10.21.2024 -- NLS -- Ranked Choice Chaos and Celebrity Saviors?

On this episode with Neal and Julie, the discussion dives into the complexities surrounding ranked choice voting. Neal reflects on how this issue has been weighing on him, highlighting the concerns many conservatives have about the potential impact on elections. Julie shares a personal anecdote, suggesting that voters are being swayed by misleading campaigns, and both hosts express frustration with how ranked choice voting can split the Republican vote, leaving many feeling disenfranchised.

They also discuss how celebrity endorsements, like Usher's appearance at a Kamala Harris rally, are being used to rally support but may not have the intended effect on voters. Neal and Julie explore how the left often resorts to these tactics to sway the electorate but question whether they truly resonate with the general public.

Throughout the episode, they tackle the broader political landscape, including the importance of voting as people of faith and how misinformation is shaping younger generations’ views. Neal emphasizes the need for more open dialogue about ranked choice voting, and they both agree that educating the public on these changes is crucial.

Transcript

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Good Monday morning, East Idaho. How are you? How are you holding up? I hope your weekend was refreshing and restful and that you're ready for another week. We're down to the last stretch here. Last couple of weeks before the big day, November 5th and I don't, okay. You know, I, I try to be as real as possible and share with you who I, I, I'm not very good at at faking things.

And so, when my life's been out of balance, I'll just tell you, my life's been out of balance. And I'll. I mentioned this a little bit last week, but I've. I've been kind of in a struggle for the last few months, over this ranked choice voting issue. Nothing in my, you know, deeply personal life, but, it over ranked choice voting because I, I don't know how else to say it.

They're just lying to you. I see all of these ads that are being thrown at you, and you are getting them over and over and over again. And one of the reasons why someone has to overwhelm you is because the idea isn't all that great on its own. It it good ideas don't have to be propped up like this.

We've found out some of the the financial, details of the proposition one proponents, and I didn't realize this. In fact, I found this out from someone else talking with them at our sign giveaway on Friday, which turned out spectacular. We've not even told you this story yet. If you've been on Facebook, you saw this, but we on kind of a, not a whim, but we decided as quickly as 50 signs went out a couple of Fridays ago, more can be done.

So we worked with the local Bonneville County GOP and local elected leaders and said, hey, if we help out with this, could you get more signs? And we'll get people there, we'll get them distributed. We gave a 90 minute window and it turned out to be just right. In the final minutes, we gave away the last of 400 signs and it was a fun 90 minutes.

It didn't really quite turn out the way that I thought it would. But there was a, a fairly constant stream of people. We always had anywhere from, I'd say 20 to 50 people coming in, and it was very positive. People were smiling. They were having a good time. I can't tell you what an event like that does for your ego if you're a radio personality, because lots of people, they just come up, they want to talk to you, they want to thank you, they want to.

And I very much appreciate that. I try not to inhale all of the praise, because that would mean I have to pay attention to the criticism, too. And but I, I very much a, I treasure, the relationship that we have with you and with this audience and, and in those moments where we can interface with you and have that the sort of up close in person, experience, I, I love it.

I think it's great. One guy came up to me and told me when he had started listening to me, that it went back 30 years. He's been listening to me for 30 years now that that he is the P one of P once, which is it industry term for your most loyal listeners. But it was great. But we gave away hundreds and hundreds of signs and there's really kind of too many people to thank.

But in talking with someone, who was there, I realized or she, informed me. And it's been reported quite widely now in Idaho at news in the Idaho capital sun, the proponents of this have a $2.9 million war chest. That's a lot of money, 1.9 million of it. Two thirds of their money has come from out of state.

And you have to ask yourself, why in the world would forces outside of Idaho give so much money for an Idaho only issue? Even if you're all in on the idea, even if you love open primaries, even if you're all right with ranked choice voting, or you love ranked choice voting wherever you stand on it, should that not give you pause for a moment that two thirds of their money has come from out of state sources, PACs out of California and New York and other other other locations.

Something bigger is at play. And it's interesting. If you get on to Google and you do a Google search for open primaries, ranked choice voting, you will see similar efforts in different stages happening in other states. We are just one piece of a much larger, much bigger effort now. Their campaign is slick. They they're very good at making you think this is just about Idaho voters in Idaho.

Independence, being able to to vote in a primary and there I think they've been affect there. It is right now I'm looking up at the screen right now and there's another one 275,000 Idaho voters shut out. They're blocked. They're forced to whatever the I. And it's just it's just not true. So my initial point out of balance and the struggle that I've had over the summer, because I've felt this urgency with the the profession I've been blessed to be a part of, to try and tell as many people as possible the whole story.

Now I'm solidly against proposition one. That is absolutely no secret, but I've stated before I actually think I'm less biased. I'm simply more informed. I understand this, I understand what they're trying to do. I understand the the thing they're putting forward and so much that they're not telling you because they can't they can't tell you what's inside the Trojan horse, because then you wouldn't want it.

And so the last couple of weeks, it was actually two Saturdays ago. Well, two weeks and a couple of days ago I began the process of taking all the material that I could pull together. Much of it interviews that we have done, the statements that the proponents have made, opponents have made and have worked to produce a documentary style film.

I guess that's the best way to put it. I'm not a documentarian, I don't I don't come to you pretending to be anything. This is my first stab at creating anything like this, especially one that's longer than a couple of minutes. But it's nearly ready, and I look forward to making it available widely to you and whoever you feel inclined to share it with.

As soon as, tomorrow afternoon, one last big day push. There's, there's a lot of little things that you got to do. I got to make sure, for instance, all my fair use credits are in, in, included. And, and so I, I'll have that ready for you soon. And I got to tell you, I've had a lot of people messaging me.

When's this going to be ready? I've heard you've been doing this. It will be ready and it'll be ready soon. I know two weeks is not a long time, but I think it's long enough to get the word out. And have people watch it and and do what they will with it. And so that is that it's been an interesting weekend politically.

President Trump went and worked, at least a partial shift at a McDonald's, and he served up some French fries, and he talked with the employees, and he talked to, I don't know if they were reporters or just bystanders outside the drive up window. And what was hilarious is the left has come unglued now, people on the left, they they're struggling.

I think it's starting to set in. Remember, like a month and a half ago, Kamala Harris's campaign was a joyful campaign. And I think there's sort of an inherent, irony in all of that. If you have to say you're joyful, you're probably not. If you're leading with, I'm joyful, you're probably not. If you say it, you've ruined the joy.

Joy is just joy. And the moment you start to examine it, dice it, analyze it, recognize it like it starts to erode joy is it's kind of like having fun. You're just having fun and you're enjoying yourself and that and, you just get in the moment. I feel like when you're putting that out as a talking point for your campaign, it means you're trying to project joy, but you're not really having joy.

I don't even think they're trying to project it anymore because I don't see joy, I see panic, I see Donald Trump not giving them the despicable things that they need him to say. And, I apparently he made a a salty joke about Arnold Palmer over the weekend. And it's funny how the degree to which people on the left will clutch their pearls if someone on the right makes an off color remark or joke, when that's all you hear, when you, watch late night TV and the comedians that hate Trump, we'll talk about his hand size or whatever the case may be, that they probably laugh like cackling hyenas when they hear those jokes.

But if Donald Trump says something like that, then all of a sudden they are the church lady. Have you noticed that? And we have someone who's playing the church lady in our text feed this morning. So do I love it? No, not really. I think Trump could, could live without it. And I think his campaign would be fine without those things.

