Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-16-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

12-16-25_TUESDAY_6AM

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 Klausor drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning and happy pebble in your shoe Tuesday. 770-M-E-D-7705-633. Call me, and we can talk things over here a little bit. Don't worry, though, because the Oregon State Capitol in the midst of all the weird news out there,

Just know that Oregon Capitol has now been gaining gender-neutral bathrooms. I know that in an area which celebrates tampons in the boys' room, we've got tampons in the boys' room. Remember that? Republicans and Democrats voting for that. They have two newly open halls, according to Oregon Live this morning, hugging the rotunda of Oregon's capital, tall wooden doors stand by, mirrors with sinks and bright lights radiate nearby,

and a sign reads, this is a multi-stall, all-user restrooms. So, yes, residents of Southern Oregon and Northern California know that your capital cares, rather, about inclusion, about inclusion. And it's also very upset. The capital is also very upset for other reasons here. And this has to do with, oh gosh, able-bodied adult. must now work or lose their food stamps. This is under new federal rules affecting 37,000 Oregonians.

This is also in the Oregon Live this morning. State of Oregon announcing 37,000 able-bodied adults who don't have young children, their other dependents, have to start working, or else are going to lose their snap benefits. No more Oregon trail card for you. Backers of the law say the cuts are necessary to prevent waste and fraud. Opponents contend the savings on food aid from people kicked off the price. program are meant to bolster spending on immigration enforcement, the military, and tax cuts for the wealthy.

Okay. Maybe both could be right, I suppose. I don't know. When did we get to the point that an 18-year-old bum, just a guy just sits around, just wants to sit around and wants to do nothing but play hacky sack in Lithia Park and Ashland, let's say, or play video games at home? Should he be getting food from us in order to survive? What, 20 hours a week is too much to ask in order to get your SNAP benefits?

And by the way, this is able-bodied, non-disabled, non-mentally ill. And yet the Democrats are still just really, really upset about this. And frankly, if the money was going to cause more immigration enforcement, would that be a problem? I don't think so. Meanwhile, though, it could be a little tougher time for those able-bodied to get a gig. Oregon unemployment rate rising to 5.2% this morning. That's a story on Coin TV. About the highest of the country, I guess right now we're looking at, 5.2%.

So bad tide to be a bum, I guess, in this particular case. Oregon employment economist, Gail Crumannara, says unemployment continues to drift upward. Over the last year, we've gone from 4.2 to 5.2 percent. lost 12,000 jobs over the last year, most of that lost in manufacturing, 10,000 jobs in manufacturing lost over the last year. I think we understand why President Trump is working very hard now on getting that fixed, getting that manufacturing aspect of it, because I know that we're going to get wealthy here in Southern Oregon by sustainable tourism. I was kind of joking, you know, about that yesterday. Remember that's, they always end up coming out and saying

that every taxpayer funded boondoggle, whether it's Ballfields or, you know, Rogex, whatever it is. Well, look at them, millions of dollars coming in. And then I was posing the question yesterday, well, how is that? How does that happen? And my main issue is that travel and tourism industry, nothing wrong with it. It is an economic driver of sorts. But, you know, it's not as it was when you had mill workers or people making things and productive things and selling things

when you're depending on people coming to your area to spend stupid money that could disappear at the latest, just the slightest hint of a recession, maybe it's not the best way to go. And so I was wondering, how do they estimate that, well, Rogex brought this much economic activity into this area. And then we're all supposed to go, oh, okay, thank you for making me pay $1,000 for,

or the construction of Rogue X so that other industries may benefit from this because that's really what we talk about with these kind of things. So I was wondering, how do they come up with these numbers of several million dollars of economic activity? Well, Mr. X, that crack researcher, friend of mine, a friend of the show, ends up popping me a note here. Bill, travel Oregon works with Dean Runyon associates to estimate the economic significance of the travel industry in Oregon.

The full report describes the economic impacts of travel to and through the state, each of its seven tourism regions in all 36 counties over the time period of 2003 to 2003 and includes detailed estimates of travel spending, the employment and earnings generated by this spending, and travel generated tax receipts. Of course, that would be like Travel Medford's, you know, the Hotel Motel tax. that's travel generated, right? A primary objective of the report is to provide reliable, detailed figures that permit year-to-year comparisons. In other words, they professionally take some data and extrapolate and make it up. Did I say make it up? Oh, okay.

