Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 07-29-26_WEDNESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Open phone topics, some of the Fauci hearing, your reaction. We catch up with former State Sen. Baertschiger on the Curry County sheriff scandal, IP28 going down and other news.

This hour of the Bill Myers Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurdrilling.com. It is the Bill Meyer Show taking your call, 7705633. Always happy to do that. A little earlier last hour, I was talking about this amazing, this, well, unreleased documentary that the late Senator Lindsey Graham was in. And essentially he was just talking about how successful he was in talking everybody into war, including President Trump too. And it just amazes me that this is something which is not being talked about or being glossed over as they're doing all of these state funerals and everyone's saying such wonderful things, is that Lindsay is a big part of why we were in the Middle East, why President Trump ran against the Forever Wars.

It's also why we're probably going around right now. Tom, you wanted to way in on that because it's just astounding that this footage is now coming out, and I guess they're going to release it at some point in the near future. Yeah, Bill, I wanted to point out to people. There's a great article, Lou Rockwell, called The Dupes of War. And basically, we're all dupes if we keep just going for a forever war. And, you know, in my own lifetime and so forth, I remember the Vietnam War, and at the time I was 18, I saw what a total fraud it was, being ordered to go fight for freedom and not having any choice in the matter.

But looking back in history, as I've realized my own lifetime, often and regular, the government lies to us about literally everything. And I thought back, you know, the Spanish-American War, we had another ship issue with a blowing up of the Maine. World War II, sinking in Elyssetania, World War II. War II, Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin with the Vietnam War. I remember how Marine General Smedler Butler, was that his name? War of the Racket. Yeah, yeah. He always talked about being most of the wars are rackets and that they're usually

bankers' wars because they tend to finance both sides of it in one form or another. Eisenhower, when you left, you know, office, warn us about the military industrial complex and also the pharmaceutical medical industry complex and how it was working. As far as I'm concerned, that same military industrial complex, deep state murdered the very next president and all assassinations of the 60s. But that's a whole other ballgame. But as you well know, the challenge that we all have to work through is that it is very easy to whip us because it's like we're humans, we're tribal, we want to get along.

and I think we're hardwired that all somebody has to do, someone in some form of authority, is this is the threat, this is the threat. And then I think we react instinctively on such matters, and we will tend to rally behind that. It's fear. Fear is the greatest manipulator. And I call that with wars, I call that playing the patriot card. You know, we hear about the race card being. placed in manipulating people. But I see it over and over again playing the Patriot card. If you love

your country, you're going to go die for Rockefeller and, you know, this whole thing. So anyway, the dupes of war is just a jump-off point for people thinking about war and if we're being duped into war and so forth. And I must say with the current war, I'm seeing all kinds of contradictory facts, like one person saying there's 35,000 people killed by protesters killed by the Iran government, another one's saying, no, that's a complete fabrication. The thing about the current war is, I don't know. There's things that Trump knows that I don't know, and I'm first to admit it. So I suspend my judgment, but I also have a deep suspicion about it. Yeah, and that's the way to look at it. Do I know? No, I don't. Nobody really,

really can claim to know. You know, with the Vietnam War, it's the first war that was ever filmed, and they learned a lesson from that. They don't let us have on-scenes descriptions of war anymore. It's just, all we hear about is what's been filtered through the mainstream media. So we have no clues what's actually going on. Fair enough. I appreciate the call.

Thanks for the opinion there, Tom. 770K-M-E-D-770-633. Hand of the update is on the way. More of your calls. and that we have a former state senator Herman Berksiger. We're going to be talking about IP28, that crazy animal rights wacko thing, which is not going to be on the ballot. But, you know, there is a politician, maybe more than one politician here that's just going, oh, my gosh, they're more happy. They're more happy than even people who are hunters and eat meat.

We'll talk about that coming up. One of each, Seltosven, 917324 MSRP, MSP, MSP.SRP 270. Now more with Bill Meyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Fetterman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, Fauci's out there right now. I'm not here to perhaps attack you or defend or anything.

