Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 07-22-25_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Attorney and Professor Emeritus of Political Science Dr. Allain (Alan) Sanders joins the show and we discuss the Epstein politics, U.S. Pulls out of UNESCO and other news, Former Sen. Baertschiger is on with Oregon politics, any GOP good for Governor?

The Bill Myers 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 Clouser Drilling.com. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Professor Alan Sanders, he's an attorney, former Time Magazine senior reporter and also professor emeritus of political science at St. Peter's University in Jersey City, New Jersey. And you'll see him all over a TV and radio, news networks talking about the

legislative, judicial, political and international developments. And Professor, it is a pleasure having you back on. Good morning, sir. My pleasure, Bill. So, Professor, let's talk a bit about, gosh, there's a whole lot going on. Actually, there was some breaking news this morning, or maybe it happened last night, that the Trump administration pulling out of UNESCO, and this is a United Nations issue. I'm kind of curious, what does it mean overall, and give me your take as you have a reputation as a

pretty down-the-middle straight shooter, and I appreciate it that right now, not partisan on either side of it really. Right well on the UNESCO front this is something that Trump did during his first term so this is nothing new it's part of his general view that you know the United States should disengage basically from international institutions he doesn't trust them he doesn't believe in them and he believes that his view of America first, America going it alone in many contexts, is best in the interest of the United States. Now, of course, many people dispute that, but this is something that he has already done and he's just, you know, doing it again because the

Biden administration had re-engaged with UNESCO. So he already did this before then, this is nothing new then, this is just a re-disengagement. Right, I mean, Trump doesn't like the United Nations for a number of reasons. He doesn't like international agreements because he believes that it hampers United States independence in terms of what the United States should or wants to do. So he just likes to disengage, generally speaking, from international obligations and international organizations. All right. Let us shift gears to what happened last week.

And this is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to the talk radio world, is what about the Epstein files. And there has been an order given, Attorney General Pam Bondi will be releasing credible or more credible information, but Trump administration seemed to do, in my opinion, what seemed to be, and to a lot of listeners, seemed to be kind of an interesting 180 degree turn on letting that information out. Did that kind of surprise you at all or did you, were you, yeah, you could see this one coming? What's your overall impression? Well, I mean, it's sort of, you know, be careful what you wish for kind of scenario. I mean, the Trump administration has been saying there's all kinds of secrets that need to be

revealed in the Epstein files and the documents that are in the hands of the administration. And then all of a sudden it backtracks, which suggests to many people, and of course we don't know because nobody has seen them really, suggests to many people that the fives might be damaging to either Mr. Trump or to some of his key allies or to the Republican Party or to some donors or whatever. If you're saying that there's a conspiracy, if you're saying that these documents hold all kinds of information about elites who have engaged with Mr. Epstein in one way or another, and then you backtrack and you say,

well, no, now we've looked at them, there's nothing there. It implies two things. Either you were misleading initially when you said there were all kinds of damaging information there, or now there is damaging information and you want to hide it because it might be damaging to your administration or to your allies. So either way the Trump administration finds itself in a difficult place now. So you're in a pickle one way or the other but you have to admit that the supporters really kind of got spun up about this for quite some time didn't they? I mean well that's right I mean

part of the MAGA movement is that there are all kinds of conspiracies out there that are conspiracies that involve elite people and elite institutions and that are hurting ordinary people. That's a major belief of the MAGA crowd. And Trump has been feeding off of that, sometimes encouraging it, sometimes leading it. And that's why many of them are upset because they believe and they've been led to believe by Trump and his administration that they're right. And now all of a sudden Trump says, well now no, you're wrong. So people don't like

to be told they're wrong and so that's why you see this kind of uprising in the MAGA world. Now Trump is trying to deflect that by doing all kinds of other things like saying, Pai and Bonny will go to the judge and ask for the grand jury files to be revealed. Those grand jury files are not going to reveal very much if they're ever released because grand jury files are very focused. They don't focus on Epstein per se or Ghislaine Maxwell per se. They focus on what the Justice Department believes would be the crimes of these people. So, they're very focused and they don't involve much more than that.