Yeah. Now, I'm sure that they're very good at the making it up, but, you know, it'd be interesting how they just see some people to come down to watch a conference from Roseburg, and they want to, and they come down to Medford and they go over to In and Out or something like that, and all of a sudden does In and Out then say, well, yeah, we know that 50 of the hamburgers of the double doubles or whatever it is that we sold today, those were because of tourism coming to see something at Rogue Axe or else they were, you know, going to, you know, the Expos Antique Show or whatever the thing is. It's really interesting, but I guess, you know, this is the magic

paper that economists tend to work on here when they try to get you to feel more comfortable about ponying up taxpayer money to end up helping out certain industries, certain connected industries. You know, it's fascinating that the taxpayers would go nuts if they were to say, hey, you know, we know that KMED adds to the economy of Southern Oregon, informing people and everything else and helping people, helping businesses make more money through advertising their goods and services. And if we were to get a new, let's say if I were to get a new studio and a new Facebook camera for this, the Facebook or the taxpayers would come unglued about this.

This is so, but we're supposed to just think this is absolutely okay when we do the same thing if it involves sports tourism. Sports is the one industry for some reason that requires taxpayers putting their money in as the rest of the business network then is able to profit off of that. I think they call that socialized costs and privatized profits. Now, some of the profits do come back in the tourism, taxes, you know, that sort of thing, which then gets them to advertise for more tourism, I guess. See how that works?

Great. Pay your parks and utility fees and shut up. Peon. Got to have a little bit of fun with that, can I, huh? All right, 19 minutes after 6. This is KMED. You're on the Bill Myers Show. It's the holiday love celebration at Mercedes-Benz.

Medford, discover a gift that you will enjoy every day of the year. Come to Mercedes Benz of Medford and Lisa 2026 GLC300 SUV for 569 a month for 39 months. Maximize your excitement in a Mercedes-Benz. Prestige is just the beginning. Shop today at Mercedes-Benz of Medford. I'm Randy with D. I'm on Kemi D. 22 minutes after six, speaking of Randy at Diner 62, we will have another diner 62, real American

quiz today. We're also going to have some giveaways this morning to this Friday night's Oregon Repertory Singers. The Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, they're having their big Christmas show. It's going to be Thursday night at the historic Holly Theater. Beautiful place. I went there yesterday. We went there last night. I had not been to the Holly Theater since the – okay, well, the last time I was at the Holly Theater, I have not been there during the reconstruction phase of it.

But when Art Alfonito Jr. Art the barber, he used to do the fishing report here, you know, a while back many years ago, and he had a barbershop down there. He would cut my hair. And, of course, Art Alphenito Sr. used to own the Holly Theater. And, of course, was working really hard to get GrantStream funding to try to get it repaired. And then, of course, JPR ended up buying it. And there was Grant Stream funding that came with that big fundraising. and it was really, really something what happened because when the last time I was inside that Holly theater, the roof was open and the pigeons were coming in and the pigeon droppings were everywhere and it was wet and it was not good. I was amazed that they were able to get that repaired. It's just beautiful now.

Lyndon I went there last night because the Kiev Ballet, I don't know if it's an exact name, but the ballet troupe from Kiev was there with a performance. of the Nutcracker and they were really good and the Holly's just beautiful inside really is the only thing that I would critique about last night's performance of the Nutcracker is that

the Holly Theater for all of its beauty though it's too small of a stage that troop was huge and I don't think they were able to to really pirouette and do all those things to the extent that they would with such a small stage because they're at one time, there's like 14, 15 dancers on the stage.

And it was, it's just too small. It's too small for a troop that big. It could have handled maybe half of that comfortably. And so that's about it. But, I mean, it was great music and great fun and great performance. The guy who played the nutcracker, he was the one. He was the finest dancer of the ball. just a god, Linda is saying that she's going to get me a pair of his tights so I could walk around with that codpiece on like that. And I said, honey, I don't think I could do that costume. That we could not do that costume any kind of justice. No, you would not want to see me in a pair of white ballet tights, but he looked pretty good in it. And he was able to make that work right. But yeah, that's the only problem. They were talking about how this is the first time in 45 years that there has been ballet.

here. And I think if you're going to do ballet, if you're going to go, just my suggestion, if you're going to see ballet, see ballet with just a few dancers, not a big troupe. There's just not enough space on that stage, in my opinion. But still, great deal. And the Southern Oregon repertory singers will certainly fill that up. And they don't need the stage space to be dancing around back and forth. So I know it's going to be a great show on Friday night. We'll talk with Paul French about that and a whole bunch more. In other news this morning, KOBI-5 reporting, Josephine County Commissioners again failed to meet due to lack of quorum.

