Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-30-25_MONDAY_7AM

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Richard Emmons joins from the Oregon Eagle (He is publisher and editor) and a breakdown of the high, and lowlights of the state session just wrapped up. Some open phone time later...

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. Five minutes after seven, proud to have Richard Emmons on, who is the publisher and editor of the Oregon Eagle, OregonEagle.com. And my only dog in the fight is that, yep, I'm a subscriber. I'm a subscriber to a lot of stuff around here.

I like your paper. How are you doing this morning, Richard? Great to have you back on. I'm doing great, Bill. Good morning to you. All right. So as the publisher and paying attention to the news like you do, you pay attention to a lot of it so other people don't have to, I guess, is what happened. But I was kind of disgusted by the end of the legislative session. That was kind of my point of view on it, but that it's just an emotional response on my part. And I was focusing mostly on firearms issues and things. I would talk with Kevin Sterritt and I was always hoping that I would see some kind of a denial of quorum to make most of the bad stuff at least go away or make people

have to concentrate on it. Was it just there was no support for something I've got in your opinion or they got rid of bad stuff without having to do a denial of quorum? Any take on that overall? Weird way to start, I know, but I've just kind of discussed it by the whole thing, you know? But I've just kind of discussed it by the whole thing. You know? Okay. Let me put it this way. I think that there's bipartisan disgust and bipartisan elation for this legislative session and how it ended. I think that Republicans should be elated, small government fans should be elated that the governor didn't get a $15 billion gas tax and car sales tax. Right

through that was a major defeat for them and it's totally divided. Democrats up there between the governor and the legislators and some legislators against other legislators. So they're they're disgusted because they couldn't get any tax through. And the governor today may begin laying off, you know, 600 to 700 ODOT employees, which, you know, that's the reality. So they're disgusted at that. We should be elated because we would get that tax

that would just go on forever. So on the other side, I think that, you know, Republicans can be dejected or disgusted that the gun bills pass. And if that is the most important thing, then that is something... For many, it would be something worth dying on the Hill over. And then for others, it's not. And there's different views of that because the Republicans, by staying in the session and fanning the flames of discontent over these massive gas tax, which would have hammered Oregon families, that they stood up, they stayed unified, they fought that.

And the public responded with, you know, calls and emails. There was a, the Oregon Freedom Coalition started a ballot initiative to repeal it even before it passed. You had to have Tina Kotech come to the floor of the House to try to slam through a bill and she failed. They shut it down Friday night. They could have worked on Saturday. They shut it down Friday night. It could have worked on Saturday. They could have worked on Sunday, but the Democrats said

no, we're just going to shut it down Friday night and call it good. Well, they knew they didn't have the votes and it's just it. And now I know Governor Kotec Saturday in the news conferences saying, well, you know, blaming Republicans just wanted to go home. Well, it seems to me the Democrats wanted to go home too. And I find it fascinating that she talks about Republicans being extreme on this transportation on this transportation bill when her own caucus wasn't willing to stick their neck out on it. Don't you find that interesting? Absolutely, because they have the committee that when one person on the committee, the Democrat committee chair who opposed it the way it was, he opposed it at the $15 billion

level. Well, you know, the Senate leader, Senate president, he replaced him with himself on that committee. And then somebody else, Democrat, opposed parts of it. And that person got replaced. It's like even on their own side. And the thing about it is normally, what happens is they say, look, if you vote yes on this,

I'll send a $60 million road package to your county. You'll get all this great credit. But back in 2017, they jacked up the gas tax. They added the one percent. You know sales tax on new cars and so forth. They raised a lot of money back then. It was supposed to provide new roads new bridges all this stuff and most of it didn't happen. So they don't trust those promises because.

You know they're Democrats representatives that are in competitive districts. And that's something that's really easy for people to understand that they used to, you know, have a 40-cent tax, and now it's, you know, 50 cents, it's going up, or they go into register their car, and now it costs more to get their plates, you know, everything. That's easy for them to understand and it affects everybody. And a public opinion poll taken just a week ago said that 63% of Oregonians statewide said that they think the roads and bridges are fine. They don't think they should raise the taxes. So they didn't have the popular support for that and it failed. And it's like a, and they've waited until just a few weeks

left in the five-month session to actually come out with a plan. Now, you think this was about trying to just shove it through at the last minute, thinking that, oh, we'll just cram this down, everybody wants to get home and they'll pass this, and then we declare victory and go home? Was it one of those kind of things where they thought they would be that easy? I think it's that in part, but I also think that the fact that you do it so late, it takes time to get organized and get the word out and so on and so forth.

