Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 09-26-25_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Going through some of the news, the starbucks closings here and coffee economics from Coffee Snob Bill! Wayne Morrow, CEO of the John Birch Society joins me and we talk about complacency in the GOP and how to fix that, the JBS way...

The Bill Meyer 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. Here's Bill Meyer. It is Find Your Phone Friday, 7705633. I would love to talk with you. Happy to have you call. And, by the way, if you can't call the show, email Bill at Billmyershow.com.

Read them all, and we'll get some more of those, some good thinking up on the show a little bit later on today. We've got a lot going on. I have the CEO of the John Birch Society. I haven't talked to the birchers in ages. I really haven't. Every now and then I would go and attend a meeting that they would have in Joe County. I think there's still a Joe County chapter there. But they're putting out the alert right now that they're thinking that conservatives are really, really being complacent.

But what's going on for the 2026 midterms? It's kind of like, all right, well, I voted. and now I'm watching Fox News and I'm doing my job. I big a little bit, you know, sarcastic with, you know, that sort of thing. I'm not saying that's really what you're doing sitting down. But I've detected a little bit of that too. Oh, you know, all this winning, all this and that, you know, midterms are in the bag. Look at how, look at how amazingly inept the leftists the Democrats are right now.

Well, we tend to elect a lot of inept. people in this state, for one, in spite of the failures. So we've got to think about that. So we'll talk with that gentleman. Wayne Morrow is his name, by the way, CEO of John Birch Society. Civics and Education is really what they've been working on. In their magazine, their online magazine, is the New American. And I've enjoyed reading the New American off and on for years.

So anyway, we'll have a little talk about that coming up. Mr. Outdoors will also be joining me, too. And we're going to have just great conversation all around. Even Commissioner Roberts, you know, they're going to be playing. they're going to be playing poker tomorrow night, tomorrow night, fundraiser. And then we'll tell you more about that.

And if you haven't played poker, you want to play poker, they're doing that big $5,000 final table or whatever it is, fundraiser for the Jackson County Republican Party and also set free ministries. Set free ministries. That's Chad McComis and his tiny little homes for the elderly people who are having trouble finding a place to rent here in Southern Oregon.

So anyway, lot of good stuff. A lot of good stuff going on and a diner 62 quiz. You can win too. Got to do that. Get yourself some of that clam chowder. Okay. Now then, another part of the meal, coffee. I was talking about this last night on Starbucks. And I didn't think it was going to be all that big of a deal. I was just letting them know that I got the news that Starbucks was going to close some 400 stores in the country. 15 being closed in Oregon, including a bunch here in southern Oregon. at five in Portland, five in the Portland area being closed. But the Starbucks on Grant's Pass, Northeast Hillcrest Drive, that's going to shut down.

Medford on West Main, that's the one out by Albertsons. Yeah, that's the one there. Okay. Medford, Delta Waters Road, okay. That's the one right by Delta Water Speedway and Highway 62 over there. And the Ashland store on Walker Avenue. That's also going to be shutting down here in the next a few days. And this has to do with, you know, lack of profitability.

Honestly, a bunch of the stores in Portland, some of those five that are being shut down. When you hear the Starbucks CEO talking about we're going to be shutting down this store because we're not seeing it. Well, it doesn't have, I think one of the terms was it doesn't have the right kind of physical experience. It's, in other words, dirtbag, homelessness, and druggies have taken it over. I think that's the translation. That's a different part of it. But most of it has been because a lot of these stores have, they are not going to be profitable.

They're right there on the edge. Some of these were opened up not that long ago, right? You know, Starbucks being very expansive. Now, Starbucks is going to be fine. And I'm not a fan of Starbucks. In fact, if you look at me, I'm drinking coffee all the time. I am a coffee snob. I like my coffee and I like my coffee, you know, just the way I like it.

I'll be the first to admit this. The only time I have ever bought a Starbucks is when I have absolutely no choice, which is usually in an airport someplace, all right? I'm not into the corporate, you know, political thing. I'm not a fan of that. And that being said, I almost never buy coffee out because, well, it's incredibly expensive. God bless the people who are able to make money doing it, but it has gotten a lot more expensive recently. And I brought up the tariffs that President Trump has been imposing.