But Trump is going to be Trump. And that's that's what we get, with Donald Trump. So having said that, I think we're seeing the left ever since the Brett Bear interview where Kamala did not give good answers and she seemed to crumble in that interview, she has not gotten her footing since then, and I don't know if she will.

At this point, I feel like they are doing everything they can. One thing they did is, over the weekend and Julie has a very interesting conspiracy theory about this, but usher, who appeared on The View a few weeks ago like three, three, maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago and took a very diplomatic approach when they asked him about who he's choosing for the presidential race.

He's got a music career, and I think the smartest people in that environment, they are just either by or nonpartisan, like they're they're just, you know, I'm here to make music, and I have Republicans and Democrats who listen to me, and I'm not taking a position on it. Well, I think the the level of panic that's happening in the Kamala camp, they're like, usher, you can't be neutral on this.

And, I'll let Julie share her conspiracy theory when she's in here. But here's what he had to say at a rally for Kamala over the weekend. I love you more, but I love Kamala Harris even more.

I want her to be our next president of the United States.

And we can do it. But we're going to do it together one more time. We read in what we read. Come on, Georgia, we want what? One more time, one more time. We love. Okay, that that's enough, and I like. I don't think I have no problem with that. Sure. That's fine. I don't really want to hear him sing in this environment, though.

So that wasn't the only weird one. Here's another one. I don't even know who this woman is, but listen, stay with me. If you know it, I'm going to sing it. Bam bam bam bam. Hey, that's really good. Okay, let's try something different. That's three syllables, right? I've got another word of three syllables. It's comme ma la. You want to try it?

All right, let's go. Bum bum bum up car. Mom la. Yes. The a lot of people are gonna vote for now. After after the. You know what it reminded me of Gwen was when she treated the audience like children, like little 4 or 5, six year olds. They're not 4 or 5 and six year olds. And maybe if you're in the audience, you're caught up in the moment you go along with it, that that's very possible.

But I think people watching look at that and go, that's just weird. It's not just weird, but it's kind of sending. And I don't know that people outside of the bubble watching the rally feel inclined to be a part of it. In fact, I would venture to say that there may be more people watching that going, man, I'm glad I'm not at that rally because, well, who doesn't love to be treated like a little child?

I think that I also think it's a bit of an insight on how they view voters. They view voters as maybe not smart and needing to be treated and told and directed the way little children need to be treated and told and directed. All right. We're going to break. It's 823 on this Monday morning, and we will open up the phone lines here soon.

If you'd like to be a part of the program. (208) 542-1079 that's the fall River propane call and text line back up to this.

827 On Newstalk 179, Neal Larson and Julie Mason, the fall River propane call and text line is (208) 542-1079. Hello, Julie. Hello. Okay, we're all waiting. Your conspiracy theory about usher. Here's my conspiracy theory. When the charges were dropped against Peabody, which he's back in court, and I think today again. Yeah. So, massive lawsuits, charges of really filthy, filthy parties.

If you if you don't want to be scarred for life, don't read the charges. But, when all of those charges were dropped. Usher has connections to P p Diddy, and he completely wiped his former Twitter Now X account. Okay, just scrub the whole thing. Yeah. Maybe people go, what you do in usher? Then a few weeks later, he showed up on The View while on The View, apparently he was asked to get political and choose a side, and he said, look, you know, I'm not going to do that.

That's not me. I just make music, want to make music for my fans. Then a couple of weeks later, all of a sudden he shows that up at a Kamala Harris rally, saying he wants her to win and he's voting for her by conspiracy theory. They've got something on him, and this was the leverage that they use to get him to show up and and have one more celebrity say something about Kamala Harris.

They tighten the vice. Yes. They said, okay, no, that's not good enough. You don't get to go on the view and be neutral. By the way we have something on you. We know things. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to go and get on the stage at the rally. And here's what you're going to say.

And you're going to like it I think they way overestimate the power that these celebrities have. Ed I don't I'm not sure that people love usher other than they like his music and that's it. Yeah. There's not this enduring love for him that's going to persuade independents. Oh, yeah. Usher. He committed. Now I'm going to vote for Kamala.

I don't I don't think it has the power they think it has. Just like when Taylor Swift came out and endorsed Kamala, it didn't really move the needle at all. It didn't help her at all. In fact, I think she went backwards. Yeah, those people were already entrenched in Kamala's camp. Yeah, it didn't help her. I think that that's all they have left, though, to to trot out Lizzo like they did this weekend and have her say, if you vote for Kamala, the rest of America will look like Detroit.

Come on. Okay, so a question I got here with with that because, well, let me play that clip. So people have that and and that is an exact you're not even exaggerating a little. So proud to be from this city. You know, they say if Kamala wins, then the whole country will be like Detroit. Okay. Proud like Detroit.

Resilient like Detroit. Okay, so I get the point she's making. And I think that makes a rally a sense. At a rally in Detroit, there's an entire country watching, and most of the country doesn't want the US to look like Detroit is to think about the swing states. People who live in Arizona don't want their place to look like Detroit.

That's not desirable for them. Yeah, I think that people who live in Georgia, who have enough of urban crime all on their own, go. We don't want it any worse here. We don't want to look like Detroit. We don't want to look like Saint Louis. We don't want to look like Baltimore. Yeah. Where your your battleground is these swing states.

Yeah. Don't trot out Detroit like it's some price. Well, I think that it's it's just a tactically a bad move on their in. But maybe they're like, Lizzo will say what Lizzo is going to say because I don't know. Right? Because she's a you know, I'm guessing she's pretty independent. I mean, that's sort of her shtick, right? Don't.

Totally. So all rush tickets to give people the middle finger when they talk about that your the your weight is not healthy. That's her shtick, right? Yes. That's true. So if you were to put on the ballot, should we make Idaho look like Detroit? Now, the proponents might say 275,000 people are blocked from being able to determine if we should look like Detroit, if we'd like more urban crime.

Yes. Right. Anyway, no, I do. You see how obsessed I am with this? Know you're very upset. It's very unhealthy, right? It is unhealthy, but it's needed. Are you? Your obsession is is warranted for the dangerous territory that Idaho is currently in. Yeah. Yeah, we you know, we will. Anyway, so back to Lizzo for just a moment. I feel like Kamala keeps making missteps and you make missteps.

I think, honestly, and I and I say this, I hope people will understand how I'm saying this. I thought it was a colossal mistake for her to do the interview with Brett Bear. I think that was a predictable outcome because he is going to ask tough questions. That's what he's known for. You go back to last year when he grilled Donald Trump.

There was, probably a couple months there. Conservatives hated Brett Bear. They thought he was working for the Democrats because he grilled Trump. And and I'm like, no, he's just he's pretty nonpartizan about this. He'll talk to people and just ask them tough questions, regardless of their background, because that's his rep. That's his journalistic reputation. That's what he is.

His value is it was very predictable what he was going to do in that interview with Kamala Harris. He was respectful. He wasn't uncivil, but he was persistent. And she she blew it. I think she's making these tactical errors because she feels like, well, here's one more Hail Mary pass. I think it's ridiculous to put usher and especially Lizzo, on a national stage and have them advocate for Kamala Harris, especially when you only come on after Lizzo and speak for seven minutes.

Yeah, right. You look weak. Yeah you do, you look weak. And to reference the Brett Bear interview here, here's what everyone needs to understand. I am a supporter of the Republican Party and the chosen candidate for that party, Donald Trump. I expect tough questions of my chosen candidate. I want tough questions of my chosen Canada. I don't want my party to put up somebody weak.