But you know, with talk radio and podcasts and substacks and other ways of getting the message out there, people heard about the details of this plan. It was like, it wasn't just like one thing to raise all this money. It was a whole bunch of different things. And the word got out and in a sense they kind of lost the narrative, you know, statewide, you know, and they, and it failed. I mean, it just didn't get the support and it failed. Were there any other, what were some of the brightest in your opinion, brightest and darkest moments of the, of the state, in your opinion, brightest and darkest moments of the state legislative session.

So many bills get passed, especially in the last couple of weeks. It's kind of hard to keep track of them. And a lot of them we probably won't even find out more about, I think, until you start looking at it over the next few weeks, I guess, because there's just so much happening there. Yeah, it's overwhelming. I mean, there are 3,400 bills that were proposed. I mean, it's impossible for any human being to track all of that. And, you know, the governor's already signed hundreds of bills. You know, there's, well, like, one of them is like, you know, we know, we all don't like, or at least the people I talk to don't like the sexuality in the public schools. Now, they train

people on how to have sex at a very young age and it's just terrible. Oh yeah, well, let's just be honest. And this is, let's make the schools, especially the school libraries, as porn-filled as possible. You know, in stuff that would get people arrested 20, 30 years ago is now supposed to be promoted by the state of Oregon.

That's where we are right now, Richard. No, absolutely. I mean, if they did, you know, gun education like sex education, kids would want to go out and shoot, you know, handguns and rifles and shotguns. And what the governor, she signed a bill passed that raised the minimum age in Oregon to get married to 18. So, you know, not that I'm an advocate of people 16, 17 getting married, but you know,

for girls 17 and pregnant, she wants to get married so that the baby's not born out of wedlock, then that's now illegal in Oregon. And it's just kind of ridiculous. And that's without even parental approval, right? You can't even do that with parental approval? Correct. And so that's you know that's a bill you know one bill that you know didn't pass was you know banning you know guys and in the girls sports you know that that got a lot of heat it it didn't you know they couldn't pass something to reverse that you know there's there's always disappointments you know there's the there's always the the bills that you wish you could have

passed or you wish that didn't pass. But as we've covered in the Eagle, in Oregon, the Democrat Party and the unions that financed them, they've had just complete control. So they came into this legislative session with a super majority in both houses, and they couldn't get the big tax plan through.

They did not need one Republican vote. They needed 100% of the Democrats. And sadly, you know, one, one Democrat representative is, you know, is suffering from stage four cancer. I'm really sorry. You know, I hope she recovers. I know they dragged her in though for the vote, right? I know they did. I know they dragged her in though for the vote, right? I know they did.

I know they did. And in the Senate, you know, there was one Democrat that didn't like it and they had to have 100%. And you know, it's just so when you look at the big picture, we didn't get the massive tax that families can't afford. We have, you know, to be partisan, you know, the Democrats, they're divided because this is their big opportunity. They had five months to get everything passed, and they failed to raise the money to fund transportation.

And many of these taxes, they weren't limited to the Road Trust Fund, roads and bridges. They could have gotten the money would have also been spent in the general fund. So this is... See, that was the lie to it. This was not a transportation. This was back-filling state spending in general. And I think people saw through that, right? Yes, they did, but it took quite the effort to get the word out. So that's like the big win. There's many bills, like the gun bill, 243, that's just a bad bill. There's ways to look at it. Yeah, it's a bad bill.

The band's walking within certain public buildings. Yeah, designed to create criminals out of some of the least violent people in the culture or the ones that they're having trouble with, and that is the concealed handgun license holders that walk around. They're not the ones that are shooting up meetings or shooting up the society. It's just fascinating. But see, what has bothered me, and this is where I come down with having irritation at my own team, so to speak, the Republican Party, and that I think Christine Drazen was on Lars, if I recall, and kind of saying, well, again, this is an unconstitutional bill. Well, okay, I get that. It's an unconstitutional

bill. I will agree that what they're talking about is unconstitutional, right? Here's the deal. It's almost as if the Republicans decided, well, we're just going to, you know, we're not going to deny quorum. We're not going to use the one tool that we have here. And then we're just going to have to go out and spend millions of dollars to do lawsuits again and hope for remedy here. And that's a bad way. I mean, the best war, the best way to stop bad bills is to stop bad bills and not hope to fight them in the courts afterwards, Richard. And I think that's what, you know, Kevin Starratt and I were very irritated about. That's the way we're looking at this. You stop it when you can.