And I was surprised at the pushback because I was just posing the question, could there be some impact of tariffs? Oh, no, it couldn't possibly be that. Bill, no, it's not the tariffs. It's not the tariffs. It's not the terror. You know, I heard, you know, ever, God bless you. But the people. People saying like that kind of remind me of the doctors that, you know, it's like the mother has the son that goes into autism after seven vaccinations. And the doctor then says, oh, no, well, it's something going on there, but it can't be the, it can't be the vaccinations. You know, that kind of thing. It sort of reminds me of that line of thinking.

No, I'm not saying that the Trump tariffs caused all of these stores to be, you know, to be closed. But I think we would be fullest to think that it had no impact at all. And I wanted to talk about what has actually been going on with coffee and tariffs because I just mentioned briefly a couple of weeks ago, okay, I'll tell you. I'll just tell you, the coffee that I have learned to love was this company called Mount Comfort. And they were sampling it at Costco one day when I was in there getting some stuff. And I really liked it. It was a Peruvian coffee.

And they were selling it for like 15 bucks a bag for a two and a half pound bag. This is about two, two and a half years ago. And I loved it. I had eight bags of it sitting in my pantry because I was going to make sure if there was some disruption in the supply chain, we were going to have our Mountain Comfort coffee, okay? Peruvian, very smooth, very tasty, okay? Fifteen bucks for two and a half pound bag. It was a great deal at that time.

Well, then it went up to about $18 for two and a half pounds. Then it was 1995 for two and a half pounds. and so then I, Costco stopped carrying it. I think Costco carried it for about two weeks, I swear. And then I went and bought it from them online. And I was able to save money online. I was able to do it because I would buy a bunch of bags at the same time and I'd get a little bit of a discount, right?

So I would go on and coffee, big part of my life. I love coffee. So this kept on going for the last couple of years. And I was getting down to the bottom of my eight-bag pantry that I would store in there as I always have one way or the other the apocalypse comes

damn it I'm going to have coffee you know to ride out the apocalypse just kidding but you know how that goes I went to order it the other day and it was $42 $42 a bag for a two and a half pound of Peruvian coffee

two and a half pound bag of Peruvian coffee and I said what the heck happened I didn't understand that, all right? Well, what it was was the Trump tariff. But I said, wait a minute. The coffee that I bought was from Peru. It has nothing to do with that.

In fact, I thought, you know, okay, Peruvian coffee. I think there's like a 10% tariff on Peruvian coffee. It's pretty nominal. It's not bad deal. You know, it's not horrible. That sort of thing. But Brazil is 50%. In fact, I've got that story here. this is end of July I think we kind of forgot about this President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday

to impose this was AP by the way to impose his threatened 50% tariffs on Brazil setting a legal rationale that Brazil's policies and criminal prosecution of former President Bolsonaro constitute an economic emergency under that 1977 law

and he had threatened the tariffs July 9th but the legal basis It was premised on trade imbalances. And then we found out that actually America sells a lot more to Brazil than Brazil sells to us. We have a $6.8 billion trade surplus. So the tariff had nothing to do with trying to protect, you know, American trade here. But really what this is about is that President Trump is not real happy about Bolsonaro. What happened to Bolsonaro?

And it was unjust what would happen to Bolsonaro. Essentially, he was the Trump of Brazil. And, you know, he's been thrown in jail. you know he's in jail it's a you know we're talking about uh i guess you can't call it a banana republic maybe we'll talk uh you know a coffee bean republic or something like that so anyway he puts the tariffs on and that happened the end of july and then it started rippling through the markets and i was thinking okay so 50% tariff on brazil but once again going back to i'm just sharing my experience 50% tariff there's only 10% tariff on my peruvian coffee why is my peruvian coffee

now more than $40 for two bags, but it was 20, just a few weeks prior or a couple months ago. Well, the reason for that is that Brazil is our number one coffee source in the United States. About a third of our coffee, of all the coffee comes from Brazil, and the 50% tariff goes in, and the Brazilian coffee supplies with that massive increase in price has dried up the supply. and the supply of coffee beans is not very elastic. It's not like all of a sudden you can wave a magic wand and conjure millions of pounds of coffee beans from other sources to replace what, you know, what Brazil was supplying in the United States.