And so, really Trump is trying to deflect, but we'll have to see whether the deflection works. It has worked to some extent, but there are still leading members of the MAGA wing in Congress that are not satisfied. Yeah, and it seems to me that if there is, if there's nothing to be concerned about, wouldn't you, and now of course you're not a politician, but you are a professor emeritus of political science, okay? So politically, if the data supports your case that there's nothing to see here, wouldn't it be better to just put it out there? Because generally, you're an attorney too, so you know I've always said that if the news supports your narrative or whatever it is, or the

evidence, you usually release the evidence, don't you? Absolutely, and that's what you would expect to happen, but because it's not happening, it's raising new suspicions. And that's why it's very difficult to understand why the Trump administration is resisting this and it's fueling views that it wants to hide something. And of course that's what the MAGA wing believes that these files hold things that people want to hide and now it seems that the Trump administration wants to hide them. And of course the Democrats are jumping in now because if Trump wants to hide something, if that's the motivation, Democrats want

to say, well no, I mean you must release it. It must be because there's something harmful there for either Trump or his Republican allies. So you've got this weird alliance now of Democrats and MAGA people who are dissatisfied, which is quite a strange alliance given what's happened for the past several years between MAGA and Democrats. Oh yeah, definitely a strange bedfellows, Professor Sanders. Professor Alan Sanders with me this morning and he is an attorney, former Time Magazine senior reporter and professor emeritus of political science at St. Peter's

University. Now it is a certainly strange bed fellows but on the other hand the Biden administration had this same information available, did it not, and chose not to do anything with it also. So this seems to be you know a bipartisan we can't let this out huh? Well that's right. I mean I think what happened is that you know they wanted to prosecute Mr. Epstein. of course he committed suicide before he was actually prosecuted and but they did prosecute um... his uh... associate uh... ms maxwell and i think uh... for many prosecutors for the justice department uh... of the trump administration and of the biden

administration at the time they said okay we're going after these offenders they are the ones who did these awful things of sex trafficking and so forth, and that was it. You know, in typical prosecutions, you go against the perpetrators of the ring, and these were deemed to be the perpetrators of the ring, and everybody then decided, okay, we've got these folks, now let's move on to other things, to other prosecutions and to other policies. Yeah, but are not the clients though, and this is the issue, are not clients actual perpetrators of these crimes also?

Well, that's right. And the question then becomes, do you have enough evidence to prosecute these people? And that may be difficult, that might have been difficult to discern or to have facts relating to those remember prosecutions mean that you have probable cause to believe that these things happen and that you have the evidence to back it up so that you can get a criminal conviction so you may have a lot of information about clients

uh... but you may not have enough to actually convict uh... and that's the judgment that all Justice Departments, all prosecutors make. And of course we don't know that, but that might be one reason why clients were not pursued. But of course there are files. The files are there and people are asking, well let's take a look at them. If you were a betting man, and I don't know if you are or not, if you play lotto or whatever, do you believe that anything... When I hear...

I don't want to say weasel words, but when I hear qualification terms like, we will permit Attorney General Bondi to release anything credible, who defines credible? Do you know? It always strikes me as a little weasel-y. Of course it's a weasel word, because credible, again, depends on the judgment of whoever wants to release the files. Credible could involve what the Justice Department, the Bondi Justice Department believes is credible, could also be what a judge deems to be credible. So it's certainly a weasel word, and that's why it's there, so that it allows the Bondi

Justice Department to release whatever it wants to release or to ask for the release of whatever it wants to release and not to ask for the release. But let's remember, in the grand jury situation, the judge would decide what is to be released. So it is a weasel word in all possible ways. It's also very likely that the judge might decide, no, none of this material that came to the grand jury should be released because it was given under the view that it should be it should be privileged and secret. We don't want information out there that didn't involve people who were charged. We only want information out there about people who were charged and the people who were

charged were Epstein and Maxwell. Okay. What would you think politically about Ghislaine Maxwell? There is a call for her to actually go before Congress and she's asking for it too and said that she would be willing to testify. How do you think that would react within the political biosphere? Well there's actually more to it than that. Actually the Justice Department, Todd Blanch, the Deputy Attorney General, has said that he's reaching out to Maxwell so that he could actually, or one of his deputies could actually go and

talk to her about what she knows regarding Mr. Epstein. I don't think that would react very well in the political world, generally speaking, because Maxwell is appealing her conviction, and she clearly is not going to say anything that hurts the possibility that she could get a pardon from President Trump. Remember, President Trump has been very generous, to put it mildly, about who he believes should be pardoned or get clemency. And so clearly, Maxwell would be interested in getting clemency or a pardon from Donald

