been able to get across to the You know to the you know the law folks involved with this and saying hey, you can't keep doing this You are just you're destroying the seed corn at this point in time No, they don't understand. They don't understand any of this They keep saying oh we have a housing shortage. And then they turn around and vote for more restrictive land use and more restrictive building codes and all of those kinds of... And I was just talking to some contractors and how expensive it is to build in Oregon

compared to other states. It's absolutely... The bureaucracy is so thick, it slows the process down and slowing the process of developing is you're losing money. Because time is money, you're borrowing money to do these projects.

I remember somebody telling me that they could get permits over at, was it in North Dakota or South Dakota, I think. A number of years ago, they called the show and I'm just spit falling off of this, Herman, and they were talking about you wanted to build a business in the area. And it was a permitting process of a few months, I think, to get something going, just a few months at most before you'd actually be able to break ground. And they said at that time that it was like three years minimum to get something going in the state of Oregon. Oh, yeah, it's insane. And here's another

thing that these idiots, and I'm going to call them idiots, and moron means they don't know. They are morons because they don't understand economics. So if I'm a business and I'm going to, I want to conduct business in Oregon, then you've got to start looking out for your employees. Well we have the highest, just about the highest, I think we're number two, progressive income tax. Well that's not good for your employers. Then we have this extremely high housing because of all the regulations and all the crap.

And then you have the corporate activity tax, 1% on the cash flow going through this, and you also have a payroll tax to fund giveaways to public transit that no one's running. But they want to triple that or quadruple it or quintuple it, depending who you talk to right now. Yeah. triple that or quadruple it or quintuple it, depending who you talk to right now. Yeah, they want to do, yeah, all of those things. And it's the livability of your employees. And then, you know, so, you know, I'm Joe and James Smith. And you know, I'm thinking of moving to work for this company.

And I start looking at the public schools. I start looking at the tax rate, I start looking at housing costs. Do you think that the state has to hit bottom before, you know, kind of like we're a drunk or a drug addict, a drunk or drug addict that just doesn't want to change and nothing changes until you want to change and the state just has to hit rock bottom before the legislature and the governor? You're missing're missing it. They don't care. And it's the most amazing thing when you point it out to them and show them the numbers, they discard the information.

They don't want to believe it. They only want to remember a liberal makes their decisions on a motion and a conservative makes their decisions mostly on the facts. So it's driven by ideology then. Of course I don't know conservatives in the legislature right now seem to be making it on a motion. I shouldn't say conservatives just Republicans. Republicans in the legislature are making their decisions right now with emotions. I want to be able to run to be state senator again. Ugh, sorry.

Well, you know, I look at things different. When I was in the legislature or even as a county commissioner, I just, you know, if I lose my job, I lose my job. Remember, they tried to recall me as accounting commissioner. I did not change my way of thinking or my principles just because they were trying to gather signatures, okay? Like some commissioners may be doing right now. I don't think that, the job is not as important to me

as the principles to which I adhere to. And that's the question you need to ask these legislators that are up there, because I believe that there's some of them, Republicans, that the jaw, you know, when I hear somebody like David Brock Smith, says, well, I've waited all my life. I've waited all my life to be a state senator. What, a state senator over what? You know? Yeah. So, you know, that's me. That's how I'm built and not everybody is built like me, Bill. Yeah. Well, voters have been drinking the Kool-Aid, too, choosing people like that.

Actually look at the job. You know, the so-called job of being a state senator is actually being effective in helping the state not be destroyed. Talking with Herman Barchig, former state senator here, Herman, we've got some people in here, they have some questions. Grab a caller too, before we go. Hi, you're on with Herman, who's this? Morning. Bill, it's your friend Brad, good morning. Herman, good morning. Brad Bennington here. Morning. Steve Dewan makes the point in his article that the part that people like you and Herman have been talking about for a while, that Oregon has developed this really anti-business stance. But when you read the article, the thing that really got Dewan's attention that he's worried about is what is the downstream beneficial

influence of all these businesses? What they're worried about is losing all of the funding for all of these philanthropic organizations. So this is actually helpful. If the people on the left finally realize that you can't kill Oregon business without killing a lot of other things that they care about, maybe they will begin to try to fix this. But this is what it's come down to. They finally realized that companies that move out of state will no longer fund the philanthropic things that they care about. What do you think about that, Herman?

Thanks for the call, Brad. I don't think they recognize it. I think they discard it. They will not recognize it. I think they discard it. They will not recognize it. They are so entrenched into a socialistic society that that's the only thing that they believe works. And I think Margaret Thatcher was right. Socialism is great till you run out of everybody's money. And that's what we're doing in Oregon. Well, maybe they're just gonna have to run out of money then. That's just all there is to it.