With a 50% tariff, then the various coffee producers and the roasters and the people that would import here in the United States and because, you know, we do grow some coffee in the United States It's very little overall, though, very little, a little bit in Southern California, and a little bit in Kona. And Kona coffee was insanely expensive even when I was in Hawaii, 10, 11 years ago. I think it was $25 a pound then. It's a very niche market, you know, for that. And very good, very good coffee, by the way.

But, yeah, if I win Powerball, maybe I drink Kona all the time, you know, that kind of thing. So that's what ended up happening. Brazil's price. And it was really only Brazil's coffee that went up. but it is such a major part of the United States coffee market, one third of it, that everyone's been in a panic trying to find other coffee beans in order to replace Brazil,

because the Brazil coffee beans just soared, soared in price. So all of a sudden, say, you know, if it's a buck, you're now going to pay a buck and a half. Now, how is this connected to Starbucks? Could there be a connection with some of this? Yeah, could be a little bit of it. There are a lot of reasons why Starbucks could be closing. their stores.

They could have been marginal in the first place. And maybe a marginal store that's kind of, you know, not real profitable, but kind of okay, you know, that sort of thing. But they're just kind of limping along there, maybe in the Ashland store or West Metford or up in Grants Pass. Of course, Grants Pass, the Starbucks up there has competition from the Dutch pros. I think it's right across the street from them. We're in the same vicinity.

There's a lot of competition for that. And if you end up having your raw material spiking in costs, it may not be everything, but it's not nothing. Another aspect that you have to look at Starbucks is probably looking at is the soaring cost of health insurance in the state of Oregon. My goodness, there are some places, some companies I've know about that have reported, you know, 50% boost in insurance costs, 100%. It's just soaring in some cases. Yeah, yeah, nothing like having all that Obamacare prepaid care for everybody. Yeah, don't get me started. You have that.

You have the transit tax. You have the corporate activity tax for all of these coffee places, too. And you have what's relatively high income tax, you know, to start with. And the fact that with Oregon's minimum wage law, essentially you're going to be paid, what, $15, $16, $17, $17 an hour. to push the button or pull the lever. I guess pulling the lever would be the old coffee makers, right? You know, so you push the button and you say, do you want Biscotti with that? Right?

You know, there we go. And naturally, the ones that are a little bit on the bubble are going to be out. Now, is there a possibility some of these coffee stores could have kept going had coffee not spiked? Possibly. I don't know. But I was laughing at the number of people knee jerking, oh, it's not tariffs. it's not tariffs. Let me tell you, it is reverberating throughout the market.

And by the way, this is about Brazil and Brazil only. Because like I'd mentioned, Brazil, I looked this up there. Coffee spikes overall, prices spike overall, 21% in one year due to tariffs impacting the local shops. This was a story a few days ago in CBS News. And they were talking about even just little small shops. in mom and pop areas of the country that we're talking about, hey, we've got to raise prices.

But the point is, how many people are going to be able to continue to buy that coffee when, you know, your $5 latte becomes a $6 latte, becomes a $7 latte, $8, you know, how many times are you going to keep doing this? Now, that part doesn't affect me because, like I said, I don't get coffee out for the most part. I take coffee beans, I grind them, and I put them in the machine and put water on them. It takes seconds. It's a long time out of my day. Oh, it takes seconds.

It's a horrible burden, you know, to make your own coffee. But be that as to say, a lot of people like this stuff. So overall coffee has spiked 21%. And I would dare say that it has spiked a lot more in the last 30 days or so because that's the tariffs that have gone in because it's womped out about a third of the market. Now, will it possibly, you know, mellow out, like a nice brew, possibly, I don't know. Congress is looking to step in on this because of it.

