1.9.2025 -- NLS -- Wildfires, Voter Initiatives, and Leadership Quality

On this episode with Neal and Julie, the duo dives into several pressing topics, ranging from Idaho politics to national issues and wildfire concerns. They start by discussing the push to raise the voting threshold for ballot initiatives or referendums to 60%, likening it to requirements for bonds such as school and building bonds. Neal highlights the implications this change could have on voter turnout, particularly in historically one-sided states.

The conversation shifts to Idaho's voter initiative process, recounting how groups like Reclaim Idaho have navigated the system in the past. Neal and Julie discuss recent efforts to challenge these initiatives, emphasizing the need for civic engagement to influence future outcomes.

The episode then transitions to wildfire management, focusing on recent fires in California and Hawaii. Neal critiques current fire safety policies and revisits past comments from Donald Trump on fire prevention. They explore questions about the origins of these fires and the role of wealthy landowners in Hawaii, drawing attention to gaps in emergency preparedness.

Julie brings up the importance of leadership within political organizations, referencing the Bingham GOP's reorganization and the challenges of fostering unity amidst internal conflict. They stress the value of transparency and grassroots involvement in shaping the party's future.

The show concludes with reflections on community resilience and the importance of holding leadership accountable for disaster prevention. Neal and Julie urge listeners to stay informed, get involved, and ask critical questions to address the issues that matter most.

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Transcript

Hello? Oh. It's Thursday. It's a big day for multiple reasons. They are at this hour, carrying the body of former President Jimmy Carter into the National Cathedral. And all the formers are there. All the current. Well, there's only one current, is there? And one of the formers is a soon to be. And so it will be interesting optics to watch.

Even Kamala Harris is there. It showed her sitting there next to Doug Emhoff. They did not seat her right next to Jill Biden, which is probably the courteous thing to do. So I watched this the last time we had a funeral for a president. You might remember this. There were envelopes that were being handed out to, the the president other than Trump, but to the, the presidential former presidents, to their spouses, to Hillary Clinton got one Jeb exclamation mark.

Bush got one and looked like he wanted to throw up when he saw it. That's still a mystery yet to be revealed. What exactly was on those envelopes that were being passed out? So I'm sure as you watch this, the scene is very, very similar. By the way, that was George H.W. Bush's funeral. And so we'll see.

There's always sort of these interesting micro spectacles that go on at, at, an event like this. So we'll keep an eye on it. We may pop in and eavesdrop on some of the ceremonies through the show today. We also have fires that are raging in California around Los Angeles. They are destroying thousands upon thousands of acres. But more importantly, it's billions of dollars worth of homes in that area.

And what is frustrating is that these fires were very preventable there. This is a multifaceted example of Democrat leadership failure. We already talked about how they divert water to protect a fish that is technically extinct, the smelt fish. So they didn't have their fire suppression reservoirs filled. These are the reservoirs that I'm assuming are gravity fed to the they're fire hydrants.

So they're fire hydrants were dry and could not put out the fire. There's also a problem with the insurance made worse by Democrat leadership where Democrat came in and said, well, you can only charge this month much for your premiums. And the insurance companies said, well, we can't do it this way. It just we will not collect enough money to pay out the amount of money for the damage that will be caused by the fires.

And so insurance companies have stopped insuring property in California, especially in those areas, because the government told tried to cap them on how much they could charge. So now you have all of these people losing their homes today, uninsured. That's going to be a big mess now. No doubt there will be a push for the federal government to step in and have some sort of a rescue thing.

Okay, so that now I'm we'll have that debate later. So you had that. And all of this, by the way, is super preventable. They could have gone in and they could have cleared out the dry fuel. They could all of it. There are multiple points of prevention here. Gavin Newsom failed the mayor. Mayor Bass of Los Angeles utterly failed.

And you have Bernie Sanders, who is sending out Onex. This climate change is causing this problem. It's not climate change may even if it is climate change, Bernie, whatever elevated threats there are by climate change. Bernie. It's still preventable. And the Democrat, Lee, your friends in the Democrat Party did not lead in a way that prevented these these fires.

Well, then it's millionaires and billionaires. No, it's not Bernie. It's bad leadership by Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bad on their first name. Bass. Okay, so we have that. We also have the legislative session underway. And for some reason, I might ferret out a flagpole from this particular idea. Bruce Skag is putting forward a bill, and it's co-sponsored by a nice list of lawmakers.

