Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 09-24-25_WEDNESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

09-24-25_WEDNESDAY_7AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Former state senator, Herman Berchiger, rejoins the show. He was going to be on yesterday for our normal Tuesday talk, but the cows got loose. Isn't that right, Herman? Yeah, we're chasing cows. I can just see this.

What did the fence break? How did you get them all back in? How did you get the cows back in? Just kind of curious. I've never had it. bit behind them and they, you know, they know, they know where to go. Glad to hear that. Yeah.

Wanted to touch in on some reportage that I saw from you a few days ago about the ethics. You know, you've talked about the ethics system in the state of Oregon, and you've had a lot of criticism for it, and a lot of ethics complaints have been filed against you, and all of them, for what I understand, have been dismissed at some point. Isn't that the story? What is the score against everybody throwing ethics complaints? I don't even know how many. I had a, you know, when we did the, when we stopped tap and trade up there, I had a barrage of them then. And then as soon as I got into county commissioner, they kept the whole time coming. But as of now, every single one has been dismissed.

Okay. And there was one that was hanging for a while, and it finally came, well, came to. resolution the other day and then uh daily courier did some reporting on it and then had to report a correction on that and a lot of times when corrections are done people don't see the correction and so all they see was the original story i was wondering you tell us what actually happened with this last one would you yeah so it was why i was county commissioner and um we were setting the fees for the county for the different departments and stuff and uh uh, Debbie Byrd said that I needed to, um, to, you know, say that I had a conflict of interest. And I disagreed with that because I'm in a class with everybody else in the

county. So it affects everybody. It doesn't just affect me. So she filed a complaint with the, with the ethics commission. And the ethics commission, um, investigated and out of the investigation, they agreed with me. I was in a class, so I did not need to have, to declare a conflict of interest. But during the investigation, they go over your S-E-I reports. So S-E-I reports are statement of economic interest that every, you know, everybody that is elected in the state of Oregon has to file every single year. Essentially, it's financial reports, right? Financial reports and interest. Yeah, but it's kind of weird. There's just this long section of questions, you know, you're going to report all of your real property where you get your income and

it's kind of repetitive so you know you might have to put it in section one it might also need to be in section three section five section seven so on one of my properties that I newly acquired I only put it in one of the sections and not the others so anyways they just they they they just said you know submit amended report and I submitted amended report, and so that was the end of it. Okay, so it was essentially dotting an eye and crossing a T. It wasn't that you withheld disclosure of this property, right? No, in fact, I think I reported it the year before.

So, yeah, and if you ever, you know, if you're so bored with life, you have nothing else to do, you can go look and read those questions, and they are, I don't know why they have them that way, but they do. So that's kind of attorney. Okay. So is there any fine, any fine, any slap on the wrist? What happened? No, nothing.

A letter of education. Oh, okay. A letter of education means they tell you how to fill out the form and you need to fill it out correctly. So you've got to remember, I've been filling these forms out for like 12 years, and this is the first time that I did it incorrectly. So, but the way the article was written originally, it sounded kind of like Debbie Berg filed with the Ethics Commission that I filled out my S-E-I, right? They didn't even really, in the original article, they didn't even talk about what Debbie Berg complained about. So they made it sound like she complained about my S-E-I, and oh, yes, Herman, he did that.

fill it out and she was right okay i mean that but that ended up being corrected right it did end up being corrected all right so i was kind of amazed though um or perplexed maybe that's a better word because the author was emailing me and i was sending her the documentation from the ethics commission and explaining it to her but somehow she kind of got her wires crossed well hey it happens we're all human okay we'll just kind of leave it at that so So it was corrected, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew that there was a correction to it because, you know, it is a lot of times people just see the first one and they go, you know, or whatever, and then never follow up on it. That's just kind of the way that goes. I want to ask you a question, and this has nothing to do with the ethics or anything else here, but I want to talk with you a little bit.

I've been seeing a lot of reporting, a lot of keyboard warriors, this has to do with the Charlie Kirk murder of a couple of weeks ago. And I know that you have hunted a lot over the years, and you are quite experienced, big game hunter, you do this kind of stuff, and good for you. I shoot at targets, and I've never really hit meat, so to speak, all right? You have. And there's a couple of things. I'm just kind of about the only question I really have with what happened with that Charlie Kirk thing is when we're told that there was the miracle. of the bullet not going through. Now, it's reported that we're talking a 30-od-6 round.

