Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 10-21-25_TUESDAY_7AM

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Mike Oneil from Landmark Legal Foundation analyzes the 9th Circuit decision, Trump okayed for Portland Nat Guard deployment. Former State Senator Baertschiger explains the latest in the West/Morgan suit and other political news.

The Bill Myriss 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 Klausor drilling.com. That's 770 KMED. KMED and KMED HD-1 Eagle Point Medford, KBXG Grants Pass, is where you are. Brother Brad is here. Hey, Brad, how you doing this morning? What are the way on what Paul Oster was talking about with the subprime car loans,

rolling over, rolling over hard apparently out there. it's amazing stuff oh bill you know bill you're absolutely right you know and here in a rural county like we live in you know your own personal transportation is just so important and you know i i just remember the average car payment now apparently is 750 a month and the first home that my wife and i bought in 1977 our mortgage payment p i ti ti was only 250 a month so only one third of what the average car payment is today when i first When I first moved to Southern Oregon in 1991, and Sarah was born, see it, in 93, and that's when we ended up buying a house out on Holly Street.

Little house over by Sobroso, you remember that, where that neighborhood is? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we were right behind Spiegelberg Stadium, and let's see, it was, had been redone, little two-bedroom, one bath place behind Spiegelberg. I think it was 505, I think, was my monthly mortgage P&I and T&I in 1991. It's not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. I mean, yeah, 34 years, 32 years, something like that, a generation or so. But, you know, the thought of a $700 car payment would have just had me going.

You've got to be kidding me, right? But no, we're not kidding these days. Yeah, and then I think I heard somebody on your show mentioned that the average cost of new car now is $50,000. Yeah, the average transaction costs here. And part of that, though, and I honestly think that, this is Eric Peter, who was talking about that. I think one of the reasons for this, though, is that there has been a change in the way that

cars have been marketed now. The ability to get a stripped-down vehicle is next to impossible right now. Everything has to have air conditioning. Everything has to have power seats and power windows and power everything. and, you know, everything has to have the touchscreen and all the rest of it here. Simplicity has not been part of that. But I don't know. There's a possibility that given what's going on out there when you're at $50,000 average cost

that something is going to have to give in the near future on what's available to buy. And maybe we're going to have to be able to be allowed to buy a Hilex truck. You know, the one that Eric Peters is always talking about, the truck you can buy overseas for about $13,000, but it doesn't comply. with the United States regulations, and that's part of it, too. Our regulatory apparatchiks here have a lot to do with high cost, too. So the value versus cost equation is way out of balance. So if that car depreciates 50% over five years, which is actually pretty good,

50% of 50 grand is 25 grand. That's $5,000 a year of depreciation that you're paying for. Yeah, I know. Well, look at that. But still, it's also the cost of the vehicle. is where we, what we have to look at right now. You know that, that old van of mine, right? Still on the road.

And that can still be, it's still allowed to be on the road, but you couldn't build a vehicle exactly like it today because it wouldn't comply. And why is that, Brad? Why is it that you can still keep something on the road that you've had, but you can't build something exactly like it and keep it on the road today? Isn't that kind of a strange thing in the land of,

the free, so to speak? Thank God you can still have your van on the road bill, and you're kind of the poster boy for this next thing that people need to realize, which is it is much less expensive to repair a vehicle that you already have than to go out by a new vehicle. But the problem with that is repairs are kind of expensive nowadays, and you've got these car guys out there saying, hey, come on down, sign a piece of paper, and you can drive off in a new car with a warranty, right? And that warranty is so attractive, especially to young mothers who don't have mechanical skills.

They don't have a mechanic in their life. Yeah, you're right. That's another big part of it, too. You're looking at the peace of mind of something new. I get that. Right. But then, of course, you hear about the new vehicles coming out that are having these massive recalls that are blowing up after they put their compliance engines in, and their compliance engines don't last, or they put zero W5 oil in them.

whatever it is, to eke out another mile or two per gallon, right? There's a lot going on here, really is. But that's one of the most economic things that people can do is find a competent auto mechanic and make that auto mechanic your best friend. Oh, great takeaway from that. Great takeaway. Thanks, Brad. We're going to catch up on Fox News here in just a moment.

Hand of the update. And they were going to be talking about the Supreme, not the Supreme Court decision, about the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. Yeah, we have Governor Kotech not real happy today. We'll talk about that coming up. I'm Matt Jordan. Join me for Fox 26. First News at 10. I'm Andrea Boyd.

Tune in every... OKMED. Here's Bill Meyer. It may be pebble in your shoe Tuesday, but a pebble has been removed from my legal shoe, and it has to do with what was going on over at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It's not very often that I see anything happening at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It's not very often that I see anything happening at the Ninth Circuit that really gets me excited.

But with what happened with President Trump and his push to be able to restore some order to around the ice facility, I'm guardedly optimistic. I want to the talk with Landmark Legal Foundations, Michael O'Neill. Michael, tell us about Landmark legal first, and then we'll dig into the news, the legal news here from yesterday. Sure, Bill. Landmark is a national public interest law firm. We protect liberty. We fight against tyranny. we promote constitutional conservative principles.