It's really just more honestly. I'm just want to acknowledge I have had members of my family die from COVID. And now I also grieve for people that I've met that have lost their business through the pandemic. and they'll never been the same. Now, as during the pandemic, I was the lieutenant governor, so we were in the middle of all of that maelstrom, trying to find the right balance between protect life and protect the economics and for all of it.

And I'm not sure if we got it all right or wrong, but without a doubt, I can continue to question myself. But one, that I, it's not about much more your regrets, but I have one. And that is early on that there was the theory that the virus could have emerged from the lab. And early on, that became like a right-wing kinds of theory. And I thought it seemed to make sense. Now, there was a really advanced lab that was close by.

And then you have this unknown virus out. So, but that became a very, partisan thing. And now it seems now it's more and more emerging theory that that would have come from the lab. Now, you know, I hope, I think that the next time our nations facing something like this, we are not become, you know, as I might have been, blinded by the partisan idea that maybe the truth might come from a side that's different than you are. But I think we should really be willing to pursue truth, no matter where that may have emerged after for all of that. This is John Fatharman, by the way.

And I now cede the remain back to the chair. Thank you. Oh, he didn't ask a question. Senator Moreno. Oh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I will echo Senator Johnson's comments about... Okay, so the Democrats are talking here at the moment. All right, I might get back to it.

The reason I brought a little bit of that on is that Fauci took the fifth more than 50 times this morning over the last few minutes. over 50 times about the origins of COVID. He took the Fifth Amendment, so he didn't want to incriminate himself. What do you think about that, huh? 50 times, 50 plus times. Hey, Joy, how are you doing this morning? Magnificent. What about you?

Always a magnificent day. It's good to have you on here. What do you think about that? I know you didn't call about Fauci here. I'll get to your thing, but what do you think about Fauci taking the fifth more than 50 times this morning? so far. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Oh, man.

Ridiculous. I didn't even consider that he might just do that. I would have thought that, you know, certainly the truth might set him free, but I guess that's not going to be the case. I would have thought some answers would have been a good idea, but, you know, call me crazy. I guess so. What was on your mind today, huh? So I wanted to let you know, just so you know, I am old, like as old as dirt. And if I added up every car I've ever owned, and I've had Mercedes, I have a beautiful Subaru, you know, I have all these cars, and it doesn't add up to $100,000. Really?

For every car I've ever owned. And I started driving when I was like 16. My first car that I bought when I was 17, right off the showroom floor at Pacific Beach Toyota down in San Diego, and I paid $1,750. $1,000 for it brand new, drove it off. My family about flipped out because they're like, why would you spend that much on a car? $1,750, right? Yes.

And by the time I paid interest on the loan, it was like $2,000. And, oh, my dad was just beside himself, but I would pay interest. I know. Why don't you go get a $300 car, you know? It wasn't much of a problem to do it in that time, I'll bet, right? No, no. A $300 car was a great car, but this went for years and years and years. And my husband and I, once we got married and everything, bought our first house for $66,000.

And you can't even put a down payment for that, I don't think now. So we drove the car, and then my girlfriend, she has these kids, and she has one with cancer. And my husband said, give her the car, and we'll just get you a new one. So we gave her the Toyota Corolla, and she didn't know what that light meant. on the dashboard. Oh, no. Like the genie. Oh, no.

And she blew it up. She blew up my car. Oh, no. It would probably still be on the road, you know? I know. Out of all the cars, you know, I've often wanted to pose this question of all the vehicles that we've had over the years, what's the one that you wish you'd never sold? Do you have one?

Does one come to mind? I do. It was a Mercedes-Benz, ML-350. It was the best car I ever owned. And it was not economical because the requirements. pairs on it were so expensive, but it was the best car I ever had. Best car I ever had. Sadie's Ben's ML350.

Yeah. The one car that I sold, and even though it was a used car, I sold it. It was a, I bought this after I got a divorce last time around, and I was living in Medford, in West Medford, and I didn't have a lot of money. And I had a 1974 Mercedes 240D, so it was the diesel, you know, the diesel. and that vehicle was so rock-solid reliable, but it was getting tired and it was going to need an engine rebuild. But it was a beautiful body, and it was in beautiful shape.