And you've shot a 30-od-6, probably shot bigger than 30-ought-6, I would imagine, you know, from time to time. And I cannot imagine a 30-caliber weapon at 150 yards, which is just like a short put, really, you know, for a firearm like that, assuming that it is, as we were told, I can't imagine that not going through. I just can't. And yet the reporting that was coming out was kind of odd. Is there a way to explain that that you know about? Well, so all that I can do is comment on the information that we all seen. Right. I don't know if that correct information or not. But so it sounds like it was a sporterized Mouser 98, which is a very old gun. It was the Mouser 98 was the first generation of bolt action that fed through a magazine or a magazine fed through the bolt action very good and in fact

to be quite honest with you bill all bolt action or almost all bolt action guns are kind of designed after that particular gun so it sounds like it was porterized with a shorter barrel right shorter barrel they used to shoot an eight millimeter so it was portarized and and then recalibored as a 30-odd-six which is a 30 caliber bullet. The odd six is the year that that cartridge was designed, okay? 1906, 1906. Man, I'll tell you. And it's still with us today. 30 caliber bullet, which is really a 0.308 caliber bullet, lots of different, you know, the 308, the 30,000, a lot of different 30 calories. But would that be in set, if there's, if it was a full metal jacket bullet, it would have definitely went straight through whatever, a person or

whatever, you know, unless it hits a big, massive bone. But other than that, it usually there's an exit wound. If it's a hunting style bullet, whether it's a partition bullet or a ballistic tip bullet or something like that, the damage would be massive, absolutely massive. It most likely would have taken off his neck, right? You know, that kind of thing. Well, I would just say it would be massive. You know, even if it didn't hit the spine, it would be massive. Now, if the bullet, especially a ballistic tip bullet, if it contacted anything along the way,

well, then it could have easily fragmented, and he could have been hit by a fragment. Ah, yeah, that's something I hadn't considered. Now, there was talk that it, that there was a striking of a bull. ballistic vest in that it ricocheted up, and then so maybe he had a fragment. But Erica Kirk has now gone on the record and confirmed that Charlie did not wear a vest, was not wearing a vest that day. So I guess the long and assured of it is, in my opinion, he wasn't hit directly by a bullet, you know.

I just can't. But, you know, that's just me speculating with the information that I've read on the Internet. Yeah, and we're all speculating. I get there. And, you know, you see something like that. And I guess we're just going to all have to stay tuned. Look, something hit him and killed him. Sure.

And I guess we're just going to have to wait until the full report. I know that the, well, there has been no autopsy report forthcoming at this point. And for all we know, it may have something to do with prepping the case. against the alleged shooter, too. So I guess we'll have to say. Right. Yeah, this whole thing's being under investigation, and it's a huge case and a big ordeal and everything. So, but the only thing I can comment on in my experience was shooting, and a 150, 200-yard shot with a 30-odd-6 is not a difficult shot. No, no, it's not.

But if it hit anything, if it hit a tree branch, or if it hit any, anything like that. I've seen that in hunting where things happen when you hit something before you hit your target. And the bullet breaks apart, and then a fragment goes and maybe reaches what you were originally aiming at, perhaps. There are all sorts of ways that it could have happened differently than what we think. Right. And so my assumption, my assumption is this was supposed to be his grandfather's rifle that he had, and it was a hunting rifle. So they probably used hunting bullets, whether they were core lock or partitioned or ballistic. I doubt it was a full metal jacket.

That's what you use when you go to war. So being that said, if it hit anything else, it could have just been a fragment. I don't know. Yeah. Now, for the conspiracy, for the conspiracy alternate theories about it, they're saying, okay, some are saying it was a suppressed shot, a suppressed shot with a subsonic bullet would have a lot less energy, but looking at the shock wave that hit the, you know, the T-shirt if you'd watch that, that looked to me to be a supersonic round, but I could be wrong.

I'm just spitballing like everybody else is here, Herman. Oh, yeah, but I can tell you that a hunting bullet, a good hunting bullet like that shooting at a large game will go through the game, do a hell of a lot of damage, and it may not exit, but it might be locked in the hide on the other side. But the energy, you've got to remember, that bullet is almost 3,000 feet a second when it's leaving the gun. It is a deadly round. And you're talking about what, 2,000 foot pounds of energy probably, you know, dissipating? Oh, I just have to look it up. Yeah, but whatever it is. It's an incredible.

An incredible amount of energy, I guess, really. Well, yeah, it is an incredible amount of energy, and I certainly wouldn't want to be hit anywhere with one of those. Oh, no way, for sure. But, you know, we've all seen the side photos of him getting hit and everything, and my experience is there. He got hit with a 30-od six right in the neck. You'd see a lot more than what you're seeing.

But I don't even know what I'm seeing. I mean, now we've got AI and all this stuff. I don't even know what I'm looking at anymore. That is one of the challenges in today's America with the AI world. And, of course, the tech bros want us to have even more AI on everything, probably AI on our brain at some point just to make sure that we're properly managed. I know it's not conspiracy theory Thursday. I can't help myself, Herman, okay?