Okay. Well, what was going on in Portland has been a situation where you had Portland police and the Portland folks and Governor Kotech, everybody else saying there's nothing to see here. There's no problem. And we are keeping order here around ICE, even though all the windows are boarded up, and they refused ICE's request to have a fence out around it because it's all boarded up. And it's orderly, you have to have to have. tons of guards anytime anybody enemies or leaves, but everything's peaceful, nothing to see here,

everything's bonn, you know, whatever. And so President Trump knows otherwise, and then we were more or less told, the federal government was more or less told that, well, we're not going to protect you, but you're not allowed to protect you either. Is that kind of what was up in play yesterday before the Ninth Circuit? Yeah, so a district court, a federal district court, remember we have the three levels. We have the district court, the appellate courts, and then the support. Court, a federal district court, the court of first impression, concluded that there wasn't

the sufficient factual predicate on the ground. In other words, that there wasn't the necessary danger and violence posed to this federal building, federal detention facilities, to justify deployment of National Guard troops to provide operational security. Fortunately, of course, the difference should be, and the district court judge was way over their skis on this, was completely out of bounds. The difference should be to the president to make that assessment. and the national security apparatus and federal law enforcement. If they decide that they can't keep security because local law enforcement isn't doing their job, and let's be very frank, that's what's occurring here.

If local law enforcement can't maintain order around these federal facilities, then the federal government is left with no option but to deploy national guard troops to provide operational security. And fortunately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a free judge panel, agreed with the president, agreed with the administration, and said, look, your order lower court, for court, your temporary restraining order, your injunction, preventing the deployment of these national guards is erroneous. And so now, going forward, the president does have the authority to nationalize and deploy

about, and approximately, look, let's talk about what's happening. It's about 200 national guard troops we're talking about here, Bill. We're not talking about hundreds, you know, thousands of infantry troops. We're not talking about armored divisions going through the city. Yeah, we're not talking about people marching, guard troops marching through the streets of Portland everywhere they are, rounding up brown people. be what some people would say. That's not what this is about.

This is tightly focused and targeted to the ICE facilities and providing, in essence, big security, right? Exactly. Exactly. Operational security. Look, if federal law enforcement is unable to execute duties, and in this term, enforcing our immigration laws, and then because of lack of security,

and then, again, traditionally how this is held is local jurisdictions have worked in conjunction with the federal law enforcement to ensure that there was security apparatus is in place to ensure that the federal laws can be enforced. Yeah, but we don't do that in Oregon because of sanctuary city and sanctuary state laws, right? That's our policy in the state. So we're not providing any kind of real help or coordination, I guess? Not enough, exactly.

And it's funny. You see this, there's what's happening in Chicago is kind of a similar thing. You have two sides going on here. So in Oregon, you had the Ninth Circuit, which actually, you know, it's funny, you mentioned the Ninth Circuit, and traditionally it is the liberal circuit is the left wing circuit. But really over the past four or five years, it's kind of migrated to a moderate. It's not really as left as traditionally thought. The Ninth Circuit, you're going to get a fair shaken. Most constitutional lawyers, most attorneys understand conservative lawyers. Hey, the Ninth Circuit isn't this lost cause that it was for all those decades ago. So I was guardedly optimistic that there was going to be a positive opinion from the Ninth Circuit. Contrast that bill with, what's happened in the Seventh Circuit, which is over in Chicago, middle of the country, where the Seventh Circuit ruled differently from the Ninth Circuit about five days ago on October 16th and upheld that TRO that a district court is it. So again, preventing the deployment of troops in Chicago to do substantially similar things

that they're trying to be doing employment. Now, when we have these two courts that are in direct conflict with the same kind of situation, does this then set up the Supreme Court wing? in on this ultimately, because isn't their job really to keep all of these circuits in line? And, hey, this is what we think, you know, and it's in effect for all the various circuits. Yeah, exactly. And you think, well, the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General, the Department of Justice, has already appealed that seven-circuit decision.

And the deadline for the briefs was, again, this is all an emergency rocket-docket kind of expedited process up to SCOTUS. Normally things don't go that quick up to the Supreme Court. But this, of course, these are these preliminary injunctions, temporary restraining orders, these emergency orders that go up really quickly. So you see this accelerated process. The court said, actually, all those briefs were due yesterday for the Seventh Circuit's opinion, for the Seventh Circuit's decision, whether the court, again, is going to uphold the Seventh Circuit's decision to uphold the stay or whether they're going to overturn it. So you're going to get a rule, you're going to get the Supreme Court weighing in in fairly short order on the propriety of the Seventh Circuit. obviously you made a great point.

The split, you had one circuit, the ninth ruling one way. You had the Seventh Circuit ruling another way. Codus is going to probably have to come in here and lay down some, hopefully some clearer guidance on how these circuits are supposed to proceed going forward. Now, one little wrinkle in all of this is there, you can make a factual distinction here. I think, you know, you're talking about two different cities, and I mean, I don't defend, I'm not defending what the Seventh Circuit did. I don't think this is the just judicial issue.