And that thing was just so solid. That's the one car I think I've had in my life that I wish I'd never sold. I wish I'd been able to save it and got an engine rebuilder and done it myself because it was such a stately great cruiser. It was kind of a pea green color at that time. That's what I was going to say. It was the avocado green. Yeah, avocado, that's it.

Yeah, avocado green. And I'm not much for the avocado green, but that vehicle was punched above its weight. It felt so solid. That was the one that I wish that I had never let go because it could have been rebuilt if I just been able to get a few more bucks at the time. They're bulletproof. Yeah. Well, and so here's the other part of that story is that Toyota Corolla was my first car.

We ended up buying me a 240Z, I think it's a 72 and a half. so it had the better carburetor on it. Beautiful vehicle. Beautiful vehicle. So cool. I drove that for years. We had babies, and I had a bucket car seat in the floor. I had one baby in the seat, and I had one mounted between my seat.

Oh, no. So I had three babies in my... In a 240Z? My husband, in my 240Z. And I used to cruise, man, I was just so bad, you know. And... Well, I see, you were the hot mama. She needed a bigger car.

No, Joy, Joy, hold on. Hold on, Joy. You were the hot mama in the 240Z is what you were. Yeah. I actually caused a car accident on the freeway in my 240Z. I think my dress was a little bit short at the time. Of course, you know, I was young. And so I bent over to get the baby out of the car seat and a car crashed on the freeway.

Yeah, they couldn't help it. Those were the good old days. Yeah, the view was good. Joy, thanks for sharing the story. I love that. My pleasure. You too. All right, 77-O-K-M-E-D.

Yeah, we're kind of like extending on from Wheels Up Wednesday. Anthony Fauci, if you were missing this, he keeps pleading the fifth. I don't know. Who is this? Oh, this is Bernie Marino. From watching a football game with her own family outside. When that story broke, I said to myself, I cannot stand idly on the side and watch this happen. It was about six years ago today.

that I decided I'm going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run through the United States Senate. Get to a question, Bernie. Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying who the fuck do you think you were for doing? Whoa.

Whoa. Bernie just dropped an F-bomb in Congress. Okay, I had a dump out of that one. I think I'll stay away. This is a pretty hot deal at the moment. Let me go to the next line. Maybe I will not have to hit the dump button. on that one. Yeah, it did work. Okay, hi, KMEDE.D. Good morning. Who's this? Hey, good morning, Bill.

Deplorable Patrick, are we still talking about the cars we shouldn't have sold? We could talk about that, or we could talk about Fauci taking the fifth more than 50 times, but what do you think? Go ahead. Well, don't let anybody else find out about this, but my worst case was I needed to raise a little money for a trip across country. I was probably 22 years old. And I sold a beautiful 62 Chevy. It had the stock radiant red paint, something like that, whatever they called it, with a 327 and a 4-speed, and that car was lovely. And I sold it for 850 bucks. Just to finance the trip, right? to the Chevy dealer to finance the trip.

And I hope nobody else hears about this. But that car would be worth $100,000 today. $100,000 today. Oh, but you know, back then it was just an old car, wasn't it? Well, you know, it was a nice car. It was actually it was probably six years old, maybe. Yeah. And so that's a little crazy.

I hate to confess that, but confession is good for the soul. Exactly. And thank you for sharing that. Let me go to Dave. Thank you for the call. Let me go to Dave. Hello, Dave. How are you? Yeah, so I got two comments. One is, Fauci is a known liar. And when we, the web we weave, when we practice to disease. And then the other one is, you know, the best laid plans always go awry when you, release the dogs of war. Point well taken. Thank you for the call, Dave. 770K, MED.

Hard to predict where it goes, that's for sure. Good morning. Hi, who's this? Welcome. Hello. Morning, Billy. Hi, who's this? Good morning, Billy. Hi. Hey, it's Scotty.