You know, I've got a couple of callers. They may have a question for you. We'll see if they're reasonable or not. I'm talking with former state senator Herman Barrett Shiger. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Mr. Terry. Hey, Terry.

What's up? Hey, Herman, when you get sued, do you have to use your own attorney or do you have county attorneys? It depends what you're getting sued for. Well, I mean, yeah, when you're on the board and stuff. So does the county attorneys take care of you or do you have to do this out of your own pocket? Like, oh, like when people, well, you know, I've done it always out of. my pocket, but I know some people have gotten an attorney, like for ethics complaints and stuff, and use their own attorney and then make the county or the state reimburse them for

it. So, but I, I've never done that. I've just kind of done it by myself. When I was in the Senate, I had a massive amount of these things. And so I hired, I did hire a very prominent attorney out of Portland to represent me. But I said, every single one was dismissed. right well when they when they file these frivolous lawsuits i'm just wondering how much it costs the taxpayers if we're paying for the attorneys too so i just wondering how much it costs us yeah and just to be clear this one uh you weren't on a board you're not on a board right now so you'd have to pay for everything yourself anyway wouldn't you i did every single one that i had as a county commissioner i did myself i guess i've had so much experience with i didn't need to hire

an attorney yeah so you can't really comment then on the cost to it then with this kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. But I do know other people do have the municipality or the legislature reimburse them. All right. Hey, Terry, I appreciate the call. Thank you for it. It's a good question. Let me grab another one here for Herman. Hi. Good morning. Hello. Hi, Bill. Hi. You hear me? Yeah. Yeah, this is Chris. And I told you there's there's even new data that Charlie Kirk was shot through the right. They flowed down the film. right in right behind the ear they can see the blood spurt on the right side and that's an exit wound and they have they've located a shooter above like on the second floor behind a plant well i know

that the story that is coming out of the kirk camp is that uh charlie kirk surgeon is on the record is saying it's a miracle that the spine stopped the bullet that's the claim that's what his surgeon who actually operated on him is he's claiming so I don't know how that squares with what you're saying there, Chris, but I appreciate the call. You know, what could I say? Everyone's got one. Hi, good morning. Who's this?

Hello. Hello. Hello? Hello? Hi. Hi, Cliff. How you doing? Oh, hi, Cliff.

You're on with former state senator Bear Chicker. Go ahead. Right now I want to go back to politics here. I saw last night in the news that Brad Hicks has announced he's going to run against Senator Golden. So I hope there's some changes of foot here. What do you think about that story, Herman? Have you heard about that? Yes, I've heard about it for a few months now.

I think that's wonderful, and I think it's going to be an extremely expensive election. Sound good to you, Cliff? You ready to donate? Yes. But I've also heard word that Senator, to Golden may not run, and because of this fire map debacle that he put forward. Yeah, what I was hearing before was that he was not going to run, but I guess there was a change of heart, apparently?

I don't know. I haven't got into his mind with a mine meld yet. All right. Well, you work on that. I'll get back to you, okay? Bye. All right. Thanks, Cliff.

Well, I'm sure the fire map, if he does run, the fire map won't be part of the kind of campaign strategy, I can tell you that much. Now, there is also the possibility that maybe Golden does not run. And if he does not run, don't, do you have to, wasn't there some deadline right about now you're supposed to be saying if you're going to run for next year or not? Wasn't there something? Oh, no, it's in the spring. In the spring, okay, all right, so you have a while.

Now, if Senator Golden does not run, I would figure, gosh, you know, if the state representative from Ashley. I just, that just dropped her name. I just forgot her name for some reason. The state rep from Ashland. How could I forget her? We've talked about her all the time. Yeah. You know who I'm talking about, though. Someone's going to yell at me. I know that. Pam Marsh, thank you. State Representative Pam Marsh. There we go. It finally came. I knew it would happen. But the state rep Pam Marsh. Now, if Pam Marsh goes in there to run, that makes it a tougher race, I would think, wouldn't you? I think Pam is well loved in that area in that district. The numbers in that district are slanted slightly towards the Democrats.

Yeah, already. Right. So you're going to have to have some Democrats to vote for the other candidates. So it can be done. We've done it before. It's a close race there, but it's going to take a lot of people doing a lot of stuff. And I would predict it's going to be at least a million dollars to each candidate. That would not surprise me.

Yeah. Boy, whoever thought we'd be seeing million-dollar races to be a state senator. What's the pay? What, 60,000 a year? 70, maybe? No, no. I think it's only, I think it's around 3,500 a month. You know, when I went in there, it was like $1,500 a month.