I think the federal court should generally stay out of this. This is operational security issues. But you can make a factual distinction between Portland and Chicago. So you can say, again, the Seventh Circuit had said concluded and I concluded that the security situation on the ground in Chicago didn't rise to the level to necessitate the deployment of national troops. The Ninth Circuit said, no, no, no. In Portland, the security situation on the ground, the facts on the ground did necessitate

the deployment of federal troops. So you can make a factual distinction between. the two cities, not necessarily just a legal distinction. Yeah, but didn't we have someone get shot out of the protesters shot out of the ice facility after, you know, ramming vehicles into, and blocking vehicles and things like that? Isn't that kind of similar? Similar kind of thing? Yeah, exactly.

I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that they're going to try to make a factual distinction. Oh, okay. I think facts on the ground in Chicago justified as well. I just think that you can, it's important to understand that there are two different cities and there are two different situations. So you might, that's where if you look into. kind of the meat of these decisions. The Seventh Circuit, and I am, again, let me be very clear,

I'm not defending the Seventh Circuit's decision. They're going to say, well, the government didn't make the case to necessitate. It didn't properly illustrate a security situation, necessitating the deployment of the national guard troops. So that's kind of the distinction between the cases. Again, I think that there's a bigger issue here, and maybe Scotus will weigh in this, that it's not just disdissible, that, like, courts shouldn't be operating in this arena anyway. is something that deference is entitled to the president. And if he makes the assessment that the security situation necessitates these deployment. And again, these guys are not, the National Guard troops are not effectuating law enforcement operations. They're providing security to ensure that

the law enforcement operations, ICE, in other words, can do their jobs. You don't have these, this is a posse comitatis. These guys aren't going door to door. They're not doing search warrants. Yeah, yeah, when does it, yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you legally. When does it rise, in your opinion, to a posse comitatis kind of violation of providing policing action on American streets? Because I'm sensitive to that, too. We're a country that doesn't like the idea of military rolling through your town. And the way I'm looking at this is that this was a tightly restricted zone that they were going to be behaving or acting in. But tell us what these lines are. Are there any lines that we can use? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think the line,

I think the line is when you have cities that are under such assault that there's, that law enforcement is no longer, the local law enforcement, local jurisdictions are no longer able to execute their duties. I mean, by a bite, I mean, if you're going to look at, I don't think we've got to posse com, invocation of the posse comitat Act. Again, that's where you, that's, that's a very strong remedy here. That's a very strong tool. Okay. I'll use an example. Remember when we had cities burning and police departments essentially standing by and watching and or kneeling. Is that something that a president, even President Trump back then, could have called in National Guard without even a thought,

and it would not have been a posse comitatis violation in your opinion? I don't, I think so. Well, let me see. Posse Comitatis was invoked in the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. So, I mean, think back the Rodney King riots. Obviously, it was invoked for the desegregation in 1957 and efforts in Selma and Civil Rights marches to provide to ensure that, the individuals could march from Selma to Montgomery during the civil rights era. So Posse Kermitonis has been invoked throughout the history. It's not unprecedented. I don't think we're

there yet. Again, you see the limited fashion which the President of the Department of Justice Department of Defense are operating under here. They're making the assessments. And again, this is what's funny. It's like you listen to the left and you look at their, you know, the no kings rallies, et cetera, all that stuff. You think that it's, as I said before, it's not, it's not the military riding through the streets going door to door, rounding up people. 200 National Guard troops ensuring that the detention facilities in Portland aren't under constant assault from these Antifa insurrectionists. That's the use of it, and yet you hear the left going completely off the kilter over this.

So I think their reaction is completely disproportionate to, of course, the facts on the ground. All right. So it was a two to one. By the way, I'm speaking with Michael O'Neill and Legal, Great Brain over at Landmark Legal Foundation, landmark legal dot org michael it was a two one decision what i'm wondering about is what happens next and because uh governor governor co-tech course very upset about this and uh damn rayfield the insurance uh you know the attorney general who is really uh known as an insurance shyster before uh you know what he was doing uh but you know hey that's the state of oregon what can i tell you

but they're all talking about appeals is this something where they then appeal to the full Ninth Circuit panel or what is the actual process because they're not going necessarily lay down on something like this. So what happens next, do you think? Well, there's, again, another beagle wrinkle here, procedural wrinkle in this is one of the judges, presumably the, again, we don't know for exactly the name of the judge, but one of the judges, I'm going to assume it's that judge on that, the dissenting judge in the two to one. You said there was a one. That one judge, sua sponte, on his own accord, made a preceptive. procedural maneuver to have the entire Ninth Circuit. It's called it on Petition for Review