Confusion continues within the Josephine County Board of Commissioners after a noticed meeting Monday afternoon was adjourned almost immediately due to a lack of quorum. Meeting scheduled for 1.30 p.m., called the order by board chair Chris Barnett. Barnett, the only commissioner present, Commissioner Ron Smith, was absent, And with one seen on the board currently vacant, the board did not have the two members required to conduct county business under Oregon Public Meetings Law. Huh. So what is this confusion continues? It's not confusing at all.

There aren't enough people there to have a meeting. That's not confusing at all. It's just the actual law. But I'm going to talk with Herman about this, of course, a former state senator. former Josephine County Commissioner, we're going to have a little conversation on this because this is Ron Smith. Commissioner Ron Smith is not choosing to be there. Now, this is different from the walkout kind of thing when the Republicans ended up walking out of the state legislature. This is about, you know, minority denying the majority, you know, running roughshod sort of

things. This is a little different because the law states that Commissioner Ron Smith is supposed to weigh in on the choosing. Now, he's come out saying that he's not going to do that, claiming there's a conflict of interest, but the conflict of interest is that I think that the Commissioner Ron Smith doesn't want to make a decision because if he makes a decision, then he gets recalled. But if he doesn't make a decision, then he'll probably get recalled, too. I don't know. It just, it seems very, well, that's the confusion. That's the confusion. What is Commissioner Ron Smith thinking?

And I'm sorry, Ron. I don't think that you can bend over for the rhinos and the hissie-fitters of Josephine County and make people happy about this. You're paid to make decisions. That's the challenge. Whether you want to make the decision or not, when you're a county commission and you're a commissioner and you've been elected and you're being paid by the taxpayers, you do have the duty to make that decision on what is going to move forward.

forward. That's just my opinion. And Ron, if you want to talk about it, more than happy, but I'll talk about it with Herman next hour. But this is what's going on. I mean, Josephine County really is in quite a bit of an excrement storm at the moment because you have one commissioner who quit. That's fine.

A lot of do that. They pretty much knew that was coming because of the recall pending recall. You have the chair who is under recall. We're going to talk with Chris about. this, by the way, on Thursday's show, have a conversation about that. And then you have one commissioner that wants to have no decision-making about who's going to be the third member to come back on the board. And you also have the chief of staff, Michael, you know, Michael, who is just out.

Yeah, Michael Sellers, he's under investigation. So he's on paid administrative leave. So I don't know who's signing the checks. Well, I guess the treasurer may be still there. There's still someone signing the checks, but I guess the bills just come in and they stamp them and pay the people and off they go. So an interesting time.

And, you know, not having meetings is not going to be a helpful thing right now. Maybe there's not a whole lot going on. And it doesn't matter, but I don't think that's a good thing. Let's see. We had a Medford residence without their home. sauna as it burned up this morning. Medford Fire Department crews responded to a reported structure fire in the area, West 13th on arrival.

They found an active fire in a backyard with a homemade wood-burning sauna. Oh, a wood-burning sauna. Oh, boy. They contained it. Nobody heard, fortunately, but, yeah, no sauna anymore. I'm just glad it didn't touch off anything on the house, huh? Catch up with the rest of the news here, too, in just a moment. And then a question being posed right now.

do we have the cooks on the right being promoted by bots fueling division in America? Conversation on that coming up. I know that hiring can be challenging. You need someone to drive. The Bill Myers Show is on. News Talk 1063, KMED. Jeff Dornick joins me. He's the founder and CEO of Pickax.

It's a groundbreaking social media platform built on a couple of uncompromising principles. And you wouldn't think this would, you would have. have to build social media on this, but he's doing it. Freedom of speech and freedom of reach, right? And so you bypass the algorithm makers out there, the gatekeepers. Is that fair assessment of that? Yeah, that's basically our mission is they connect people with people as opposed to a lot of times, you know, if you're on a typical internet or typical social media platforms, it's connecting people with AI robots and bot farms and all that kind of stuff. We're just kind of bringing back free speech and bring them back to social media.