Scotty. Welcome. Hey, I wanted just to say, Mercedes-Benzum-Medford. Hey, okay, awesome. Hey, you know, listening to the fellow back east, EP autos, and driving especially. I trained both of my children, my wife, my ex-wife, and it's very important to be the spatial aware. And it's imperative that we do that, that we are always aware.

And having all these AI devices now, you lose the fill of the road, you lose the fill of your surroundings. things. And that's number one. And I don't hear that in those ads for the state Oregon. I wonder why. Well, whatever you do, though, don't touch the cell phone. But if you touch the touchscreen, it's okay, right? Don't you find that interesting? Don't you find that ironic if you touch the cell phone screen, it's against the law. But if you touch the touchscreen on the vehicle, trying to go down the menu, trying to go down the menu to find how you can turn the fan up on the ventilation. When I did late night deliveries, Billy, you know, all of us late night had to be on our phones,

our devices. We had two or three phones that were always tracked on what we were delivering. Are you there still? Oh, yeah, I'm listening. I'm listening. Okay. I'm allowing it to be your time, Scotty. Okay.

Oh, is it my time? Yes, it is. I'll tell you. It was my time yesterday. I'll tell you. It is your time. Okay. Okay. I want to remind everybody, too, there's a county commissioners meeting at 930, and this is every week. Participate in your government. I'm running for a county commissioner in 2028, and I'm learning a lot from Colleen Roberts. So I want to say that too. Also, and if you don't like these cameras that the county has, well, how about the satellites?

So think about what you're doing and be a good honest person with what you do because... Well, you know, the way I tend to look at this, though, and this is going back to the flock cameras you were talking about, Scott. Right, right. I've been asked about those quite a bit. Yeah, and what has... My concern about this is that it's very easy. I understand why law enforcement wants it. It is a amazing tool, right?

However, I think people have been pushed to the point where they're tired of being told that, well, you know, you've already given up so many rights in the Fourth Amendment's kind of a dead issue right now. It's kind of like the equivalent of there's a guy dying in the middle of the street because he was set on fire. And then, you know, anybody that's bringing up that, oh, that's okay, just throw another gallon of gas on the guy. You know, so he's already on fire, you know. And that's the way I tend to look at our civil liberties right now. And I think people have focused on the flock camera because it's like it's in your face. Would you agree with that? It's so in your face out there about it.

Absolutely. Absolutely, Billy. And when you're driving in Medford, drive 20 miles an hour. Otherwise, you'll get a picture taken of you and you may get a ticket. Boy, that gives me more than anything. But, you know, it also makes me think, you know, I just need to just kind of. drive along real slow, and maybe we all need to put the little triangular shape for low, slow vehicles, you know, on our cars. And maybe we should all put helmets on our head, too, like we're, you know, like we had a

skull injury of some sort. Yeah. All the time. And it's all, I have one right next to me, you know, in my seat, my passenger seat, unless I have a, yeah, but you're a professional driver at a different type, though. I was, you know what type of helmet I was talking about. All right. Scott, appreciate the call.

Thank you. If you're on hold, be right with you here. 770 KMED. We're just having a little fun this morning, noodling around after wheels up. Completed Electric Plus completes all those electric jobs you need done around your house and realty. Good morning.

This is News Talk 1063, KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. And I appreciate you being here. David. David, you went to the way in and finally confess on the vehicle you wish you hadn't sold. Go ahead.

Yeah, Bill, I thought maybe calling the talk show and telling everyone about it would be really an important step in my healing. But when I was 18, I sold a 1980 international scout, and it was factory equipped with a Nissan turbo diesel engine in it. Oh, and you sold that? Yeah, I sold it bill for like $1,800 or something like that. I drove it every day. Not only that, it was a scout traveler rally, which means it was a two-foot longer bed,

and it had a flat interior and fake mag wheels on it. So, yeah, you know, I've had a hard time for giving myself for that one. You know how collectible those are these days? Just astounding what they're going for. I think they built like maybe 9,000 of them. It might have been less. It was not very many. Yeah.