And Americans like their coffee. You don't want to mess with America's coffee, right? So what has happened here is U.S. Representative Don Bacon and Roe Kana. This is a bipartisan effort. They are introducing bipartisan legislation within the next day, the next few days, that would exempt coffee products from any tariffs. It's what the lawmakers ended up telling Reuters a few days ago. And the story here, Brazil used to supply a third of all the coffee used in the U.S.

But shipments have dried up since a 50% tariff imposed on Brazilian coffee. So it is about the Brazilian coffee. But Brazilian coffee is the majority of the coffee that Americans have been supplied. and the other companies, and that's why it affected my snooty little mountain comfort, Peru, my Peru organic thing that I like so much. And it went from $20 to $40 or $42. I forget what it was, but there's a lot of money. And so I said, no, I'm not buying that.

And that about finding a less snooty, a less snooty cup of coffee. But it's a big deal. But to say that it's not coffee, that it's not coffee tariffs, folks. I'm sorry, that's being a bit delusional. And I will not, I'm shaking my head over it. And I think part of it's just politics, you know, oh, it can't be that. Other people say, Bill, you know, the tariffs are necessary because it's going to get us where we're going. We don't grow terror.

We don't grow coffee here that much. So no, it's not about creating a big U.S. coffee maker. It's about, everybody, you know, politics. And sometimes, frankly, President Trump is a bit mercurial, wakes up. And who is irritating me most this morning? Well, then we pull out the tariff gun. Okay, 28 minutes after six, flame away, 770-5633, and you're on the Bill Meyer show.

An intelligence solution saves you money. This is Randy. Hi, I'm on Wemont from Orleys, and I'm on 106.7, KMED. Oh, I have to laugh. I just had, I said Kendall, who wrote me this morning, said, okay, Bill, I see you're still drinking coffee this morning. Since your Mount Comfort, snooty coffee, as you called it, is so expensive.

What are you drinking right now? Well, I still have a couple of bags of the Mount Comfort, but I did find I am testing out a Portland Roasters coffee. It was like two pounds for 1999. All right. That's what I ended up getting. Portland Roasters. And it tastes okay.

I can detect hints of, hints of, well, there's a little bit of cherry, a little bit of nutty, and essence of homeless sweat, I think, is also coming through that. I'm just having fun with you. You can't help but think that when you talk about, yeah, it's Portland Roosters. We have the essence of homelessness all within it. But actually, it's not bad.

It's kind of like a house bland, you know, that sort of thing. It's a 631. We will catch up on other news here in just a moment and then continue the conversation talking with the CEO of the John Birch Society, all coming up. Just what the country... You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Wayne Morrow is the CEO of John Birch Society,

nonpartisan civics and education organization that endorses the timeless principle of the Declaration of Independence. And maybe, Wayne, I would guess, say that the Constitution says what it means and means what it says. Would that be another principle of what's going on with the John Birch Society? Correct. That it's not gone out of style. Okay. Let's put that way. Yeah, I know.

It's kind of sad that the Constitution today in many ways is like, well, it's not what the Constitution says. It's this separate sheet of paper that's what the Supreme Court has said about the Constitution. But, boy, we can, you know, we can dig into that another time. That's not the role. Yeah. Now, I don't know how old you are, Wayne, but I'm 64. And the first time as a little boy, when I heard of the John Birch Society was, I know you may laugh about this one, but it was when Charlie Daniels put out that song in the early 1970s

UnEasy writer, and he says, I'm a faithful follower of Brother John Birch. And I said, okay, who is brother John Birch? I actually started looking that up at the time, even when I was in school. I remember that. Oh, okay. You know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