Unbock. It's the entire Ninth Circuit to hear this and review the three-judge panel's decision. So that's in front of the court. So there's all these procedural balls in the air. You've got the Seventh Circuit with the Scotis and Scotis's opinion, obviously, will affect the Ninth Circuit. You've got the Ninth Circuit to responde guy, moving for the entire en banc, all of the Ninth Circuit, all of the judges on the court to hear the case. that's those are now when you say all the judges do you do you really mean all of the judges like what they're 27 of them i think yeah exactly a full panel exactly wow okay i think it's all of them yeah so you're going to get so that's it's again it's a very rarely indivoked and that's always

that's kind of a middling appeal if you want to say you can after you lose if you're if you're not happy with your decision in front of a two judge a three judge panel you can petition for review on bonk and that's the the broader ninth circuit to hear the entire case those are very very rarely granted, but what's unique in this, you had a judge actually asking for a review on bond. Oh, okay, so it's not usually the judge that asks for it, but someone who lost on the, on the lawsuit, right? I'm presuming it's the, again, this is a presumption we don't know because it's an unsigned request petition, but I'm going to presume it's the judge who was the dissenting judge in the two to one, in the two to one decision, who believe that the, who believe that the district court's decision was a, should have been a,

appelled and not state. So, again, crazy, I know this is all the machinations of the law here, but this is all, these are all good things. It's good that the circuits are hatching this out. Ultimately, I do think SCOTUS is going to, Supreme Court is going to weigh in on this, and so we're going to get some real guidance from the Supreme Court on the authority under this provision of the statute. Once again, landmark legal foundations, Michael O'Neill. Michael, President Trump is obviously behaving like a pretty muscular

I guess would be a good way to describe a muscular executive and trying to really behave as an executive. Do you have an opinion on what's going on with the government shutdown? And President Trump's push here to remove several thousand workers from the payroll and using the shutdown as a possibility of doing this. And you have the courts that end up trying to hold him or hold him back or smack him down.

And I'm just trying to figure out, when do we get to a time in which everybody except the executive seems to weigh in on what the executive is able to do with executive employees in the executive department. You know what I'm getting at? It just seems kind of weird. Absolutely. There's so much to unpack it.

I mean, first of all, the shutdown, I think, is largely an effort of Congress. And I think that there's Democrats, this is, again, speaking about the shutdown, the Democrats in Congress, namely Chuck Schumer, the leadership of the Democrats, aren't interested in passing what is known as a clean continuing resolution. in other words, just to keep the government funded. They want to weigh in on Medicaid funding for illegal immigrants. They want to continue the Obamacare subsidies that were instituted in 2019 in order to prop up failing Obamacare, because Obamacare is considerably more expensive

than it was sold to the American people, and it requires more and more government spending to ensure it continues to exist. And I would feel very sorry for the people that are looking at big increases that aren't illegal aliens. I get that. I understand that, but it's just kind of bandating a broken system, unfortunately. That's what we're looking at right now. Yeah, so Republicans don't want to have to, don't want to add that money right now.

They want to have, okay, we can debate that in the intervening week, so let's pass a continuing resolution for continued funding over the next six or seven weeks so we can hash out how we want to make changes or reforms to Obamacare to ensure it's viable for illegals and not viable in illegal immigrants and subsidies that go to states to fund non-immigrants, illegal immigrants. Healthcare isn't part of it, otherwise it's unsustainable. So it's a legitimate policy discussion, but the Democrats aren't interested in that. They're going to the wall on this. So we'll see that the shutdown continues, interesting.

I think it's funny, we got to notice the other day from the D.C. district court, you know, via the lawyer, the admission stuff. And they were saying that their, you know, courts are going to start to have to lose funding and start to slow down how they process things. So it's bleeding into the judiciary as well. So it's going to start to affect a lot of parts of government. But what I was wondering, though, is that do you think he comes? out of this essentially having more control of what the executive can do and kind of

and kind of drawing kind of grabbing power back from the administrative state from the actual bureaucracy I guess that that appears to be what the effort is moving forward isn't it looks like what he's trying to do and again there's a there's a there's a really important case that's called Trump versus slaughter that's going to rule on the president's authority to terminate these heads of these quasi independent agencies so again a reassertion of the executive power. The bottom line is here is, where is the executive power vested? Is it vested in the president or is it vested in the fourth branch of government, the administrative state? Again, constitutional conservatives like myself submit to you that it's vested in the president,

because the president and the vice president are the only individuals, elected individuals that are chosen by the entire populace. The only one that everybody, people in Oregon and people in Virginia vote for is for president and vice president. You have different senators, you have different representatives than we do. So the president has the executive authority and he runs on a platform and his duty and his obligation to the American people is to try to implement his agenda that he's run on. And it's not the province of the administrative state to come in and try to kneecap him from implementing the agenda that the American people elected him to do. So of course, as you said, Bill, we're having that debate right now. I think you're going to see, again,

a strengthening of the executive because of all of these cases and from Trump's assertions. I would be curious if we could see a re-strengthening of Congress, too, here, because the reason for this is that, say what you will, I don't believe President Trump has just normal authority to be outworking trade deals with tariffs, because I'm looking at because this is something which is within the power of Congress to do. It would be interesting to see Congress get more muscular and work on what it's supposed to be doing and have the president doing what he's supposed to be doing. He or she, whoever it would be. Yeah. I would love to see that. Again, that's what I think I might have said it on your show before, but I think that Congress needs to step up in so many regards to. They can't, we can no longer tolerate the Congress passing these dagly-worded laws and letting the presidency or the executive agencies make the tough decision. They have to put the work in as well. And you're right, tariffs, there's, again, in front of the Supreme Court, they're going to be hearing oral arguments in the tariffs case. There's a legitimate chance that the court says, hey, you don't have this authority, President Trump, Congress hasn't delegated it to you. This is a major question, and we need to see clear delegation of authority for you to negotiate these deals.