Well, I hope you feel better in that you can go on to heal already. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for the call. Former State Senator Herman Berchiger is standing by in afternoos. We're going to dig in. why IP28 being off the ballot maybe necessarily isn't that good of a thing, really. At Two Dogs Fabricating, we're woofing about our new Iron Bull dump trailers

with new features, including enhanced... In expert room edition, you also have a partner with Hughes Lumber. So remember, bigger small, Hughes Lumber does it all. On Cradle Lake Highway in Medford or online at Hugheslumber.com. Hi, this is Mark from Jay Austin, and I'm on KMED. Well, the science hasn't talked about anything. He said Fifth Amendment, more than 50 times this morning so far. Former State Senator Berchicker is standing by.

Horse lady, give me a quick one here on a vehicle that your husband sold that you wanted to kill him over. Oh, I wanted him murdering the worst way. Oh, no. I had a beautiful teal green, 1965 Mustang with white interior, a six-cylinder. with three speed, and he sold it and got a Pontiac station wagon. It was like driving a boat. I was so mad. Oh.

No, the Pontiac Stationway was like one of those Catalina station wagons back in the deal? It was a great big one. Yeah, yeah. And it had lousy suspension, and it was just like driving a boat. Yeah. Yeah. As for Fauci, that little bugger is as guilty as they come, and I wouldn't have touched that that vaccine for anything in the, you couldn't pay me enough to take it.

All right. Thank you, horse lady. Former state senator Herman Barrettiger back. Herman's been great. Took a little summer break here for a little while. Wonderful to have you back here. And gosh, I remember when you were county commissioners, a county commissioner back at the time.

And how much incoming that you all took back at that time during Fauci World, during the Fauci time, when the science. was going out there. And they wanted you to order, what, mandatory vaccines? Was that what they wanted? Was that what the health department? They wanted that. We had people that wanted us to close I-5 on our northern border with Douglas County

and also on our southern border with Jackson County. I mean, it was pretty wild. And, you know, the commissioners, I think, I look back at it. And I think we took the right course. And what we did as commissioners is we said, look, this conversation is between you and your physician. Yep. And you make the decision. But boy, they didn't want that, did they?

They did not. And the daily courier, I think I was in the paper front page every single day. You know, they just, the courier was unrelentless with their position on the vaccines. The part that people were being told at that point. And, of course, we were being gaslighted. We now know we were being gaslighted. And even Fauci in his own diary entries. We were being lied to right from the beginning.

They knew where... There's just all sorts of things we were lied to about. And it's kind of hard not to feel a little irritation looking back at that now. Yeah, you know, I'm not a physician. And at that particular period, we were looking at all kinds... There was all kinds of conflicting information out there. supplied from people would have some very good credentials. So as a politician, it was really difficult to try to figure out, you know, where to land on

this issue. And then there's also all the legal ramifications of making decisions. One thing I didn't like, and I still am a little bitter with our former health director, is I learned in a newspaper that we had to bring in a portable refrigeration. unit for bodies, you know? I mean, it would have been pretty nice to know that as a commissioner from the health director and not have to learn about it in a newspaper, you know what I mean? Was that kept secret from the board? I don't know if it was kept secret, but it certainly wasn't disclosed.

Yeah. It's interesting how different groups from time to time try to not be too forthcoming about what they're doing in either a county or a city government here. Have you, I know you've been out running around a bit here, but did you catch up with what happened out on Curry County with their sheriff under investigation over? Yeah, yeah, I did. You know, those things are all, I understand the Sheriff's Department gets a grant or funding for. a private entity that's dedicated for the Sheriff's Department.

That's all good and well, and that money should probably stay absolutely with the Sheriff's department, but it still needs to be run through the county system. Agreed. And I think that's where the sheriff, and maybe even the past sheriff, going to get themselves in trouble over this because it's like, as an example, an RV from the Foundation titled in the Sheriff's name, not the county's name. But I guess it was all designed to escape any kind of oversight by the county commissioners. It's amazing.