So now I think it's up to like $3,500. Maybe it's more than that. I'm just talking off the cuff, but it's not very much. All right. Herman, I always appreciate the talk. Well, I'll have you back Tuesday on the normal time as we spitball on Oregon politics, which is always quite unusual and getting heated up as we speak, okay? You'd be well.

Thanks again. That's good. Thank you, Bill. And next week, hopefully we don't have any cows running into the street and messing it up. It's 737 at KMED. Stephen Westfall Roofing is KMED. This is the Bill Myers Show. Kevin Starritt will join me here after news and running a little bit behind, but he knows me. He knows my scheduling.

Hey, Jeff. You had a question? Go ahead. Did I screw your name up? Who is this? Doug. Oh, Doug. I'm sorry. I don't know why I thought you were Jeff. Oh, well, never mind. Well, Doug, what was your question? Go ahead. Well, my question was, if there's ever been any studies done under this previous administration or since regarding all the illegals coming in that were unvaccinated, going to the ERs for, or measles and things like this.

If there ever been any studies done regarding that, and that was just my question. Yeah, nothing jumps out of me that I recall. I know they've done economic studies of the cost of illegal immigration. Fair U.S. has put one out. Famously, they do that about every year or so. As far as the measles, I don't know, because apparently, I'm just looking this up right now. Well, it was June of this year that Oregon talks about the first measles case of 2025.

They did confirm this, but this was someone who recently returned to Oregon following international travel. So it doesn't say anything about the immigration status of the individual that was in question. So I can't really answer that at this point. It would take a little more research, but nothing jumps out of me, Doug. Okay, well, I just thought maybe it was something that's been looked at, you know, regardless. starting different outbreaks that may be different things, you know, folks that have come in here illegally. Yeah. I know that the big outbreaks they were having in Texas and South Texas.

That was in a Mennonite colony, if I were going to understand correctly. If I remember it was like a Latter-day Saints or Latter-day St. Mennonite. Do you remember the exact details of that? Well, I do know that, yeah, well, some of those, you know, beliefs you know they don't take vaccinations things like this yeah so yeah and i had measles so i had wild measles back when i was a kid not that big of a deal and so i've got the permanent i guess what do they call that natural wild immunity so i'm not too too uh wound up over this but i don't know i remember measles as being something you just had as a kid didn't you have it when you

were a kid or maybe not yeah i remember getting a shot for it and all that stuff oh you got the shot for Okay, yeah, I didn't, I don't remember getting a shot for it. I just remember having it. I think going way back there. This old man is 76 now. Okay, all right. Hey, thanks, Doug. All right, catch a later.

You betcha. All right. It's a 742. Summer's not over yet, and there's still time to build the deck of your service always come first. Hi, I'm Steven, with Stephen Westwell Ripening, and I'm on KMedia. Kevin Starrer joins me. Chief Cook bottle washer, and of course, he's just hiding in his home all the time because, well, the world's kind of crazy.

Yeah, we wanted to talk a little bit about that. Kevin, stare at Oregon Firearms Federation, Oregonfirearms.org. Kevin, you're not really holding or like hiding at home, but I wouldn't blame me if you did. I really wouldn't. I'm considering it. Okay. All right, good. Hey, you and I are actually on the kind of not exactly 180 degrees apart on the Jimmy Kimmel thing,

but we'll touch on just a little bit. But you heard a bit about the talk Herman and I were having on the ballistics and Charlie Kirk, and, you know, now we're, you know, you start taking a look at things, and everybody's shooting from the hip, no pun intended, on a lot of this. I'm more of the Occam's Razor sort of guy, you know, sure looks to me like he got shot in the throat, and no, it didn't look like a palm gun, and no, he wasn't wearing a ballistic vest, and even Erica Kirk ended up confirming this, you know, after that. Now the other one that everyone's talking about, oh, they're giving hand signals.

We have the security people giving hand signals. and they're signaling the guy to take the shot. And it's like, all right, who is going to be stupid enough to stand right next to the guy given hand signals where the bullet's going to be coming down? You know, I'm just, I don't, sometimes it just makes my teeth hurt a little bit, just a little bit. But I could be wrong. Oh, yeah, I mean, it gives you an eyebrow headache listening to this nonsense. It's just absurd.

Yeah. So at that point, have you ever heard, though, of a 30-od six, assuming it is a 30-od six round? being stopped by vertebrae because that's now the claim. That's now the claim that the surgeon is making that the bullet didn't go through. No, I haven't. But I will say this, after a lifetime of studying this issue, you have heard, I have heard, amazing stories of bullets being deflected by police badges, by belt buckles. That's true.