America handled free speech anymore? Jeff, I'm being a little sarcastic, but, you know, the way things seem to be working these days, it's like the freer the speech we get, the crazy you're all getting. What do you think about that, huh? Yeah, I think the thing is that we've been silo into our own little echo chambers for so long because of things like the algorithms and all that. And I think that that's what led to a lot of the crazy, crazy device of this, especially over the last, you know, decade or so with this new era, the Trump era, basically, where what ended up happening is all the social media platforms began using algorithms. And then what ended up happening is they would just continue to show us content that

algorithms cited we either wanted to see or should be seeing, but we ended up getting siloed into echo chambers of everybody that agrees with us. And the problem with that is that you're never actually challenged on your belief system. And so if you're never challenged, then you're going to go deeper and deeper and further and further into your little silo, and to where all of a sudden you can no longer relate with somebody that may have just a few years ago just only had a slight disagreement. And I think that's what led to a lot of the craziness these last couple of years. It actually makes a bit of sense here. And so all you have to do as an example is like a little bit of Rob Reiner, for example,

and then you get a whole bunch of Rob Reiner stuff where you like a little bit of Donald Trump, and then you get a whole lot of Donald Trump. And then if you like them both then, now you're getting peppered from both sides about what Donald Trump said about Rob Reiner, right? You're fed what you have said that you liked before, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think to piggyback off of what you're saying is that when you go back,

when you go back a couple of decades ago, it used to be that the Democrats or Republicans, yes, they were diametrically opposed and they would constantly trash each other. But when you actually looked at their policies, it was much more of a slight disagreement as opposed to, like, completely different world views. It would be like, we both want to see America succeed,

but the Democrats have one view, the Republicans have a different view, but it's just, you know, they all wanted the same goal. Yeah, yeah, well, the Democrats would say we want America to be served with a big social welfare state, and then the Republicans would say, well, we want what the General, what the Chamber of Commerce wants, taxpayer-funded projects for business, right? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Two sides of the same coin, you could almost say.

But now, but now what we're dealing was we're dealing with completely different world because we're dealing with, you know, can a man become a woman? We're dealing with just like alternate realities. And when you actually think about it, a lot of that, you go back to when Alex Jones was kicked off of all the social media on the same day. And you see that. I think that was a really big turning point for our country because, you know, he ended up getting silo. and ended up becoming getting more powerful than ever before.

And what the left should have done is they should have realized, look, we canceled this guy, he got a bigger audience, he got stronger audience, it actually gave him credibility because he could be seen as the victim and all that. And so then they kept kicking people off, kicking people off, kicking people off, what ends up happening is then people that support all these people that are getting kicked off, they get more extreme, they get more extreme. Same thing happens on the left side because all of a sudden the current conservatives were no longer on social media. So then the left starts getting more extreme, more extreme, more extreme.

And then to where now there's very little that actually connects either side. And then if you're in the middle and you're like, well, I see value in this side and I see value in this side, then you get hammered to pick a team. Which team are you on? And that's, again, that's what's leading to this crazy, crazy divide. Yeah, and to admit that maybe the other team had maybe something decent to say on this, it should be considered, oh, what the hell are? You know, what's wrong with you?

You know, that kind of thing. and then you're peck to death, right? That's kind of the world where we are these days. Yeah. Yeah, it's this team sport. You have to pick a side. And fortunately now, what we're seeing is now the Republican Party is being insanely divided to where now you have to pick between are you team Massey or are you team Trump or, you know,

are you this or you that? And as opposed to just say, well, I'd like to just be a human being that has my own opinion. Yeah. Kind of pick and choose and call balls and strike. Well, yeah, and I agree with you on that. And that is a very confusing time. Speaking of Alex Jones, it was just the other day that he said, you know, people, we've got to really work on this divisiveness.

Of all people, to say that, to have even Alex Jones thinking, hey, something's going wrong. So, you know, maybe he has a point there. Yeah, the thing about Alex is that when you actually go back and you look at his positions over the years, like he's not the extreme far-right, you know, principled conservative. or whatever it is. Like, you know, he's definitely on the conservative side and all that. He's definitely a conspiracy theorist. He's been proven to be right in a lot of ways. But he's not the far-right extremist that I think a lot of people on the left in mainstream media paint it out to be. And so, you know, for him, it's like he's been the victim of the divisiveness when you think about it a lot more than the purveyor of it.