Trump, and it is doubtful that she would say anything in an interview or in a hearing that would be damaging to Trump or any one of his associates. So I don't think that's going to be a very convincing move by the administration to try to get at the truth of what happened with Epstein and his victims. One thing that seems to be clear about this, Professor, is a lot of movers and shakers, of course, ended up using Epstein and Maxwell to facilitate either their little vacation trips, if you want to call it that, or something more nefarious. And do you believe, as Alex once did, that one of the officials that was involved in

bringing him in, eventually that he belonged to intelligence. Do you think that's a credible claim? That Epstein belonged to some intelligence? To intelligence, yeah, working for intelligence. Well, you know, who knows? I wouldn't want to speculate on that. It's true that if you work in the intelligence world, you have to deal with all kinds of

very suspicious and dubious individuals. But then we get into the region of conspiracies again and theories and whatnot. I wouldn't want to speculate about that until we actually got some real facts, because it's so easy to fabricate all kinds of conspiracies. And unfortunately, those conspiracies start to get a life of their own, and all kinds of people get hurt, and all kinds of suspicions arise. And then it's very hard to actually get at the truth once the conspiracy theory gets off the ground. So I wouldn't want to speculate about that at all. Given that the Biden administration didn't want to or did not do anything to release the Epstein files or the client list or anything else, would it probably be safe

to assume that President Trump is most likely not involved in that, but it could be friends and associates and perhaps world leaders that would cause problems on this? Yeah, it could be friends and associates. It could also just be something like, you know, you hung around Jeffrey Epstein even though you actually did nothing wrong, but you know, guilt by association, whether it's actual guilt or not, can be damaging to a person's reputation and to his standing or her standing in the community. So the elites travel in all kinds of circles. Some of them are noble circles, and for some people in the elite world, they hang around

people who might be less than savory. Doesn't necessarily mean that they've done anything wrong, but you know guilt by association can be very damaging to a person's reputation and to his or her career. All right indeed. Professor Alan Sanders once again, attorney, former Time Magazine senior reporter, professor emeritus political science at St. Peter's University in Jersey City. I'm going to link to your information where people can go to find out more. I appreciate the talk, professor. Be well. My pleasure, Bill. You take care. Thank you. It is 727 KMED 993 KBXG. You're on the Bill Maier Show. Appreciate you being here. Handing the update on the way. We're also

going to be talking with former state senator, former state senator Bärtschiger about the political landscape here in southern Oregon and the state. Hi, it's John at Wellburn's Weapons. That's 855-815-GOLD or HannityGold.com. That's HannityGold.com. Going to catch up with the rest of the news here in just a moment. Bill London, KMED News Center. State Senator Herman Bärtschiger, former or former State Senator Herman Berchick, I guess,

we'll catch up in a few weeks since we had a chance to talk. A lot of political news here in Oregon, and certainly a rise, an uptick in Democratic Party operative actions. And I guess that's kind of where we're going to take this here in the next few minutes. Gosh, just a story, a court story that I caught on the Oregonian, Olaive. Now it's behind a paywall so you can't read it but I have a subscription here but I could at least give you the basics of it. There is a librarian in the Portland area that was killed at a bus stop a number of years ago and Multnomah County civil jury slapped a convicted drunk driver there $20 million yesterday for killing a librarian.

