12.27.2024 -- NLS -- Prop. 1 Demise, the War on Christmas Cheer & NFL vs. NBA

On this episode with Neal and Julie, the hosts dive into a range of topics, blending sports, politics, and cultural commentary. They discuss the disparity between NFL and NBA Christmas game viewership, breaking down the methods used to spin ratings and spotlighting Clay Travis's take on Outkick. Shifting to politics, they analyze voter fatigue with mainstream narratives, particularly the shift in cable news viewership post-election, and critique how political figures and media are losing public trust.

Neal and Julie also revisit the contentious Prop 1 in Idaho, reflecting on the role of dark money and the strategies of political players like Dorothy Moon. Their analysis extends to national issues, including immigration policy costs and debates over sanctuary city cooperation. They add levity with a humorous critique of alternative holidays like Kwanzaa and Festivus, exploring the motivations behind creating nontraditional celebrations.

Throughout the episode, Neal and Julie intersperse their commentary with personal anecdotes, from holiday gifting confessions to wedding etiquette in the age of Venmo. They round off with thoughts on the challenges of event licensing, offering insights into rights negotiations for public screenings. With their characteristic blend of humor and insight, Neal and Julie deliver a smorgasbord of timely topics for listeners to chew on.

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You could try clicking around, reading books, or taking online courses to figure it out—or you can let us handle it. At Sandhill Media Group, we’re your local experts in both radio and digital marketing.

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Transcript

And good morning. It is 807 on Newstalk 179. Neal Larson, Julie Mason. It's a monologue free week here on the Neal. It's a news cycle. Free week. Here it is. There's nothing. Nothing to, to. Well, no, we have things to talk about. Yeah. It's me. The ratings came out for football and basketball. Yeah, and no wonder LeBron didn't want the NFL playing on Christmas because they nearly tripled both games.

Nearly tripled the ratings that the Lakers were. Were. Yeah. So when you go head to head that's a and I saw different comparisons of numbers. So I think the most accurate accurate way to compare it is the games that happened on that day. Yeah. And this is what the tweet that I sent you did do they compared the games that happened on that day to in the NBA to the NFL.

The NFL killed them. Oh yeah. Killed them. Yeah. So Netflix says 24 million people and change watched each of the two NFL games that they stream. Over in the NBA a you had it looks like five games. And the viewership from those games ranged anywhere from about around 4 million up to under 8 million. And so yeah you're getting in the single digits millions watching the NBA.

And then you have 24 million plus watching the NFL. Of course LeBron doesn't want them to play. Yeah I think the Outkick article that I saw by Clay Travis, was debunking the way that the NBA played it, which was the NBA combined all of the games and gave that total and then compared it to other other big days for the NFL.

And I'm like, you're going to have to do that if you're going to make the numbers look right for you. But that's that's faulty thinking. Oh, it's totally that's why I said like, that's why I sent you this tweet, because I felt like it was the most accurate of comparing of data, because, okay, if we're going to do that for the basketball games, we get to do that for the football games, which puts it at 50 million.

Yes. Yeah. And I'm guessing they're not wanting to do that. Not going to want to do that. Yeah. Okay. Speaking of ratings and these stories just keep coming out. Julie. Last night, this one came out. Joy Reid's even looking at a potential pay cut to stay on the air. I have heard that. I don't see the story you're talking about, but I heard that Joy Reid is looking at a pay cut in her new contract.

Yeah. So. Which she probably ought to take it. I don't I don't know who in the in the the world would pick her up. I don't know either. Post-election prime time cable ratings. MSNBC's down 54%. Fox news down 45%. Fox news. Excuse me, CNN down 45%. Fox news is up 15%. And, it says after election night through December 13th, the prime time viewer average of 620,000, down 54% from the pre-election audience.

The company said for the same time comparison. Let me pull up the whole graphic here. Let's see. CNN's average of 405,000 viewers was down. We talked about this this week, at Fox, a favorite news network for Trump fans. The post election average of 2.68 million viewers is up 13% since the election. 72% of the people watching one of those three cable networks in the evening were watching Fox News, compared to 53% prior to Election Day.

So look huge. I'll even take a very non-emotional stance here. The Republicans were victorious on November 5th. Of course, the they're not going to want to take a break from the news. Yeah, I can see why Democrats wanted to take a break from news. Taking a break does not equate to 54%. No, not coming up on two months after the election.

Right. You take a break for a week or two? You don't I mean this is this is now a habit change in their life. This is not really. Yeah a little reprieve because things got crazy. So some of those will probably migrate their way back. Bill bounce back. It's not bouncing back 54%. No it's not it's not going to it's not going to come back to what it was before.

So yeah. Boy there it what happened? Like, I'm still trying to figure this out. What happened? Because it is just failure all around. I'll tell you what I think a major portion of it is. I don't think you're going to assign 100% of this to one factor, but I think a major chunk of it is people are being lied to and they're fed up.

Yeah, they're fed up that they were showing up and watching MSNBC and CNN and being told that Kamala was going to win in a landslide. Yeah. They're fed up with being told that Biden is as keen and as sharp as he's ever been. And then Wall Street Journal puts out an article saying, absolutely not true. He wasn't even holding cabinet meetings.

They're fed up with being told that the most important thing is abortion. And when they realize no one believes that after the election, they're like, why did I believe it? Yeah, I think they're just tired. They're tired of being lied to. There was that realization had been living a lie. Yeah. Yeah. That they, they were just spoon fed lie after lie after lie.

Yeah. It's like the abusive spouse finally waking up. So here's what I want to know, though, Julie. And there's so much to choose. We have, like, a smorgasbord of examples of this, but I want to ask you this question. Let's take Joe Biden's dementia. Okay. I saw it. You saw it. Lots of people saw it. Were there people that would actually believe Karine Jean-Pierre or Joe Scarborough saying, oh no, he's sharp.

He's totally with that. Believed the cabinet when every one of them had ChatGPT write their statement for them that that, oh no, Joe Biden, Joe Biden's the best Biden ever. Are there people who actually believed that and thought that he's not in cognitive decline? 100%? I have a client who did 100% a she's a she. That mean that's anecdotal, because I'm not going to have a lot of people in my life like that, but there's more of her that exist out there.

So yes. Absolutely. What what would they did? They watch like one news story every three months and based on that manufactured story, because I can't imagine anybody watching the news cycle every day, as you and I do, many of our listeners do. And still believing that everything was fine with Joe. I'll tell you what my client believed. I don't know what others believed, but my client believed those were video fakes.

When Green Sean Pierre came out and said that they were cheap fakes. I think that's what she call them, right? Cheap fakes? Yeah. She bought it hook, line and sinker. Yep, yep. We have that technology. They've made him look this way. That's not really what he's like. And that's why the cabinet members are telling the truth. They see him one on one when the cameras aren't rolling and the Republicans can't cheat.

So, yes, he is keen and he is sharp, like 100%. She believe that what? Okay for me. And I'm not going to argue proxy that doesn't pass the smell test. If given the bias in the media, if there are cheap fakes or deep fakes, whatever you call them, they're going to be to make Biden look good. Yeah. Look, I don't think it's logical.

No, it's. Yeah. And I think that that's why you're seeing a 54% and a 45% decrease in MSNBC and CNN. You know, that's why you're seeing that is because some of these people went, Holy cow, I was lied to. Yeah. Yeah. I you know what? And instead of owning the reality of the situation and realizing I was lied to, and I wouldn't say apologizing because I don't think we're going to see that they just walk away from it.