Jeff Dornick is the founder and CEO of Pickax. Pickax and find out more about it because if you say that you have uncompromising freedom of speech and freedom of reach then how do you make any money at it is one i'm wondering yeah definitely so right now people can go sign up on our website pickax.com we've got our beta app available as well and so we're rolling that out with with our users and then we'll have the app officially launch here quarter one of 2026 but but but it's it's a it's a really cool platform we're getting a lot of amazing people on there and we've got we've got several different monetization strategies specifically to help, you know, content creators

to monetize the content more efficiently. And then that way they don't have to, you know, be grifting constantly like you see on a lot of social media. They can just do the work of let's be political commentators or let's be a journalist or be whatever that is. Isn't it astounding, though, when you start finding out behind the scenes how many people get paid off behind the scenes about, you know, we got this trip or else this country is putting money into a certain narrative?

of that kind of thing. It's really fascinating. Technically, the law says you're supposed to mention those kind of things, but that doesn't always really get enforced much, does it? Yeah, well, yeah, it would be like an FTC law where you have to, if you're advertising the product, you have to let the consumers

know that you're getting paid in order to promote this. And for whatever reason, they don't, they never apply the FTC laws to political advertising, which I find strange, and I feel like that would actually clean up a lot of the dirty money that is in politics, is just if people,

if people are holding a particular position and they're getting paid in order to promote that, to me, you should have to disclose that if you would have to disclose it. Let's say if you're promoting a new food product and you're getting paid by a food brand in order to promote that, you have to disclose that. So why don't you have to disclose it within politics? It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, I would agree with you on that. Jeff Doric, once again, pickax.com is the website we've.

can find out and check out the beta version of it. I do have my account. I'm going to have to figure out what I'm going to do with that and how to make this work. But I'll get back to you on that. But I did sign up for this, Jeff. Okay. Now, I wanted to go back to what seems to be going on recently in which the question being posed, and I think it's a good question, are bots boosting the popularity of cooks and actually fueling the problems in America? And one which comes to mind, I don't know if he's a cook, but he seems a little kooky at times. especially when he talks about Stalin, would be Nick Fuentes, as an example, all right? And, you know, what is your opinion about the rise of him, other than the fact you've got a lot of young men that are saying they're tired of being told that, you know, that they're the problems of the world and that they need to just be killed and go away, you know, with young men, especially young white man, I guess.

But what do you think about that situation? Is it a bot? Is he a bot creation of sorts? So I have a I feel like a somewhat unique opinion on Nick Fuentes and that obviously I diametrically oppose a lot of what he's a lot of what he says. Yeah. But I've kind of watched him over the years, especially because like when I was on, when I got kicked off of social media and I ended up going over to Getter and then I saw Nick Fuentes doing Getter and then he posted once where he said, where are my Groyper's at? And then Jason Miller had him fired or had him banned from the platform immediately.

for apparently promoting racism for asking where groipers are. Yeah, could you, by the way, could you define what groipers are? A lot of people don't really know what a groipers is. I feel like it used to have a definition, and now it's harder to define, in my opinion, just because it's used so loosely as most terms end up doing. But it's really, it's really kind of like the Nick Fuentes crowd of, you know, like they're, you know, kind of extreme, right, you could say right, but, but, like, they're open to, you know, things like, you know, white nationalism, and they're open, they're open to a lot of the more, you know, trolling and, and the Nick Flintess-style stuff, and, and it, and so, so what are you not allowed to criticize? Great, we'll make fun of it, right? Is that kind of where they come from? Basically, they, they tend to be trolls. They tend to, you know, stir trouble. They, they tend to, you know, they'll talk about, you know, they'll talk about. things that, you know, just because you're not allowed to talk about them, that type of thing.

Yeah, I mean, because when I first heard the term Groyper, Jeff, to me, Groyper sounded like something of the TSA agent would do to you, you know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I think at one point it probably did have a more defined definition, and I think now it's just gone to describe, you know, the far-right trolls, if that makes sense. But in all seriousness, do you think that there is a role for the algorithms and the bots on other social media and all these fake social media accounts to actually elevate this kind of stuff? Yes, only in the sense that the bot farms, and a lot of them are based in Asia and Africa,

the bot farms are used by, you would call it the powers that be, you know, intelligence agencies, governments, you know, bad actors, all that kind of stuff that will use these bot farms in other countries as kind of like, oh, that had nothing to do with me, plausible deniability, but a reality is the ones that are pushing it. And then the bot farms will then come on on on these social media platforms and so discord in chaos.