And Jeannie Diaz was waiting at a bus stop waiting to go home to her hubby and two kids, and she was struck and killed across the street from the Belmont Branch Library in Portland, July 11th of 2023. She was 43 at that time and I'll tell you, this was one of the larger awards that had been happening and the drunk driver Kevin Scott, who was an insurance salesman oddly enough, ended up his car jumped the embankment and crushed Diaz as she sat on a Tri-Met bench. But 20 million was the award that was given. I don't know if that'll get busted down in appeal or something else like that, but yeah, that's one of the larger ones that we've heard of recently. And that was about the value of her life, you know, loving mother, two kids, hubby, yeah.

733 at KMED, we'll have the rest of it coming up here, and then into the politics with Senator Bear Shigger. Rev up your engines, folks. American Rancher Garage is putting on the brakes this season. ...5G network with unlimited talk and text for just 20 bucks a month, but what I really appreciate is Pure Talk's commitment to our military and to our skilled workforce. That matters to me. Say 50% off your first month when you dial pound 250 and say keyword Mike Rowe.

PureTalk, a wireless company that actually stands for something. This is Randall with Advanced Air and I'm on KMED. 737. Uh oh. I have another press release this time from the Merck. Oh no. Former state Senator Herman Baerchiger on the program this morning. It's not a problem, but how you doing, Herman? Welcome back. I was just looking at Merckley's latest press release. Are you on his list, by the way, when he puts out the...

Oh, I'm on his list and I, you know, it's a dangerous list to look at. I mean, it's just that guy. Okay, I'll leave it at that. Okay, well, let me share it with you because I have a feeling you would think about this probably the same way I will. And the headline this morning, As chaotic Trump tariffs drive price hikes, Merkley stays on the side of consumers and puts his support behind legislation to fight price gouging. Oh dear goodness. Oh no. Price gouging. I wish he had put his name on some legislation to stop tax gouging. Well that's different. That's different. That's just paying your fair share.

You got to remember that, Herman, right? But this is what he says, from outrageous prices for prescription medications to the cost of groceries skyrocketing, it's working families footing the bill while huge corporations gouge consumers to line their own pockets. Americans deserve basic consumer protections from this harmful practice, and we need the Price Gouging Protection Act to put people over profits. In other words, if something is supposed to be expensive, Merkley will say, you can't charge that much for it.

I guess this is kind of the, the Democratic party seems to be going down this direction like that, the fellow in New York, in which we'd like government grocery stores, right? Isn't that kind of the, you know, where this, where anytime I hear price gouging legislation, I just want to vomit because price tells us many things in this world. How much money is Merkley taking from the pharmaceutical companies? I would imagine it's significant because aren't most of them having significant contributions? They're one of the biggest contributors to the election is the pharmaceutical company. So,

you know, Merkley's always been a political hack. He's never been for the people. He's for Merkley. political hack. He's never been for the people. He's for Berkeley. You know, that's the only job he's ever had. So that's how it is. By the way, I don't know if you heard this story. I just wanted to make sure you knew. You remember the fires in LA back in January when that happened? Oh yeah. Okay. Right. All right. And they had those big, big online concerts and people were contributing. They contributed more than a hundred million dollars for the LA fire victims, right? And that's a pretty good chunk of money even for LA, right? You'd agree with that. Oh yeah. You know how much money has gone to fire victims? Lay it on me. I'm ready. Not a penny. You know where the-

Oh, that's even worse than I thought. You know where the money went? Where? Think of what the Oregon Democrats like to do. Give it to the homeless. Almost. You're getting warm. Okay, I'll just let you know.

They gave it to nonprofits. Democrats- Oh, so they could... Yeah, and so that's a big scheme because nonprofits, they really don't have to count, and they can funnel the money right back into the Democrat Party. And I'm sure there'll be programs to get out the vote and help the wildfire victims vote, but it will do nothing to put up any homes or fix any yards, nothing like that. And what a scam! What a scam to say this is going to fire victims! And it ends up going to non-profits there supposedly to service the fire victims

and the non-profits generally controlled by the political democrats in that area. It's no different from the stabbing wagon and the various other issues that we have here in southern Oregon. Same stuff, wash, rinse, repeat Herman. It's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. And then I was reading an article that how many people are just walking away from their properties and Pacific Palisades because it costs so much money to rebuild. They just forget it. And now they're talking about doing the, well, there's talk that this is really the sustainable development United Nations sort of thing, the technocracy, because they're talking about

building the smart city there. And a lot of people walking away from their properties, they've got land for affordable housing communities, Herman. It's going to be wonderful. Nothing, you know, stack and pack in a six-hundred square foot cubicle. These liberals are insane. I mean, I'm just choking on our governor. You know, I'm looking at how many businesses are leaving Oregon. You know, Joe Wins pulling up stakes, they're moving back east. Of course, Dutch Brothers has moved. And look at the layoffs at Intel.