And you know, that's what county commissioners are for. They're supposed to be on guard for waste, fraud, and corruption. That is your number one job, okay? You're the top of the county, and you're supposed to be on guard for waste, fraud, and corruption. And so everything that happens through the county entities needs to have. have oversight from the county commissioners, in my opinion. Yeah. Now, I'm going to talk with Cord Boyce, who, of course, is a state rep out there, and used to be a

county commissioner. He's going to come on the show Fridays when he's next available. We're going to have a little conversation about that. But, yeah, it's like there's a lot of smoke, and I think people were suspicious of, like, you know, kind of like, you can understand if all of a sudden the sheriff had, if the sheriff and Joe County back in the day when you were a county commissioner all of a sudden, here's a brand new bear cat, right? You know, one of those, you know, Homeland Security kind of vehicles.

And it just shows up one day and then you're using it. Where'd you get that? Right. Well, let me give an example. How about a major marijuana operation going ahead and giving a grant or whatever you want to call it to the Sheriff's Department for half a million dollars? That wouldn't look too good. Well, would it? No, I wouldn't think so.

You can see how all sorts of hinky it could give. Undue influence, that appearance of undue influence. Right. So that's why everything needs to fall under the commissioners for an examination. And you may disagree or not disagree with them, but at least it sheds some light on the issues. Checks and balances for sure. Hey, I wanted to revisit your initiative petition 28. That was the animal rights wacko, no hunting, no meat, no dairy, no animal husbandry, etc.

It was just absolutely a total wacko thing. And I know that Senator David Brock Smith, who of course is running to be a U.S. Senator Senator now was out talking the other day and doing a big deal about how we got this beat. We got this beat. And I guess he put a lot of energy onto this. And a lot of other Republicans did too. I guess my concern here, Herman, is that as bad as IP 28 was, it was not going to pass. It was not going to pass.

But I have to tell you, I don't think there would have been a better driver of Republican turnout in the fall gubernatorial election than initiative petition 28, the animal rights wacko won. And I think, I think in some ways that actually hurt to have it off the ballot. What do you think? Yeah, I tend to agree. So first to comment on Senator Brock, how did we beat this senator? They had 146,000 signatures, and thankfully they didn't all qualify. So I don't know how Republicans beat it. That's the first thing.

The second thing is, is it's a wedge issue. And for all of our listeners out there, wedge issues are issues that really divide the two major parties in the country, the Republicans and the Democrats. They've been using abortions for decades as a wedge issue. The borders are wedge issues. Yeah. So, wedge issues, each party, you know, they use these wedge issues to bring out their people.

That's what wedge issues do. It's to motivate and state. stimulate the people within the parties. Now, what I find interesting about IP28 is the governor never said much about this until very late, and she came out against it. So that tells me she basically just put her finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. Yeah, see where it was going. Yeah.

And then she came out against it. that now that kind of throws some some cold water on a wedge issue because now both candidates for governor are against it and you're right I think if that would have been on the ballot it really would have turned out conservative thinking people they would come to the voting pool Think about what the November election would have looked like with IP 28, the animal rights wacko thing on the ballot, and the gas tax, which the Democrats, of course, corruptly ended up moving to May. Right. And even IP 28, there's a lot of Democrats that didn't like it, a lot. You know, these PETA and vegan people and everything, and I don't care if you want to be a PETA person.

I don't care if you want to eat vegetables. That's up to you. But they really only make up two or three percent of the population. You know, so the IP28, it was not widely supported by all liberal thinking people. So it would have brought them out, too, though, Bill. So it's kind of an interesting issue in the way it's going down and everything. Thank goodness it's not even going to be on the ballot. So I guess we're going to have to.

wait until November and see who shows up. I still think the gas tax is going to help. I hope you're right about that because, frankly, Tina Kotech needs punished for everything like that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, even though gas prices are higher, it would be significantly less without, you know, Oregon has some pretty high gas taxes. Not like California, but of course. What does the state of Oregon want to be? Kind of like a mini California. Well, I don't want to win the race of stupidness with California, okay? I'm right with you on that.