Pretty good list that want to raise the voting threshold on any ballot initiative or referendum to 60%, kind of like you deal with with bonds, like school bonds and and building bonds. It can't just pass by a mere majority. It has to have a supermajority in order to pass. So, now the devil's always in the details, so it's hard for me to say.

Yes, I'd vote for it. But the idea is intriguing to me. Absolutely worth the discussion already. You have Todd Achilles, who is saying, okay, but if you do this, then here's what we would have failed in the past. And then he rattled off 2 or 3 things that are somewhat popular in in Idaho. And I'm like, okay.

First of all, no, because the the way you would pass an initiative that requires a 50% threshold, you're going to carry that out a different way if it requires a 60% threshold. Your campaign's going to be different. Your message is going to be different. What you put on the ballot is going to be different. So you can't really just change one variable, the threshold, but leave everything else static and in place.

It just it doesn't work that this is the same argument when people talk about, well, this, Donald Trump did not get a majority votes back in 2020 or 20 years. 2016 Hillary Clinton won the popular. Okay, we don't elect via the popular vote. If we did, you'd have a lot more Republicans showing up to vote in places like California and New York.

They don't show up because they know all the electoral votes are going to get. So the voting patterns are different in in a presidential race because it's an electoral college system, not a popular vote system. In the very same way the whole thing's going to roll out differently. If you need a 60% threshold, then a 50%. So this let's go back in time approach by Todd Achilles is just foolhardy.

Like it doesn't make any sense. And then you had of course Luke Mayville who they they grabbed a sound bite from him. And he essentially said the same thing, that this is wrong and it shouldn't happen. And voters should be able to vote on it. And, okay, I it was one of those things where I don't know if Reclaim Idaho is even a viable entity anymore.

Quite frankly, I don't know if Jim Jones Take Back Idaho is a viable entity anymore. I can't imagine that, Butch Otter would spend what little political capital he has left on Jim Jones or Todd Achilles and Luke Melville, for that matter. So but I'm intrigued by the 60% idea short of just scrapping the whole thing altogether. I, I'm an I'm an open advocate for ditching the voter initiative in Idaho, and I've explained this before.

I'll explain it very quickly again, because we've got even more things we've got to get to here. But we need one system. We don't need two competing systems, and the one system that we have in Idaho that can be frustrate, but it works is a republic form of government where we essentially hire people, we elect people. We send them to Boise for three, three and a half months every year and say, you study the issues.

I like what you think. I like the way you think. I like typically how you vote. I'm voting for you again. And I'm I'm sending you to to the Capitol in Boise. So you'll study the issues, you'll listen to your constituents and then vote accordingly. That's our system. And I like it I like it, and I'll tell you why I like it.

And people do not have time to study in-depth all of the issues. And, Medicaid expansion is a perfect example of this. We sent in the voter initiative. It passed with 60 plus percent. Even at a higher threshold, Medicaid expansion would have passed. But we sent the charge to lawmakers, expand Medicaid. It's what Idaho was. It's time to do it.

And so they they did. But the public didn't have to think about how are you going to do it? At what level? How are you going to pay for it? How are you going to take care of expanding costs out into the future? So we gave the legislature a task that it it just didn't it didn't match up.

Now you might say, well, they dragged their feet. They didn't act on a lingering problem in Idaho. And so the voters had to take matters into their own hands. So I get that. I get that argument, I understand it, and, I I'm, I'm not going to armchair quarterback into the past with the legislature did or did not do.

But what I will recognize is that here now, today, we've had very recently, we have had people in Idaho that have sort of hacked into the voter initiative process, and they figured out a formula, although they had to have they I mean, it was 70, 30 in defeat, so they figured it out once and almost a second time.

But the formula is, you know what, we're going to take an idea that on its own could never get passed in Idaho or with the voters in the legislature or with the voters. And then we're going to wrap it up with deceptive packaging, and then we're going to attach a handful of sound bites to it, and then we're going to throw a whole bunch of money.

And who cares if it's mostly out of state money and then cross our fingers and hope this thing gets through. Okay. It is it is a it is a molesting of the process. It is. That is not how it was supposed to happen, but it's, it's now become a loophole. What I think was initially a well intended feature, in, in our Constitution, I think it was adopted by amendment, but it was placed into the Idaho Constitution, and I think it was, well intentioned.