Now, the interesting thing is I saw the report about Nick Quintas, specifically where like 50% of the engagement on his account are coming from bot farms. Well, yes, but also, another interesting number, is that about 50% of engagement across the board on social media platforms

are coming from bot farms. So when you actually look at it From that perspective, yes, the bot farms are definitely amplifying him because they amplify discord and chaos and craziness, which is what they want in our society. But also, it's not just limited to Nick Quintez. It's across the board because what they're trying to do is they're trying to pit us against each other. They're trying to get us to fight and get it to be distracted from what's really going on. And meanwhile, team globalist ends up winning. Exactly.

Hmm. All right. Now, I hope this is not a stupid question to ask a social media guy. Why is it that bots are able to operate in the first place? Because the whole purpose of social media is that there is a person involved with something and that it is social and that you are interacting with other people, not with an artificial, well, computer program designed to mimic people. where am I where am I being foolish about this I guess yeah so so when there's a lot of different applications to you know

bot some of them good some of some of some of them bad and but but what's made them infamous are the things like the bot farms they push propaganda and they push narratives and all that kind of stuff until finally you get a human being to pick it up

with a lot of influence and then and then that story goes crazy that story goes wild you see this with a lot of different of the stories where it'll take a grain of truth and then you mix it in with a lie, and then it just goes crazy. It's all a distraction. But it's very difficult for social media platforms to weed them out. And I would say it's almost impossible to ensure that you never have a bot on your social media platform.

The question is, are you doing a proper verification system in order to only give check marks to human beings as opposed to bots? And I think that social media platforms largely have failed in that scenario, and it's still allowed for bots to, influence the algorithms and influence what trans influence the kind of content that's being seen. That, to me, is a big problem, is the verification system on all these social media platforms. Do the social media platforms just want the traffic anyway, even though it's technically fake traffic, because it ends up boosting the numbers? Hey, look at all the reach that we have, you know, this month, in the month of December, et cetera, that kind of thing? Yeah, well, there's that there's that the more, the more controversy that's on the platform, the more that people are

coming back to check to see, oh, did this person say this and what's going on with this fight? This person's fighting here. Like, I guarantee you X has seen increased numbers just because of Kansas-O-and's going after Turning Point USA. So if you keep saying, did Candace say something? There's something new. What's actually going on? And that is good for the social media platforms because then they can sell more advertising. And so the more discord, the more craziness, the more division that's happening on the platforms, the more fighting, the better it is for the social media platforms. Am I allowed to say that I don't like either of them, Candice Owens or Erica Kirk.

There's just something about both of them that bug me. I don't exactly quite know what it is. Am I allowed to say that as an American today? Yeah, you are free to have any opinion that you wish. And that is the beauty of America. I think the interesting thing for me with a lot of this few that's going on is I find that there are good points and bad points to each side of this fight. And I try to focus more on the issues as opposed to the personalities.

And I think that there's valid legitimate questions that Candace Owens raises, but I don't necessarily buy into the connecting of the dots that she does. Yeah, but, well, I mean, we're talking about someone that spent about three months going crazy on the French president's wife being a dude. And it's just like, and I'm at that point where it's just like, why? Why do you go there? And why does it matter, I guess is what I would say. That's the sort of stuff that makes me wonder about what some people are thinking on their social media. you got to count. I really do. Yeah, the interesting thing, and this is just my theory, and this is just conjecture

for me from the outside looking in with somebody like Candace, but if you notice what she says all the time is that, you know, I have a source of this person told me this or this person told me this. So clearly she's being fed information by somebody, and there's a typical, you know, strategy that's employed, both by intelligence agencies and also by, you know, political, you know, powers that be that want to manipulate the public. Well, yeah, you do a limited hangout of some sort, right? Well, you'll give them enough truth to where they're like, oh, well, see, this, this is verified, and then you blend together with falsehood. And I think that that's what's happening.