You haven't gotten that. You're acting outside your presidential authority. So Congress can fix that, can say, yes, you do have that authority. Congress needs to play a stronger role. Obviously, President Trump is doing what he was elected to do. We want to see Congress do the same sorts of things. Yeah, and everybody in their lanes and doing what needs to be done. I really appreciate the take on is Michael.

Michael O'Neill, LandmarkLeague Foundation, landmarklegal.org. Appreciate your work over there. Definitely have you back. And thanks for the analysis this morning, okay? Be well. Take care. No problem, Bill. Have a great day.

Take care. It is 731. KMED. KBXG is where you are on the Bill Myers Show. It is Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. Got one? 7705-633. For precision and performance, choose Stephen Westfall Roofing.

I appreciate your emails. Email, bill at Billmyershow.com. And some emails of the day are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson, Central Point Family Dentistry. Nice. Nice. waiting area. It's a newer facility. It's over on Freeman Way next to the Mazelon Mexican restaurant. But boy, they will get you in it out there. Man, I got to tell you, they run a tight ship professional people. I think you'll enjoy that experience. And once again, it is central point

family dentistry.com. A lot of people have been writing me about the 15-238, the Creekside quarter thing. I wanted to share some of this. We, you know, talk to some of our folks from the pack on Friday's show. And I have Betty weighing in. Bill. just remember this is a albatross period what will or Medford do with the current dollars received from the taxes and then who will no longer get any part of that dollars as it is now there's got to be some losers somewhere be fair though what's going on betty is that the additional money that would be supposedly used as seed money is additional money that would not have been going to those other places in the first place this is an additional tax money

the other 11% would have nothing to do with that all right Keith writes me this morning what will this stadium be used for when baseball season is over homeless camps no no talk about that but definitely the goal is to get something active more concerts and such and maybe we'll see some of some of that maybe we'll get a professional football team then I'm just kidding I mean who knows

Elaine writes with this morning Bill did you notice that Well, this must have been Nick that she was talking about. Nick Card was in here. Kept talking faster and faster with every question you asked. I didn't notice that. I like Nick. I've always been a fan of Nick Card. But, yeah, he, well, there was a lot of information to get through here.

Okay. Let me go to, oh, Vern ends up running. Bill, you ran by Nick, the demolition of existing housing for this project, but it really did not get addressed. What about the eminent domain of private properties? Yeah, how about the old Red Lion? I don't know if that's eminent domain, or maybe the city already controls that fur? I'll have to double check that, all right?

The Reverend David writes on the conference center, Bill, our diocese is now working our synods in the Bay Area in California because whenever we would hold them in smaller towns, the people would always complain that there wasn't enough for them to do or that they live in a rural area and they wanted more than a smaller community can offer. When people go to conferences, they want to go to bigger cities, not Medford, Oregon. I would agree with you, David, on that. I know that they've been trying to make conferences stick for a long time here in southern Oregon.

And then it has been the challenge that, you know, Medford, like many towns in southern Oregon, too big to be cute and charming and too small yet to have that massive, you know, that massive gravity that brings all of that activity and arts and such into the area. But they're throwing the dice on this one to try to make us more like that. And is it they, if they build it, they will come, that they will come? Maybe they see something that we don't. I don't know. And we have a brother Louis writing about the new stadium.

It's either an investment or it is funded, demanding disinterested third party accounting with full disclosure. of externalized costs, expenses as a result of the new demand on infrastructure. My eighth grade teacher said, remember, boys, figures don't lie, but liars figure. Okay. All right. And let me see who else is in here. Oh, Pat Wilcox sends me a five-minute video from Cheryl Atkinson on the stadium topic. It might be worth posting on the failure of professional ball stadiums, football too.

Doobie writes me, Bill, I have zero faith in this project. Medford has made a mockery of our streets with their stupid bike lanes and swine walks, taking lanes away from cars on our major thoroughfares and giving them to bikes is extremely frustrating. Say you work in an office setting. Are you really going to ride a bike to work in the summer when it's 100 degrees or in the winter when it's freezing? No, there's a small window in the spring and fall that a bike could make sense. And that's if you're willing to ride in the rain. The bump outs in Central Point are terrible as well, especially if you're towing a trailer.

When the utility fee was first implemented, it was $50 a month. It's now $76. I don't believe for a second that our utility fee will not increase. All right, doobie, you can all have an opinion. Randy writes, based on the numbers that you were sending me, I don't think the project pencils out. There's no way a 2% increase in the transient lodging tax will pay for the Creekside Quarter boondoggle. The pitch that it's a great investment for Medford is a big fat lie. The two council members pushing this must be personally benefiting.

I don't know how to confirm that, but they must have some financial interest in the project. If the measure passes, Medford taxpayers are signing a blank check to cover the transient lodging tax shortfall. Even if the projected increase in tourism is realized, which is wishful dreaming, that will not be enough to fully fund construction and ongoing maintenance of the project. Portland, if faced losing the Trailblazers, unless taxpayers cough up big bucks to renovate the Grows Garden. Well, yeah, you know, that's the sort of thing that you wonder about.