It's like. It's like a junk drawer. You just put it in, shut it, and try to not think about it. Pretend like it doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah. Or that coat closet or whatever. Jockey box in your car. Shove it in there. I don't want to deal with it right now. For some people, it's just the backseat of their car.

There's not. There's. They're just trying to fit in the jockey box. It's just the back seat. Yeah, yeah. That's that that's that's true. It's true too. All right, if you'd like to join us. (208) 542-1079 is the number to call. When is Boise State playing in? The is at the Fiesta Bowl this year. Oh, yeah. That's the that's the bowl.

The award that they got I don't know. Is it the day before New Year's Eve? Yeah I don't know. I'm gonna I'm going to find out here that Monday night. Yeah. It's New Year's Eve, 5:30 p.m.. Okay. That'll be a fun Tuesday night. New year's Eve? Yeah. They play Penn State, so a great something to look forward to.

ESPN. It will carry it. So. All right. That's one of the many subscriptions I pay for. So lucky me. Have you ever counted up? I don't even want to know. It is expensive as cable ever was, I promise. I know right, like you get nickel and dimed. Yeah, I'm into it. So. Yeah. All right, let's see.

We have, Abby Phillips of CNN got schooled by Representative Lawler. She was saying we can't deport people because it's too expensive. Listen, this I heard about give a lot of interviews, and I know he understands the problem that they want to solve, but he doesn't seem to have a sense of the scope of how, what it's going to take, what it's going to cost.

And that's a critical question. I actually had a meeting with Tom home, and the other day, along with a number of my colleagues, and we talked about, this very issue. Look, it's already costing states like New York billions of dollars of taxpayer money to provide free housing, clothing, food, education and health care to illegal immigrants.

Then you have the situation where you have criminal aliens, committing violent crimes. Just as we saw a woman being burned alive on a subway by a man who was previously deported and then came back into the United States illegally. The fact is that what Tom Homan is going to do, is start the process of deporting criminal aliens out of the United States and sanctuary states and cities like New York need to cooperate.

This idea that you're going to violate federal immigration law, that you're going to use taxpayer money to provide all of these free things. By the way, while Kathy Hochul in New York is charging New Yorkers $2,500 just for the privilege of driving to work in Midtown Manhattan, it's a joke. This is the stuff that needs to stop. So yes, there is a price tag.

Yes, it's going to cost money. But the reality is we cannot continue to have this massive influx of illegal immigrants coming into the country. Since Joe Biden took office, over 10.5 million people. That's unsustainable and it's costing us billions of dollars. You know, he makes a great point. I'd summarize it this way. The only thing more expensive than not deporting the illegals or then deporting them is not deporting them.

Keeping them. Yeah, it's imagine the cost that it would that communities and states and the country is going to incur if we don't solve this problem. This is my issue with the border wall. The Democrats when Trump was in office, their heads were exploding over an $8 billion price tag to build a border wall. Now look at what they've spent on illegal immigration.

Oh, yeah. They're such they're such hypocrites. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they really are. All right, let's break. It's 820 on Newstalk 179. Neal Larsen, Julie Mason. It's Friday and phone lines are open now. (208) 542-1278 in the fall River propane column text line. And we'd love to hear from you this morning. It's 825 on Newstalk 179. Neal Larson, Julie Mason.

There's one figure in Idaho. I actively try to not pay attention to. So you went to him today. So I went to, Well, I just thought, I mean, prop one. I still, if, like, if I'm having a rough day or a rough minute in the day, I just go. Well, my go to has been Trump one.

Trump's going to be the president. But I also go prop one lost and they it lost 70 to 30 I think it did like I there's more satisfaction in a 70 to 30 win. Then there is. It's like plain labor state. You just if the margins are wide it just makes you happier. And but I thought I wonder what Jim Jones has said since then.

And he wrote this super long piece about, giving thanks for those volunteers who took on the party bosses on prop one. And he writes, okay, I'm sure I can give thanks for athletes who show up and do such a bad performance. Yeah, well, okay. I mean, I'll read this, but I think, Julie, you and I have to very proactively not get irritated by it because I'm going to work hard and I'm I'm going to jump in midstream.

He makes some reference to Mayor Richard Daley, in Chicago during the mid 1960s. And, he said, I remember thinking at that time that independent minded Idahoans would never descend to the depths of bassist politics, but politics in Idaho dramatically changed in recent years, mostly because the Republican Party chose to close its primary election to all but registered members in 2011.

That allowed an extreme branch of the GOP to grab power, and it has increasingly tightened its grip on the party ever since. The party, now controlled by Dorothy Moon. And the party is capitalized by the now controlled by Dorothy Moon, with which I think is what George Orwell did in 1984 and Animal Farm, with the malign assistance of a number of dark money groups.

RZiM now, keep in mind it was the prop one folks, the Reclaim Idaho's. How much money came in late for that? It was like 3 or $4 million. Three quarters of the funding for that proposition came from dark money outside of Idaho. Out of state? Yes, three quarters of the money. What a strange argument to make. If if I were Jim Jones, I'd zip it about the dark money.

Yeah, because our side, the side that won 70% was far outweighed in terms of dark money by the people wanting to get it passed. Yes. Okay. So hot kettle, here we go. Yeah. Let's keep going. They maintain their offices. Well, it says the party not controlled by Dorothy Moon, with the malign assistance of a number of dark money groups, resembles the old daily political machine.

Anointed extremists defeat, right. Resembles the old daily political machine. Anointed extremists defeat reasonable problem solving Republicans in the in the closed, low turnout GOP primary and then coast to victory in November. They maintain their offices by carrying out the dictates of the party bosses. Even statewide officers often bend to the dictates of the political bosses. Oh my gosh, there's so much there.

First off, Jim Jones, you're not a Republican, so don't lump yourself in there. Second, because he he did that he'd like there were reasonable Republicans. You're not one. You're you're you yourself have said you've left the party. Yeah. So stop speaking for who you say are reasonable Republicans. Secondly, just on a personal note, I'm going to ask you a question.

Did you spend hours and hours and hours creating a documentary that made a difference in this election? Because Dorothy Moon told you to? No, no. Did Dorothy Moon have a single bit of influence? Not in your choice to make that documentary. Not even a lit she had no idea. Nobody had any. She didn't even know you were making it.

No. Yet she claims she's running the whole show. Okay. Yeah. Gosh, no, I can't stand it. Okay. Sorry. Keep going. No, it's. Stop interrupting. It's okay. See, this is like. I know, like, it's too easy to just be. And this guy was the attorney general for the state of Idaho. Oh my goodness. And a Supreme Court justice. Was he the chief justice?

I have no idea. I think he might have. Seriously. And this is flawed thinking. You left the party. Stop trying to speak for it. About two years ago, former Republican House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, a charter member of the reasonable branch of the GOP.

It doesn't even make you mad. It's so laughable. The reasonable branch got together with Luke Melville of Idaho's all volunteer Reclaim Idaho voter Initiative group to get rid of bus ism in Idaho politics. The plan was to run an initiative to get rid of closed party primaries in the state, and ensure that those elected in the general election had majority support from the entire electorate Republicans, independents, Democrats, whatever.

As we know, that initiative, prop one was handily defeated by the moon forces on November 5th. No, it wasn't defeated by the moon forces. It was defeated by the entire electorate in the state of Idaho. Jim, I would also say this program that Neal Larson's show interviewed far more people about prop one than we did Dorothy Moon. We owe it to Dorothy Moon to explain prop one to us.