And then someone figured out how to abuse it so that they could pass their left leaning ideas, in a, in a very deceptive way. And I wouldn't say illegitimately funded, but I would say funded in a shady way. And, it it worked. Once Governor Little maneuvered and sabotaged their second attempt, and then the voters just said, oh, hell no, on the third attempt.

So, again, short of getting rid of it, my first choice, maybe raising the threshold of voting on it might be a, a decent option. All right. So, really quick back to the fires for just a moment. There's so much to talk about, but back in 2018, this is, a gentleman. You may have heard of him.

A gentleman by the name of Donald Trump. Midway through his first presidency. We're giving billions and billions of dollars for forest fires in California. There's no reason for those fire fires to be like they are. They're leaving them dirty, and they're. It's a disgraceful thing. Old trees are sitting there rotting and dry, and instead of cleaning it up, they don't touch them.

They leave them. And we end up with these massive fires that we're paying hundreds of billions of dollars for to fix. And the destruction is incredible. So I think California, to get their act together and clean up their forests and manage their forests because it's disgraceful what's happening should never happen. I go all over the country and I meet with governors.

The first thing they say is there's no reason for forest fires like that in California. So I say to the governor, well, whoever's going to be the governor of California, you better get your act together, because California, which is not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we're paying because of fire fires, it should never be to the extent they were telling me in a couple of states, I won't even mention their name.

It's like a flesh. Some grass will burn. It'll be over in minutes. Okay, so that was Donald Trump in 2018. Now of course he's talking about forest fires. These are more urban land that's interfacing with some wild land. And and so it's a little bit different. But it's all the same in how you manage it, how you prepare for it, how you brace yourself for the winds and the very predictable fires, seasons that are coming.

And it looks like it's hit the flashpoint. This is a clip from Joe Rogan. This is July of last year, a mere six months ago. This is this was a topic of conversation on Joe Rogan. I talked to a fireman once. This is one of the reasons it freaked me out. And he was telling me, he goes, dude, one day he goes, it's just going to be the right wind, and fire is going to start in the right place, and it's going to burn through LA all the way to the ocean.

And it's not thing we can do about it. I go, really? He goes, yeah, we're just we just get lucky. He goes, we get lucky with the wind. She goes with the wind hits the wrong way. It's just going to burn straight through LA. And there's not going to be a thing we can do about it because these fires are so big.

Dude, when you're talking about like thousands of acres that are burning simultaneously with like 40 mile an hour winds and the winds just blowing embers through the air, and those embers are landing on roofs and those houses are going up and the landed on bushes, and those bushes are going up and everything's dry. And once it happens, it happens in a way where it's so spread out that there's nothing they can do.

There's nothing. You just have to evacuate. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. And that fascinating, you know, there's a lot of fake, cheap, deep fakes out there. Joe Rogan this wasn't his real deal. And I will say, and I don't mean to take the wind out of the sails of what Donald Trump said six years ago. What Rogan the story he relayed six months ago.

But because they sound incredibly prophetic. But I would say this isn't actually that hard to predict, that when you let the dry fuel build up, you don't clear it out. When you don't keep your fire suppression reservoirs full. In fact, you let them stay empty when you cut your fire department back, when you fire them, because they won't get the Covid vaccine and you have a firefighter shortage, it doesn't actually take a ton of brainpower to predict that this kind of a thing is going to happen, which we're watching unfold live in the news cycle these past few days, and certainly for days to come.

It's 825 on Newstalk 1079. It's a Thursday. If you'd like to reach us, you can on the Stones Auto Group. Colin text line (208) 542-1079.

829 on Newstalk 179. If you'd like to reach us. (208) 542-1079. I need to issue a correction earlier, I said that Kamala was not sitting next to Jill because the shot that I saw, Kamala was not sitting next to Jill. But apparently they are seated next. Okay. Who's in charge of this lot. Is that protocol like is there some guideline in and some rules of the first lady has to sit next to the vice president or whatever.

I that's weird to me because they did this at an event in Washington. And maybe the shot that I saw was kind of closer in on Kamala. And Jill is scooted far over closer to Joe. So we're not making this up where we've examined this. There's far more space between Jill and Kamala than there are, say, like Trump is right next to Obama, like they're right next to each other.