I understand. No, like I said, it's, it isn't, look, it's not a, it's not just black and white. Let me put it this way, because if they hit the walkout, it happened. Let's just assume that it happened. The Democrats most likely would have worked out some big transportation funding bill. It would have gotten through. So that was the thinking then from the caucus that if there had been denial of quorum, they would have found a way to cram it through, to cram through the tax. Most likely. I mean, if they came, look, there's a lack of trust. I mean, I know Christine Drazen gets a lot of criticism for this, for making a deal with Tina Koteck over the redistricting,

that there would be an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Yeah, and she had been manhandled by the governor, so to speak, you know, over that. I get that. She doesn't trust the governor. And now there's a lack of trust between even Democrat legislators and the governor. And that's come out of all of this. And the political reality, as I view it, is that it takes a really nuanced thing. Most people don't even know what the word quorum means. But everybody knows what, look, if you're getting paid to do a job, you've got to show up to work. And I understand the nuance and say, yeah, but you're getting paid to do a job, you've got to show up to work.

And I understand the nuance and say, yeah, but we're working by not showing up. I understand all that. Your listeners understand all that. But you see, that shows a really ignorant citizenry if they can't understand the basic... I got to tell you, I think public education must be successful if it churns out citizens that can't understand the value the minority power of providing or denying quorum can provide. That's kind of a sad comment on public schools, but you know, there's a lot of comment on public schools we could make, I guess, about this. No, you're absolutely right. And,

but I think, you know, for some degree, I mean, look, I used to, I'll just submit it on air, I used to judge young people. Like, why do they start their phones and just watch videos and all of that? Why don't they read books? Why do they read newspapers and all that? The reality is they weren't taught how to read. They weren't taught using phonics. And if they don't know how to read, they don't love to read, like read books during the summer, even when they don't have to read. They're not assigned a book. And then when you don't learn how to read. They don't love to read, like read books during the summer, even when they don't have to read. They're not assigned a book. And then when you don't learn how to read, you end up getting to the point where you're one of those people that watches a cable channel to learn how to think, supposedly, and then thinks that someone denying quorum, well, we're not doing their job.

That's where you get that kind of thought process, you know, with the corrosion of the educational system. So it all kind of starts from the educational system, doesn't it Richard? Ultimately. It really does. I really advocate that parents take control of their kids' education from all ages. I mean it's something that needs to happen and I don't, you know, I know different people are in different situations. It's harder, but you know with churches, know, there could be homeschooling co-ops, you know, start private schools. There are different things you can do.

There's online curriculum. Yeah. Harder schools, you know, are, are good. You know, they're, they're in my view that it's, it's more independent study and it's smaller, it's not, you know, this big union controlled, you know, educational factory. Do you think though, ultimately Richard, Richard Edmonds by the way is with me, Oregon Eagle, OregonEagle.com, local paper, publisher, editor of this. Do you think ultimately though,

what has been done in the public school in the current legislative session has weakened it as an institution overall and I'm talking about whether it's the battle over the porno books that the boards are no longer allowed to do anything about to even with ten weeks of unemployment benefits for employees that argue with their bosses you know essentially you know that's what's going on did it weaken or strengthen the institution overall as far as public education goes? It all weakens it. It's just like death by a thousand cuts, you know.

They're not, you know, when you look at the standardized testing and organs like at 49 and it's like they can't teach them how to read and write. In fact, one thing I read somewhere this morning when I was, it was like, they make this big deal about, I can't pronounce it, like, see pronounce it like sine die, you know, at the end of the session. Oh, sine die. Sine die is what it is. Sine die. Yeah. And they were saying how up in the state capitol building, they have t-shirts that say sine

die. And it's like, it's like a Latin phrase. They can't even teach English in the public schools in Oregon. It was like, and they make this big deal about a Latin phrase that in the old days, you know, kids learn Latin and they learn, you know, different, they learn so much more in the schools that it's just gradually gotten dumbed down.

But I think people are wising up and more people are skeptical of the system. And, you know, I just, I have to hope that long term you know more parents will get involved locally even at the local school board and you know try to make a difference try to slow it down and try to do what's best for the students so that's because the long term I mean well the idea that there's something broken in our public school system, because if we think about 1925 to 2025, we spent a fraction of what we spent now. And students graduated knowing, you know, reading, writing, arithmetic.

They learned so much. All the tech, you know, all the AI, all the big spending, all of that, the final result is a student that graduates either from eighth grade or from 12th grade, the final result, it's just not there. The academic output is just not there like it used to be. And that's where the core, that's the root of the problem. I mean, you read the Federalist papers or the Anti-Federalist papers, and you realize those were written to be printed in newspapers, read by the common man who didn't go to high school back then, may have had an eighth grade education, but they could read and understand that political discourse over whether or not to ratify the United States Constitution. And from that discussion came the