But tell us what the Birchers are all about right now, though. It's a long and storied history. Right. Well, right now we always have been, never changed. It's all about education. And, of course, they don't teach American civics much longer, and they pump into the soft minds of young adults and even adults. Socialism is better. So our job is to reframe and re-educate people what our country was founded on, American and principles. A lot of people, as you know, can imagine, died for us, gave up fame

and fortune to give us this gift call or constitution of our country. And we just try to remind people that we have a responsibility now, but us will go forward for our future generations uphold the Constitution. And the Constitution is, you know, it protects our God-given rights. That's what they are, basically. And basically, what it does, it frames in and it chains down the Congress. Because we know man can be power-hungry, and the past has certainly shown that. Yeah. And our fondness thought I said we're going to bind them down to change of the Constitution. So we teach constitutional principles, have been for years, in exposing the plan, we call it a conspiracy of the New World Order. They call the deep state global. It's a lot of different names. It's all

the same. And how they've been orchestrating world government over the years. And Mr. Welch, back in 1958, said, hey, we got a problem. These people are up to do this. He called me insider or the conspiracy. They're conspiring together to destroy freedom in the world, and here they are, you know, and those accounts of our relations then, and he was the kind of, he was the communists. And so we go through the period of time, people are now, Alex Jones and Steve Bannon,

and others say, man, you guys have been right all along. And so... And yet the birchers have been smeared, were smeared mercilessly, mercilessly. I think of the William F. Buckleys of the world back in the day, the so-called, you know, the respectable conservatives, which means the compromising, in my opinion. But interesting story about him, you mentioned.

And we have a book called The Pipe of the Establishment, written by one of our past presidents, Jack McManus. He could buy at our bookstore, The Pipe of the Establishment. And Buckley was a Yaleer, Skull and Bones member, CFR member, right? So he was the establishment, and his job was a discredit the Burt Society because we're exposing what they didn't want to expose.

You know, conspirators don't want to have a lightsend about it. Interesting story about him, Mr. Walsh, our founder, helped fund his organization to get started. And surely after that, he turned around and stabbed Mr. Walsh in the back. So that's really what happened. He actually helped fund the National Review early, early on in its inception. So his gore was to discredit what we're saying because we're exposing what really was going on. But, you know, many, many books have been written. Many books have been written.

And so it's not us saying this, it's that people in the past said, hey, I was in the organization, and this is exactly what you said. This is what we're doing, the world government, and they are hard at it. And the United Nations, of course, was founded to be the pinnacle of world government. Of course, President Trump really took him the task the other day, and it sounded like a birch meeting, you know. And I don't know if you heard that interview, Bill, but he was like scaring them. I said, this is like a birch meeting, you know. what he said we've been saying all along yeah and now it's one thing to say things but uh of course

the birchers have been asking uh in fact weren't you the ones that were putting out those get us out of the u.n signs that you'd see up on the fence posts around you have a yeah still have them yeah you still do yeah yeah you know until we actually withdraw from the u.n i don't think that job is over for sure but way morrow once again CEO of the john birch society john birch society How do you evaluate the political landscape right now? You know, post-Charlie Kirk, there's been a lot of conversation about the Charlie Kirk assassination. Oddly enough, I don't think Charlie Kirk was actually all that, I can't say there was anything, there was all that particularly radical, you know, about his points of view. But, you know, but I think what his real gift was was going into the college campuses in doing this.

But I detect, and I think you're detecting, too, that there is a bit of a complacency, thinking like, hey, Trump's in and we're winning, and that the midterms are going to be kind of a cakewalk. And I get a little concerned when I hear those kind of conversations or expressions. What do you think? You're right on, yes. The Magna movement really got stirred up after the Biden and Obama situation, because, as you know, our country was heading towards. destruction with socialistic programs. As they said, as Obama said, we need a change in America.

He certainly was. And so people found that, hey, we're losing our country. Certainly with the immigration borders and the structure of the economy and on and how it goes over the years, but they really sped that up. The agenda 2030 is live and well, you know, we've got our eyes on that one.

But anyhow, because they worked hard, this is Americans, worked hard to get Trump elected, they felt like, well, dad's in charge now so we can go back to sleep. And the answer is, I'm concerned because the 26th election coming up is really important because you know every two years we reelect our Congress. Of course, Congress makes the loss.

And that's Congress is the key. One of our past chairman, Larry McDonald, said that Congress is the key. It's very true. They make the laws, not the Supreme Court, not the president. We talk about those EOs, everybody who's excited, Bill. But they don't mean anything until they become law by Congress, see? And so, yes, we're fighting the complacency of patriots, although we've been hard at it.