They've been chatting, they've been talking. So if there is protocol about the like where you're supposed to sit, why is Trump directly next to Obama? Why wouldn't be Trump? Why wouldn't it go Obama then Michelle, then Donald. Does that make sense? Yeah, right. So I don't know what the protocol is. I have no idea. But there's definitely iciness between the two women here.

So it should be like Obama or the Obamas, then the Trumps, then the Bidens, and then an empty chair. For what begins January 21st. And that like, right, like Trump should get two seats at this funeral because he's a former and a future. Yes. Yeah, sure. I'm just saying, like we can put a standee in there like like, yeah.

Right. That's true in the place. Go down his workers and get one of the cardboard back. Yeah, that's that's true. So, Julie was noticing, but before the show, they had the casket outside and the transfer from the car into the National Cathedral was a little dicey because it's so windy. They're so windy. It's a bad weather morning.

It looks very bitter cold. They had, they had actually not just draped the flag. It was like wrapped so that it would stay on. And that was still tenuous. The poor, military men who are holding the American flag and then another flag, they were having a hard time even staying upright because the wind was whipping the flags.

Yeah. So aggressively. Yeah. It's a rough weather day there. Yeah. Yeah, very, very much so. All right. It's 830 to the Stones Auto Group call and text line is (208) 542-1079. If you'd like to join us on the program this morning. Fires. Oh, yes. We have to break. It just said we have to break because Dorothy's going to be on soon, so you can just say, Neal, stay on task.

I was polite, pointing at my watch. No, you're good. It's all. It's all good. We're very transparent here. It's 833 on Newstalk 1079. When we get back, Dorothy Moon will join us. All right. Dorothy, how are you? Good. How are you? We're good. We're in the middle of a commercial break right now, but we're doing, doing just fine.

So. Great. Now, you don't need video on this, right? No, no, just the audio. We just do zoom to get better, better audio. So. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, you sound great. You sound great, right? That must be the the way that we're doing this with, Yeah, this is great, because zoom. So what do you want to talk about?

I what is the last time I talked to you? Well, we had considered for the election. Yeah, I think it was right before the election. Yeah, I think it was a week or two before the election, so. Yeah, it's been a minute. So there's, So what, you want to talk about the state of the state, the resolutions we passed, the higher American won.

Yeah. The winner, Bingham County. We could, touch on that if you'd like. So that'd be perfect. We, Dorothy, are. What we had heard. Was that you? You were just speaking and taking a couple of minutes, and they were kind of incessantly interrupting you. Is that accurate? We. I've been firm. And he said that he did not come here to hear me talk.

Yeah, it was pretty bad. He did he say that out in the open for everyone to hear? Yes. You know, he's not gaining any friends by saying that he did. I started to I said before I gaveled in I wanted to talk about the lawsuit since and there were 80 people there in the side that were not PC.

So I'm telling you, it was an unbelievable turnout in support of, what we're doing. Well, that to me, that's just rude like that. I had the next morning I had about five text or email saying they cannot believe how rude he was. And then another gentleman tried to tell me I can't talk because it wasn't on the agenda, but I hadn't gaveled in yet.

And I said, you know, I can leave. Honest to goodness, my my purse is right there. My keys. I'll drive four hours back to Boise and I'll come back in a couple of months. I mean, I'm here to get to end this and get you guys organized and involved in the winter meeting. And then some guy from the back said, well, you guys, will you be quiet and let her do her work?

And, then nobody else said a word and I finished talking about the lawsuit and the disposition of that. And then I took, the chair, got to him in, and then immediately he got a chain. We have approved the agenda to put, you know, in order the voting, who were voting that they were going to be voting on.

He immediately changed it. And I said, Matt, you can't do that. You need to follow the agenda because it was approved. And Mark Fuller was there to act as my parliamentarian. And he said, Matt, you've got to stay in order. He says, I'm the chair. I can do whatever I want. And it was all caught on channel eight.

They went supporting everything once. And therein lies the problem. I'm the chair and I can do whatever I want. And I thought, man, these guys just don't get it. Wow. So anyway, then he proceeded with the meeting and it was a 16 to 3 on most of the votes out of 19 pieces that showed up. Jeanette Manwaring did not show up.

Yeah, yeah, but hey, we got the work done at 830. I visited with the 80 folks afterwards, and I've got a PC training that I'm doing on the 22nd. I told them I'd come down there, so everybody understood the position. PC yeah, and yeah, it's all good. I'm going to fulfill my promise and educate folks down there and, okay.