We had the Secretary of State on four stinking times. Yeah, to explain what was going to happen with this proposition. It was not led. The fight was not led by Dorothy Moon. Now, did she not want it? Absolutely. And did she do her own work towards defeating it? Yes. Yeah. But to assign the fact that she was dictating all the moves that were being made to defeat this horrendous proposition, that's just faulty.

Yeah. Well it it. You ready for this? Okay. Keep going. There are any number of explanations for the defeat of prop one. The large turnout for Donald Trump likely played a part. The yes vote of 30.4% on prop one was exactly the same as 30.4% for Kamala Harris. The open primary part of the initiative consistently pulled over 50% leading up to the election.

But the ranked choice part was a new concept, and the subject of repeated false attacks by Moon's GOP prop won lost due to misinformation and fear of the unknown. They were the ones providing the misinformation. Absolutely they were. They tried to hide and obscure it for the longest time. And then when it just became this open secret, they tried to spin it as best they could.

You were the liar about it, Jim Jones. Yeah, you had to lie about it to make it palatable. And when people said, hey, those lies, let's uncover them, that's when it oh my goodness. And also the reasonable part of the GOP, were they also part of that group that voted for Kamala, the 30% that voted for Kamala? Where is that reasonable GOP ad?

Because if they voted for Kamala, they're not part of the GOP. Yes. I can't stand it. I know it's the entire electorate. He he's he knows, all right. He's not this dumb. He knows, you know, you could argue and say, well, votes that are voted internally by the party could be pressured, manipulated, whatever that could happen, that kind of thing.

But that's how parties function, right? Yes. The Democrats are famous for this. Republicans, I'm sure, do it too. I'm not saying Dorothy Moon does it, but that's where you going to see that this was an issue that was debated for nearly two years publicly. Millions were spent by both sides, and it was voted on by the entire electorate of the state of Idaho.

And yet, he thinks Dorothy Moon was still in charge of pulling the levers of the of the votes here. And he's saying that the reasonable people me, he's saying we want reasonable people. Their opinion of the entire electorate counts. Well, you got the entire electorate to vote on this. Yes. So it's it's important to you in one section, but not important to you another.

We got it wrong here. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we got it wrong on the proposition when the entire electorate got to vote. But if we switch it all, they'll get it right. Yeah, yeah, I know it. It doesn't make any sense. These are the exact same people. I mean, you're talking about open primaries so everybody can vote higher. Electorate can vote because if it's open, I they'll get it right on an initiative.

In fact, that's why they had the initiative so that the entire electric can vote on it. But they got it wrong. Well they did. And guess what they did, Jim. Jimbo, it was an utter and abject rejection. Like it was it. It wasn't even you cannot blame a 40 percentage point loss on misinformation or Dorothy Moon. No, it took far more than that to defeat this proposition.

Yeah, and he hates her, by the way. Oh he does he's he's fixated. It would be interesting to do a word count in this to see how many times moon is referenced in this because she he it's like Trump Derangement syndrome for him. We've read articles where Trump has mentioned over and over and over again, when it doesn't even pertain to the the principal of the article.

He's doing the same thing with moon here. Five times. Yeah, that's a lot, actually, I I'd like to see a word chart. I bet it's one of the most freq, other than words like the an air. A I'm, I'm guessing moon is probably one of the more freak ones, even though it says moon and her allies contended that prop one would turn Idaho into a liberal bastion, which was preposterous.

Prop one was modeled after the Alaska Initiative that was first used in the state's 2022 election. It was well received by Alaskans, although the party bosses there hated it and set up an initiative this year to repeal it. The moon forces claimed it was a disaster and would be repealed by Alaskans. In fact, they liked it and voted to retain it.

Well, barely. After the proponents spent $7 million in Alaska to to try and save it most of that out of state money as well. So Alaskans on their own, if if we're talking about dark money, if we got rid of all the dark money, I don't believe that it would have survived in Alaska. Right. Well, it also more hypocrite concepts here.

When we were talking about prop one prior to the election, there was a lot of people who were in, favor of prop one that didn't want to talk about Alaska at all. I don't know what's different here. We have a different makeup of people, and we like we're we're structuring it differently. But that's how they were presenting it.

They didn't want to talk about the negative parts of of Alaska. And now after it's defeated, that's one of his points. Yeah. You're a hypocrite. Yeah. You didn't want to address it then. But now after the election. Oh but look, Alaska kept it. Alaska kept it. All of a sudden, Alaska's important again. Yeah, well, and I will say, although not evidence of fraud, I'm not making an accusation here.

But those votes came in super late to Alaska. That's part of the problem with the system they have is that you can keep counting for weeks. It took weeks. That's 2 to 3 weeks. Yeah it did. It took three weeks to get a result in Alaska. Yeah. He says here, even though prop one lost, there's much to be thankful for in this Thanksgiving season.

I'm thankful for the 2000 unpaid signature gatherers who braved the elements together 97,000 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. And Marie Johnson and all of those who helped to raise well over a million from within the state, are also to be thanked. And, of course, those contributors. It was a Herculean effort that brought people together across Idaho to accomplish a worthy goal.

The campaign brought the busses, issue front and center. Even though the proposed solution was voted down. The issue won't go away until busses Am is okay. How many times does the word bus show up? Persist busses? How many times? Julie? Seven clips? Ten. Ten. I don't know. Maybe. Jim. This worked for him in as a lawyer.

Maybe this worked for him. And people were Buffalo Road right off the bat. We know far too much about this situation for this argument to work now. Oh, yeah. It's not working. It's done. It is. In fact, I would say I think the 7030 loss is the end of Reclaim Idaho. It is probably the end of Luke Mayfield's career.

That's what I that's part of that because anything they try to do now is going to have the stench of prop one on it. It just will people like, oh, I don't want that. In fact, I think it massively tarnished Jim Jones reputation for some reason. Anyway, I won't go off, but it listen to this. This is drippy to the coalition of good government groups that came together to support prop 1st May find themselves cooperating on future measures to improve representative governing in Idaho.

Reclaim Idaho, North Idaho Republicans, veterans for Idaho Voters, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, Take Back Idaho, and a number of other groups deserve thanks for their intrepid work. Many young people proved themselves to be effective supporters and spokespersons for this good government. Mitch. They did not. They lost 70 to 30. That's what I'm saying. He's delusional. Do we do we pull the whole entire losing team up front and say they're the best?

They're all awesome. No, they lost. They lost. This was a massive failure. You would never rehire these people. Wow. I like I said, I really do believe Luke Mayfield's career might be over, right? Yes, I, I think he'll continue. I think he teaches some classes at Boise State, but but as like the executive director or whatever his title is at reclaim, that's I think that's done.

That's done. Last sentence here. Jim Jones says, I suspect we may see some of them, like Hyrum Erickson from Rexburg and JD Gould from Buell, trying to make Idaho a better place to live. I don't think so. If I were Hyrum Erickson, I would just practice law. I would stop because, look, we heard from people, this is not us.

It's from people who called in that Hyrum Erickson leveraged personal relationships, and those are now damaged. Yeah, go ahead and speak for him. Jim Jones, because he's the one that's having to live in that neighborhood where he leveraged those personal relationships. Yeah, yeah. That's true. Wow. I mean, I think they manipulated him to put a lot on the here's what I think.

They thought that here's a guy who's an elected Republican precinct guy in red Idaho's reddest of counties, Madison County. And if a guy like that can be for prop one, then that's the ambassador that we want. This will convince otherwise. The unconvinced bill they need to support prop one because here's Rexburg, Hyrum Erickson elected Republican out there advocating for it.