Randy, I appreciate you kicking in here. And let's see, John writes me about No Kings. Bill, people who took part in the weekends nationwide No King's protest were unwitting dupes for the same billionaires. They constantly say they hate as liberal billionaires funded a lot of these protests. Good point there. And Don, also weighing in on No Kings.

I just want to let you know how grateful I am that millions of people spent hours protesting the No King's thingy. Wow, it worked. We don't have a king. What a bunch of idiots. And thank you, Dawn. Don, I'm going to give you a real American salute, okay? Email Bill at Billmyershow.com. Herman, standing by.

We'll get some other things and hopefully get some more of your pebble and your shoe Tuesday calls for today, too. If you were a medal winner in the 2025 best of... Hi, I'm Paul Strand with Valley View Nursery, and I'm on KMED. Former State Senator Herman Barrettig were back. We always kick around Oregon and the United States and worldwide politics every Tuesday. So whatever we feel like talking about, it's what I always enjoy about talking about things with you. Herman, how are things with you, huh? Welcome back.

I'm doing fine, except the electricity went out last night, so that means got to reboot the computer and all the programs and blah, blah, blah. So, anyways, there's my complaining for Tuesday. Okay, well, there you go. It's that incredible reliability of the grid. And it's, what, chaotic and intermittent renewable power, contrasted with a lack of grid maintenance over the decades. What could possibly go wrong, Herman? What could go wrong? Well, you know, what it was is a cloud passed over the solar panels in Utah, I'm sure.

Yeah. Well, you may not be too far from it. the uh from the truth on that one of course the internet also went out uh for a while yesterday it was because of amazon amazon web servers that run so many uh websites out there they did a software update oh no everybody knows you don't do software updates oh no and they did that and kicked a bunch of people off you know hey that brought me to weigh in there are worried that there will not, you know, they built those servers up there out of Hood River, and they built the servers in Pryneville and everything. And now, after they built them all, they're worried they're not

going to have enough electricity or run them. Imagine that. By the way, are they, do you know if they're contracting for Bonneville system power up there, you know, from, if they're looking for hydro, when I think hydro should really be going to the people who finance the dams first rather than the tech pros, but that's just me. Well, I'm going to take a step out of try to prompt my memory, but I think all the Bonneville power has all been allocated. I don't think there's any up for grabs. Yeah, I wouldn't think so either. I wouldn't think so.

Yeah. All right. I mean, I did that from memory, so I could be wrong. All right. We're just spitballing a little bit. That's fine. Yeah. Hey, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up ruling in favor of Trump.

but you don't think that Rayfield's going to take this as an answer, right? Oh, no, he's going to spend more Oregon taxpayer money and probably appeal it to the Supreme Court, which is already going to the Supreme Court, but he's got to make all of his people feel like he's doing something. So, yeah, he's going to take our, you know, when you go to work today, a certain amount of your efforts at work is going to go to appealing to the Supreme Court, unfortunately. Right. Governor Kotech went on the record yesterday saying that these National Guard troops around ice are not needed. Would you agree with her evaluation of that overall? Well, she makes these observations from underneath her executive desk, so I don't think she sees what everybody else sees, Bill.

Yeah. I find it interesting that we're supposed to think that everything is peaceful and okay when everyone just pretty much acknowledges that the ice facility has been understance. siege for more than 100 days in Portland. You have to have tons of guards just to be able to get people in and out of the facility. That doesn't strike me as operational security, as a way a federal agency of our country should be operating, don't you think? Well, that's how many Democrats, you know, look at things. And I've tried to explain this multiple times on your show, is when they see something they don't like, they just ignore it and pretend like it's not going on. We've seen this when they're burning down Portland back in the old COVID days

and stuff like that. And they oh, no, no, don't talk about it. It'll go away. It'll go away. It's not that bad. But it's not that bad. Don't look. Don't look. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody is looking and to have and wants to have National Guard just deployed on United States streets just routinely because, because the chief executive has a a burst of inspiration or for whatever reason just on a whim. But arguably, after 100, 110, 120 days, something's going to happen.

And yet the Democrats running Oregon then make the claim that it's going to incite the violence. But if your people are peaceful, why would the presence of the soldiers around the ice facility incite violence? That's what I'm trying to figure out if your people are behaving so well. It doesn't make sense to me, Herman. Listen, Governor Brown behaved the same way as Governor Kotech, and it's just out of sight, out of mind. Don't bring it up. Don't look at it. It'll probably go away if we don't pay attention to it.

And if I was governor, it would be the other way around. If I didn't have the resources to stop this, I would be asking for National Guard troops. Yeah. And by the way, there's no shame. and asking for the help if you need it. That's what it's there for. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is personal property. This is obstructing, you know, people trying to move freely in the Portland area and stuff like that. It just blows my mind. I don't know

what else to say. Well, we'll see if they get the troops in there. And then if there are problems, then we'll know that the problems aren't the troops. The problems are the people surrounding ICE that have been allowed to just continue to behave as spoiled children. I guess that's all we can do is just wait and watch and oh well I guess uh you gotta remember this is the behavior from the same party that believes that we need to legalize hard drugs don't worry about that don't worry about the homeless destroying our cities um no we're going to do that we're going to back down on police uh we're going to decriminalize things we don't want as many people in prison. We're going to let them out. That's how they, that's what they

believe. And that's what people vote for. It absolutely blows my mind. Can I never get bad enough for people in Oregon to change, though? I've asked you this before. I'll ask you again. I think it's a weekly question, really. You know, I just don't know. I mean, it's already surpassed what I, I already thought it would change by now, but it hasn't. Yeah. So I don't know what to think. And that's the issue I've had with the state Republican Party because they're operating from the point of view that, you know, it'll just get bad enough. And then people will change their minds in Portland and Salem and Eugene and automatically start voting for rascally Republicans. And I don't know if that's necessarily a great strategy moving forward, but maybe I'm the crazy one.