And we have paid field staff in the United States. Keep on educating people. We have our magazine, we want some on. We have meetings. We have webinars and videos and speeches that say, let's go to sleep. You want to reinstall Americanism in your hearts and minds because the left is hard at work to regain power again.

I would dare say that the left is more energized right now, even though, you know, we see all the news stories about how discouraged they are and this and that and the other. No, that's a lie. I'm not buying that. I'm not buying that one way. And I think that conservatives and Republicans should be running like they're losing right now. And I'm not detecting that yet. And I'm hoping this is not. Now, we know that any time a president is in the midterms, usually his party ends up losing a few seats.

We can't afford to lose those few seats this time around. We just can't. Well, you have one or two to go, and all of a sudden the tips over to the Democratic side. And, of course, we know that that happens, though, certainly try to impeach the president or never pass any of bills that he proposed. I mean, so that's the key is Congress. People understand that Congress is the key. And so we have on our website, the newamerican.com is our monthly magazine, which while you can subscribe.

You mentioned this before we went on there for $49 a month digital, I mean, digitally, $49 a year digitally comes to their month a month. Or you want to buy the print magazine that's $759. Actually, that's not an incredibly expensive extra cost for print if you like the print. Yeah, sometimes I like not looking at a screen, Wayne, you know? So you can go online, the new American.com, and subscribe. The reason why I say that, because in that, there's a thing called the Freedom Index. And in that, what we do, Bill, is that we have the Freedom Index. We, every quarter, we actually take six constitutional bills, and we rate the congressmen and senators how they voted on that.

We get them a score from zero to 100. And we do that. Well, you can print those off on your computer, and you can pass them around your neighbor and say, hey, by the way, this is how your congressman or senators voting. And now they come up for election, you ought to know this. So what is our choice? Go visit your legislators and say, hey, by the way, you're supposed to uphold the Constitution, but your 40% constitutional on these bills, what are we doing here?

And I'll tell you, the congressman we meet and the centers we meet. And we also do this for state legislators as well, Senate and House. Imagine that? And it's all on our website. It's free. The neat thing about it is, most people don't know who those. legislators are or they don't visit them. And they tell them it's that. But if you, if you don't hold them accountable, then they think they're doing a great job. And I fall, the responsibility

falls upon us. The citizens, the electorate, they're not to be educated to be involved in the process. So they want to keep their job. And the only way you can do that, say, hey, you said you're uphold the Constitution, but you're not voting like that. So we educate people with information so they can be activated to act. That's that simple. It's not hard. and if you want to change your legislator's voting record or change them, then you're going to have to do something that we give you the tools to do that. It's called Freedom Index. It's located on the newamerican.com,

www. www. Thenewamerican.com. Or if you really want to put an app for your phone, you can do the same thing I have on my phone. You can go to the New American, the Freedom Index.org, and you can download that app onto your iPhone or your Android, We can walk around with a voting record of every legislator in the United States,

either be state or federal. So there's no excuse any longer not to be involved and to really... And not to be informed by that. By the way, I'm speaking with Wayne Morrow, who is the CEO of the John Birch Society. You know, when it comes to the Make America great part of the political landscape here, Wayne, is there any danger that it gets... I don't know if taken over is the right term that I'm looking for, but I remember what happened with the Tea Party. Remember how everybody, people were getting real excited in the conservative world when the Tea Party first came up there.

And we're going to be shaking things up and this and that the other and Tea Party, this and Tea Party that, Emma Tea Party, Patriot, etc. And then it kind of got sucked in and neutered in the conventional Republican process. party process is kind of like taken over and neutered of its of its strength I think in many ways is this different time is this a different time now what do you think well well you're right they actually did fold in but there's still remnants of it all but we're finding a new groups of people that appear now you know and and that's what we see we see lots of different kinds of organizations and a versatile side's grown because of it because we sort of state studies of the course and people still want the truth

So I think the Magid Movement is really their response to this D-Party movement. Not so unified, but sort of like, hey, we're losing our country time to do something. And I'm glad we actually helped do change that. But I go back to you, I think it really comment about complacency, is that typical patriots, conservative, I can use that term, they treat this as one and done. or the left is there is a lifelong experience. Oh, yeah, it's a continual. You know, it is, everything is the revolution, that sort of thing.