The problem is he was alone. And wasn't that the most defeated district? Yeah, it was over 80%. So keep your ambassador. He didn't sway his own backyard. I don't mean that as a diss on him. I'm just saying some ideas are so bad you can't find a good enough spokesmen for them. And it wouldn't have mattered who they got in place.

It didn't. It didn't go down because Hiram Erickson was bad at his job. It went down because it was just a cheesy idea. And that's what I don't like about Jim Jones here and me talking about Hiram Erickson leveraging his personal relationships. The people who have called into this show who live in his neighborhood, we're we're very, very kind about what kind of a man he is.

Love him, attend church with him. He's great. I'm not voting for this because it's such a bad idea. And he couldn't answer our questions. Yeah, so that's what I mean about him leveraging personal relationships. You put this mantle on him with a horrible idea, and he took the he took the arrows for you, Jim Jones. Yeah, yeah, I, if I yes, you're exactly right.

We and Julian, I can tell you from experience, we repeatedly reached out to Luke Mayville. We repeatedly reached out to Todd Achilles. Always polite, but they declined. Yes. There were a couple of times when they just didn't respond. But when they did respond, they were civil and polite because they're civil and polite guys. And but they would always offer up Hyrum Erickson.

And I thought, okay, I like Hiram's nice guy. I think we interviewed him three times. I think you're right. I think it was three times. But you want to you want to talk to the CEO. You want to talk to the person in charge. You want to talk to the the true drivers behind this. And I think I've interviewed Luke Mayville 2 or 3 times over since 2018.

They did Medicaid expansion. This is one he would not interview with us because I think in part, Julie, he knew the questions that were coming. I actually praised him on Medicaid expansion because that that was a tough thing to do in Idaho when with 60% expanding socialized medicine. I mean, I'm against it, but they got it done.

So I think he felt like, okay, you know what? We're going to give him a fair shot. When we interviewed them on their second attempt at two of Reclaim Idaho, which was basically rewriting our tax code under the guise of education funding. When I think the last interview we had, I pressed him. He wanted to raise corporate rates from six point something to nine point something, and his pitch was we're only raising it 3%.

I'm like, no, you're raising it 50%. If you go from 6% to 9%, that's a 50% increase. And he he didn't think Idahoans could do math apparently because he made the case. Oh no. To go from 6 to 9 is only a 3% increase. No it's not. If you pay 10,000 in taxes you're going to be paying 15,000 in taxes.

Under this structure. And, and so anyway, I at that point, he knew we were going to ask good questions, hard questions, even though we let him speak. We weren't going to just let him get away with the sort of misinformation that they they put out. And I think that's why they, they the last thing they wanted to do was interview with us on prop one because they knew questions about ranked choice voting.

All of that was coming if they did. And their tactics are pretty shady. I guess we've pointed that out for multiple reasons throughout Reclaim Idaho's history in Jim Jones history with Take Back Idaho. But the the shady part of this is they put up Hyrum Erickson as a human shield for this. Yeah. Todd Achilles tried to do exactly the same thing every time I reached out to him requesting an interview.

He wanted us to interview some 75 year old veteran. Yeah, of course you want. You want us to look like the bad guys because we're throwing questions at somebody? I'm. I have deep, deep respect for. Yeah. You should be ashamed of yourself, Todd. Achilles agreed? Agreed. And not only that, I'm not going to do a documentary on this, but it's tempting to do a documentary on veterans for Idaho voters.

That was just a front organization. They they didn't even care about it. No, he didn't. He abandoned it. And in the later month, he said he was stepping away from it. When we reached out to him. But yet that whole thing was to take advantage of a group of people that everybody loves, but only to leverage a political outcome.

It was exactly what it was sleazy, what they did with that, they created it the very same month that they launched the prop one. Absolutely. All right. It's 847 back after this. All right. It's 852 on Newstalk 107. I, Neal Larson and Julie Mason. All right. We're almost to the end of 2024. And if you want to save like never before, man, that's such a Trump phrase.

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Music's done. So are we. Here's the here's the break.

It's 858 on Newstalk 1079. Julie, Kamala Harris is getting skewered for claiming again that she grew up celebrating Kwanzaa. And, she said it was a family tradition growing up, but in reality, that's not true. Kamala Harris was born in 1964, and she expects us to believe that her family, which included an Indian mother, celebrated Kwanzaa right after it was created by Ron Everett in 1966.

She said, when I was growing up, Kwanzaa was a special time of reflection with family and friends. Let us carry the wisdom of the seven Principles with us as we work to build a brighter future. Hold on, she didn't say with my family and friends. Maybe that's her out. That might. That might be her out. That it's others.

Anyway.

Dodged a bullet. That's all I'm going to say. Dodged a bullet. We've reached our Kamala code hour to come.

All right. To 907 on Newstalk 107, I, Neal Larson, along with Julie Mason and, of course, Julie gave me a wonderful Christmas gift, but I have not received either her Kwanzaa nor her Festivus gifts. Yet. So I'm such a bad person and a bad friend. I gotta get on this. Well, we don't. You know what?

We don't need to go there. We'll just. We'll just start. We'll just start now, okay? Okay. Don't worry about it. Wasn't it yesterday? Well, what's the length of Kwanzaa? Seven days? I think so, yeah. So are we on day six. How many? What or where am I at? But I don't remember. Okay. I think it's. No, it's December 20th 6th to January 1st, I think.

Oh. So I'm good to go. I can bring you something on Monday. You could you. But there's the Kwanzaa gift giving window. What are you whining about? If I've got that big of a window, I just wanted to let you know. Usually my Kwanzaa gift comes early, but I. It didn't. It didn't this year. So.

What do you buy me? No. What's that? What do you buy me? It's a secret, Julie. I have been fastidiously searching for just the right Kwanzaa gift for you. I think I know what you're Festivus gift is, though. Oh, okay. You know, so we have to talk about this for just a minute, because we were talking about Kamala Harris.

She said, when I was growing up, Kwanzaa was always a special, blah, blah, blah. Well, Kwanzaa didn't. Kwanzaa started in 1966, so she was two years old. Yeah. So she was born in 64. Okay. But just because it started in 66, it wasn't instantly widely recognized and followed. It really didn't take hold until the 1980s. So she was at the earliest, a late teenager.

Okay. Before Kwanzaa was even. And furthermore, she was in Canada, right. And she's Asian. Yeah. She didn't grow up in black culture, time frame, whatever, because maybe her family was friends with this guy. Understand that politicians have these kind of deep rooted lines with each other. So I, I would even open it up that their families could have been friends, but not with where Kamala grew up.

She grew up in Montreal, right, you know, and didn't have real connections to the man who invented Kwanzaa, added the extra a right to make it a seven letter word. So I what? How does she think she knew about this or that? She grew up with it and she it's you know what it is. You remember when Kamala was on the Breakfast Club with Charlamagne tha God?

Yeah, yeah. And she bragged about smoking pot, listening to Snoop Dogg when she was at college in the 1980s. She claimed she was a part of something that she clearly could not have been. A Snoop Dogg was not even a thing until like late, late 80s, early 90. It was long after that that Snoop Dogg was even known by anybody.

Snoop, I've made this joke before. Snoop Dogg didn't even know he was Snoop Dogg. If he had some normal name. Yeah. Like Richard. Yeah, right. And so I think that she inserts herself retroactively in things to look cool. She's just, she Julie, she she's just wannabe like she, she's she's empty. I say to you, I think this lying or these attachments to pop culture things and whatever, it worked for her when she was in California and when she was, doing activities that helped her get to better positions.