The committee doesn't want to come. That's their call. All right, Dorothy, stand by. We'll be on in just a few seconds here. All right. YMCA, 155 North Corner Avenue. Sign up at the Y or online. Guy Benson here. Join me at my new time weeknights at eight only on Newstalk 179. Stimulating talk for East Idaho.

838 On Newstalk 178, Neal Larson, along with Julie Mason on this Thursday morning. And we're pleased to welcome to the program, Dorothy Moon. She is the chair of the Idaho GOP. And, she joins us this, I don't know, where are you? At home. In in, in your your cabin, your law, your beautiful home in, off the grid.

Dorothy. Now, I am not, in fact, my son, just came in town. He works for ITV, so he's been pushing snow other a lot of it up in Stanley. But from what I understand, I've got close to four feet standing in my yard right now and on my deck, which means I'd have to shovel it off. Do you know I'm in Boise?

I'm in Boise. I'm curious. How do you get there, then? If you got four feet of snow, do you have a snow cat or a snow machine? Like, how do you get into your house at that point? Well, we do, and a Hecla, mine, the Grass Creek mine, they keep the road open for them to go take water samples.

They're there every day. They do go by our place. We have a pretty long drive, but we have a UTV with the tracks on it and a plow. Okay, so, the first time I go home here, pretty soon to go get some more clothes. I have to plow it open or snowshoe in one or the other.

Yeah. Wow. Well, Dorothy, we have a lot to unpack here, but let's let's jump really quick and talk about the reorganization of the Bingham GOP, which, of course, has been wrapped up in litigation against you, against the state party for about a year and a half. Now, finally, that came to, an end when a judge fully sided with the state party and said they were in the wrong way.

They organized in the summer of 23. And, finally they dropped all of their the block, the blockade against you from reorganizing invited you to come to Bingham County, and you're able to reorganize. But even that process was not free of bumps. So tell us the story really quickly of how all that happened. Well, sure. I came, I was in California and got back on the 28th in anticipation of this meeting on the 30th.

Oh my goodness. It was a it was a Monday, just like the original one I planned a year and a half ago. Anyway, I, I, I drove down and it was held at the Bingham Academy in Blackfoot, which was a very handy location and very kind of them to allow us to use it. And, we opened the doors at about 630, and folks were already there when I showed up.

There were a lot of people there. In fact, I made comment at seven, before we gavel in the meeting that it looked like the entire, town of Blackfoot was there. And what a welcome surprise. And, I appreciated, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the disposition of the lawsuit and, got a little grumbling from, one of the people, one of the pieces on the front row saying, he wasn't there to listen to me or hear anything for me.

And, then someone else was asking how I could start speaking about something. I said, I haven't gaveled into the meeting yet. I'm taking I'm sharing my truth with these 80 people who have not heard it because it's all been, you know, rumor and innuendo and there's been a lot of hate thrown at the Idaho GOP at me, the executive committee, our platform.

And, I was just going to set the record straight. And so I proceeded to get through that. And then, the first thing that I was to do was put in the new chair and lo and behold, Matt Thompson was voted in. He did have opposition. There were 19 pieces out of 24, positions available there.

And out of the 1916, voted for, Matt Thompson and three the other direction. And that was pretty consistent theme all the way through. But so that at that point I give him the gavel, the option to run the meeting, I had Mark Fuller, my first vice chair, was serving as the parliamentarian, which we needed, because we got off track of an approved agenda and had to get the new chair back on track and then finish the voting.

So, we got through it and I'm pleased. I'm hopeful that the folks in Bingham County and Blackfoot proper realize that the Idaho GOP is there to work with them. And, you know, people need to get involved if they don't like, what has happened over the past year and a half, it's time to step up. You know, Trump's our president coming in, and, we need to be there for him.

And he'll push those initiatives that are going to be beneficial to Idahoans. Dorothy, really quick because we've got it. We got a lot of other things to talk about. But you you did not have to be there. They they invited you to come so that they could get reorganized. But this could have happened later. Like it wasn't something you had to do.

It's just the injunction was lifted in and they they decided to lift it and then invite you to come. So you make the trip to go to Bingham County, but then you're you're treated with people saying, well, I didn't come here to listen to you when you're just sort of explaining what's happening before the gavel. It's gaveled in.