But I was getting back to my point, though, my question, I guess, was do you believe that make America great again survives Donald Trump? And when I say survives Donald Trump, because he's only going to get in it a couple more years, or three more years, and then that's it. You know, is it Donald Trump or is there a greater infrastructure? I guess, for the future, in your opinion. Well, hopefully we can fill that void, but I hope so. I don't, you know, it's because it's loosely, it's all on motion and up, you know,

the next election we all get joined up again. But I think every, I think the answer to question is the presidential election wakes up the loosely formed megapete. I mean, they get behind a, they get behind a candidate, not behind an ideology. We're trying to change that, you know. it's like as they said earlier it's all about congress it's not about the president i mean yes he's a figurehead you have a good congress you end up getting a good president but you need a good congress they make the law yeah and i've been concerned that uh so much of the action in the

trump administration has been through executive orders executive orders are kind of like um i don't know kind of the fast food version of laws maybe that's the way of looking at it right it's it's like it sounds really good it's really tasty but it's not particularly nourishing because, you know, the next guy comes in and wipes it out, right? Yeah. Yeah, I kind of look like a hall pass at school, but it never really changes the policy, you know? Yeah. And actually getting laws changed is what's really important right now.

Oh, yeah. And Congress makes the law. Like, I can't, people think the president does. He does not. Supreme Court does not make laws. They interpret what it says, even though they've gone outside their bounds of the Constitutional responsibility. They can't make laws either.

Congress makes the lust. And we need a strong Congress to maintain our republic. We're not a democracy in a republic. And if we have a strong Congress, everything changes. A constitutional Congress, that is. It's not a shame when you watch the president do a state of state and half the Congress sits down when he's talking about America's principles. No, I ask this question, what's wrong with us? How can we elect Marxists, because they are so Marxists, is socialists representing us in a constitution.

Republican organization. How can I be possible? Have people been that brainwashed? Yeah. I think there are a lot of people... Wayne, I think a lot of people have been brainwashed, unfortunately. I don't know how else to put it there.

And this is the other question that I don't know if the birchers have a take on this or not. You know, around here in Southern Oregon in Northern California, we have wished to spin off peaceably, amicably, from Oregon, from the politics of Oregon and California and going a different way. First, there was talk of the state of Jefferson, but that got zonked out by World War II. Now there's the Greater Idaho Project, which is, you know,

wishing to expand Idaho into Southern Oregon and Northern California. I think Southern Oregon at first, and Eastern Oregon at first is what they were hoping to do. And yet, you know, the way our systems are set up, you don't get to separate from your current terrain. state unless you have the permission of the tyrannical state, which is an interesting. And it's like having to beg Massa in order to, you know, I just want to go on my own way. And I'm just wondering if politics is getting so hot at some point, maybe we just get to the point where states will just say, that's okay, we're just leaving anyway. We're just going to take our ball and take off.

I don't know. Any thoughts on that? Well, interesting, you know, our country was formed by states, their independent sovereign entity. That's right. Okay. And so when people forget this is that wherever a state you live in, they're a separate entity. And so what happens is that the states have given their constitutional state rights to the federal government. That's why the government's out of control. So, you know, they give them cocaine money, I call it. You know, like, oh, free money for a road or bridge. It's free. Well, it's not free. And what happens, they've given their constitutional powers of the federal government. It was not supposed to be that way. The function of the federal government in our early following, was protect us against foreign domestic enemies, not Social Security, not, you know, health care, not education. That's all with the state. Yeah, in other words, there's been real mission creep over the years, right? Oh, yeah. I guess. That's an easy way to say that, but yes. And so going

back to what I said, so we have a scorecard for every state legislator. And I, you know, I tell the folks at Oregon who are listening, if you don't like your legislature, you don't like what they're doing, say keep up the good work, you should say, hey, look, you know, we're going the wrong direction. What are you doing about it? So that's the involvement of the electorate. I can't say that enough. That's how we change things. It has to be us involved in the process. It's not we can't, we can't give somebody to a surrogate and take, we need to get involved. If you don't like your legislator, then you can change that. You really can. That's what our process does. I want to ask you, Wayne, you talk about the Freedom Index. What are