Okay, so I think the flirting worked for her. Yeah, it got exposed once she got on the National level. Yeah, but she doesn't know any other game. Right? So this is just what she keeps on doing. It's just what she does. She can't. She can't help herself. I think at this point. So, And anyway, I know this will come as a big shock, but I'm not exactly a Kwanzaa expert.

So I did what we all do. I went to Wikipedia. The white boy went to Wikipedia. White boy went to Wikipedia to see to learn a little more about Kwanzaa. Because this she did this once before, claimed Kwanzaa when there's no way she could have. And it's unlikely that she could have. Do you know what's funny about that is you mentioned this before we started telling the story, you know, and I said, I saw this, but I thought maybe they were just resurrecting the last time she stuck her foot in her mouth.

No, she did it again. She did it again. She posted this right around Christmas this year. Yeah. So it was Kwanzaa was started by this, American Marxist dude. It. I always thought if you had asked me, I don't know, earlier, like a few years ago, I would have said, yeah, well, if I had to guess, Kwanzaa is a Christmas like celebration from Africa that's been around for 300 years.

No, some Marxist dude who was a black separatist wanted a nonwhite Christmas like holiday, but only for black people. But it shunned Christmas because he viewed that as a white holiday. That's the origin of Kwanzaa. Yeah. And so you have that. And then I thought it's sort of like Festivus because you had people on line saying, well, Kwanzaa is just a, fraud, violent fake holiday started by a Marxist, which when you do the actual research, that's really not that far from the truth.

But then I thought about Seinfeld and Festivus, like, people feel this need to create the alternative to Christmas. So I went to Festivus, and actually, Festivus was not created by Seinfeld. Remember? Seinfeld? Yeah, it was a joke that Jerry hijacked Festivus for the rest of us. Yeah, I remember that. It actually was conceived by author and editor Daniel O'Keefe, who is the father of television writer Dan O'Keefe and was celebrated by his family as early as 1966.

Again, what is it with this year of 1966? While the Latin word festivus means excellent, jovial, lively and drives from Festus meaning joyous holiday, feast day. See the joyous? That's the one that Kamala should be. So yeah, that's the one she tried to hijack in her campaign this summer. Yes. Festivus in this sense, was coined by the elder O'Keefe.

According to him, the name just popped into my head. In the original O'Keefe tradition, the holiday would take place to celebrate the anniversary of Daniel O'Keefe's first date with his future wife, Deborah. The phrase A Festivus for the rest of us originally referred to those remaining after the death of the elder O'Keefe's mother, Jeanette, in 1976. The rest of us are the living as opposed to the dead.

Oh, okay, so that's the origin of Festivus. See, I thought it was all Seinfeld. I thought the whole Festivus for the rest of us was, a Seinfeld creation, and I was. I was just wrong. I, you know, I'm not a person who suffers from FOMO. It's not really my thing. Like, no, I'm not a jealous person. I get so excited when people I have plenty of other, you know, issues I deal with.

But I am happy when people go and and get to celebrate or go on vacation or whatever. What is it with these people and FOMO just let people celebrate Christmas. Why do you have to create your alternative holiday? Let Christmas be whatever you. Yeah. If you want to do a different celebration with your family, don't rain on everybody else's parade.

Just do a different celebration with your family. Yeah, do your do your thing. Yeah, yeah, I, I would agree this what's interesting though. This is what I find fascinating and I don't have any problem at all. Julie. There are people who are not Christians or devout Christians, but they participate in the tradition. They may get a tree, they put up lights.

They exchange gifts. They do party. The all. That's fine. But let's not forget the core of the Christmas holiday, which is the remembrance of Jesus Christ. Like that. For for those that are that are doing that, but these proactive alternatives, Festivus devoid of Jesus, Kwanzaa devoid of Jesus, and so I think that there's something almost deliberate about that.

I think it's like it's FOMO, but but it can't have Jesus in it because Jesus is icky and we we just but we want the we want the fun. We want the wrapping paper. We want the parties. We want the gifts. We just don't want the Jesus thing. And so we've got to rename the whole entire event, you know, to get rid of, because Christmas has Christ in its origins.

So yes, get rid of that. Yeah, it's a subtraction of of Jesus. But anyway, I didn't think I'd be talking about Kwanzaa and Festivus. Well, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Kamala Harris. Yes, we spend a lot of time on Jim Jones now. We've spent a lot of time on company to ruin a Friday. What is wrong with us?

It's Christmas week. Yeah it is. It needs to be different to be happy. Yeah. Someone did say, hey, guys, can you lighten the mood a little bit and talk about what you gave each other? So, yeah, we can share. Yeah, you can go. You go first. What do you get? Okay, so, I love experience gifts, right.

And so I gave Neal, a themed gift. The experience part of it is I gave him a national park pass, so the yearly national park pass. But I actually didn't purchase the pass because the the pass becomes active. The day that you purchase it. So I gave him the cash and a fake pass so that he can purchase it the first time he goes through a national park this spring or summer.

Yeah. Okay. So and my hope is that he uses that as an experience and he takes possibly his oldest grandson who would love to go to Yellowstone or whatever. So yeah, that was that part. But the rest of the theme of the Gift is, I've always been, encouraging Neal to drink more water. So I bought him his very own version of a Stanley mug.

There's actually an Amazon, like a different kind of mug. It's not a Stanley. I think. I feel like the Stanley's are heavy, so it's called simple mortar. That's my favorite mug that I carry. Yeah. And, so I bought him one of those, and I put all these stickers all over it because that's super trendy right now.

And they're Idaho stickers and national park stickers and everything. And then I gave him a, t shirt with, Sasquatch on it. Yeah. Themed gift. All about all about, national parks and the place that he loves, which is Idaho and, you know, and all the experiences that he's had here. And that's it. That was the gift.

Okay. And I gave Julie, she one of her dearest, tenderest points of her life is her precious dog. Q who's now, what, 16? And you know, in the sunset years for it for a little Queenie like that. And, so I very, discreetly went on Julie's Facebook page, found a good picture of Q, her dog, and I turned that into a jigsaw puzzle.

Yes, I love puzzles, and I love my dog. Perfect. So I combined those two loves because Julie always puts a puzzle or two together during the holidays. Sometimes even during the year, you'll put a puzzle, together. So I did that, and then I got her a little hand casting kit, because you've got little grandbabies coming and those little hand casts from when they're small are precious.

I was a little more uncertain about that one, and, if you'd want that or use it, but I thought it would be a great experience to to do that. Some of the ideas I've seen are like, an adult hand holding a little child's hand and putting that in a cast. So you're free to do whatever you'd like with it.

But I thought that would be kind of cool. That was a great gift. So I think we both did good this year. I think it was all right. Yeah, yeah, it's good. It was. It was good. It was good. So. All right. Should we take a break? Sure. It's 920 on Newstalk 179, Neal Larson, Julie Mason. We'll be back and continue after this if you'd like to join us.

(208) 542-1079. Okay. I'm going to go get my mug and put water in. Is that all right? Yeah. I mean, maybe Neal would drink his water and I would get him like a reminder or sometimes I would. He even got a little bit better about filling it himself. But what he does is he goes and buys, like, a smart water from the convenience store across the street, and then he just keeps washing out that plastic bottle, and that's no good for you.