I'll grab one more call before. Here's what I'm worried about. Okay, what's that? They run out of, is the volume of the volume, because these companies leave, when the companies are here, they create all their employees pay taxes,

the businesses pay taxes. And when they leave, when the companies are here, they create all their employees pay taxes, the businesses pay taxes, and when they leave, that means the volume of income is less to the state. And the Democrats' mind is, when they see that the revenues are less, is to create more taxes. Look at your payroll stuff, for crying out loud, people. You know, statewide transportation tax, family pay, all this stuff is in there. Yeah, I know. Let me grab another call here for you. Hi, you're on with Herman.

Who's this? Good morning. Welcome. Hi, Bill. It's Dave. Look, man, I have a lot of respect for what you do, and I have a lot of respect for people like Herman and what they do but I want to go back up to 30,000 feet just for a second. You know we have a state where our current

governor and our last governor were the most radical governors in the country, worse than Newsome, worse than Pritzker, the absolute worst. The state for decades now has been controlled by the public employee unions and the radical environmental groups. And frankly right now the third thing I want to say is the Republican Party here is feckless, it's weak, and it's underfunded. And we can fight, you guys are fighting, I appreciate it, I fought on my own level, Lars Larsen, guys like that. You know, it's fine. But man, I think the state, I hate to say this

because I've lived here a long time. The state has to hit rock bottom now. All right. Hey, I appreciate the call. You know, he's right about the party being underfunded though, Herman. But the thing is, who wants to contribute so you can hear Christine Drazen talk about you need to get in touch with the Democrats to stop the bad stuff. It's like, wait a minute, what? You know, who wants to pay for that? Yeah? And you know, Christine Drazen has ambitions to be governor still, and to do that you have to, you have to excite

your base, and she's not exciting her base. If anything, she's demoralizing her base and that's why you don't understand. It's like, oh my goodness. All right, one more and then we got to go here. But I appreciate it and I wish it was a more positive thing. But one of the first problems you have to, when you're facing a problem, you have to admit you have one. Hi, good morning.

Who's this? Welcome. Hi, this is John. John. The one that told you about North Dakota. It took three weeks to buy the property, get its own change, and have the building permit. Three weeks. Thank you. Thank you. But let me finish. The U.S. Bank Tower, the biggest building in Oregon with 35% vacancy, it's in foreclosure. The bank that has the debt on it has called the loan due. They haven't been able to make the payments.

I was up there this weekend and I stayed in a very fancy hotel downtown Portland. There were homeless people camped out front. They had to have an armed guard. Are there any people in the hotel? And every building around the hotel that I stayed at, they were vacant. They were 12-story buildings, not one tenant. The fronts are boarded up. Portland is going bankrupt. I've heard that the whole city, the average of vacancy now is 40% and anyone that owns commercial

buildings knows you can't make the mortgage payment. John, I appreciate the take on that. Herman, that's a developer's... Oh, John's absolutely right. And you know, they have driven the bus so deep in the ditch that you're not going to pull it out very fast. It's going to take decades, Bill. This is probably a generational shift we're talking about in Oregon's future. They, they, and that, but I predict in the future that we will be the highest taxation state because as the volume of money that runs into the state coffers decreases, the Democrats' reaction will be taxation. We will see about that, but I see no reason to doubt you on that one, my friend. I appreciate you being on as always.

Like I said, you're having liberal journalists that are now starting to raise the alarm. They're like, hey, wait a minute. These businesses are leaving. What happens next? Right? That kind of thing. Isn't today Pebble in the Shoe? That's the one.

Yep. Hey, my Pebble in the Shoe is I went down to buy a fluorescent light bulb for my garage. And they said to me, you cannot purchase them in the state of Oregon anymore. You have to replace your light fixture. Can you believe that? I wasn't familiar with that. I know that they're encouraging them, but I will keep that in mind because I have some that are finally dying. Huh, the radio station. Hmm. Thank you for letting me know. Okay. So here's there's a really quick example. Can you imagine owning a factory that who has

10,000 fluorescent light bulbs in it and now they have to replace all the fixtures. Well you have to understand though Herman the way the state would look at this is oh my goodness well yeah I know that the LED replacements are maybe 10-12 bucks a tube and more and then you're gonna have to have an electrician get rid of the ballast etc etc but think of how much money you'll save because the state of Oregon made a choice for you. I thought the reason we put in fluorescent light bulbs was because they saved electricity. I know. Herman, love the talk. Like I said, I wish it was telling a better story. But yeah, these are choices that have been made over the years here.

And we're there now. It's a well it's a reckoning. The reckoning is happening right now. Thank you my friend. We'll talk again next week. All right. You be well. Talk to you later. Bye bye.

Former state senator back when the state senator was actually able to do the walkouts and get some stuff done that Herman Baer-Chigger at KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford KBXG Grants Pass. Also translator K294AS Ashland and K290AF Rogue River.