That's true. wallets. And so, you know, bullets do odd things. If you were, and I, like, I really hate to comment on this because we know nothing. We know he was shot. That's all we know. That's, that's really the number one thing we know. And Charlie Kirk is no longer with us, although I'm sure there are people out there saying that Charlie is, you know, has left for Barbados or someplace like that for living in witness protection. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I know he was shot. I believe he has died, but the rest of it, I don't know what he was shot with. You know, the one photo I saw supposedly of the rifle was photographed on top of a box

that was clearly a rifle box, supposedly out in the woods. There's plenty of reason for people to mislead us about what happened. So what he was shot with, I don't know. It certainly seemed from the grainy, non-conclusive video that it was a powerful round. Could it have not left? I find that hard to believe, but there's 10 million reasons why we would not be getting the full story. So I would prefer to keep my comments to what I know, which is not very much. Okay. Well, one thing that you and I both agree on is that Jimmy Kimmel is an idiot. Okay?

So we agree on that much, right? Jimmy Kimmel is getting $16 to $20 million a year to be the mouthpiece for far left activists, big pharma, the military industrial complex, and the perverts at Disney. So is he an idiot? No, he's evil. He's vicious. He's disgraceful. And I would be more than happy to see him disappear. I don't mean, you know, shot. I mean disappear from the broadcast airwaves, although it's kind of interesting if he stays there and continues to bankrupt the companies he works for. But it seems that bankrupting the companies he works for doesn't seem to matter in the progressive world. I don't know. Maybe George is back-filling some of these major companies.

You're absolutely right. It doesn't matter to them. And the fact that they brought him back demonstrates it doesn't matter to him, which I think, if anything, makes me feel more strongly about what his role is. His role is not there to make money for the company. His role is to be a mouthpiece for the advertisers. Now, the fact is that all the reports are that his show loses money, and I don't know if it actually, and you would know better than me, if it loses money for the affiliates or if it just loses money for the network. But the networks are not losing money, and the networks are making millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars off the evil people who they have subleased their licenses to. So, you know, Jimmy Kim

drives a, no doubt, $300,000 car back and forth to his attorneys, and he's been reinstated to make comments that are equally vicious as the one he made that got him suspended. If he an idiot, no, he's a tool, he's a mouthpiece, he's a pawn, but he's not an idiot because he's making a lot of money. Okay, well, I didn't think he was particularly of great intellectual heft if you're going to go out there and lie as, or attempt to lie as convincingly as he wasn't lying convincingly last week when he was talking about MAGA, supposedly a mega shooter involved in Charlie Kirk. Fair enough.

Well, he was reading the script that was provided to him. He was lying. He knew he was lying. He's still lying because his comments subsequently last night demonstrate that he's a liar. Like, oh, they were ill time. No, they weren't ill time. They were evil. They were vicious.

They were false. And I do not believe he has the right to make false state. of that magnitude on airwaves that belong to the people. Okay. And this is where you and I, and this is where you and I end up kind of parting ways, not completely 180 degrees apart. But as someone who has been involved in talk radio, also regulated by the FCC, I've been hearing leftists for years talking about things that I've said, things that everybody

He also said, you're lying, you're not doing things in the public interest. And so we need to bring in the fairness doctrine, which, of course, would destroy any talk radio because, you know, the government would be arbitrating something like that. So I've been more on Ted Cruz's side when Ted Cruz says, hey, you don't want to go in there on putting the thumb on ABC or any other network right now. And you thought, I think the quote was that Ted Cruz is an educated idiot in your opinion about that. other words in there that you don't say on the radio, but my point was... Yes, and I do follow those rules, okay?

Well, okay, you have to follow some rules, and you do. Yeah. It's part of the proper, perhaps unwritten contract that you make with the FCC, which does have regulatory power over what you do and over the airways. But it wasn't, it was Ted Cruz's comments that implied that the government should not be regulating this were not what I was taking issue with. I'm happy to take issue with them, but that's not what I was taking issue with when I contacted you about his comments. Oh, okay.

What I was taking issue with was, and for the people who didn't hear what he said, I guess he has his own podcast. And in response to Brendan Carr's comment about, we can do this the hard way, the easy way, which was considered a veil threat to ABC and Disney and the perverts that run it. Okay, well, as a regulated broadcast station, and also knowing that one of the companies that was involved, the next star was involved in a $6 billion merger deal with some other local television. To me, it was Mafia Boss talk, all right? I thought it was. Okay. I agreed with Cruz.