So, RFK Jr is super big on this that the the plastics leach into the water. So, I, got him this permanent, and it'll stay cold, and he can just wash it out here, leave it on his desk. Yeah, yeah, that's what I got. It's snowing outside. I'm looking out my window right now in Idaho Falls.

Yeah. Peter, I don't know if it's real or not. I did listen to a Huberman podcast that talked to all about the leaching and that, like plastics, most of our body can rid the toxins like we like. Okay, so let, like, a female body can get rid of the toxins. But there's two places where it crosses over barriers, and then your body can't get rid of it.

So the brain being one of them, which they believe that these plastic toxins, like a lot of margarine, does this. It it breaks into the barrier of the brain and then attaches to the white matter of the brain. That's the deep, deep inside of the brain. And, can be a cause of, dementia and or worsening dementia, that kind of a thing.

And then the other place that it leaches. Are you ready for some adult words? Is the, like the sperm cells inside the scrotum? Because the plastics can go in, but once it's in there, the body can't get rid of that toxin. So it's really bad for males. Now, Neal's had his children and that's not going to really matter for him.

But, his mom does have dementia. So if it is real, I want to, make sure we do the best we can to not have that carry on. So there we go. So trying to stop the, the unfortunate aspects of DNA that we all end up with, depending upon what our DNA is. What did I miss?

I was explaining to you why I didn't want you to have microplastics. Oh, yeah, because I don't want them attaching to your white matter in your brain and increasing the probability of dementia or. Yeah, Alzheimer's. I've wondered because you mentioned that. And we've heard about microplastics, but we the water that we put into these comes from a yeah, a big, big plastic cooler, you know, so there's plastics everywhere.

Yeah. But I think though the amount of surface area that that water is touching is less than like a water bottle than your smart water bottle. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is the snow going to stay today? I don't know, I'm excited. High of 32. So probably 925 on Newstalk 179 Neal Larson and Julie Mason. So Julie, we got this.

Please, Neal, let's not pretend that the Christians didn't move the celebration of Jesus to the winter to take over the pagan celebration of Saturnalia, the tree that is from the pagan tradition. Jesus was born in the summer. That was when the Roman census was conducted. So, yeah, it's migrated around. But I think the most important thing is what's in your heart and on your mind when you take that time to remember and and observe the holiday, I think, I think that's the most important thing I've never gotten all worked up that that Christmas replaced a pagan holiday.

But I mean there's a lot of things you can get mad about in life. Right. And we all know that Christ was not born on December 25th. But but I don't know that that's necessary for me to take the observance of this holiday and have it be meaningful about the importance of Christ to human humankind and to to me personally.

So does that make sense? Oh, totally. Totally. And I would say I think it's important to understand how the world has tried to remove Christ from the holiday. Not just the people, not just this guy who invented Kwanzaa and Festivus and eight. But I would say personally, growing up as a child, Christ was mentioned a lot around Christmas.

Eight decorations involved Christ like. Yeah, and I don't see that as much anymore. Yeah, I sound I don't either. In fact I like when and of course Trump's doing it for bravado. You know he's like we're going to say Merry Christmas again which I love that I think that's that's good. But the depth of that should be reincorporate Christ into your life.

Yeah. Like that. That should be that. Yes. Someone said the stock market soared this year under Biden. Wonder if it can do it under Trump. I doubt it with his tariffs. Even the experts doubt it. Granted they are not radio hosts. That's true. They're not radio hosts. They need to leave it to us. So. There's there's a little bit to unpack there.

This person is one of our trolls. They they want to govern what we can say in Kentucky. Yes. And, Yeah. Do I even unpack it? Like, I'll say this, I don't I don't believe tariffs are the answer for everything. And I've never said that from this microphone. Yeah. So there's an assumption there by this person texting in that.

That's how I feel I don't I think the threat of tariffs of tariffs, the threat of tariffs probably do more than the actual tariffs. A man two words. Amen. So I'm perfectly fine with a little bit of threatening going on. I'm perfectly fine with someone from finally stepping up and being a true leader in this country instead of leading from behind like Joe Biden has done for four years.

And if part of that stepping up is he's going to take the hits for the goods and the bads that come along with tariffs, he you know what? He's more of a man and can do that than any expert this person is going to name. Well and and here's the thing. This is what a what's baffling to me, I can understand if you're a newcomer to politics, you're really naive and you're like, oh, no tariffs and all this.

And the experts say this and you're wringing your hands over it. Does this person fundamentally not understand how Trump operates? Which is when Trump says these kinds of things, he's establishing a negotiating environment that's going to be favorable to the United States. That's the entire purpose of all of this. He's doing the same thing with the Panama Canal right now.

But these people refuse to consider that dynamic. And as long as they refuse to consider that dynamic, they will forever not understand Trump and not understand his methodology in negotiating. Oh, no. But at the risk of sounding like a 12 year old girl, this guy could be named judge Mike Judge Pants like he he's right up there. Like I think he thinks it's God that will provide all the judgments.

And then he's the number two, right? So of course he's going to send in a text that says, I know what's best about tariffs and the stock market. And you guys know nothing. And that's just true to his form. So and I you know what else I really love the two words. The experts. Yeah. What does that even mean I don't know because there's going to be experts on CNN.

There's going to be experts on Fox News. There's going to be experts on X. They're like, you get to just anoint the smartest people, okay, go right ahead. Like I okay, well, it's whatever I'll say. I'll say this. Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank guy. Yeah. Would you call him an expert? I'll. I definitely call him an expert.

I guarantee 100% guarantee. He has far more wealth than this person texting in. Not just a little bit. I mean, far more wealth. He's a billionaire. I think he understands the economy. He's all in on the tariff talk. Yep. Yeah. Like he also understands that this is Trump and his negotiating approach. So I, I don't know I, I feel like Julie part of me wants to believe they're that dumb.

I don't think they are I, I think they are deliberately acting like they're taking Trump literally at his word. And this is going to happen and it's going to be a disaster. It's sort of it's a way that they can gin up some, you know, just gin up some virtue for themselves and, and to another, another opportunity to slam Trump.

They know this. They're smart enough to know okay, Trump's creating an environment here. Well and if you're not then you're just willingly being stupid like so I don't know what it is. We've had Trump long enough now everyone knows what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah. If you're clutching your pearls and behaving like you think that that every threat that Trump makes is going to come true.

First off, you don't pay attention to anything because your beloved Biden did exactly the same thing a just in different realms. He didn't lead. He threatened to get rid of of, student loan debt. Guess what? Guess what idea got thrown out the window last week? Yeah, all of the student loan debt idea gone. Yeah, gone. So just because his beloved Biden threatens with different things.

Hey, I, I don't get it. I don't get why he can accept that from that politician, but he can accept Trump threatening tariffs as a potential move to get political gain. Yeah, yeah. No it's true. And and quite frankly, there are experts about everything out there. Yeah. You can go find the I I've already done it. I went out and I found Kevin O'Leary.

He's the expert that backs up my opinion. I'm sure this guy has found experts that back up his opinion. Yes, yes. So yeah. And you always got to question the motives right. There's probably some things with Kevin O'Leary's businesses that are going to be very beneficial if tariffs go into place. Of course that's going to change what he says.

It's like our our person who calls up about Ukraine all the time claims that retired generals are telling him that this is the best thing to do to have an open checkbook for Ukraine. Well guess what? You got to look and see what the retired generals are invested in. And if they're invested in a war machine and they make lots of money when when more products of war are developed, of course they're going to agree that an open checkbook that my tax dollars should be paying for what's happening in Ukraine.