And if anything, it could actually be that they're giving Candace Owens a lot of good information, and then they're actually mixing together enough falsehood that would actually discredit Candace Owens for the purpose of discrediting anybody who questioned the official narrative coming out of the FBI. Very good point. This would be one big massive sciop that's happening with this whole Candicellasota situation. Yeah, there's a part of me that has gotten to the point where I don't know if it's my naturally rewarded cynicism in today's culture here, Jeff. Jeff Dornick, by the way, is the founder and CEO of pickax.com, a social media platform. But you get to the point where you wonder if someone gets that big, that huge, everywhere. And I'm including Tucker and I'm including Joe Rogan and all the rest. of it, I'm wondering if that point, at some point, they have to be manipulated by government

intelligence somehow. Would you agree with me on that to some extent because of what gets fed and where they tend to take something? Yeah, so I, so it all depends. So like somebody like somebody like, Annas Owens, that is, that is, you know, basically the majority of her show is just her giving her opinions and conjecture. I would, I would say that that would be fair, especially because she relies on a lot of, you know, sources and secret sources and things like that, who knows what kind of betting is actually happening there. You know, and there's also certain people that they take information from sources, that they know that it's false, but it's a great headline, and so that then they run with it.

Somebody like a Joe Rogan that's much more conversational, I think it would be harder to because a lot of the conversation that's dictated by Joe Rogan is actually controlled by the guests that are coming on. And so he's following the lead of the guests. So it depends on the person, depends on the style of show, which would then dictate, you know, how manipulated they can even be. The one thing when you have Alex Jones saying, hey, we're going too far, to have Alex Jones say, we've been going too far. That's kind of a wake-up call. I always thought, Jeff, you see that. Yeah, I mean, when you have the guy that made headlines by saying that the frogs are being turned gay, and then he turns out to be true, and then he's the one that's saying that we're going to be.

going too far. That's a pretty valid point there. Yeah, yeah. And what was some other thing? Well, I think the one thing that got me going with Alex one time, I don't know if you're ever a big viewer of his show. We used to carry him, but he was talking about, you know, the globalist eating babies on the airplane one day. And I'm kind of thinking, okay, it's a big claim. Maybe it's true. We might need some big proof on something like that. Those are the kind of things that you get amazed where people just jump off a ledge on that kind of thing. But social media is definitely one of those things where, did you ever watch Looney Tunes when you were a kid?

Yes, I did watch Looney Tunes growing up. Okay, all right. Remember there's the famous one with Daffy Duck as a circus act, and he's having to set himself on fire, and he sets himself on fire drinking gasoline and blows up, and he says, that's a great act, and he says, yes, but I can only do it once as he's a ghost. That's what I think 90% of social media is these days.

It's like people setting themselves on fire each and every day, day for attention, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, and again, they will do anything for a click, anything for a view, anything, and that's the problem with a lot of the social media. So, like, you know, what we're doing with big access, we're actually trying to contrast that by leaning more heavily into more long-form content. So being able to write articles with the platform, you can post your Rumble videos on there.

And that's because if you can have more of a long-form conversation as opposed to the quick hits like you get on Twitter, you can actually get into more nuanced. And when you can get into the nuance, that's when you begin to get into, it's okay to disagree with people. It's okay to have different opinions. Now let's talk about it. Now let's actually discuss that nuance. And maybe we can actually have a conversation about something rather than the typical. And by the way, this is the news media too.

It's the typical hot take. And here comes the cute blonde with her latest hot take on Fox News, let's say, as an example, or any other network for that matter. That kind of thing. It's everything's a hot take, a quick sound bite. but are you really learning anything, are you really getting any understanding in your consumption? Yeah, yeah, you know, it's that way with me too. It's like, you know, I get asked to go on, you know, OAN,

some of these other networks and all that. And I love going on there, and I love the host and all that, but also at the same time, it's like I have less than eight minutes to unpack something that's extremely complex and sometimes being pitted against somebody else with the debate within eight minutes. It's very difficult to actually get down to it, And I'm not necessarily the best one with singers.

I'm better with the nuance and all of that. And so it's a very strange news network when you think about it, where it's like, okay, you have a handful of minutes to unpack something that should take you probably two hours to unpack. Jeff Dornick, founder and CEO of Pickax. I appreciate what you're trying to do, pickax.com. And we will definitely have you back, and may the bots leave you alone this time. That is the plan, and I appreciate it.