Okay. Those are exactly the comments that he made, that it was Mafia boss talk, delivered with a very bad Italian accent. Okay. My disagreement and what made me feel that Ted Cruz is common, remember, Ted Cruz is a guy who said that the people who were involved in the J6 incident of the Capitol, were terrorists, okay? So he's not some brilliant conservative. And, you know, he may be making a mistake because he was too busy counting the money. His wife makes a gold and tax. Okay, so he's a little bit of a shapeshifter. Okay, fine. All right, we got it.

But what, with a comment that he made that I thought was so stupid was, was the, was suggesting that if as a Republican administration, the FCC takes action against a person on a TV show, Okay. I do not believe this free speech issue at all. If they do that, then when the Democrats come back into power, they're going to do it. And that, to me, was one of the most ignorant, blind, stupid comments you could make, because the implication is that they haven't already been doing it for years that, in fact, created an entire monstrous mechanism staffed by FBI agents and all kinds of government operators to silence people. In cahoots with even Google, as we well know, and other online platforms.

Either in cahoots with or because they pressured, you know, big tech companies to silence people. And in fact, not just silence people, but invade their homes and put them in jail. And in some cases, get people killed because of things they said that big pharma did not approve of. All right. So the idea that, oh, we can't do this because the Democrats will do it. Well, where have you been for the last number of years? The Democrats have created enormous complex, you know, entire galaxies of mechanisms to silence people. And it just sounded incredibly ignorant to me like, oh, if we do this, we're going to open up this Pandora's box, a box which was blown open years ago. Okay, it's kind of remind me, reminding me sort of in memory of when we had Republicans that used to walk out, and then they said, well, gosh, you know, if we walk out, then they're going to, the Democrats are going to pass a law against walking out, right? Right.

Okay. Which they didn't walk out, and then they got the law, right? So, now, whether or not it's appropriate for Jimmy Kimmel or his employers to be, to be, have some kind of government action taken against them, that's a different issue. And I'm – I'm thinking that it may be appropriate. Okay, well, I was interpreting that comment from Ted Cruz through the lens of the FCC has not done this directly, okay? All right. But, you know, this was the first time in my recent memory that an FCC commissioner, a chair, ended up, you know, essentially saying, hey, you know, we can do this the right way or the wrong way.

That was – to me, that was crossing a line. You interpreted that then as, well, you know, Cruz acting as – if this stuff is not going on, because it does go on, but it doesn't go on. It hasn't gone on necessarily through the FCC. The left has certainly been trying to do that, though, okay? Okay. And that's true, but I believe it's utterly irrelevant, okay? We have a galaxy of media out there. Some of it is podcast, and it's bigger and bigger every day. It's Facebook, it's YouTube, it's all these, most of which the FCC has no regulatory authority over. The FCC does have regular authority authority over the airwaves. Your contention is that, well, they never

did it to the airwaves before. Well, no, they wouldn't do it to the airwaves. Because the airwaves were their friends. The airwaves were parroting their propaganda. There was no need for them to attack broadcast stations. In fact, what they did attack were the outfits, the outlets, that they had no regulatory authority over. So the fact that they didn't do it yet was just because nobody on broadcast on the airwaves was saying anything they didn't like. And had that happened, I can assure you they would have found a way to attack them. But talk radio has been saying things that the FCC people in control don't like for a long time. Would you agree?

I mean, talk radio, FCC under past administrations, has not been a fan of talk radio at all. Well, talk radio is largely conservative, but I also think. that I also think that the administration attacks the targets they feel are having the biggest impact. And if there was a conservative, you know, an outspoken conservative late-night talk show host, I think that we, who were saying things about the Biden administration, or was saying things, look, you know, Alex Berenson, you know, he was a New York Times reporter who questioned the efficacy of the vaccine. He got fired. He got pressured. The government puts these pressures on the people they consider to be a threat. And we don't know what would happen

if there were a conservative comedian talk show on a major late-night show, but I believe that they would have found a way to silence them, too. I mean, nobody who questioned the standard COVID line escaped unscathed. Doctors lost their jobs. That's true. Media people were silenced, people were canceled, and much of this was done by government actors at the behest of, they are the stooges of the corporations who make billions of dollars pumping poison into people, and they are there to protect them. And in fact, what Colbert and Kimmel and others did was read the script given to them by the big advertisers that make billions of dollars

for a corporation that has a license that belongs to us. And I don't believe, you know, if Kim a one thing I would say, the one thing I would add, though, is that networks do not have licenses. They don't. Networks are not regulated by the FCC. It's understood. That's understood. Okay. However, affiliates of radio stations and television stations that carry the shows, they do have the license and do fall under the FCC rule.