Bill of Rights and that we all applaud. And July 4th, we're going to read the Declaration of Independence in front of the Josephine County Courthouse. So anybody's welcome to come to that. But the idea that we've just, we're reaping the fruit of just dumbing down the system for so long that it's really hard to know when a student graduates from high school and they get the cap and gown and they go to the grad night party and they you know they get all the pictures and they

have their name in the you know the local newspaper but the city still has it it all looks the same I mean the cap and gown looks the same but how much do they really know how much how well they are quick to get out in the real world and get a job either you know join the trades go to trade school, or go to college. I mean, even Harvard University has to have remedial math classes because incoming freshmen, they can't do high school math. One would have to think it was almost a plot, Richard. And I look at my parents, of course, my parents are 25 years older than me, of course my father is

no longer with me, but I have no doubt that my mother got a better public school education in the 1950s than I ended up getting in the 1970s and I probably got a better one than my children did in the 1990s. I just look at this as reality. What role do you think the legislature's focus on nonsense issues may have played with either the pushing of certain agendas and maybe even the inability to come up with a transportation bill? And I'm going to bring up one example. transportation bill. And I'm going to bring up one example, the dancing black drag queen situation of a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, I'm used to stuff being weird in Oregon. We're all used to that in Oregon. But we take time in the state legislature with all the

important things going on, not taken care of, but we have to honor black drag queens. And Kevin Mannix has to cross the aisle and vote for H.R.3 as an example. I'm thinking this sort of nonsense, is it a symptom of something deeper, I guess, what's going on? Yeah, I think it was Lord Acton that said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And for them to do that during the legislative session to make Oregon look like a joke nationwide. It almost reminded me of like it was meant to be the proverbial middle finger to any

middle America in Oregon. It's like, hey, this is, well, we're going to give it to you good and hard one way or the other, you know, what you didn't ask for. Maybe I'm wrong. Correct. We we're going to do this because we can do this. We don't have to do this. We're going to do this anyway, just to rub your face in it. And, but again, you know, you know, the idea, I'm not a political consultant, although I'm always looking for advertisers for the eagle. And we do send the eagle, uh, complimentary copies to, uh, now we were saying're saying well for the June issue we sent

it to all the legislators including the Democrats in April we started sending to the government to Governor Kotec. I'm not taking any credit for what happened up in the legislature but but they did see the Eagle in June and it did have articles on there, you know, that they could all read or somewhat on their staff. But the idea that they think that they have complete power. And if I was a political consultant, it's like, we can do better. It's like Oregonians, we can do better. And you have a picture of those drag queens saying, look, this is a legislative session. These are the people that are in charge. This is what they believe in. Is this what you believe in? You know, and just take that position

that we can do better than this. You're not promising paradise, but we can definitely do better than where we are. I mean, one of the highest tax states in the nation, and it's just, it's not good. You know, we're here in Southern Oregon, but we need a healthy economy up in Northern Oregon, particularly Multnomah County in Portland. They have an extra 1% income tax to fund preschool for all in Multnomah County.

And most people don't realize that, they're saying they tax the rich, but these are people that make $125,000 or more. Yeah. And the rich are moving out, from what I understand, because of that tax. They're just leaving. Well, they do. And what they don't realize is you make a decision on where your company is going to

be headquartered. And it's not just like Dutch Bros moving to Arizona, but it's just moving to Clackamas County. You know, and so Portland, you know, commercial office vacancy rate is 35%. It's the highest in the nation of, you know, major cities. Because companies just say, you know, I can go to Vancouver, Washington. I can go to Clackamas County. I can just leave Portland, Multnomah County, stay in Oregon. But it's just sapping the city of Portland

and it's just not a healthy thing. It's just not a healthy thing. I mean, another bill they passed is that the state will spend $800 million to try to attract a major league baseball team. You know, like, you know, it's just, there's a lot of ways, but you know, another positive note we should remember from this discussion this morning is that the wildfire hazard map was repealed.

Now, it's done some damage already with the insurance and all that. I regret all of that. Oh yeah. It hasn't exactly brought your canceled insurance policy back. We know that. I understand. I understand. I understand. But it does show that, you know, next year, just politics, you have Representative Pam Marsh in Jackson County. You also have Senator John Golden both running for reelection. So they wanted to get it repealed

because, you know, in politics, you know, basically if you're in, you want to stay in. Yeah, but they also brought that wildfire map in the first place though. They're the ones that sponsored it and carried it to begin with. I understand that, but the idea is that taking it away doesn't undo the damage. And so it's just, I'm just saying that the politicians, it's easy to look at the map and say we're a blue state, but the majority of the counties by far vote Republican. Not necessarily MAGA, but at least Republican. It's better than it appears, but it's still, there's a lot of major stuff.

It's, you know, you have to try to look at the positive bright side and try to keep your head in the game and keep yourself in the fight one way or another. Because you know, the political pendulum does swing back and forth. And I really think, you know, looking back, we might look at the 2025 legislative session as like peak progressive, you know, Democrats. Progressive nonsense. Yeah, peak, peak nonsense. Peak nonsense.