You know, it kind of reminds me a little bit of experience in my life. as my kids grew up, and, you know, there were certain kids that were, they just, they were not good kids. I don't know any other way to say it, and they did bad things. And the parents would say, oh, they always protect them, Susie and Johnny, no matter what they did. And then later on in life, because of their lack of guidance to their kids, now their 20-year-old kid or their 25-year-old kid is in front of somebody with a black row. who is going to discipline him, who is going to say, yes, this is what you're going to do. And the parents are still defending their child. It's that same kind of mentality.

So Portland essentially exists because of bad parenting from the past, right? Is that what you're saying, Herman? No, it's more of denial of what is going on. That's what it is. It's more of a denial of reality. It's a denial of reality, and they don't want to take action. That's what I'm trying to get at. Hey, I want to ask you a question about a local legal and a legal decision or what's going on here,

but it also has local political importance, too, that has to do with the lawsuit between former commissioner John West and former commissioner Lily Morgan, who, of course, have been at legal odds with one another for a while. Now, there was some decisions made here in Judge Bain in that case a few weeks ago. I read the Daily Courier article on that, and I'm not. much sure that I'm still quite grasping exactly what happened. Could you bring us up to speed on that one, Herman? Is that okay? Well, the daily courier reported that Mr. West has to pay all these attorney fees to

Lily Morgan and everything. The part that the reporter forgot is there is a stay on that order because it's at the court of appeal. So he does not have to write a check or anything. So nobody's writing checks to each other. at this point over the defamation at this time. No, because it's going to the Court of Appeals, but in the Courier has a long history of telling 90% of the story,

and here's another example of it. Okay, so it's going to, since, now, did John lose the decision, and so it's now appealing up there, or, you know, what exactly, what exactly happened? Yes, the ruling, the ruling was not in favor of Mr. West, So he appealed it to the appellate court, and the appellate court accepted it. So that means that they're, you know, and Bain had to issue the stay. Uh-huh.

And he did. Judge Maine did have to issue the stay. So, you know, it's kind of, it's pretty uncomfortable when a judge, you know, gets overturned by the appellate court. Now, he has not been overturned at this point because it's sitting in the appellate court. So let's see what happens. Okay. So we'll just have to keep the popcorn handy and continue to watch that legal battle as it continues because John's pretty big dog when it comes to legal battles. I don't think there's anyone that's probably filed more suits.

Well, because it's been accepted by the appellate court, I mean, that tells you the appellate court has raised an eyebrow to the situation. So they're not, so they're thinking there may be still something it needs to be redecided or wasn't perhaps decided correctly. That's what we know. right now by them taking you know yeah and when a judge is overturned by the appellate court you know and these judges are elected um that's something that can be used against them in an election so they're always a they're always a little nervous about that i think all right something else i want to ask and this was from when you were county commissioner i noticed that uh klbi five was making a big deal about the extension service getting back to

work in josephine county has anything really changed there because it was pretty clear that the kids had abandoned 4-H in Josephine County over the faithful farmer controversy. You know, they put, you know, crosses on their t-shirt, and then the woke OSU just said, nope, can't have that. Not allowed to do that. You know, according to the 4-H, that's the way I remember this. Has anything really changed now that they're cranking it up again? No, and since faithful farmers have kind of, they've partnered with the Grants Pass Active Club, that does the livestock auction.

They've had record, record income from the livestock auction. So I don't see it changing. And kind of one of my pet peeves is, you know, you have the old master gardeners and some of the other adult programs. Yeah, why are taxpayers paying for the master gardeners at all? That's something that... Exactly. And I've said it, and I've said it to the commissioners,

and I said it when I was a commissioner. So when I get up in the morning and I go to work, why should I work one or two hours a year so these adults can have their gardening program? You know, it doesn't make any sense because that's how much I've got to put in two hours of labor a year to pay or one hour or labor, whatever it is, to pay for their program.

And by the way, I think master gardeners are wonderful. It's a wonderful skill to have, but nobody pays for my hobbies. why do we get to this point where people think that the taxpayers are supposed to pay for your hobby and your and your fund i guess i don't get that hervin i really don't well then kind of ran on the shirt tail so if we go back to the 90s and that's when my kids were involved in 4h and my wife was highly involving in helping get that uh legislation passed it was always advertised for 4h for 4h But what it really was was the Funn the Extension Service and all the other programs, too. So they kind of ran on the shirt tail of the kids.