Yeah. And you told me about Dutch Bros leaving for quite some time. It was kind of an open secret there for a while. But now, what is it, generally speaking, can you get specific on what is tending to drive most of it? Is it just the corporate activity tax or is there a lot more involved to the business unfriendliness? So all those companies need employees and when the employees have they don't want to move

to a high income tax state. We're one of the highest and if you live in Multnomah or if you live in the city of Portland which is in Multnomah County it's the second highest tax city in the United States now. So they have to look at livability for their employees. And that's how they attract good talent. And somebody's going to come to work for Company A in Oregon, they're going like 10% income tax. I don't think so. So, you know, and, and Kotech, the reason Kotech is such a horrible governor, she has no world experience. Her world is always revolved around the LGBT community and, and trying to get Democrat control. She don't have any business experience. She don't have any of that experience. and that's why she's such a horrible governor. She doesn't realize if we don't generate commerce,

you can tax all, you know, what's the old saying, trying to get blood out of a turnip. If people aren't making the money, they can't pay the taxes. They fundamentally don't understand that, Bill. Do you think that there's going to be some change of heart over the next year or two, especially with the Trump administration cracking down on sanctuary states and Oregon is right in the target? And I understand, we all kind of figured this is going to happen. Dan Rayfield ended up filing a lawsuit yesterday. Did you catch that story against the Trump administration? Yeah, but Dan Rayfield has no courtroom experience. He's a nice guy, an attorney, but he's just,

he's never been a trial attorney or anything. Oh, I completely understand that, but he's not going to be the one that does the trial. It's going to be his minions there in the DOJ. And I'll tell you what, the state of Oregon don't have the most talented people working for the Attorney General's office, let me tell you. Okay. Well, I guess that's good because while what he's trying to do, though, why they're suing the Trump administration is to, and you can tell they're not going to say that quiet part

out loud, but it's really about the crackdown on money from the federal government going into programs. And the Fed is saying, you have to make sure that these services are not going to illegal aliens. That's the bottom line. And that's exactly right and you know I fool around a little bit on social media and stuff and you know people say, oh there's all these people who may cut off Medicare. Well they're not citizens and you know these liberals that say all these poor people and everything, there's 8 billion people on the planet and half of them would love to live in the United States and how

do we afford that Bill? Well, I guess print more money at the same time, but you need a new Fed, a new Fed chair. I don't want to get off on that, okay? No, let's save that for another day. What I did want to ask you though is that according to your view of the political lens here in Oregon, Democrat Party of Oregon activity is increasing and I guess the the fight I guess is really building for the election cycle next year. What do you see going on in our particular area that has you rather intrigued I, would be a way of putting it?

Well, I think some of it's left over from my old Senate days. I always remember Governor Brown said, you know, revenge is best served cold and slowly, and I think that's been going on because, hey, there's a coordinated effort here at Josephine County and Jackson County, but, I mean, you looked at my four years as commissioner. I mean, the Daily Courier never wrote a positive thing about anything we did. Nothing. So you got... And they also got all those newspaper awards too. So I guess that's their reward. Oh, you know what? They're like a T-ball team. Everybody gets a trophy, you know and you know if Stoddard is such a magnificent writer and everything why is he why is he in a two-bit town writing for a failing

newspaper you know so I don't know you know whatever but like I said well then you come on you can say the same thing for me here compared to the national stage we love it down here Herman come on don't knock the area. Yeah but you're not out there getting T-ball trophies. That's true. They all get a trophy. I watched that they used to have a thing up there where all the newspapers got together and put a big function on for all the you know senators and representatives and everything, and all you've seen was awards, awards, awards, awards, awards everywhere. Now, I think if they're still giving awards and awards and awards, everybody

would get one because the newspapers continue to close, really, and we're seeing fewer of them, a lot of consolidation in that industry also. Well, you know, go back to it. You know, they got some online newspapers or journalism here and Joseph's targeted. It's all every single article is about a conservative doing the wrong thing. You never see an article about a liberal doing the wrong thing. So it's a coordinated effort. And those online newspapers, when you start digging down and seeing who's actually sponsoring them, it'll make your eyes cross a little bit, Bill.