Correct. And, you know, and frankly, there's a part of me that almost wishes that the state legislature would get away from the, oh, we're going to honor this or that or the other. It's like, I could have seen if, if they can come out there and,, oh, we're going to honor this or that or the other. It's like, I could have seen if they can come out there and, all right, we're going to honor the first black astronaut or whatever it is, or someone out of Oregon. But it's this whole thing to, well, I guess this is the challenge of a state that is all in on, hey, happy, well, what are you call, what we're supposed to call this month here, Richard, happy, we have sex different than

you month and you better, and you better like it. Okay. I know it's, it's, I, you know, but, but so much, but so much of the weirdness that comes out of the Oregon state legislature, you can't help but notice that much of it is connected with that agenda. You can't help but notice this. Am I wrong? Where am I wrong about that? No, you're not wrong about it. I mean, look, this is my opinion, but this preschool for all to get four-year-olds, five-year-olds to try to get them this woke agenda in front of them at It's such a young age, so

impressionable that, you know, they should be playing outside and, you know, my bigger thing is like, it's like we have to get rid of these free government services that raise the cost of government, that make it so that the moms and the dads both have to work to try to pay the bills, which include the bill from government. And that way, you know, the natural caregiver for a child for, you know, thousands of years has been the mom. And having the mom go out to work, it should be an option.

She should be able to. But nowadays it's just, it's like you have to. Yeah, you have to. But there's also, but there's still also that issue in the culture, which says that the highest use for a good woman is not taking care of the next generation, but to be a corporate cog in a cube farm. You know, that's kind of, I swear that's, there's still kind of a harping on that. Before we take off though, speaking of corporate cube farm, I don't know if that's the way

it is or was over at Dutch Bros, too Should we get a chance to talk with with Travis Boersma? But I could never get him to come on the program and talk about it Herman said he would never come on he ever talked to you about Reasons of relieving or what was really going on or they're just saying we're getting out while the getting is good and the heck with Oregon No, but I do have a story I can relay from about four years ago because this was right when Travis was getting involved with the horse racing and he had been asked to take

that over and I was invited to a meeting of about 25 people and it was held at a local church and it was very interesting because what he laid out is, look, I love horses, I love horse racing, and it was going to die. So I started doing that. I went back to Kentucky to learn about the horse racing business. And I came back to Oregon and he got grants passed down, was up and running, and he was building the flying lark. But he complained about one thing. He said, when we hire people for Dex Bros, there's not enough housing. And they had to go down to Medford to buy a house. Because, you know, you're hiring people, like top people, and they want to live in a, you know, a nice house. And there just wasn't enough in Josephine

County. So the idea that you can move to a state like Arizona where there's plenty of housing at all different price ranges and that's part of the reason. And then the fact that the governor, you know, Brown, you know, took away the license to use the historical horse racing machines, that was it. Because he had poured in so much money to do something really nice for Josephine County. And I just think that that was the beginning of the end. So flying Lark was really the beginning of the end of whatever love affair was left. That makes sense. But also though, when it comes to affordable housing, you have state land use control for the only state that goes in all in on an issue like that. And, and yet, you know, you talk about repealing SB 100,

there should not be an LCDC. There should not be a Luba. There should not, there should be people coming to the County commissions in order to talk about the development. It shouldn't order to talk about the development. It shouldn't have to go through the state at all. But we haven't learned our lesson, I guess, enough, Richard. No, we haven't. We really haven't. And I wrote an editor in the June Eagle, which is on the website, MorganEagle.com, about how Portland really has to make a choice.

Are they going to go down the road and become like Detroit, or are they going to become like Miami? Because Miami has a great mayor. They've done so much in the last 15 years to turn it around. Detroit, on the other hand, had heavy union control, Democrat machine. I'm not talking about rank and file Democrats, but just those in charge of Detroit. They turned it from the richest city in the world in the 1920s, their population dropped from a million eight to about 639,000 a day.

And it's just bad government. And the businesses left and they went elsewhere. And it just became, you know, this skin-hole of poverty. And so it's a bad thing. You have to make these decisions and that's why, you know, we just have to get the word out that there is a better way and the people have to stop voting, in my opinion, just the party line. You need to vote for the best candidate and they need to get in the fight and fight. It isn't hopeless. Things can get better. We have evidence of that from this legislative session. But I would also add that one of the things about progressive control and the legislature

actually tightened progressive control over local education, over local public education in this latest legislative session. And you can't help but notice the fact that it is failing horribly entirely everywhere, like we've talked about in the state of Oregon. Results are very poor. And now the story comes out that people over the age of 65 are outnumbering children for the first time ever here in the state of Oregon. And you have to wonder well why would this be? Well when you look at the school system you look at the housing situation also designed by state control you know of everything is it the great is it the greatest area to to have children and grow up and get educated.