Well, now the vast majority of the kids are gone. So now OSU Extension is really just funding adult hobbies is what it's doing. Right. And, you know, when I was commissioner, you know, the people come in, you know, there's people for the canning and all that. And we said it's commissioner, fine. And the kitchen is there. I said, you can rent the kitchen from the county. You can continue your program and everything.

But, you know, you're going to have to pay for it. And they don't like to hear that. Same with the master gardeners. We said, you can have the room for your meeting. You can do all that. But you're going to have to pay for your, you know, your own club. Well, like anybody else would have to pay for their own club. No different than the Bridge Club or the Elks Club or the Eagles Club.

These are all adult activities, and they pay for it themselves. Boy, once there's a subsidy, boy, try to take that subsidy away, right? Oh, my goodness. And I had them come to my house. You know, I've had the master gardeners come to my house and say, how could you take our program away? And I says, I'm not taking your program away. I'm just taking the funding away. If you want the program, you can fund it yourself.

Why are people so reticent about funding their own clubs with their own money, with their own membership? It just astounds me because I just don't know why we've gotten used to the fact that people would go to taxpayers and see, I want you to pay for my hobby. Hey, I love working on old electronics. I wish I could get grant stream funding from OSU. Maybe I should work on that, Herman. I could say that it benefits tourism or some other such nonsense. And I think the commissioners, by, they didn't fund anything.

What they just said is they can, they gave them what money they had in the bank. Okay. But I think that's some pretty dangerous waters for the commissioners to be swimming in right now. I'd be very careful. Okay. We'll take your word on that one. Final question I have for you, this has to do with state politics. You know, Javidhi ended up flipping around to being a Democrat.

he should have ran it and ran as a Democrat first time over in the House, right? Are you aware of that story? No, he's always been a Democrat. He just lied to the voters, in my opinion. All right. So Christian Honol is going to challenge him. I was reading this in Capitol Chronicle this morning. And so Christian Connell is saying that he's feeling betrayed about this one.

Do you think that district, House District 32, would support a conservative, or would you have to be a relatively modest or moderate Republican to be able to catch a vote in that? district? What's your overall view? Do you have a view on it? Well, I don't know what the numbers are right now. I do think that the Democrats do have a slight advantage. Yeah, it's like 16.5,000 to 14,000 Republicans. So they got a little bit there. But I guess, though, are we looking at non-affiliated or independents? Don't those tend to usually lean left in Oregon right now or not? Whatever the district, so whatever the district is that's usually the makeup of the non-affiliated or even the independent. Okay, so if Honol runs as a Republican and promises to continue LGBTQ affirmative care, gender affirming care and things like that, then he can get elected.

Other than that, it could be job at his seat. I don't, I think, I think the Republicans actually have a little better advantage now because the death. Democrats have went so far left. A lot of Democrats are traditional Kennedy Democrats, and they're not liking what they're seeing either. So I hope so. I would say he has a pretty good chance, and he's a good person. I know who he is.

And I think he has a pretty good chance of it's all going to depend on funding. Okay. Well, I hope you're right about that, and we'll see. I'll keep an eye on that because that would be interesting to see that seat flip, okay? Okay. Final question I would have, Congressman Bentz is in tomorrow morning, 8.30. I got a few minutes with him. Anything you'd like me to ask him? Anything come to mind? I would ask, you know, I would ask him, you know, we brought this up earlier in your show. I was just asking, do you think we have enough electricity in Oregon for the future? I think that would be very, that's something that he's very astute on and up to date on, and it's extremely important to the citizens of Oregon. So asking that question. I will ask him that, all right?

Herman, I appreciate the call. As always, always enjoy the kicking around and noodling around. It's many, many different topics every week. And I always enjoy that. You take care. Thanks, Bill. Former State Senator Herman Bert-Sigger on KMED, KMED, H.D-HD-1, Eagle Point, Metford, KBXG, Grant's Pass. Let's see, gold prices recovered here yesterday.

What is gold looking at here this morning? Let me go to my favorite site on Lou Rockwell, Bert's Gold Page, Bert Blumert. I always keep an eye on that. Where is it right now? Ah, hey, it's a buying opportunity. They got thwacked today. Mr. Slammy's in there. So, gosh, I could buy an ounce of gold for 4135 instead of 435 yesterday, 4833.

Yeah, of course, this could be just a bigger sign of a sell-off. I would look at it as a buying opportunity. Maybe you're looking at it and say, hey, I got to get that scrap gold and silver sold while I can at this high price. Either way, talk to Jay Austin & Company, gold and silver, buy. in Ashland, 1632 Ashland Street, and 6th and G in downtown Grants Pass. Call for your appointment of 482, 3715, but they will help you one way or the other. If you're looking for the physical, if you're looking to sell the physical, the big boys are continuing to add to their supply.

So when the big boys and the big money is still going there, we'll see. All right. But your mileage may vary, and you can take either side of this and work out well over at Jay Austin. and good people. And by the way, they have shopped those road shows that come into town every now and then you get the postcard that says be over at this room at such and such

at time and we'll buy your gold and silver. They pay more. So keep it here local with the recognized experts. Jay Austin and Ashland and Grants Pass, Fortune Reserve.com. Honey, we're out of water again. Did you call clouds or drilling?