So I don't, long as we're, yeah, I don't want to win that race. In fact, I would like to come in last. But Oregon really has the Democrat Party, and I've been part of this for quite a while and watching and being on the inside and everything. the Democrat Party has really not done a very good job managing the state. And we're starting to see that with health care costs. See, all those health care costs, all that stuff would be less if you had more commerce. If more money was being moved around in the state and being made in the state and everything, these other costs would be going down automatically because there's more money in the state.

system. Does that make sense to you, Bill? Yeah, it does. Yeah, yeah. And so by them, I wouldn't say they're destroyed business, but they certainly has kicked them in the knees pretty good. That doesn't help, you know, and most of those businesses that we have seen that are fleeing the state or in the process of fleeing this state are really high-end family wage jobs. And those help the most. You know, people making $34, $40,000 a year don't contribute to all the aesthetics of society as much as somebody that's making $125,000 a year. It's interesting to bring this up because I was reading listener, I'll pop me a note here, because the story has been out about how more businesses are closing in Oregon than are opening. And it's been this way for a number of years, but it really got bad in 2025.

And in Eugene, the Botech Corporation is going to be moving its operations to Houston because they want to focus on growth and improving how the company serves customers and dealers. This is like archery. They're relocating along with diamond archery. So this is another factory, another bunch of people that are actually making things that people like and want. And it's leaving the state of Oregon. It's leaving the Eugene area to go to Houston. They're going to where they're going to be treated well. And once again, nobody from Oregon that I can tell is actually going to a Botek and Eugene and then saying, hey, we'd like you to stay here.

And here's why you need to stay. It's almost like they realize we're not competitive as a state. What do you think? Absolutely. I mean, even hearing grants passed with Dutch brothers leaving, just the amount of money that went to the payroll for the headquarters. here is no longer circulating or a lot of it is no longer circulating in Josephine County. You don't think that hurt? Of course it hurts. And I often think about what Travis Borsma's, what his little, his horse racing place,

if that had been able to pass muster with the state and mafia when it comes to, you know, the gambling rules and everything else, what a boon that would have been for Southern Oregon and Josephine County. You're talking hundreds of millions of dollars that would be circulating in Josephine County that's no longer between the headquarters and the flying larks. Hundreds of a million. And, you know, that gets turned over. What do they say six or eight times? It gets turned over.

And it's just, you know, nobody's talking about it. You know that the, well, the tribes, I'm sure, they politically connected tribes, don't want any competition, and I get that, I understand, but they're also highly, highly connected with Oregon's Democratic majority power structure, isn't it? Well, it's also the Oregon lottery. Yeah. And, I mean, you're talking, you know, those were video games based on horse races. So video gambling games, they're video gambling games.

I don't care if it's a dry poker game or if it's a horse. Yeah, whether you're a state or a tribal casino, you got to protect yourself, right? You got to protect your own racket. We've got to do that. That was always the conversation I was having with Travis. You know, I said, oh, you know, we got the lottery. We got the try. And they're going to be really against you.

You bet. But when he secured that license, he thought that was the green light. Where he probably miscalculated is, and this is something that many people forget. In fact, most people forget. the legislature controls the law. The legislature can form the lottery. The legislature can take away the lottery. So you always have the legislature that can change things.

Nothing is static. And sometimes that's a hard reality, but it is a reality. All right. Herman, I really appreciate the talk. Be good to head you back on the Tuesdays. We'll catch you in a couple of weeks, a week from Tuesday. Put together. Have some more conversation.

each week, okay? You'd be well. Sounds good. Thanks, Bill. Former State Senator Herman Beardshiger. This is KMED and KMED HD-1, Eagle Point Metford, KBXG Grants Pass. A little bit of a pallet cleanser here right now. I'd like to get you fed. We love this. You know, Abby's brought out there mix-and-match trio this month, and it is, well, because

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