I have complained to you on commercial breaks during our primary season in Idaho about some of the weak candidates that we had representing the Republican Party. Yeah, I don't like it. I want tough candidates because when you don't have tough candidates, you get Kamala Harris, who can't handle an interview. Yeah. So it is it. I come here with a very genuine concept that I'm perfectly fine with Trump being asked tough questions, and I'm perfectly fine with Kamala being asked tough questions.

We want them to. That's their job. I mean they're going to have to face much bigger opposition on on the world stage. For sure. All right. It's 834 (208) 542-1078. I did see a story speculating that Nikki Haley may be joining Trump on the campaign trail. I think it's going to happen. Good idea or bad? I think it's okay.

You're right. Okay. Okay. We're trying to persuade a few and 1 to 2 percentage points. She has the capability of doing that. I agree with you. And? And there's part of me that says I'm not a fan of Nikki Haley. However, anybody who's in for Trump is not going to say I'm not voting for Trump now that Nikki Haley's campaign.

They're just not there. Their loyalty to Trump cannot be severed by Nikki Haley on the campaign trail, so agreed. It may make him feel a little easier, but I think it will solidify people who are provisionally supporting Trump. And I think it will add people who are undecided. So I think in all, if we can get Nikki on the campaign trail, it also undercuts the narrative that Donald Trump just holds grudges.

And, you know, he he doesn't ever make amends in these whatever. I don't think that's true. I think it's true with some people. I think it's true with Mitt Romney, because Romney's got an ego that competes with Donald Trumps. But I do think that Nikki Haley, if there is any decency or goodness in her, then she'll say, we've got to do this for the betterment of America.

And I hope that that's what she brings to the campaign trail. I hope she's brutally honest and says, I got issues. I have a history with Donald Trump, but the country is more important than my personal beef. Yeah, and that's why I'm here today. Because Donald Trump, despite the personal beef I have with him, has a, B, C, d, e f that are all positives for the country, and that is why I'm speaking to you today.

If she presents it like that. Oh, that's a winning argument. Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. So I'll take it. I'll I'll have a little bit of heartburn over it, but I'll get over it. All right. 836. Time for our news here at the bottom on this Monday morning on Newstalk 1079. If you'd like to reach us, we love hearing from you.

You can send us a text to 20854211079. You can also call, if you'd like, on the fall River propane. Kotlin text line.

Three.

842 Friday. Julie and I participated in a vote No on prop one. Snag your sign of it. I came up with that snazzy name. A snag, your sign of it? With the local Republican party. And, we're in about 90 minutes. Julie, we got all 400 signs out. It was so much fun to have hundreds of our listeners and concerned citizens just driving up some of them.

We just gave them a sign in their car, and they drove away. Others parked, got out and hung out for a bit. I think it's also important to point out that it wasn't just 400 prop no on prop one signs. There were also some Trump van signs. There that we gave out. Yeah. Barb, iHeart brought some signs.

Wendy Horman brought some signs. Those were given out. So it was more than the 400. And people were we had people driving by honking. We were listening to music, tons of people in the parking lot. It was it was a good atmosphere, big thank you. Big, big thank you to, both Representatives Wendy Horman and Barbie Hart and Senator Dave Land for coming and showing up.

We had local precinct officers there. Big thank you to them for coming to help with that event and help with the setup and the tear down. It was just good. So good. So we've had, a couple of people say, are we going to do more of these to get signs out? And the short answer to that is, no, we just the time that we have is limited.

And however, here's what I will say. If someone organizes it and they can get their signs paid for, whether it's their local party, get them here in time. But I mean to tomorrow is going to be two weeks, so you're going to have to hurry. Although the turnaround for the signs that we gave out was less than a week, I think about four days, 4 to 5 days.

Yeah. So it can still happen. If you are going to do one of these events, let us know and we'll help get the word out for you. If if we happen to be available, we might be able to to come be a part of it. But don't rely on that. But if you want to do a sign distribution and you can procure the signs, then I'm sure you can get the design from the state party or whatever and and get those.

But anyway, work through work through the local party and will absolutely help you out. So great idea. Yeah. Anyway, I just thought it was a great event. I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out and I you know, it does a lot for your ego to show up to an event like that because it's great that I talked to one guy.

Jill, I don't know if I told you this or not, but there was one gentleman who started listening to me on the radio at the very beginning when I started in to talk radio back in like 1994. And he and I chatted, okay, that's how many people there were, that there was a lot of this, of this hour and a half were you and I weren't even in the same conversations.

Oh, no. Yeah, because there were so many people to touch base with. And I did talk to that man separate from you. And. Yeah, it was just great big thing. Also, I, we were handing were doling out thank yous. We need to thank, Bill from Wealth of Health for being so supportive and we did ask him, did he get any flack?

And he said a couple of customers gave him a bad time about it. And he said, I don't give a rat's rear end. Yes, that's that is I sense like, oh, that's that's them, you know. Yeah. And that's what I like about Bill. He's, he's, he's not going to be anybody but himself and he's. Yep. He's cussed on the air with us before he has cousin.

And you gave him permission to cuss more than rear end. And he's like that's took it. It's like you're on Facebook. You can say what's on your mind. But he was very good about it. But anyway, no, he's, he was so good to help us out. And, and he was like, are you going to do this again?

And I'm like, I don't know that we will. There's a lot going on. So it's very important to him, very important to him, that this be stopped. And I this is what I would say about that. If you're on the fence or if you have somebody that is on the fence, I would ask them. I would recommend that you ask them who are the people that are staunchly against it?

And do you do you respect their opinions? Yeah, that might change their mind because we have people who are staunchly against it, particularly our for, federal law. We both congressmen and both senators, both staunchly against it, governor little against it. Secretary of State McGrane can't say he's against it, but man, there's no endorsement coming from him at all.

No. And it's it's definitely implied this is going to be a very difficult and harmful thing for Idaho. You know what my read is on Phil McGrane. I think that he is fully out of the politics of it and committed to if it passes, I've got to figure out how we're going to implement it. Like he is the pragmatic application of it.

If it passes. And I have to respect that because I think based on our earliest interview with him, when this whole thing started, he was very honest with he's like, I have no idea how we're going to do this. I ed the word. We don't have the right machines for it. I don't. Our county clerks have no idea how to implement it.

The, the proponents of it did not include me on this. They didn't. And so I think he was very honest and forthright about it since then. I don't think he's warmed up to the idea, but he's absorbed the realization that it's possible he asked it to put it into motion. And so he, he seemed, I guess I would I kind of appreciate that.

Right. So, yeah. It needs to be stopped. That's the bottom line. And so for the next two weeks, we're going to be talking a lot about it. The last two months we've talked a lot about it. That's how important it is. Did you see the fundraising on this? I wanted to ask you about oh my goodness. Talked about it 2.9 million, two thirds of it from out of state, 1.9 million out of state.

That's who's paying for these ads that show up every two seconds on on the TV. And we've had people send in Texas asking, why is there so much money on the other side? That's why it is dark money out of Idaho. And not just a little bit. That's a lot of money. It's a ton of us, $2 million outside of Idaho.

Coming in to get this passed, you need to start asking yourself, why would people outside of Idaho care yet? Why? If this is about Idaho's independent voters, why is so much outside money funding these ads? It's it that's important to know. All right, let's go to the phones. (208) 542-1279 hi, caller. How are you today? I'm doing fine. How are you guys?