Is that right? Right. It was. And, you know, that was pretty disheartening. And, you know, but I'm there to do a job, and my job is to pull this party back together. And being a county is definitely the one outlier. And, you know, fact of the matter is, I had so many emails and text messages the next day saying that they were embarrassed that I was treated that way.

And here I took the time. And you know, the reason why I want to do it on the 30th? Because I wanted to start the new year on a good note, I really did. I know people have painted me as to be pretty horrible person, but I wanted to bring them in and give them the opportunity to come to the winter meeting.

But you know what's funny? Only one of them showed up with three proxies. So at the four positions of the chair, the the state committee, man, state committee, woman and youth person, only one showed up. Wow. Let's talk about that winter meeting, Dorothy. And there were some some highlights. Some good, support that was unified.

There was also some, some things, some business that had to be taken care of. Why don't you give us a rundown of the the winter meeting? Sure. I would think I'll talk about the ones that might have been more controversial. I think one that's going to be really exciting is up here in Boise. We have cities that put these, pride flags up for almost three months out of the year.

It seems like, they run up Harrison Boulevard, and, this is on, a state property, and city property, and, there was a resolution coming forward that only the American Idaho, the military branch flags, P.O.W. Mia and Indian pride flags can be posted, put up on, government property. And so that's going to be a fun one.

I can't wait to see that one read through the legislature. Another one was that if anyone is convicted of, sex trafficking of a minor, that it is a life sentence without parole, that is to suggest from the state Central Committee. We have other ones about the, open fields, being added to the extend the Fourth Amendment rights of private, privacy rights to private property.

Right now, fish and game goes on to private property doing scoping and looking at things. And they really need to ask for the permission of the property owner so that that's, came in from a Wahi County. Let's talk about the center of Hiram Erickson. That was our 11th resolution that we dealt with. Actually, I want to say that I had, a new chair for the resolutions committee.

It was, Senator Scott Herndon who, was defeated in his last race. But I'll tell you what, he's a brilliant man. He did a great job. There were over 36 resolutions that they had to wrangle through between 5:00 on Friday and 9 p.m. on Friday. They got him down to the second. He had a time. He had temporary rules to clip it along on occasion.

You have some dissenters on the committee who just want to blow beer and kill. Time to make sure we don't get our work done. But by golly, he got the work done. And, we got down to about 22 resolutions that actually passed. He then comes into the state Central Committee general session on Saturday. He presents all of them in a block.

So he went through every one of them and talked about there for, you know, at the bottom, we want you to do this, this, this. So some of them are actionable by the Idaho GOP in the legislature. Some are just calling out some bad stuff. Two of them were pulled out. One was the center of Hiram Erickson.

And what that means is that they were not going to approve all of the resolutions and mass. If someone says, I would like to consider this one on its own. And so we did when we got to that one after lunch, and we had quite a bit of discussion. They have ten minutes pro and con the originator of the bill, and there were multiple counties, multiple counties who signed on to that one.

And I think the reason why there was so much support for this censure is because, Mr. Erickson was the talking head for Reclaim Idaho, the Democrat liberal group. He wanted to bring ranked choice voting into the state. These are brought forward by the central committees and legislative district committees. And I think it's a pretty good idea when a county does shop at around the State Farm in all different regions to see what how they feel about it.

Well, you know, they they were adamant this was one we needed to do. The main issue is that other people wanted to add other people to censure. He he was the main one because he was obviously he was proud of the fact that he was the Madison County Republican. But he he supports ranked choice voting and open primaries totally contrary to the Idaho GOP platform and the Republican National Committee platform.

And we all know had ranked choice voting gone through, we would lose our state. So everybody knew we were on this precipice. And it's just not good to have our own people causing us to spend. You know, we spent $90,000 on signs, the Idaho GOP alone. That doesn't count. The text messaging, the radio ads, the, you know, the paper newspaper ads.

There was a lot more money spent and a lot by Idahoans. The door to door effort, your effort, everybody's effort to defeat this. And why is our guy working against us? So this did pass, after quite, you know, quite a bit of discussion. Most of it was stating, you know, he's a nice guy. Well, you can be a nice guy, but be misguided and, you know, you have to look at the issue.

And the issue is we don't want you doing this again. And to tell you the truth, now, on July, there's two more initiatives coming up. Yes, you're going to be the talking head for that one, to what, bring recreational marijuana into the state? Is it going to be the talking head for, loosening up for abortion laws?