What do you mean? What are you alluding to? Just curious. Well, there's some people that you probably wouldn't think would be supporting it that are. So, you know, I'll let you do your homework and that'll give you something to do on a Tuesday afternoon. Have you given any thought to the governor's race at this point for next year? Not for you running, but I'm speaking of who are the players and the movers and shakers at this point in time. You know, of course Kotec's going to run again. So that's going to be the blue side. The red side, I don't

know. Drazen, she seems to always be so full of herself that she was born to be governor, but I don't think that's going to happen. It's very hard for a Republican to win without a third party candidate. So that's what I'm looking at is who's going to run as a third party candidate. Because if you don't split the Democrat vote in the state of Oregon, you're simply not going to get elected in a statewide race. And that's why, and I remember when you took a lot of incoming heat on your issue of Betsy Johnson when she ran for governor two years ago, right? And Betsy essentially was the attempt to siphon off some votes.

We've seen a lot of this happen in some of the other races. I think it was at the Attorney General's race that the Pacific Green Party actually grabbed quite a few votes. Maybe it was one of the other statewide elections. Secretary of State with Dennis, that's how we got Dennis Richardson elected. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that is it. So if Republicans want a Republican governor, then we should actually hope for a strong third party challenge out there, right? That's really what's needed. Right. Well, and the Johnson, you know, the Johnson-Kotec-Drazen race,

the way a lot of us looked at it is we didn't care if it was Drazen or Johnson. It was, you know, the theme was anybody by Kotec. And if you remember right, Johnson, you know, out of the gate, she was, you know, she was a furlong ahead of everybody. We thought, okay, hey, we got warmed up, here we go. And so we didn't care, you know, Drazen or Johnson, we don't care.

Yeah. But, you know, Tina Kotech just raised massive amount of money from out of state, $30 million, Bill. Well, any of that ever change as long as we're able to have everybody from outside here write huge checks to pay for Oregon campaigns? Yeah. I mean, think of it. First of all, the Democrats have a hell of a lot more registered voters in the state of Oregon than Republicans. And when you did the math, he had about $22.50 to spend on every single Democrat voter.

That's a pretty significant hunk of change per voter when you look at it that way. Yes! That's right. So if there's four voters in a house, he can spend $100 on that household. That's crazy! What could Republicans do to even that score a bit? Compete more effectively in 2026. Well it's tough because you can't have a real moderate Republican because then Republicans don't vote. I could swear that the Republican Party overall when it comes to statewide everything is super moderate and it's just so squishy, so Democrat-like that yeah I think a lot of the folks here in southern Oregon just sit on their hands, don't they? That's exactly right. So you have to energize the base and how you energize the base is to promote conservative ideas. And when you start waffling or sitting on the fence, people just say,

oh, to hell with it. So that's, that is a big problem in the state of Oregon. It really is. How would you thread that needle? If you were advising the Oregon Republican Party as we get ready for a gubernatorial battle, how would you thread that needle when it comes to, you know, the best kind of... I don't think it would be great to have 17 candidates like we had that one time. There was no oxygen for anybody, really. You know, you can't stop anybody from running for office. So but I think it's I think it's all about, you know, I think you have to have

a fairly conservative Republican to get to turn out the Republican votes. You just have to do it, you know, and you can't have a squishy person and you can't have a person that has a track record record in the legislature of voting for tampons in boys' rooms. So that would tend to zonk out Christine Drazen right away, wouldn't it? Uh-oh, she's got horrible votes, you know? And I took a lot of flack in the Senate because my votes were so conservative, you know? I mean, the Democrats know they could never pull me away. But it kept my base energized, and that's why I got 97% of the votes when I ran for

office from now on. But trying to get Democrat votes in a statewide race, I would fail miserably. So it's very, very tough. So people say, oh, we've got to get a moderate Republican there to get Democrats. But in many ways, when you look back to how Dennis Richardson got close, but he was a conservative, but I would dare say that he was, would it be fair to have called Dennis almost like a moderate conservative in some ways, truly like a social conservative, but he seemed that he was respected by the Democrats too.