They do. And if you look at the relationships between the network. and the affiliates. They're extremely tight, complicated, symbiotic, and there's the ability for them to influence each other is enormous. So whether the license was given to the network, which it's not, it's given to the affiliates, it still belongs to you and me. And what it was being used for in the stations that ran these shows, and if a station chooses not to run these shows, their life gets very complicated because then they have to look for alternative programming, which is not necessarily something that's easy to find or cost-effective. But what every one of these shows

was being used as a propaganda mill for the corporate stooges who are making a lot of money, as are the networks, the network's ability to sell advertising, which is then related to the ability of the affiliates to sell advertising, is all a result of licenses that are granted by the government that understood early on that airwaves were a scarce resource and a shared resource. And that's why, you know, it's not free speech. It is totally corporate speech. And if you think it's free speech, try start in a pirate radio station, okay? It just doesn't happen. Oh, I know. I know. You'll be a crack down. So then who is the arbiter of the, I guess the question then is, who do you want in charge of being the arbiter of what the public's interest is in the on-air world?

Well, I think that's not a question I have a great instant answer for, but what I would like to see is somebody, which I believe RFK is looking at, is some people looking at how the advertisers manipulate the content that we are exposed to. And if you look at broadcast outlets, in many cases, they are dominated. I mean, look at what happened to Tucker Cross and look at what happened to Roseanne Barr. That censorship is there. That censorship is already happening. People are getting canceled and shut down.

And it isn't necessarily the government itself that the government may be the mechanism, but the advertisers can be the mechanism. We do not have, we do not have a completely fair system. system. And if those errors... Now, I will concede your point, though, that it is corporate speech, essentially, which is most protected. No, I think it's the least protected. I mean... No, corporate speech? But you're just telling me a moment ago that corporate speech and the whole idea of the advertisers, the advertisers are going to get what they want, you know, pharma, you know, big pharma, all the rest of them,

they get their message and they get the... Oh, it's de facto protected, yes. Yeah. Is it legally protected? I don't think so. I mean, I can't have a food company that runs an ad telling you things about my food that are completely untrue. You know, I may get away with it. I may be protected by state actors I've paid off, but it isn't legal.

You know, my free speech, if the airwaves are, as I think we would agree, a scarce and publicly owned resource, then at least what we should expect is some balance. And if you look at the crap that Disney has been generating, look, that Disney has been a collection of grooming perverts for a long time. No doubt. He owns what Kimmel does, and what Kimmel does is spew hate. And in fact, okay, even if you say is the right to spew hate, doesn't the other side have the right to spew hate as well?

And in fact, does he have the right to out and out lie? And even after lying, and he knows, no one can, with a straight face. say that he didn't know he was lying because this is the same guy who got up after he was being accused of some connection to Epstein saying we have a whole collection of lawyers and people who check to make sure that everything I say is

true and what he said was clearly not true and so if a person in that position if I say it, if I say something that's a lie, maybe less so you, you have a radio show, but if I say something that's a lie, it probably doesn't have an impact on too many people

But if he says something that's a lie, granted he's reaching fewer and fewer people, but he's still reaching a lot of people. And in this case, what he said, everybody knows was a lie. You have to be an idiot to believe it. But what about all the other lies, she said? What about all the – you go die, weezy, you know, or wink, wink, not, not go blow up a Tesla dealer. You know, is that an appropriate use of our airwaves? It's an appropriate use of Willam a week. Sure, the Village Voice baby, some crackpot podcast, do we?

what you want stand on the corner but on the public airways different story okay now you make a good point there you make a good point but you see this is what takes us back to what the leftists have been trying to do for years we talk radio and that is reimposed the fairness doctrine which is like every issue you have to have both sides on it which means that uh you're not going to talk about anything controversial because it's ridiculous it just didn't work well well then then what is what is the proper use or what is the proper avenue we should take If you have a limited, you have a limited number of spaces out there on the airways, the state issues licenses and regulates them, okay?

In that, the state is going to use their power. The state has used their power to determine who gets to use these there. And in fact, in many cases, look, everybody, most people have probably seen that famous video of dozens or hundreds of local talking heads repeating word for word at the same, time, the script that they were written about the threat to democracy, all right? It's hilarious to watch, but it's terrifying. Who provided this script? It's just an insane thing. These are all things that the state is involved in. And who's the best person to make those decisions? Well, I don't know, but I am willing to have it looked at, given that, you know, you and I are both old enough to

remember when major networks were blowing up cars and saying that, oh, the cars blew up by themselves, or the lies that are being told. And, you know, is there a responsibility for entities that have made contracts and understanding with the government regulators that they obey them? And in fact, if that's not the case, then let's get rid of the regulations. Let's just say, okay, you know, free for all. Pfizer and Moderna own the airwaves, and we have nothing to say about it. All right. Kevin, I see part of your point. I really do. I also still see my point, though, that I don't know who I want to be the arbiter and the Torcomata, you know, to make us twist over this, you know?