It's really not. And Governor Koteck, she's put out these grand goals of building 50,000 housing units and so forth. But when she says houses, largely she's referring to like four in a lot that might be like two bedrooms apart. Exactly. What she's talking about is climate friendly, equitable, stack-pack habit trails in downtown Medford and Grants Pass. That's what they're talking about when it comes to building housing.

But that's not what parents with children that will be the future of the state, that could be the future of the state, want. That's not what they want. It's not what they want. I mean, look, I mean, it's not so basic, but it's like mom's at the kitchen sink, making dinner and so forth, and the kids are playing in the backyard, and they're having fun. They're out there in the sunshine and all that. And these affordable housing units, they just, they don't have that. And they trap people in poverty. You've got to earn, let's just say 60% of the median income, but you get married,

then all of a sudden your income goes up, lose your affordable housing, and now where do you go? And it's just, a lot of it's just designed to keep people in poverty, and I don't think people realize it. It's been going back since President Johnson in 1965. Yeah, we've been regressing in Oregon, all right. Okay. Yeah. Hey, I really appreciate the take on the legislative deal here, Richard, always appreciate your analysis and thanks for coming on.

We'll have you back, but OregonEagle.com, you can find out more about the paper and what you're doing over there. Thanks for being the publisher and the editor, okay? All right, thanks for what you do, really appreciate it. All right, appreciate you too. 745 at KMED. from the floors, windows, doors, cabinets, even the roof can be affected if your foundation is unstable. Be sure you're on solid ground.

Millet Construction will level your house and correct the shifting soil problem. Visit MilletConstruction.com. Should you trust your drinking water on a do-it-yourself water test? I don't think so. At the Grants Pass Water Lab, we get a lot of calls about this.

The kits are cheap and yeah, they look easy, but the results can be confusing and still require a lab follow-up. Save your money and go straight to the water lab. Our equipment is much better at detection and our staff sure beats a hard to read instruction packet. Find us online at thewaterlab.com or gpwaterlab.com. Oregon Truck and Auto Authority is your work truck and van headquarters. Proudly offering Adrian steel interior shelving packages, partitions and the best ladder racks

in the business. Integrated bed slide or decked drawer system to boost your efficiency. Also featuring the largest selection of commercial fiberglass and metal truck canopies from leading manufacturers such as ARE, SmartCap, Century and more. Come see Oregon Truck and Auto Authority today and take your efficiency to the next level. You know what I like about Freddy's Diner? Haha, who am I kidding? I like everything about Freddy's, but in particular it's burger heaven.

There's the double cheese, the bacon cheese, and the Ortega pepper jack, the western, the mushroom onion swiss, avocado bacon cheese, pastrami swiss, jalapeno jack, and oh the brisket burger, the main event burger, and the classic Brownsboro Tavern Burger. Time is short, but next time I'll get you up to speed on the sides. See you at Freddy's Diner in Old Town Eagle Point. What's a real sale? If it's a handful of pieces marked down and stuck in the corner, it's not a real sale. If it comes with an asterisk and a looping list of exclusions, it's not a real sale. But if it's Gerson's semi-annual sale, it's the real deal. With five years industry financingAC, and up to 60% off at all Garrison's locations.

A legit sale with genuine savings? What a groundbreaking concept. The semi-annual sale happening now at Garrison's Home, Sleep, Express, and Outlet. garrisons.com Hey, you know Cliff Benz, right? From Ontario? Yeah, our congressman. He seems alright. Something's changed with him.

What do you mean? He voted to terminate millions of Americans' Medicaid coverage. What does that mean for us? Well, one in three Oregonians depend on the Oregon Health Plan. Wait, the Oregon Health Plan is Medicaid? Sure is.

It covers seniors, people with disabilities, children. Children? Yeah. Medicaid covers seven in 10 kids right here in Bence's own district. So who even wins here? Not us. This bill could even close local hospitals

and make access to care harder for all of us. So this does nothing to lower our costs or improve health care. Nope, just gives tax breaks to big tech billionaires. Bence is looking out for them, not us. Guess he really has changed. tax breaks to big tech billionaires. Bence is looking out for them, not us. Guess he really has changed. Call Congressman Bence at 202-225-6730.

Tell him to vote no on reckless Medicaid cuts paid for by our Oregon. You're hearing the Bill Meyers show on 1063 KMED. Okay. Hi, you know Cliff Bence? He doesn't want bums on Oregon Health Plan. He wants people to actually have to work if they're able bodied without young kids. Imagine that. What a mean man. Let me go. It's so irritated by that. Now let me go to Wild Sam and Steve. Hey, Steve, how you doing this morning?