And that seemed to help to an extent, didn't it? No, Dennis was very conservative, but he knew how to round the corners. That's what I meant. That's kind of what I was alluding to. But his voting record was great, and he was a student of the budget. I mean, that guy knew the budget inside and out. And whether you're a Republican or Democrat or whatever, numbers don't lie. And so that was the drum that he beat on quite a bit and I think that really helped him a lot. Is there any kind of a Richardson type of character within the system right now that

you're aware of? You know, looking out my window right now I don't see any. Could be a long 2026 in other words, at least at this point in time. Yeah, you know, and here's the other thing. Let's just say that the stars aligned and you got a Republican governor. The next thing is going to be the fight of the swamp, the swamp in Oregon, because every single department all the way down from the director of the swamp, the swamp in Oregon, because every single department all the way down from the director of the department down to the person that changed the light bulbs

is extremely liberal. So you're going to have to be a two-turn governor at least to even turn the ship. They've got this state so screwed up, Bill, and in such a wrong direction, it's going to take a lot of work to start to turn the ship. Now it can be done. And I think we're starting to see some cracks simply because people are losing their jobs and it's becoming a very expensive state to live in. The other thing that I've noticed here is that the longer the Trump

administration is here and, and cutting budgets and cutting transfer payments to, to the States, you start realizing how much of the democratic system here. I mean, I'm talking about the Democratic Party system has been paid for by borrowed federal money, by the very nature that we're just getting hissy fits and cries about any kind of reduction in spending whatsoever. Is there a possibility that that reality will end up improving the political standing of Oregon? In other words, it can't hide behind, it can't govern like a failure any longer because there's not going to be a bailout coming from the federal government. Any thoughts on that, Herman?

Yeah, no, I definitely, that's what I just said, you know, people are starting, you know, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, they're starting to say, huh, I mean, look at your power bills now, Bill. I know. I don't know if even they, you know, that's finally starting to hit home. The gas is going to go through the roof here pretty soon. California is shutting down refineries. So that's going to increase the gas at the wholesale level on top of all the taxes and everything. So you, you know, and people are starting to see their income, their disposable income, just evaporating.

It's taking everything just to survive. And when you see institutions such as, let's say, transit districts here in southern Oregon that are going to have to lay off dozens upon dozens of people, you realize how absolutely unsustainable all of this infrastructure that has been built up, the social welfare structure has been built up, that there's not funds to pay for this kind of stuff. And it was being paid for by vaporware, by vapor dollars, for decades in many cases. And now we're kind of coming to the end of that, of the road well listen in Oregon everything is structured that the person that gets up in the morning and grabs a lunch bail and goes to work pays

for everything so when those people start losing their jobs you know the transportation tax is on the worker. All these taxes are on the worker, so as people loses their jobs, they don't contribute. When they don't contribute, then they have to... You know, this whole statewide transit tax and all these buses running all over the state, special and rural areas with a handful of people on them, that is all subsidized by the person that gets up every morning and goes to work. And, you know, so the whole scheme starts to tumble when jobs are lost. And what did they lose since the beginning of the year? Like 6,500 jobs in Oregon?