Doing pretty well. Nice sunshiny day here. Yeah, I like it anyway, I would encourage you to. It's been a while since you've had Bill on, the talk he sees over Ukraine. Okay, you know what, I appreciate it. We're not going to talk about Ukraine today. Appreciate it though. Sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but we want our callers, number one, to stay on topic.

Number two, this caller is super obsessed with Ukraine, so. Well, we'll deal with it later. But we've got much bigger and more immediate fish to fry. Okay. All right. Oh, I'm so good with it. Okay. All right. Should we take a break? Sure. Okay. We'll breathe just a little bit. So all right, back after this on Newstalk 179.

All right. 854 on Newstalk 1079. Little drama with Senator Jeff Flake. Julie, I know this was interesting because, flake defended that voting for Kamala was Christlike, even though she's advocates killing babies and hates Christians, that she upholds the rule of law. So that's a Christian thing to do. And then Sheriff Joe Arpaio chimed in, it was good.

Yeah. So we we wanted to look it up. So Sheriff Joe chimed in, apparently there's a lawsuit that happened in Arizona between Jeff Flake's son, Austin, and Sheriff Joe. So what happened is Austin had some dogs at his in-laws house. He's not married to that woman. Her name is Logan. He's not married to her anymore. But back then, in 2014, he had some dogs at his in-laws house that he was tending.

21 dogs died because of heat exhaustion, you know, and so Sheriff Joe had to get involved in that. That's animal cruelty. They filed charges. Eventually, it was discovered that something was up with the, air conditioning. And so they dropped the charges. But Senator Flake's son, Austin filed a countersuit suit or filed a civil lawsuit for $8 million in damages.

Because these charges were initially filed against him, it saw a courtroom in 2017. Sheriff Joe won. That civil lawsuit did not have to pay any money, so. But Sheriff Joe clapped back to this tweet by Senator Flake saying the Christian thing to do. And he said, really? I have something to say about that since your son Austin tried to sue me and my detectives for just doing our job.

Yeah, just upholding the law. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't remember that. I don't remember this story either. Familiar with, with Arizona politics is weird. Yeah. It's really weird. So anyway I don't again Jeff Flake is he he's probably one of the more prominent white dudes for Harris. So I say yes because I started looking a little bit deeper.

The Biden-Harris administration gave him a cushy gig in Turkey. That's what he's been doing. He has some government job affiliated with Turkey. Okay. So the it's a little murky now, I didn't realize. Yeah, I didn't either until I started doing some digging. Well, during your monologue. So is this he got the gig in Turkey a while ago or.

Yeah, I don't know exactly what year, but it was granted to him via the Biden-Harris administration. Okay, so he's just please in the boss. Although it wouldn't surprise. I don't understand Jeff Flake, I never will. He was infuriating during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. And I remember you got taken into the closet and roughed up that he was such a weakling.

It wasn't barely roughed up. I think Kamala jabbed him in the chest a couple of times and cowered like a oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do whatever you want me to do. Yeah. I mean, he came out, his hair was all messy, and he had a black eye and his lunch money was gone.

That's all we know. And he. He flipped his vote, so. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't I, you know, there's some people that, sometimes you don't like him because they're toxic and they're crass and they're Jeff Flake. I didn't like him because he was so soft. Like he would flip and flop all the time, and. And he was so appropriate.

Last name? Yeah. Yes. That's true. He just was so impressionable. So, Yeah. When he finally, was done with Washington, DC, it. I got to tell you, I haven't lost any sleep over it hasn't hurt my feelings at all. Not at all. Yeah, well, it's one of those things where Arizona is purple, and we want to keep a senator from Arizona.

As a Republican. I'm not sure you could have counted Jeff Flake as a Republican, even though he had an R behind his name. Yeah. He just wasn't reliably supporting you. I think he and Mitt Romney were kind of cut from the same mold, too. All right. It's 858 on Newstalk 179. We're going to break. But if you'd like to join us on the fall River propane call and text line, we'll take your calls.

We'd love to hear from you. You we can talk about prop one. We can talk about the upcoming presidential race. We'll get a little more local as well here. And it's all ahead on this Monday on Newstalk 179.

Welcome back. It's our two. It's 907 on Newstalk 1079, Neal Larson along with Julie Mason and you, if you'd like to reach us on the fall River propane call and text line the numbers (208) 542-1079. And Julie, you just nodded your head. I just figured out the family tree of who we were talking about. So there's more. There is more to this story, but we'll go over it.

We were we're trying to figure out Alaska politics. And so we were digging into the family tree of Nick Begich. Begich. And so I just I stumbled across why you think the guy is younger and. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. So it's sort of a sprawling political family. Yes, absolutely. Alaska, politics, by the way. We're we're happy to let you know, we will have Secretary of State Phil McGrane joining us on Monday or Wednesday.

Excuse me, Wednesday at 835 835. And at this time in a political season, his name is actually Phil Migraine. So I don't know if you knew that or not. I didn't know that. I'm sure you probably heard that. Yeah, I'm sure he's heard that he's going to be like, oh, I can't roll my eyes hard enough. He's like, yeah, I heard that about a thousand times a day at high school.

Anyway, shut, Punch. Yeah. Now. Oh, he's up for good dad joke, right? Here's J.D. Vance. He's on the stump and, talking about this whole issue with Kamala, which we, I don't know, is Kamala. That's just dumb politics on her part. Like to tell Christians in the audience, you're at the wrong rally. You need to go down the street to the smaller rally.

That's a horrible look for a Christian majority nation. Yeah, absolutely. But I think it was telling of who she is especially when she invited them to go to a different rally. Meaning those people that you're like yeah they're down there. You don't belong here. Yeah. All right. Let's anti-Christian rhetoric and anti-Christian approach to public policy I don't think we've I don't think that we've that's right.

Jesus is king. And I don't think we've seen. And the crowd goes wild.

All right. So that's the clip there. You know, you watch this, Julie, we interviewed one of the main guy. I think he might have been the main guy. Latter day Saints for Kamala, which there's an awful lot of overlap with white dudes for coming up there, I'm sure there, because there's anyway, there's probably a lot of jokes and humor to be made there, but, when, when I, when I examined that, I've asked this question before, so I apologize if this is repetitive or it it feels like a rerun.

I don't understand how I don't I don't get how you believe in a faith. And we could expand it to the entire Christian realm. But specifically, if you're of this region's predominant faith, how you can in your mind, with great conscience cast a vote for Kamala Harris? I don't understand it, and I'm not trying to denigrate it. I'm genuinely saying I do not understand how that works, that you can have one layer of belief in that faith, but there's another layer overlaying it that says, But I'm going to vote over here.

I'm going to I'm going to take my vote, and I'm going to put it over here. That's in direct contradiction with what I believe from a faith stand. Right? I don't have an answer for you. And it's it's not just Kamala, it's the ticket. Because the state that Tim Walz governs has eight babies that have died in post botched abortion laying on a table.

These babies would have survived had they just been delivered and adopted out, given to somebody else. But they did an abortion in the last trimester. It was botched. The babies were delivered and they died. And that's legal Eagle in his state. Yeah. And you're okay with this ticket? Yeah, I guess explain it. I would even I would even allow an explanation without a follow up question.

Like, I, I just like to understand how you how you navigate and and manage that. I do remember when we asked this question of the gentleman, he got a little testy. Yeah. Between us and him, and he because you had an abortion trailer outside of the DNC, they were committing abortions just outside the DNC and celebrating it.