I was talking rather with Richard Emmons from the Oregon Eagle here about the legislative session. Kind of noodling around a bit. What are you thinking? Well, good job. Thanks. I was just thinking, when did all the craziness start? And we moved back to Oregon.

I worked in Idaho for a few years and we moved back to Oregon, I worked in Idaho for a few years, and we moved back to Oregon in 1998. The first election I think that we had here in 2000 was the vote in person thing at Hedrick School. After that, it's been the mail-in voting deal. It seems like ever since the mail-in voting thing started things have gotten worse and worse so I know President Trump has talked about requiring in-person voting I don't know where that stands but yeah I know well

just for the record is see vote by mail in Oregon started for local elections in 81, I think is when that first happened about 40 years, 45, 44 years ago. But it came permanent in 1998. That was measure 60 for all elections for vote by mail. So it was 1998 about that time. What you're talking about. Sure. Yeah, well, I know that we went went I went to the school to vote the

first time you know the first time we did. Yeah me too yeah me too when I moved here in 91 yeah so yeah that's when I moved here in 91 so I remember that. So you thinking that vote by mail was part of it? How so? Absolutely everything has gone farther and farther to the left, and Multnomah County has more and more power ever since then. And you quite rightly have said that, you know, there is no trail of who voted when, so there's no way to tell if a vote actually counted for what you voted for. And when we had paper ballots, you could go back and recount the paper ballots. Well, we have paper ballots, but you don't know

where the paper ballots came from. There's a certain faith-based aspect of it. Yeah, okay, I get that. Appreciate the call. So you're thinking that's the root, striking at the root. Let me go to Doug. Hello, Doug. Good to have you on here too. Fire away. striking at the roof. Let me go to Doug. Hello Doug, good to have you on here too. Fire away. Well you know we were talking about, I want to make a little comment, I think the Dutch Bros, you know, when he remodeled, spent a ton of money remodeling the whole racetrack over there and then building the restaurant. And he wanted to put in some antique gaming machines there. And the state kept saying, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, you know, when he rebuilt the whole

soccer field inside the racetrack. And I believe I read a letter and I can't confirm it, but Kate Brown said, just remember gaming commission, if you allow these antique gaming machines to go in this restaurant that isn't owned by the, say, a tribal, you know, because only tribal can have gaming machines to go in this restaurant that isn't owned by the say a tribal you know because only tribal can have gaming machines yeah yeah that was a sob to the tribes then you're thinking the attack on on Travis was about a sob to the tribe the tribal influence well I'm sure they they they filed a complaint against it I believe I read a letter and told the gaming commission Kate Brown said just, if you allow these gaming machines to go in this private restaurant,

just remember, I hired you and I will fire you. I'm not familiar with that. I believe there was a letter that confirmed that, but I can't go back and confirm that, obviously. I can't confirm that either, but it wouldn't surprise me. And yet, don't they have the same kind of machines up in Portland? Or didn't they? You know, there was a little tiny here in South metric There was a little tiny tribe that wanted to open up that gambling establishment in South Melbourne I think in the old Chinese restaurant and a bigger trials tribe filed a complaint against the little tribe

Said you're gonna take money from my tribe. Yeah, I understand that. We know it's an amazing privilege that we're looking here with Tribal Gaming. I have an idea. Maybe we can get solved. Can we all become a member of a tribe? What do you think? Can we join the tribes?

You think that would help? Well, there might be some Ancestors somewhere down the road. Which tribe do we want to join and okay where's our sovereign land? Let's go get it right now, okay? How about that Doug? Appreciate the call. Let me grab one more before. Hi, who's this? Good morning. This is Minor Dave. Hey Dave, what's up? I just want to say is this New York come up with a bad idea for government grocery stores. Well, you know, Oregon doesn't see any bad idea that they won't adopt. So if they come up with government grocery stores,

I think it'll be a plan to starve everybody out. Could you imagine state-run grocery stores? So we would have all the benefits of what the OLCC kind of thing? Is that the kind of store model we would have, I guess? No, it'd be that the stores are ran by government employees. Uh-huh. Oh, okay. So we would have days like when I get those emails from the DMV saying that we're very sorry but the DMV is closed in Ashland today because we don't have any people here. I mean literally I'll get emails like that every now and then. The DMV office

is closed because of lack of... We don't have any food today because we don't have we don't have anybody that will drive it in and deliver it to us. You could be right. You could be right about that, Dave. That could be really interesting, huh? Interesting in scary air quotes. 755, it's portion of the program, sponsored by Millette Construction Company. We appreciate them, really. Great to see you. Come on in. Hi. Thanks for letting me stay in your guestroom. Our pleasure. Right through here. The door sticks a bit.