I understand that. And I think in any other environment, we might say, well, we should let the market decide. But as you pointed out yourself, the market isn't deciding because these people are willing to lose money to push an agenda. that's bankrolled by somebody, you know, and who that is? I mean, who's behind, look, I mean, and Big Farmer even gets a free pass, because when they do something evil, they're immune from civil liability. So, you know, maybe the whole thing has to be reassessed, especially now in light of the fact there's so many other avenues where people can get out and lie and say whatever they want. Yeah, exactly.

And so I think the point being, though, is that there's, the need on broadcast television, I guess, at the national level to be able to lie, given that everybody can lie on a podcast. Well, maybe, maybe, but with their certain, but my initial point was just that, that, and what in my email exchange with you, was that I thought Ted Cruz's comments were incredibly naive and ignorant, that the idea that, oh, now bad things are going to happen. It's like we had this conversation, you and I, about when Trump made the, Trump and Bondi made a comment about not allowing transsexuals, transgender.

to buy guns. And the pro-gun groups were horrified. You know, oh, this opens up a Pandora's box. No, it most certainly does not. You know, for years the government has denied guns to veterans at all kinds of people who they disapprove up. So let's not pretend that this is something new. Let's not pretend that the regulatory state is clean right now, in other words.

Right. Okay. All right. I'll give you that. I'll concede that point. Okay. I'll concede that. However, now the one thing, now,

Now, Brendan Carr, just to know, the hags on the view ended up, you see, the view is a perfect example of why there's something wrong with broadcast television. Okay. That being said, though, now, Brendan Carr is talking about going after them using the equal time. Now, the equal time thing, a lot of people don't understand the equal time rules, though. That only involves federal candidates, and the candidates have to ask. They have to request the time. You know, if there's some politician, it doesn't involve, you know, your local mayor's race or anything like that. It's only for federal candidates.

That's the rule. And then, yeah, you know, if you're, you know, fluffing up Mamdani as an example, the candidacy of the – But actually, that doesn't even work because it's not a federal candidate. But if they have one senator on, then technically the Republican could request time and get on. But my gut tells me that most Republicans have. have no desire to go on the view, though. And so they probably don't request the time. Well, no rational person wants to go on the view. But here's another point that I think is going to be really, really touchy and really controversial. And it's just kind of a little bit of a thought

experiment. I'm not saying, obviously, I have no control over this stuff. So what I say, nobody cares about, and it's worth every penny paying for it. But I do think that under the current circumstances in which we live, we now have to recognize that it's an entirely different paradigm, okay, where these disagreements and the environment that's been created by a completely leftist, leftist-controlled broadcast media has created a situation where people are being murdered, okay? The murder of Charlie Kirk was, like, I hate to say, turning point that sounds so ironic, but the response to his murder has been on the part of the left, good he deserved it, Andy no is next. All right. Everybody's the fascist. Everybody's awful. And that environment was

created with the willing accomplices in media. And so given that anybody now, I mean, do you think that Megan Kelly is going to feel comfortable going out and doing a public event? No, they've changed the entire environment. They've changed the paradigm so now that people who share our values have to very realistically consider that they may have their brains blown out. And everything that we've thought about, free expression and free speech and everything, is now, is not, it's not honored or recognized. Listen, after Mike Strickland got arrested and convicted of 15 felonies for protecting himself after being attacked at a Black Lives Matter event, he was invited to speak at a college, and the minute he walked in the room, people came in with cowbells and banged them the whole time

to silence them. We've moved on from cowbells to bullets. And so everything that you and I have believed has to be re-appraised in light of the fact that people like, you know, you more than me, as a media person, have to assess, you know, what am I allowed to say that won't get me or my family killed? And I don't know what the answer is to that. It's a good point, though. And these are thoughts that go through my head, too. I mean, I'll concede you on that. So, I'm probably, I'm a little more on your side than you may have thought yesterday, but, you know, listen, you know, I also see a danger on automatically whoever the FCC is is the arbiter on free speech, okay? And I agree with that, but the government has already done this in the venues. They're not allowed to do it. So let's not pretend that it's something new. That's been my point.

And for that, the takeaway. All right. So we'll shake hands, and we'll get back together again on this, okay? Okay, Bill. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Kevin Starr at Oregon Firearms Federation. I ran a little bit long with it, but I always enjoy conversation with Kevin, all right. This is KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point Medford, KBXG Grants Pass, and we have Congressman Cliff Bents will be joining me in about 15. Thanks, Jan.