Yeah, they were happy about it. They were. They were. And of course, we brought that up. And he does what a lot of liberals do. They run and use rape, incest, life of the mother as their human shield on the issue. Like they don't they don't want to actually talk about the vast majority of abortions, which are convenient abortions, elective abortions.

They are they don't want to answer that. And so it's easy for them to say, I'm going to go hide behind this one here. But I'm sure if we had pressed him on, let's forget about incest, life of the mother and rape cases for a moment and just talk about the vast majority of them. I don't know what he would have said.

I think they go to, well, it's a woman's body and it's her choice. And in a way, whatever. Okay. But it's it's really not. It is, but it's also another body now. It's another human being that's in the developmental stages. So it's not it's not as clear cut as going and having a tumor removed or having a lesion taken off, or you have a cyst that you could go take care of.

But I think they want to treat it like that and ignore the elephant in the room, which rhymes with the baby in the womb, you know, like they don't they don't want to address that issue. Especially in that third trimester where the baby is viable routinely. Babies are saved. Yeah. When they're born in the third trimester, whether it be three weeks early, five weeks early, six routinely saved in that third trimester.

Yeah. And you just kill them without abandon. Yeah. There is not an explanation for it. And it is. It is 100% not Christian. Well, yeah, absolutely. All right, let's go to the phones. (208) 542-1279 caller welcome to the Neal Larson Show. Good morning. Hi. You know, President Trump posted on True Social that Christians are under attack from this administration's and many haven't registered.

And it's the last day to do so. And he says our country's a state. God bless you all. Registered. But I just wanted to say real quick, you know, I think thousands of years ago there was, Queen Esther, we know the story where she broke the law, went into a king uninvited, unannounced. And she did so, you know, to save our country, which is the whole Jewish people.

But I think there are some that call themselves people of faith today, that if they were back in that time, they would have said, no, I'm not going to defy God. I'm not going to break this law of this land. And they would end up endangering the lives of a whole people country. But yet God used her to save Jewish people.

So, you know, I'm saying that because I just heard a staggering number, like in the tens of millions of Christians that don't vote. And you mean real Christians are real believers? Got to get out there because they're supposed to. We're salt and light, and we're not part of a self-righteous, pious, non voting bloc is, you know. So I think as a person of faith, I'm not going to bury my vote, because I see it as fact.

Every major policy. President Trump stands for lines up with biblical values. He's against lawlessness, setting criminals free. He's for freedom, protecting the country. And was the greatest pro-life president that I've seen. We've had. And he protected and expanded, religious freedom. So he's adamantly against the evil indoctrination of our kids, mutilation of our children. So this is not the lesser of two evils.

It's really a no brainer. Yeah. Thank you for that. So well-articulated. I my thought. And the only thing I would add to that is that we aren't voting for a personality. We're not voting for words that are said. We're voting for an outcome. We're voting for what the future of America looks like. And and I do think that maybe in religious culture, Julie, we get so hung up on a person's demeanor that if they have a rough or a crass or a less than soft and Jesus like demeanor, we don't think they're fit for anything, much less the presidency of the United States.

And I think that's that you don't understand faith, then, because there are multiple examples of of biblical scripture. You could look at where God took rough people, and he did good things with those rough people. And they might have had decisions in their personal lives that they were making. They may have had, you know, less than stellar language.

They they might, but he is like they have a very strong personality. And if I redirect this great good can be accomplished through this. And, you know, I'm not saying Trump is biblical, but I am saying if you're a Christian, you would be wise to not discard the people whose demeanors might not match yours very well that you find a little bit off putting.

Look for the good that they can provide, because that caller's is spot on. Donald Trump's policies in in so many of his big policies, aside from his stylistic quirks, are its very traditional, very moral, very biblical. And I'm not a biblical scholar, but there's there's more popular stories out of the Bible than others, one of them being, Joseph, the coat of many colors.

Yeah. If you if you go on in his life, he's imprisoned and there's a leader of the huge nation that doesn't know what to do with the dreams that he's getting. He's not a, he's not a prophet. He's not a super religious man. He's not any of that. But he's trying to lead a nation and save a nation.

And he turns to somebody and says, help me interpret a dream. He takes their advice and he saves a nation and feeds them. Yeah, right. There are leaders that use godlike principles that are still very, very flawed. Man. Yeah, we have example after example of it. So if you're that person today who is saying, well, it's in God's hands, I'm not going to get involved.

What if Joseph had said that? What if Joseph had taken that? It's in God's hands and I'm not going to get involved. And then an entire nation starved. Yeah, yeah. What if what if, I also think that we have this false belief that God exerts his will only through religious channels. Or highly spiritual channels? No, I, I think we see it happening in secularism all the time that not not the doctrine of secularism.

But I think in the secular realm we see God working all the time. And quite often what happens is when God's working in the secular realm, the methods he uses and the people he uses look very, very different than sort of our limited thinking that God's will is only exerted in in the religious space. And I think that that's that's a mistake.

We've got to, you know, we've got a God has a very wide array of options at his disposal, and there's a lot of people to work with. And I think he carries those out in lots of ways that we don't even think about. Yeah. Or ever realize, yeah. Because he's God and we're flawed humans. Yes. Yes we are.

Next caller, welcome to the show caller. How are you? Caller, can you hear me? Okay, well, we apparently not. All right. 920 Newstalk 107 92085421079 and we'll give this another shot. Caller, can you hear me? Okay. All right. You know what? We're going to take a break, and, I'm going gonna go talk to engineering for half a second.

I'll be right going on after this. On Newstalk 1079.

Okay. You can talk to me. Okay. We've learned with the new system, when we hear that kind of that noise and it happens more than once, that kind of gong noise, that strong noise that, probably the system has shut down. So he'll go out there, fix it and come back and it'll be great. Hopefully. How's your weekend, guys?

Hey, Lisa. Travel safe, by the way. Be safe on your journey back to Crazy Land. Nevada. Neal and I, besides the little sign giveaway that we did on, Friday afternoon, Neal and I were at the booth at the zoo on, Friday evening together. That was fun. Some super cute kids. Oh my goodness, some very sweet kids that were just having the time of their lives was fun.

Sometimes Neal is the engineer, but weird. Monday morning here. There are a ton of people in this building, and there were a ton of people here at 6:00 with us, which doesn't usually happen. Usually at 6:00, it's Neal, me and Domingo in the studio directly that you can see from Neal's shot in the Facebook Live feed. And then about, 630, Phil Moon shows up.

Phil is longtime talent in the area. And then at about seven, we start getting a few more people between 7 and 8. So but this place was hop in at 6 a.m. this morning, and we have an engineer here from California who was helping us, and we also have Marvin, the building at about 6:00 this morning, which was kind of crazy.

So yeah, it's been it's been moving. So it's not all on Neal's shoulders today. What are you talking about? Gary asked. Engineering equals Neal question mark. Is he the engineer? No, no. Yeah, we actually have a good week. We have a crew of eight people and engineers, and for some reason are phone system will revert to a state where this thing can happen, where a call will connect.

But the audio can't go two ways and it's just a setting. So okay, the Begich family tree I think I figured it out. Oh yeah yeah yeah. I believe that there's two Nick's. There's Nick senior. Yeah. Then the dad and then Nick. Yes. Yeah. Well, I think the one in the middle doesn't have the name Nick. I think it goes.

Nick is are three Nick's. Well, there kind of has to be because that's the second. If you're the third, is he the third. Yeah. Yeah. So when I said the brother. Yeah that's for Nick the second. So it would be the uncle right. I didn't follow that. So the nick that the member I said Mark is the brother.