You always have to look at where the experts come from. Fauci was an expert in his field, right? Yeah. Right. Right. He was. And the man has blood on his hands. And I don't say that phrase lightly. Yeah, I think masks are effective. Did the experts tell us that too? Social distancing was important. All right quick break.

We'll come back at 934. Time for the news and Newstalk 1079 skies. Our usual troll. I am really tempted to just end it. You could just block it. I feel like, you know some people are just really good at it. Is my camera still too low? It's not low as much as the the, like if you lean back the logos on your head, like where you're sitting right now.

Yeah, the logos on your head. But go forward like you're talking. You move out of the logo. So that's what's weird. It's like it's been twisted. You're not necessarily low because you're the height of your chair changes all of the time. You go this way is that a little better? Yeah. Right there. The logos. Fine. Okay.

Anything fun? Oh my goodness, there's got to be something fun. Nothing there. Let's try this one. Did you hear how many days Biden went on vacation in his presidency? No, I think it's over 500 and 570. That's almost two years. It's like a year and a half. Yeah. He's. He just left again for. Where do you go?

Caribbean. Bahamas. Yeah. I don't know. Somewhere I can't remember. Oh my. You know what. So what I mean we were probably better off with him gone. I think America is better off when he's not in the white House. So that's like did complain. You know, we'd complain. Oh, Obama is vacationing or golfing, right? I'm like, that's fine.

When he doesn't have his hands directly on the reins of government power. Let him. Did you watch the video of the subway rider being burned? No, I heard about it. I it's weird. I heard people just kind of walk by, like, it just they walked by. I don't know how other people act when they're being burned alive. Yeah.

This person just stood there like there's video of the person just standing there in flames. Oh, the person being burned? Yes. And then people are just walking by and nobody's doing anybody. They're calling it the Daniel Penny effect, because nobody wants to step in now, because somehow you're going to get blamed for something. I don't know if that's true or not.

I think it there is a little bit of that, and I am deeply disturbed that nobody cares to help this person. I'm also disturbed that the person just stood there while they're burning. But maybe that's what you do. I don't know. Yeah, it's not like I have great depth of knowledge of how you behave when you're being burned.

But it was weird to watch. Yeah. Somebody asked where I got your puzzle. Don't go to the link. You'll see the link. It's in it gives the prize. Not if it's okay. You can go. Although I was searching, they did have one. You could have gotten a thousand piece puzzle. Oh, I wish I would have gotten you that one in pokey.

Oh, okay. Well, here we go. All right. To 940 on Newstalk 179. Julie, did you say all your leftovers are gone? Everything's gone? Yeah. You finished the pie? Finish the pie. This news cycle feels like the leftovers late. It's day four and you're staring in the fridge. You're like, I can't eat that again, I can't eat. Yeah, yeah, I know we, we have so much leftover ham.

Because we, I mean we got a nice big ham. Put it in the roaster for our dinner on Christmas Eve. And there were four of us like my wife and I, my daughter and my mom. And so we have like two Tupperware containers with leftover ham in it. Omelets for breakfast. Yes. Maybe I'll make fried rice to do that.

Maybe I don't. Anyway. So yeah, there's ham. I will say I do like one of my favorite leftovers is to take, like a roll with ham and cheese and throw it in the microwave for, like, 30s. That's good. My favorite leftover is stuffing. It tastes better the next day. I don't know what it is about it.

It tastes so much better the next day. Why is that? Like the flavors, I don't know, become fully. Oh, I like stuffing too. Do you put. Great. You know you don't. I know you, you don't put gravy on your stuffing. Just eat the stuffing. I'm not a sauce person. Gravy. Gravy. The rest is just gravy. Like when you have mashed potatoes do you put gravy on it sometimes.

Or butter. Yeah. Butter is all right. Yeah. Butter is good. So okay. Do you ever regift to treats. Well, what's regifting like? I would totally bring in treats here and share with everybody. No, I mean, like, somebody wrap it back up and pretend like I bought it or made it. Well, okay, not quite that because I don't.

I don't like if I, we get a plate of homemade cookies from a neighbor or something. I would never regift that. But if if you've been given like five different plastic wrapped boxes of chocolates and they're packaged, I might I might regift something like that. Okay, I we didn't this year, but I think, I think we've run into situations like that in the past.

Okay. I do have a story. I'm going to be very vague about who this is, but I know they did this. They bought a large great harvest basket for their neighbors, who do so many nice things for them. Yeah. However, this woman's favorite cookie is the Great harvest. Snickerdoodles. Wait, everyone, can I finish those? Did she take those out?

And then she unwrapped the Great harvest thing, took out the snickerdoodles, took the snickerdoodles out of the plastic package they were in, put in the grocery store. Snickerdoodles. Wrapped that back up, pretending like they were great harvest ones. Put them in, wrap the basket back up, delivered it to the neighbors. Okay. Thoughts?

You're like, okay, it's your favorite. You take those cookies. Now, you can't do that with chocolates. Because for me, it'd be like that. Open it up. I'm like, why are all the caramels gone? Why are only the gross new ones left? Yeah. Why are the why are all the cream tastes like Milky Ways left coconutty who purposely buys a milky way candy bar?

How much that candy bar stayed relevant for so many years? I don't I don't know. So as a kid I totally get it. But as an adult, I, I don't think I had a snack candy bar still on the shelf, right? I don't maybe it says maybe it is 30 years old and it's still they've just never replaced the one time machine.

Yeah, that could be because it's basically just a big caramel. Right. Well, it's like, almost like marshmallowy caramel stuff covered in chocolate. Yeah. I don't now see somebody just sent in. I love Milky Way and Three Musketeers. Oh, okay. What's in a mars bar now? Mars bar has nuts and stuff too, right? I don't know, it's been a long time since I've had it.

Mars is. They sub Mars bars? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I only know this not because we eat it, but it's my daughter's. It's my daughter's nickname. I always thought Milky Way was the really calmly one. Milky way is the all new goodie one, just covered in chocolate. Okay, someone's a little offended. They said, hey, Milky Way Dark is my favorite.

Okay, clearly it's somebodys favorite because they're still selling them. So I understand that. Yes, clearly someone's buying them. Somebody just said putting counterfeit cookies back in is worse than just taking the good ones out.

Should we have, like, confession time gifting confessions here? Sure.

I I'd like to. Have you ever bought a gift? Like at a convenience store and tried to pull it off like it was a really nice. Like you put a lot of thought into it. No, not like socks or anything. No. Like explain. Like what? Like you could go to, like, let's say we're like today's world. Yeah. You could go to a convenience store and get some sort of a tech gift, like a new cord for it, a cell phone or something like that, and pretend like you didn't just buy it ten minutes before the party on your way, like it was a last minute.

Yes. I don't know. Not really. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I can't think of a time that I've done that. Yeah. Can you think of a time that you, gave a gift, and then you're like. That was a terrible. Oh, I don't think I'm a good gift giver. I talked about this. I don't think I'm a good gift giver.

So. Yeah, that because I feel like gifts should really be thought out and and intentionally like, I feel like you do like because I give a ton of thought when I give it the effort, it can be a good gift. Oh, but just on an average, yes I got you. Yeah. I do remember one time I was a freshman in high school and I liked a girl and I ended up giving her a gumball machine.

I no see your look gave it away and I remember I, I what made you think that was a could get your girlfriend. Don't even know. Have I not told you this story before? I don't know, I don't anyway, Well, I went to the. I don't remember what it was back then, you know, like what store Payless saw.