So, I don't know. I think we need to stop it in its tracks and maybe I don't know. I don't know what he'll do, but we're just saying, you should not be aiding and abetting the Democrat party to destroy our state. That's pretty much what it said. So. Well, that that's such an interesting question. We interviewed Hyrum, I think three times.

2 or 3 times in the run up to the to the vote. And I will say he is a very nice guy. He was always very civil. We had good discussions, even though we were on opposite sides of this. However, I thought, you're you're an elected Republican. He's a PC o guy in Madison County, but you are actively arguing for passage of an initiative that destroys the standing of the Republican Party in Idaho.

And so I thought, you can be for this, but you can't really be for it. And, and also be, an elected member of the party that you're trying to destroy. It just seemed like a weird, a weird approach to me. Well, it does to me, too. And, you know, there is a, you know, the only there's only a few folks down at southeast Idaho who got up and spoke for him because they know him personally.

But everybody else around the state, everybody had a lot of money, a lot of time and sweat defeating this. And I couldn't be more proud that thousands of people who got out because, I mean, out of all ten states were ranked choice voting was brought forward. We were we had a 7030 spread. We had the highest spread of any state.

Hopefully, to try to stop this from coming forward in any time soon. But on this censure, there were other people. There was a chair that actually carried the petition around in his county. And then I got to notarized the petitions and actually delivered them to the clerk to certify, can't make this up now, but, you know, this is I guess the head of the snake is what a lot of people said.

Let's just let everybody know. Let this be the shot across the bow that we don't want to put up with this. Another one was, you know, in a legislative district in Ada County. This one PC is a member of Unite America, Unite America. Go look at the board. There he is, front and center, sitting on a leftist Democrat board to destroy our state.

So. Well, I think everybody now knows we're not going to put up with this. I'm not to say these won't come up in the summer, because that could very easily come up in the summer meeting. Dorothy, what can you tell? We only have a couple of minutes left here, but what what can you tell us about any of it?

Some individual county parties refuse to vote in opposition of prop one. They were kind of either quiet on it and but they they could have taken a more vocal stance. What? I don't think there's any official action to take, because it was sort of a sin by omission if you if you would. But can you tell us what county's kind of concern you in that maybe they're not actually loyal Republicans.

They're just people who don't really like what Republicans stand for. But they're using the party to undercut and undermine the Republican Party in Idaho, if that makes sense. You know, and, you know, I hate to call out particular counties, but a lot of them were in southeast Idaho. And I do want to thank you. And Julie, I haven't it's been a month of Sunday since I've talked to you.

But I know that that turnout in southeast Idaho wasn't because all of our Republicans were working hard. A lot were, but a lot were not. And some of them didn't like our messaging that California Kate. Idaho. But I will tell you what, if it wasn't for and I do mean this from the bottom of my heart, if it wasn't for you and Julie.

I don't think we would have had that turnout and those numbers and that, you know, that spread, like we'd seen. And I was worried about southeast Idaho, but, wow, you did a fantastic job. You know what's right. You know what's wrong. And, you stand to your principles and convictions. And again, you have no idea how much I appreciated your efforts getting out signs, taking folks up to a Trump rally that that is such an important part of it, because these people have to get involved and your involvement inspired them to get out and vote.

But there are counties we need to work on. That's why I'm heading down there. I will be in Bingham County on the 22nd. That's a tough county. That's a real tough county. But there's a lot of good people. Those 18 people want to be involved, and I'm going to tell them how they can be involved in the next election.

We have Bonneville County. I'll have a meeting at the Shiloh Inn on the 23rd. I'm going to do a PC training. We're going to talk about how you can get involved. It's so important. But again, there are some counties I need to work on. I will have a high presence. Whether the county want the Central Committee wants me there or not.

I am the chair of the Idaho Republican Party. And I will make sure that everyone in Bingham County or Bonneville County or Lemhi County or Leahy County has a voice and has the opportunity to meet with me and get more information to be involved. All right. We'll leave it at that. Dorothy Malone, chair of the Idaho GOP. It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

And, we appreciate all the effort you put forward. Well, I appreciate you all, too. Thank you so much for having me on. All right. It's 855. We'll be back and wrap up this hour. Coming up on Newstalk 179 live local stimulating talk for East Idaho, The Neal Larson Show podcast, and we're back at 907 on Newstalk 1079.