6,500 jobs. That's a real job loss here, too. Those are big numbers for our state. That's not small. And they were high-paying jobs. They were500 jobs. That's a real job loss here too. Those are big numbers for our state. That's not small. And they were high paying jobs. They were good jobs. Those are people that are not paying corporate activity fees. They're not paying for the transportation tax on their wages and all the rest of it. And it's death by a thousand cuts in the budget process here too. Final question I had for you here. Is ODOT going to get their magic pile of money in... I don't know where the magic pile of money exists, you know, and I just... it just makes my skin crawl. I seen a picture of Kotech, you know, signing that bill for the state marine board

that put a license on anybody that floats in the river, you know? And that's how a Democrat... So the state Marine Board comes to the legislature and says, oh, we need more money. And the legislature figures out a way, oh, well, we'll just tax everybody that floats in the river or on a lake. And then that'll make the state Marine Board whole. Yeah. Next, you're going to need a permit to put water wings on your little kid. You watch. Exactly. Instead of looking at the

State Marine Board budget and say, well, why are you spending so much money? They don't do that. They just go... And you know, I watched her sign that and I'm thinking, my God, you have all these big businesses leaving, all this, you know, people losing their jobs and everything, and you sit at your desk signing this stupid legislation, grinning from ear to ear, she looked like a jackass eating clover, you know, and I just shake my head and I go, why do Oregonians keep voting for these morons? Maybe they won't. Maybe they won't. Maybe there's some hope at this point. I always hold that off there. You know, I was talking with the... since the last time I talked with you, Herman, former state senator Herman Baerchugger with me,

I ended up talking with Matt McCaw from Greater Idaho. And we were talking with him, I was talking with him about the fact that the state legislature did not even give the greater Idaho people a hearing. They wouldn't even have a hearing on this, even though the state of Idaho has a talk with them, and they are very open to adjusting this. Is there any possibility, and I've often said that if there was going to be any change for Southern Oregon, like a state of Jefferson or a greater Idaho, it would probably come in an insolvent kind of period. Do you think this could be the beginning long term of the point where maybe, you know, Salem says we don't care if southern Oregon were to join off into into Idaho? Any thoughts on that before we take off? No, the Democrats love power and control and so they're not going to

relinquish any of that. Yeah, but if they don't have the money to be able to exert their control, isn't there a possibility that, you know, that weakens their hand? Um, it could, but boy, that, you know, to get the state of Oregon legislature to vote, to divide the state, and then a governor to sign it. The same thing has to be repeated at the state of Idaho. And then it goes to Congress. So you gotta get, you know, you gotta get a simple majority in the House and then you gotta get 60 votes in the Senate

and the president to vote for it. It's a, you know, I mean, there is a pathway. Yeah, it's definitely a high lift. I'm not making any bones about that, but I could see that long-term. It may not happen in our lifetime. It may not, it may not, but I appreciate what they're at least attempting to do.

Idaho would no doubt love to have access to the Pacific, you know, to be able to take parts of Eastern Oregon and Southern Oregon, you know, out to the coast. And be able to take parts of Eastern Oregon and Southern Oregon out to the coast, and that would certainly be helpful. And they don't look at our less prosperous rural areas as a burden, like Salem does. Salem looks at us as like gap-toothed hillbilly country cousins down here. All we're worthy of is to take them on guided fishing trips or whatever, when they come down from Salem.

When I was the vice chair of Rural, I forget the name of that committee, and Arne Rolklin was the chair, Rural Communities, I put a thought forward. I said, hey, Coos Bay is the only deep water port between San Francisco and Portland. And Portland's not a really good port because you got to come through the bar and way up the river or whatever. So I said, hey, let's take, let's draw a geographical line around the Coos Bay area, make it a right to work area.

And I said, all the money from all over the world would flow in there, not cost Oregonians a penny that build a port and the commerce would be through this feeling. And remember we were trying to get a natural gas pipeline into the Port of Cruz Bay. I do. So we could start in all of that stuff and the Democrats, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I'm thinking you moron, do you know how much money you would have to spend on all your little pet projects if we just let Coos Bay flourish? But that's not how they think, Bill.

Apparently not. Well I don't know if we're going to be able to survive our state's elite for a whole lot longer if they're going to keep this up here, Herman I always appreciate the talk the analysis all right be well hey you have a you have a pleasant day I plan on it I plan on thank you very much your homework who is supporting these very progressive liberal news outlets all right I'll take a look I'll take a look at who's advertising right take a look at it be well about

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