Anyway, I thought, oh, this is cool. And I think I thought it was cool, but, anyway, I, I gave it, and then I realized how dumb that seemed, and I was just like, okay, here's your gift. And then I felt so stupid later. I think Christmas encourages the worst in gift giving, because at least with birthdays, you're only focusing on one gift.

Yeah. So you're paying attention. And yeah, this is there's so many like, office gifts and family gifts and. Yeah, and friend gifts and and neighborhood party gifts and and it becomes so complicated it encourages the worst of gift giving. Yeah, I, I would agree I would agree with that. What do you think about people who give a, a standard gift.

But it some thought isn't like here's an example. This isn't so much Christmas, but I remember when I got married, of course you send if you had mission presidents, you know, you send them an announcement. And, I remember we got a, an LDS hymn book embossed with our names on it, and I'm sure every missionary. Yes, who went left the mission, went home, got married, whatever.

That's the gift they got. So it it didn't require individualized thoughts, but I thought, that's very thoughtful. We still have that book 30 years later. We have that book still. So, I, I thought that's, that's actually really kind of cool. And it, it answers them because they have, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of missionaries. They're both passed on now.

But, you know, over the years and so like, that's just probably a really good way to handle something like that. So and I'm so practical, I think that the putting on of a Venmo account on wedding invitations is a brilliant discovery in, yeah, in this new age of weddings, because okay, so I went to a wedding on, last Friday so we could go today.

And it's my client's daughter. I know her very peripherally. I know my client very, very well. You know her daughter very peripherally. Well, it's her wedding. I'm not. You're not going to be with her well enough to get her something that's super meaningful to her, but darn it, she's going to love that cash I sent via Venmo. Yeah, so I love having Venmo on wedding invitations.

Cash is the universal lovely. Yes. Yeah that's true. Yeah that and that's yeah it's very personal. It's so impersonal. It is impersonal. So you feel like it's a it's sort of a copout, but it's not really a cop out. It's like that's actually what they need at this phase of their life. You know, that's something they can use it.

And yeah. Would it have been better for me to go buy towels and not knowing what her color scheme is or to, you know, purchase a board game for them and maybe they hate games or I don't know those things about this couple. Yeah. So cash is cash. Yeah. Right. No that's fine. Someone said I don't know if you're able to do this.

I know Neal's a big issue fan. I'm seeing if I can get enough support to rent a theater in Rexburg to show the fiesta Bowl and support BSU. Would you be able to announce if anybody's interested, to text me? Yeah, we'll give you a number. Sure I can. Then you do that. Can you rent a theater and show the Fiesta Bowl?

Is that okay? There's a lot of complication here. Let me explain. I actually have I know this realm. Yes. You do. Okay, so you got a couple of things. First off, it's the. If the Fiesta Bowl and you might get in trouble for showing it to a group, especially if you accept money for it. So that's an issue.

You can't they can't charge a ticket price for it. The second thing is, and you might not even be able to do it above and beyond the ticket price. The second thing is, is you're asking a theater because of the timing of the Fiesta Bowl, it being in the evening on Tuesday, you're asking a theater to cancel one of their regular showings that they're going to make money off of.

So the theater is going to have to charge you enough money to make it worth their time to get rid of one of their shows. The third part of that is, as they might contractually have to show, the show that's in that theater, so they the theater might not even have an option to cancel a show because they've contractually brought in a Hollywood film.

Well, not only that, it's on ESPN. So you've got another layer of that. If it were on free broadcast TV, nobody's going to care because they're just wanting eyes on their commercials. This is a paid subscription, and if you're I, I'm actually hesitant to give out this number simply because I don't want to be complicit in this. I there's a whole lot of rules that could be broken.

Yeah, I doubt that all the hoops could be jumped through. Yes. On it. I love the idea though. Oh, it's so fun and it's such a fun idea. And we wish you luck with it. Yeah. But but I, I'm a little hesitant to. Okay. Yeah. There's a lot there. Yeah. It would be fun though. I mean although if you get a letter from ESPN giving you the rights to do it let us know.

Yeah I denounce it and you get the theater to go along. Whatever. There you go. All right. To 953. We got a break for our final break on Newstalk 1079. Sorry, I should have read that text off. It's okay. They're saying the theater said they would do it. But I don't know what that means. They said that they would do it, so maybe the theater doesn't feel like they're breaking any rule doing that.

Maybe. And also, maybe the theater on a New Year's night feels like it's not that big of a deal to give up one of their theaters and a Showtime. You're actually probably going to have to give up two showtimes because the movie is so are the game is so long. So they're probably okay because it's New Year's Eve night, and not a lot of people go to the movie on New Year's Eve night.

But I still am a little edgy about it being ESPN. You know, though, like, bars can pay for a special level of service to be able to show it publicly, like like a sport wildly or whatever. And and maybe theaters have a way to and maybe they've secured that, I don't know. Yeah. I never attempted to secure that when I would schedule showings, because I worked for Cat lot at the Paramount Theater, and those kind of things would go through me that that was my job.

I was assistant, so, I would never attempt to do that. I had never attempted to do that kind of a level. I did attempt multiple times to get the rights to movies for people to show. So, like, sometimes people would want to do a family party and they'd want to show an old Disney movie. Yeah, well, I would contact my the rep at Disney that and supplied all of the current Disney movies to Cat lot, and we'd have a conversation some of the movies.

It was super easy to get the rights, some it was a huge pain in the butt and sometimes like $1,200 and a family wasn't willing to pay that. Yeah, so it just kind of depended on the situation. And that was a very easy one to do because you're right, they're directly connected to the person. So did it depend on the movie you're watching or the rep you were talking to it?

The know the movie, the movie and the movie company. So I, I said Disney because everyone would know that company. They were actually one of the hardest ones to work with. Oh, gotcha. Bar none. Okay. One of the hardest ones to work with. There was a time, universal was so easy, so easy to work with. So. And I all of that could have changed now, too.

I mean, I've been out of that game for years and years and years. Yeah. But yeah, the, the, the individual companies get to decide and then some individual movies have different rights, which is why the money was way more on some movies than others, Okay. Grand picks, we have a minute when we get back. Okay. How long before this whole pronoun nonsense comes to an end?

I think we're good. We're going that way I did too. I feel like that too. Peter, look at you being so hip. He put the phrase up. We listen and we don't judge. That's a very popular phrase on TikTok right now. He, I'm sure he's talking about we listen to we don't judge about people's gift giving.

But yeah, James said he's bought some really nice flashlights at convenience stores. That would be a good place to get a flashlight. That's true. All right. Ten 957 on Newstalk 1079, Neal Larson, along with Julie Mason. And, we cannot recommend highly enough Grand Peaks primates as you enter into this new year, started out right by eating lots of protein.

It's just good for you. Yeah, and high quality. A that's my biggest factor in Grand Peaks. It really does taste better. You guys. I don't even know how to unless you've experienced it. I don't know how you say it. We have a loyal listener of the phone who got, out of the show, who got, bacon for their Christmas breakfast.

Said it was amazing. Yeah. And they've they've got it all. They've got steaks, they've got ribs, they've got crockpot meals that are pre-cooked. You basically just have to heat them up. Swing by GP Prime meats.com online, see what they have to offer. Either order online or call in your order if you have special questions for them. They love to help you out.

Julie and I are going to be back Monday morning. Please be safe this weekend and on these roads especially. And we'll see you on Monday. See you then.