Yeah. Nick. Nick Nick one is missing. Nick two is the dad. Nick third is the candidate. Okay. And remember I was on Mark Begich. Yeah I think Mark is Nick two is brother. So the uncle. Yes. And the uncle to Nick three okay. Yes. So that's why you were like I thought he was young. That's that's why. Because, Mark, I was making Mark be the brother of Nick the third.

Okay, but it's the uncle of Nick the third. Okay. Gotcha. All right. Here we.

All right. 925 maybe. Me. Well, and the number for the fall River propane call and text line is (208) 542-1079. And Julie, we're going to go right to the phones. Let's let's go. Caller, how are you today?

I'm good. How are you? Good. Doing well. Doing well. What's on your mind? I listen to your, show. I listen to your show all the time, and I've just, had a feeling to call in today because I bought this ranked choice voting proposition one. Yeah. And I was having a conversation with my son over the weekend, and I guess the information he's getting is that, well, you know, it's really good for the state because it, you know, it's going to help us get more moderate people elected.

I'm like, well, what do you what does your government, you say to moderate? What is your definition of a moderate? Are you talking a moderate conservative? Are you talking a moderate to where somebody is like in the middle between being a a conservative and a liberal? I mean, what where where is where is your stance on being a moderate?

He said, well, you know, I'm a conservative, but I think that it's good that we get more moderate candidates. I'm like, okay, all right. So I didn't I asked him a question. I said, well, how's it help or hurt states like Alaska in Maine? Well, we implemented ranked choice voting. Has it helped him or does it hurt him or what has been the outcome?

And he's like, well, everybody I talked, you said Alaska. Things were nice and it worked out good for them. And I'm like, well, who is in charge of the state? How is that how how is their local politics working out for? And he couldn't answer the question. And then I asked him, well, why is it so good? Why isn't why is it so complicated for people to just be able to explain to you exactly the details of what it's about?

So my question to you, Neal, was just, you know, with what I proposed, how would you conduct that conversation? Well, I it might depend on the person that I'm I'm talking with. I think for a lot of people, if you if you could include just a couple of deal killers like this is complicated and to fully understand what they want to do to the system, with the system, it requires a long conversation.

And most people kind of tune out. But if they can understand that, like, for instance, in Alaska, 60% of the people's first choice was against Mary Pell Tola. They didn't want her. The Alaska's a very Republican state. It's a red state, and they would never choose someone like Mary Pell Tola in a binary race between her and, conservative.

The problem is, because she was the only Democrat, she got the benefit of a binary race. But the Republicans split their vote. And what happened? It wasn't like there was this wide support for Pell Tola down ballot. Begich people just didn't rank their ballot and when you, listen to things that Luke Mayville has said, he almost makes it sound like it's just this optional thing.

You can rank if you want. They know they're Democrats are benefited if the Republicans don't fully rank the ballots because they know they're going to rank all the Republicans ahead of the Democrats, that's likely what's going to happen. And so I think if you can give out those those little deal killer moments, they'd be like, well, wait, I want more moderate candidates, but I don't want to get them that way like that.

That's a sneaky way to to get them victorious, because I promise you, most of Alaskans probably feel like they've been kind of disenfranchized by this because most people didn't get their first choice. They got a they got a ranked choice down, down the ballot. But yeah, go ahead. So what I'll do is I'll take and basically the main, the main thing out of what you just said was that basically it takes a Republican vote and splits my guess between 2 and 3 candidates, so maybe more.

But yet most of the time you're going to have one Democrat can Democrat candidate. So they, they benefit from that. Yes. And then now the proponents would would clap back at that. They would say that, well, those people chose not to rank their ballots so they didn't have to split their vote, but because they didn't rank all the choices, they did split their vote.

Well, here's the here's the dirty little secret. They know human nature. They understand that people will go in and feel like, hey, I voted for Nick Begich. That's who I wanted. I don't want to mess with voting for the rest of these candidates. That's just typically how humans are going to to behave. So there's that. Another thing that I would tell you, or is that your son that you would talk to?

Yeah, I would say we're actually already getting the moderate candidates in this documentary that's about finish that. I'll release hopefully tomorrow. When you look at especially the statewide races, we could talk about the legislative races, but there's a lot there and we could get lost in the weeds. But the statewide races and you had Brad Little who defeated a conservative.

You you have Scott Bedke who defeated Priscilla Giddings, a conservative. You had Secretary of State Phil McGrane, who defeated Dorothy Moon, a conservative. You had, Debbie Critchfield, the state superintendent, who defeated Brandon Durst, another conservative. There were some other candidates in the race. But the point is, even with our current closed primary, Idahoans are choosing the more centrist candidates over the far right candidates in a lot of races, not everyone, but in a lot of races.

That's exactly what's happening. So maybe that's another argument that might sway him, is that we're already choosing these, the moderates in our current system locally, and locally, Ron Nate was defeated and locally, Julian Young was defeated. Two people that would be considered. You know, I don't love this word, but far right. Because I don't think they're far right, but very staunch in their conservative values.

Both of them were defeated in the primary. But that was my that was my next question. I was going to bring up is that I hear this term far right and moderate centrist. And I'm a conservative. I've I've always been a conservative my whole life. And I believe in traditional family values and everything that makes America great. Okay.

And my son believes these same he has these same values. So the question is, is that so where, when, how how does the water get muddied between somebody being a centrist or a moderate and a conservative? And where does this far right come from? I mean, to now? I mean, I hear that a lot. Seems to me, if you're a I guess by most accounts, if people would look at my political beliefs and my religious beliefs, I would be considered far right, which me personally, I identify more as being someone who would be in the middle or somebody who would be almost like, I.

I believe in people to have the right to choose. And if people to make their own path and destiny and government, you know, not being and not being in control of them and not and people pretty much, you know, handle things on their own with limited government. But so. Well, where am I going wrong here? You're not going wrong.

They're just lying. In fact, we've got we even have a lot of Republicans that are using words like extremist and. No, because I will tell you right now, the person who was a mainstream Republican 15 or 20 years ago, if they've stayed consistent with their political beliefs, they're now considered an extremist. They're considered radical and they're labeled as such.

And so I feel like you, I, I think the gauge here is more how much influence do I have in the party as opposed to what does the party believe in and where do they stand? And if you have less power than you used to, you're more likely to want to label those people who do have power nasty names like extremist and radical and.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And and so I think there, they're upset about power that they don't no longer have. And so they have orchestrated this, this very, very, very well-organized campaign. And they've made strange bedfellows with people on the left in order to get this done. And I think we have to be aware of of all the factors that are at play here.

One last thing I want to say, and yeah, I don't want to take any more of your time. My son is 18 years old. He just graduated Madison High School this past year. He's fixing to go to a mission in a Las Vegas East mission. Spanish speaking. Okay. He's a real smart kid. Real bright. Yeah, but the stuff that's being put out there to this younger generation of kids, whether it be coming through their high schools or their, you know, the clicks, the groups of people that hang with, they're the ones being attacked by this propaganda that's being put out there by the like.

You said, this really good campaign that's really, you know, who's spent a lot of time and effort to try to influence people and, and as a parent, I'm at a loss sometimes because, you know, I try to do my best to explain why I think these things aren't good enough for me. I use a litmus test. I've used my whole life, which is if it doesn't make sense of it sounds too complicated.