All right. Merry Christmas, Jeff. Thanks so much. You as well. Appreciate the call. 656 at KMED. You're on the Bill Maher's show. When your generator won't start or begins to run rough, every minute matters. Norpack Power Systems responds fast with certified technicians, dependable repairs, and trusted local service. Don't wait for the next storm to expose a problem. Get ahead of it now. Book your free 10. News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. And some emails of the day. And that is sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson's Central Point. Family Dentistry, Central Point Family Dentistry.com. Great waiting room, but you're not going to wait there very long because they really move people in and out and they value your time. So enjoy reading a magazine, but you'll probably read it for only about five minutes on the top

side. Get your appointment today at Central Point Family Dentistry.com. They're on Mazadlan, next to the Mazelan Mexican restaurant on Freeman Way in Central Point. Over there in that Albertson's shopping center area. Okay. All right. There we go. Betty writes me, Bill, about how they come up with the economic impact numbers for the sports tourism and all these other things. We always get these. It's always a very nice sunny forecast, whatever you get, right? And Betty says, Bill, Bill, Bill, the way they get the figures is they use the bingo cage, put in 100 numbered balls, roll it over a few times, and take one ball at a time out. And they write it down and they spoon feed it to the counties. The only question you should be asking is, why did Eugene throw the team out? But they are offering 50,000. in seed money.

It was a, if it was a money-making event, they would never get rid of it. They figured the $50,000 would make the concession, would make their sorry minds feel better. I'm not familiar with that $50,000 figure, Betty. I'll have to take a look, but I always appreciate your opinion, okay? And let me go to, oh, we had Jeff, Jeff writing about the Asante closing of the Ashland Community Hospital. We're going to be talking more about that here with state senator, former state senator, Alan DeBoer, about that, digging into that story a bit. But what Jeff says is, Bill, Starbucks is corporate and closes underperforming stores, just like every other corporation. Yeah.

Well, the claim from that, from that substacker that I was talking about yesterday was that Ashland Community Hospital is actually profitable. Yeah, it's profitable, but I don't think this guy. looked at the entire story because you do have to share the corporate costs. You can't say that, oh, they made $10 million last year on patient care and then have the corporate Asante in Medford pay for all the expenses of collecting and insuring and defending them from lawsuits, all that kind of stuff. They have to pay a portion of that. And then all of a sudden, What was a money-making hospital is a money-losing hospital because in the real world, the money-losing is going on, I guess. Now, and what I'll talk about this with Alan DeBoer about in the next few minutes is that maybe we can have a conversation on whether what Asante Medford thinks is the proper share for Ashland Community Hospital, which makes it look maybe worse than it is.

I don't know if that's the case, but Alan was actually involved in the sale of that. I think it was mayor. Maybe he was mayor of Ashland at that time when it happened. And we'll have good conversation with him about that. Randy weighs in, Bill, the problem with education in Oregon and much of the rest of the U.S., they've gone away from what works in favor of preventing students from learning. They abandoned phonics in reading so now graduates can't read. They're teaching math in ways that prevent students from comprehending it.

My grandson was showing me how to subtract two-digit numbers unsuccessfully. I tried to show him how it's done, and he told me his sense. teacher forbids doing it the way I learned. They force second graders to write subtraction in a straight line like 82 minus 36 equals question mark rather than like putting them above the way we learn, you know, 82 and then the minus 36 and put it below. Yeah. Yeah, it does seem that anyway. So I put it on paper and he said they're not allowed to look at it that way. He tried to show me how to perform the subtraction but couldn't figure it out. I have no idea how it's being taught since he couldn't show me. He drew lines from 2 to 6 to 8 to 3 but failed to

correctly solve the problem. I tried to show him the way I was taught and he freaked out and left the room. No, my teacher says we can't do it that way. He's a smart kid that at 8 can drive a tractor and operate a bad co, but they have already brainwashed him in such a way that I can't teach him math, which was my college major. So far they have not discussed gender identity in his school. However, the way they teach math guarantees students will learn nothing. I think it's an agenda to graduate morons, simple people who are easily duped and controlled. Forget defund the police. Randy says, we must defund public schools and allow parents to send their children to schools that actually teach reading, writing and math, the proven way, that sends graduates into the world capable of

supporting themselves. If we don't, America will become like the movie Idiocracy. Randy, I would say that we're already halfway there. Okay? And let's see. What else do we have this morning? Sports tourism. Jeff says sports tourism equals bread and circuses. All right. And Patrick writes in on Grants Pass lack of quorum. Maybe it's a garden lining or a golden lining sort of thing, Bill. If they don't have quorum, they can't authorize any additional spending. Of course, I don't know if they have a lot of money for additional spending Patrick Putpoint well taken. The email of this bill

at Billmyershow.com. We'll check in with Fox News, hand of the update, and then we'll talk about the ACH closing with a former state senator and former mayor of Ashland, Alan DeBore.