Just turn, lift up a little and give it a good shove. Okay, thanks. Oh, and if it gets a bit warm in here, crack the window. It just needs a little elbow grease too sometimes. Stubborn doors or windows? Call Millet Construction for a no pressure, thorough inspection of your home's foundation and a no obligation estimate. Visit MilletConstruction.com.

Hey, it's Bryce. of your home's foundation and a no obligation estimate. Visit MilletteConstruction.com. Hey, it's Bryce. KMED invites you to discount Fireworks Superstore's big block party Wednesday night. Go enter to win a 60 second shopping spree. Plus there's free fireworks for the kids from seven to nine. The block party is at a discount Fireworks Superstore near you in South Medford, West Medford, Ashland, Phoenix,

Central Point, White City, Grants Pass, and Cave Junction. Text DFS to 26786 for location info. It's Discount Fireworks Superstore's Block Parties Wednesday night from seven to nine. Hi, this is Dr. Emily Sander with the Well Integrative Wellness Center. You deserve a healthcare experience that is personal, proactive, and rooted in real healing.

That is why we've created a premium integrative primary care package. It is a concierge style care model that gives you direct ongoing access to me and our integrative care team for only $150 per month plus a registration fee. You'll get priority scheduling and unhurried, unlimited personalized care whenever you need it at any of our practices in Wyricka, Reading, or Ashland. At the Well Integrative Wellness Center, we go beyond symptom management to uncover root causes. And if you are hospitalized, I will advocate for you to help ensure your care aligns with your values and full health picture. Our focus is on faith-rooted whole-person healing for your body, mind, and spirit. This is a true healing approach from a practice that truly knows you for one low monthly price. It is more than a medical membership. It is a partnership

in your health journey. Call us today to find out more or visit us at TheWellCenterForHealing.com. Hi, I'm Amber Rose with SisQ Pump Service, and I'm on KMED. Hey, Geno's here. Geno, good to have you on. What's happening, huh? Oh, I just want to make two comments. One is, read Skousen's The Naked Communist to understand the plans that these politicians have for us. And I want to leave you with a quote. The sheep dog barks. It doesn't bite. The sheep run in terror straight into the paddock. We have sweaters and lamb chops. Yeah, it does feel like quite often that you're just being guided into the abattoir in one form or another, right? Through fear. And of course, they say, no, hey, free food over here, free food, you're going into the chute, right?

Right through the buzzsaw. I love that. Communism wants to create dependency and a whole system, sorry, the whole system of dependency. Appreciate the call Gino, always good hearing from you. Take care. God bless. 758, this is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Hey, before Town Hall News, I have a, Butch Wright wrote me, rather, from Gold Hill this morning, and another email of the day sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson, Central Point Family Dentistry. CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. It's on Freeman Way in Central Point. Good people there. And while you weigh crowns, they have an in-house lab. You don't have to send it out anymore. Very cool stuff. Ask them

to show you sometimes. CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. And Butch writes, Bill, back in the 80s, I was a draftsman for an Army Research and Development Center in New Jersey. A buddy was asked to do maps for Railfan magazine. Railfan, I loved that, that, that magazine, Butch. I gave away some trains magazines this morning. That's why I brought them in. I just couldn't bear to throw them into the recycle. That's how we ended up getting onto this. But Butch says, I was asked to do apps for railfan magazine, but he didn't like drawing with ink. So I got the gig.

It was very enlightening, especially the small railroads in Alaska. I've always loved trains. I witnessed the last steam engines on the Erie Lackawanna lines in the East as a young boy. I still have my Lionel set boxed up in my attic. Butch from Gold Hill. Butch, I appreciate you sharing your experience about that. Of course, my only experience with the toy trains as a kid though is holding it over my brother's head because he was told in no uncertain terms when we were little kid maybe I was six and Mikey was three right he was the dumb baby right I said Mike don't play with my trains when when I'm not

around when I'm around you can play with me you know we'll work it together Mike said okay and then of course he did play with it and then he wrecked the train and let it short across the track and it burned up the transformer. Now the transformer was like 10 bucks, 10 bucks in 1965, 1966. It's a lot of money. So I can still remember my parents saying, well, we have to take it out of your allowance. And I said, take it out of Mikey's allowance. He's the one that did it. Of course, mom told me later, we just didn't have the money. And so we had no, we probably out on Mikey's allowance. He's the one that did it. Of course, mom told me later, she said, we just didn't have the money.

And so we probably should have handled that differently. But I had to laugh about that. Even today, I'll go to Michael. Mike, you burned up my train set. I did get a transformer eventually, but yeah, I liked my train set too. Hope you were doing well. KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass.

Town Hall news is coming up. Dr. Dennis Powers joins me. We're past meets present. We'll talk about mostly good news out of the Supreme Court. There was a dud or two in there too. We'll discuss that along with where past meets present. We've heard it all.