Something's wrong, you know? I'll look into it and. And I just try to go, you know, and you could call it your gut feeling. You can. You can call it going with your consciousness. You can call it, you know, doing what you think you what feels right. And for me, this whole top one feels wrong. Just too many things about it that that to me, it rings alarm bells and say, hey, something's not right here.

They're trying. But the fact that our younger generation is being is being, you know, of, for lack of a better word, bamboozled by all the propaganda is concerning. Have you have you seen the latest fundraising numbers on this caller? No, I have it. They have raised about $3 million, just shy of 3 million, 1.9. Almost 2 million of it has come from out of state PACs.

That alone, as much as you might even like the the initiative, that alone should send up warning flags left and right that two thirds of their spend is out of state money. Okay, I wrote that down because I'm I'm like taking notes of as you're talking so I can have a more informed conversation by saying later. But yeah, I mean, it's like something not right and I can see what's going on.

I mean, we can see the fourth environment and the United States. They we can see what happened. I mean, I don't want to call them the left. I don't want to call them, you know, Democrats. I just want to say, yeah, those that group of people who are vying for control of this country are willing to use any means necessary lie, cheat, steal or whatever in order to in order to gain more power, you know, or to keep power.

And I think of, you know, God fearing Christians. We all should be wary of that, because that is the antithesis of what we believe in our way of life, what we believe, our freedoms that we hold dear are under attack. And so many people are like buying into the propaganda. And they're like, well, you know, it's really not that bad.

We need more moderate people. It's like, well, well explain it. You know, that's a give me the definition of what you consider a moderate person. I mean, you you're either you either have your views or you don't have your views. You know, some people when you say moderate to me, I'm thinking, well, that person might have half of your views, half the views that you agree with and maybe half of the views that you don't agree with.

So that's what you want. That's the people that we want to put in office are people who believe half of what we believe and half of what we stand against. And the definition I understand there is opposition in all things. I understand, I understand some people vote and say, well, you know, I'll vote, you know, Republican for the president, but I'm going to vote in the Senate, some Democrat, so we can keep a little balance checks and balances in any.

Myself, I think that's pretty, that's pretty a stupid way of thinking in my book, but, yeah, that's just me. No, no, thank you for the call. And I wish you best of luck with your son. A a a it's a it's an ongoing battle, maybe. And from just an emotional standpoint, keep it very levelheaded, very non-emotional. And and maybe facts are much better than feelings here.

So I appreciate that he wrote down the numbers about the the out of state money. Also, if if number speak to the scared. If he's kind of like a math kid, a little tight. Okay, maybe tell him that this will cost anywhere between 25 million and 40 million to institute in Idaho. Yeah. And I that's that's kind of, a pretty big price tag for.

Well, let's just see how it works. You know what's fascinating and I, I will reference I want to give attribution on this. Noah Kemper is with, it's Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. And one of the things that he pointed out is that ranked choice races, 97% of the candidates who who win the first round or get the most in the first round go on to win anyway.

So somewhere in that vicinity we can extrapolate from that, that if we changed nothing and you compare that to a system with ranked choice voting, it will look essentially the same. So that tells me, okay, you don't raise millions and millions of dollars to implement this particular system. So you can have pretty much the same system when you're done.

So you have to look somewhere else. Why are they doing it. And I believe and this is me banging the drum again this issue of being able to affiliate with any party on the ballot I think is is under emphasized how important that piece is to them. It gives them the ability to cheat like yes it's that's all there is to it.

There is no way around that. Now what we did find out is that you have to fill out a registration form when you declare as a candidate, if you want to put a party next to your name, you have to fill out a little registration form. So they'll do that. Obviously. But you don't have to have donated to Republicans.

You don't have to have attended a single meeting. You don't have to believe in the platform. You don't have to do anything. This registration form is more going to be about a strategic choice in a race, rather than a declaration of what you believe, even though your party designation in the past in spirit is about what you believe, and instead it's going to be what am I?

What's going to help me the most at the ballot box? That is what is going to happen. You could even I could even see scenarios where you have shenanigans, where candidates who know that they will lose, will run as Republicans in order to dilute that, that support for any one candidate that'll benefit the prime Democrat. So there's lots of things that they could tweak and play with here to better, the better the chances for their Democrat candidate.

And so we there's a there's a lot of holes here. And it's a very leaky idea that the way they put it forward is like it's just as simple as an instant runoff. And I'll take another minute. And I recognize my obsession with this probably makes me sound really kind of wonky and off in the weeds here, but you take the the Alaska race.

Begich gets eliminated in the first round because he got the fewest number of votes. That's how it works. And then the in the subsequent rounds without Begich in the race, it was Peltz Tola versus Palin. Palin lost that. And we explained earlier she lost it because Begich is people failed to rank their ballots almost certain more than half that did rank went to Sarah Palin.

She lost by three percentage points in the final round. It wouldn't have taken a ton of Begich people to finish ranking their ballots, and that would have put, Palin over the top. But they present it as though you had this runoff between Pelton and Palin. That's what they're going to make you believe. It's an instant runoff. It just went you.

No. Nobody ever got to make that binary choice between Pelton and Palin. They never did. It's not a runoff. They made some sort of obscure choice. Yes they did. They're like, I like Begich and I don't really care about the rest. Some of them ranked, some of them did, and some of them weren't like and Palin on that day.

So they ranked Pelton ahead and and Palin third and whatever. But a true runoff gives voters a binary choice in order for them to get to 50%. That never happens in ranked choice with more than two candidates. And you've got to understand that you never actually get to make that binary choice. You're ranking it and then they're eliminating it.

They're rolling ballots over and then they do another round. But they never offer you the binary choice. But in a, a system where you got to get to 50%, if you have one candidate that can win 50% with 3 or 4 other candidates, great. That's great. But Brad Little's done that a time or two. But in a true runoff, you're guaranteed to get to 50%, which does a whole lot of good things.

It reinforces people feeling like their votes counted. It gives the candidate more clout when they win, and they go to the legislature because they won 50% of the vote. And it it just it's such an important thing that you have a candidate legitimately getting to 50% in a binary race if you have to have one, so that they that we have that confidence in a, in a, I'm going to say the word democracy, okay, I'm we got to take a commercial break.

But I'm going to add just one more thing that's relevant to what's going to happen in two weeks from tomorrow. We currently have the secretary state of Georgia coming out and saying, I don't know when we're going to be able to get your results out of Georgia. You're hearing it out of Pennsylvania. We don't know when you're going to be able to get results.

We're hearing it out of Wisconsin. We're going to try to get you results. Remember the big the big snafu in Arizona. And we didn't have results there. Big snafu in Nevada. We didn't have results there. We're going to plunk ourselves right down in the middle of this garbage heap of states that won't be able to tell you who won the races.

It will be weeks before you have results out of Idaho. If we implement ranked choice voting now. In comparison, Florida, third biggest state in the nation, third most populous state in the nation, one of the first to ever get their results out every election since the Hanging Chad debacle. Yeah, that's because they dialed it in and they're doing it right.

And when we if we want to implement ranked choice voting, we're just jumping back into the caveman era. We're going to be a state that doesn't have results for two and a half weeks. Yeah. You know, it's funny. That's such an important issue in Alaska. They voted November 8th. They didn't even start tabulating until November 23rd. And the reason why is because you can't start counting the ballots until you have everything in.

So they're waiting for military, for overseas, for, you know, whatever the, you know, the ballots that were in the mail, the what. And they had to wait 15 days before they could even start counting. And the reason why they had to do it is because it was a large, geographically dispersed state for one reason. And it was a lot of votes, hundreds of thousands of votes.