some of the most highly rated congressmen and senators right now? Did any of them jump out at you from that list? I don't have it in front of me right now. Well, Tom Massey is certainly one of them. Oh, yeah. He's a lot of black because he's a hundred percent. Oh, but boy, Tom Massey, you know, Tom Massey, it's like he's public enemy number one in many Republican circles. Isn't that interesting? Of course. Yeah, he calls people out. He's the neocons. He said, hey, look, I know him. He said to me, I'm in Congress, and you tell her green. You know, she's another one. You know, and Andy Biggs out in Arizona.

So, you know, the thing is, is that I asked Tom Massey, he was an MIT graduate, he's a brainiac, he said, these guys don't read the bills in Congress. They said, Tom, how are you voting on this? So let me tell you what he said, which is interesting. He said, look at it this way. Is it constitutional? Can we afford it and do we need it?

Those are three things they ask the question. He tells his colleagues. If it ends up anyone who will say no, that I'm not going to vote for. Pretty easy, right? Yeah. Is it constitutional? Can we afford it?

Do we need it? And so he said that he takes these gigantic, beautiful bills that Trump was pushing down, and it was very costly. And there's some good things that have been some really bad things in it as well. And he said, I can't vote for this. You know, could we break it apart and light item? They want light on them. They want to punch it together.

These big gigantic bills, they put in bad things that you and I would not agree with. But it's all apart, it's all about the legislative deal-making. though, in order to get thing, in order to get your candy bar, you know, for your constituents, you've got to give a candy bar to the socialist, I guess, right? And that's where we come in and say, no, no, no, you can't do this. So again, I go back to my original comment. The electorate, us, the citizens of the street, was the last time he talked to, so Tom said to me, he rarely gets phone calls, and other people have told me this from the electorate,

they're a substituent about anything. But you have to complain about it, but they don't call them on the phone, say, good job. I don't like the way you're voting. He said nothing. I get very few phone calls when he's at home in his house or he's, you know, back in legislation in Washington. Very few. So we encourage our members and members alike to reach out and we have alerts. We send emails to make phone calls and we contact the legislators so they know they respond to public pressure. Trust me. And it's that simple. So if you want to change Oregon folks want to change the process,

so, you know, back to the Constitution principles, you got to get involved to make a phone call, visit somebody. You have to take a little time, and you can't make a difference. That's what makes us pick. The Versa Society is all about making it happen. That's what we do.

Well, I'm glad to get reconnected with the John Merch Society, and like I said, I kind of lost track a number of years ago. I used to talk with another individual that would write for the New American back in the day, and he passed away. and then just kind of fell apart. And so I'm kind of glad to be with you guys again.

Wayne Morrow is the CEO of the John Birch Society. So the best thing, just go to the newamerican.com for everything we're talking about. That's our magazine, excuse me, Mel, and also the JBS.org, www. www.j, that's our main sign of it. And in that website, you have a free Constitution course, and also one of the Bill of Rights. You can listen to videos and take notes, because most of the people, but don't know what the heck the Bill of Rights is about. They think it's all they want, know as many of those, and why it was for them.

And so it's all free educational, we have videos. It gets you started on the road of Americanism. And you can certainly join. It's not very expensive. Our job is just to pay enough to help pay for some of the magazines that we print, not for our staff, trust me. But you have to get involved. It's not magical.

You have to participate because the left is very participatory on this process. Yeah, well, the right wing, on the right side of things, it's always a bit of hurting cats, isn't it? He just kind of feels that way. Yeah, for sure. All right. Wayne Morrow, once again, CEO of the John Birch Society. I appreciate you being on.

We'll have you back. Take care of. Thank you for the time. All right, you bet. Good catching up. This is KMED and KMEDHT1 Eagle Point Medford. KBXG grants pass. Stephen Westfall roofing is growing.

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