If you go to the proponents, they will say, well, they didn't they didn't have to start. They could have released some results before. Only in the races that don't have ranked choice voting. They don't tell you that there are only the races that have two candidates. Yes. Right. There's that that as well. So that was not an option.

And, and they imply that Alaska could have done something that Alaska couldn't do. And and they compared it to, well there are towns in Utah that that many have ranked choice voting results same day. Yeah. Because you're talking about maybe a few hundred votes or a couple thousand votes in a geographically tight location. And there are two races.

Yeah. And 1 or 2 races. And they're trying to compare it to a big, huge geographical state with hundreds of thousands of votes to count. There's not a comparison there. And 20 races in Idaho. Yeah. They're so damn dishonest. They are. And it's infuriating the way they they lie and they continue to lie. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break.

It's 947 on this Monday on Newstalk 179.

This is a good question and I don't think it's one we've had. What is it. Say you have four candidates who make it to the November ballot under ranked choice voting. I only want to allocate one of my votes. Yeah. Can I write in Neal Larson, Julie Mason and Mark Hepworth for the next three. And my my ballot not be exhausted.

Can you implement writing choices. I don't know the answer to that. I mean there's no way to teach people to game the system. So they're already going to have to put out money to teach people how to even vote this way. So it's just stupid. But that's another thing. I mean, that there's so many ways that this is all screwed up.

How do you do a write in candidate? I'd, I don't know, should be an option. Okay. Here's New York City. It allows it. So in that ranked choice voting option, you can. Yeah. But I want to see if they explain how it works. How do I vote for a write in candidate with ranked choice voting? Okay.

To vote for a candidate whose name is not on the ballot, write their name on the right in line and fill in an oval to rank your write in choice. So there will be a write in, and then you fill in the oval like they'll have right in and your ballot won't get exhausted. Are they going to have four write ins because you if you have four choices, you might want to write in four different names.

So I don't know. Oh, this is New York City. When can I expect results in ranked choice voting elections? Final results in ranked choice elections will not be known until all absentee and military ballots are counted, which could take several weeks after Election Day. So that was the secretary of state from Georgia. His complaint on his he was on Face the Nation yesterday morning.

I didn't send you the audio. I didn't love it. That's why I didn't send it to you. I felt like it was really muddled and, you know, anyway, what he said is that he expects to have 75% of it counted. But there's a whole bunch of oversea ballots. So we're going to have to wait and we will not get your results.

25% of yours is overseas ballots. There's no way. There's no way, no way. So basically the math is at mapping. No. And you're just giving yourself an excuse to somehow wait. You put out results. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Infuriating. You cheat. It's the cheat. And the cheat happens from initiatives to vote counting to. And so let's make the system even harder.

So that the cheat can be easier. Yeah. Oh. It's funny. These ads aren't even talking about ranked choice voting. No. They don't even mention it. Yeah. Here's another thing. The ranked choice vote winner did not get 50% of the original. Because the ranked choice voting process throws out some ballots as it tabulates, the winner can get to 50% of remaining votes, but not 50% of the total ballots are original cast.

So even that 50% is a lie. That is a lie. It's only 50% of part of the ballot. Yeah.

I.

952. Boy, the time goes by quickly. And, Julie, real quick, we should talk about Grand Peak's prime meets. Guess what I had for dinner last night. Roast. No French dip? No, they're both good. Yeah. Oh. All three good? Yeah. No, I the thing that I ordered that you did not order those pre padded hamburgers that had the spices in them and like the green peppers.

Oh my goodness two things. They've got a kick. You would love them. Yes. And they were delicious okay. So if you, if you've got like a like you know like a barbecue or people coming over and you need something quick, that is the perfect thing to do. All set. We just put them on the grill. Dinner's done. We were out Friday for this sandwich.

We had multiple people talking about how they go to Grand Peaks. Now that's where they get all of their meat. They love it. And you'll love it, too. Just, go to GP primates.com. Look at their packages and specials, the things that fit your family's preferences and tastes and certainly will fit in your family's freezer. And, make your order so GP primates.com.

There we go. All right. We don't have a lot of time, but let's go to the phones. Caller. Welcome. How are you today? Good. How are you? Good. Julie, I just want to make a quick, note so people will pay attention. Many of, figures that I'm looking at for implementing this ranked choice voting is around $40 million.

To the state of Idaho. That's us taxpayers. When you watch the commercials, this is another means of deceit. They keep referring to the $2.3 million to train the voters, and then they make a real quick comment at the end of the commercial that, the cost for the machines, etcetera, will be determined in the future. Okay. So don't as all I'm saying is, they're making it sound like it's going to cost $2.3 million to implement when we all know that's not.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the only point I want to make. You guys have a great day. I know you're in a hurry. Thank you for the call. It lies all over the place. 2.3 million just to teach people how to vote in this system that they say is as simple as counting to four. Come on. Yeah. All right.

Back after this and, we'll take a call off air in just a moment. Okay? Let's, let's take this call really quick. Hey, caller. We, unfortunately don't have time to put you on the air. However, we'd love to hear what you have to say. I want to know how I vote early. Do I go to the same voting place, or is there a certain place I go?

Same way you always have. Right now, elections are exactly the same as they've always been. So if you want to vote early, probably your your county clerk. Yeah. Don't go to your precinct polling place. They're not open like mine is in a hotel conference room. They're not there. But, I live in Bonneville County, so I would go to the Bonneville County office.

Okay. So good. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. You know what I'd like to know. I know Phil McGrane cannot implement this. I almost want to have Heather call up a dozen East Idaho county clerks and say, we're not going to attribute your position on this to your name because you have to remain neutral publicly.

But we would like to know privately off well when it would be on the record, but it wouldn't be tracked, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. What you think about this, I think that could be. Although they probably don't want it, they probably won't. They aren't going to talk to the media about it at all because they may have to implement it.

So yeah, that's a that's probably the most succinct way to explain that is especially in a big election, a significant number of ballots are exhausted before the final round, and the winner is whoever gets 50% of whatever ballots remain. So they only get 50% of a portion of the ballots. Yep. Holy moly. And but it's easy. It's good for Idaho.

Oh, can I just throw up? Stop with the good for Idaho thing. Well, because we actually cared about the voters, you wouldn't have tried to jam pack this this initiative with the two parts. Yeah, it's a lie. It is not about the people. It's the same compassion argument they made with Medicaid and they it worked once. They're going to use it again.

Yeah. Supposed to feel bad for veterans. Hey okay, I can we can be honest about this. How much time we have? 54 seconds. When Todd Achilles turned down the interview again with us, he offered up a veteran to come and talk. Okay. Let's just let's just let's just walk through how that interview would have gone. I have mad, wicked respect for the veterans that served our country.

Do you think I'm going to really push against an older guy sitting here. I'm not going to. He's using them as human shields. Yeah that's what he's doing. That's ugly. Yeah that's ugly. I'm not brave enough to come out and talk. But here I'll put this guy who deserves all the respect in the world out there. You ask him hard questions, right?

What? What trash? Yeah, it is trash. It is that they won't subject themselves to it. Yeah, and I'm not going to do that to a veteran. I'm not going to treat someone that way.

All right. That's going to do it for our Monday here on Newstalk 179 and Julian Knight. We'll be back tomorrow. Also hope to have everything ready to release the documentary. That's weird for me to say that. All right. Okay. All right. See you all tomorrow.