Neal Larson, Julie Mason LA fires former presidential funerals and data breaches in Bonneville district 93 legislative session update. Just so much. Yeah, there's there's a lot there's a lot cooking this morning. So we have that. But let's before we dive into more stuff here, let's talk about this district 93 data breach. They sent out an email to everyone saying power school got hacked and lots of records got stolen.

But it wasn't Social Security numbers or credit card. No, it was basically names, addresses and phone numbers. Is that right? That's if I'm reading it correctly. And it was a brief scan on my part through a commercial break, but, the eight I believe that that's all that was, hacked. The information goes back to 2005. So if you had a student there like that's past, I mean, these are my kids are included in that.

Yeah, right. And my kids are grown and married. So this goes back a ways. I don't know if all of the database was taken or not. Yeah. And like I said, it was a really brief reading that I did of the, of the email, but, I felt like everyone should know about it, not just those who currently have students.

If the data breach does go back to 2005. So we just had a story. Was it earlier this week or last week about East Idaho public Health had a data breach? Yeah. I think it's going to happen a lot. Yeah, I and I wouldn't like point fingers at district 93 saying they failed or if this is just the new frontier we live in.

Yeah. In the digital age. And so the most important, I think the most important thing you can do is make sure that you're watching your bank accounts, making like, don't be negligent or just, unaware of your personal business because I bet your information is out there somehow. Just make sure you stay on top of what you have going so nobody takes advantage of you.

Yeah. So, good advice, good advice. Interesting interview with Dorothy Moon. I still I'm trying to wrap my mind around the whole Bingham County thing. She was kind enough to go get them organized so they could be functioning in time for the winter meeting. She didn't have to. And she goes there, and she's treated the way that she is now.

You may not like her leadership, but she traveled a long way, took hours and hours out of her schedule to come so you could get going again. And yet you treat her like that. It's, Julie, I, you know, we haven't. And I really like Dorothy. She said some very, very kind things to us. I haven't always necessarily agreed with everything that she's done at the welcome to politics.

That's. That's just how this is. Yeah. And and you're right. But to treat someone the the state chair of the party that you represent elected overwhelmingly by the way. And yet you you yell at her and say, I didn't come here to listen to you. And, you know, she said, she's like, my purse is right here. I don't have to be here.

I could leave right now before we do this. I think more of her for staying and getting them organized. I think if I had done what she had done, taking the time to do that and was greeted like that, I would have walked back out. That would have been really hard to stay there and get them going.

But I think the the context of the meeting is super important as well, which is there were a lot of people there that aren't involved in it, you know, directly involved with the Bingham County Republican Party. There were just everyday patrons there. Yeah. For me, that means it was important for Dorothy to stand up and explain what had happened.

And now we're at this point and let's carry forward and and you and you know, unite as much as possible and work towards a better Idaho. That completely makes sense to stand up and explain it. Yeah. When you have a room full of people that typically aren't showing up for these meetings, that totally makes sense. Yeah, and I'm not exaggerating on how many people we it have been reported to us by a lot of people that, well, somewhere between 80 to 100 people.

Yeah, it was a well attended, very well attended meeting. Well, she just told us that 19 was it 19 of the 24 PCOS? Yeah. We're in attendance. Yeah. Then you have a few in leadership. That means three quarters of the room aren't involved in the Macomb County. Like it was important to lay out what was going on to the people in the room.

Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Exactly. Because they wanted the background. They they wanted to know the status of things. So I don't think she was out of line doing that. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna guess that the leadership of the Bingham County party would, would disagree with me on that. I don't think she was when you put it in context, I think she had is it was important for her to lay out to the people who were in attendance what was going on?

Yeah. Well, and we've all been in those meetings where if, if we've been to every meeting or we're deeply informed, you're hearing things that are redundant. Oh know, it's pretty narcissistic to sit there and say, well because I know this, then I can interrupt this person and say move on. I didn't come here just to listen to.

Right, right. Let's we've got to a learned behavior here, a pattern going on. Yeah, yeah we do I and that's not me being rude. That's just if you go back and watch what's happened, there are behaviors that are consistent. Yeah. With this leadership. Yeah. Yeah. There there really is there really is. And I you know I we'll see I think when it gets to a certain point then they they there will be a change in leadership.

Yeah. Right. So Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles is should we listen in for just a moment? She's talking about fires. A big one level fire storm, historic winds and extensive drought have created a perfect storm that has driven people from their homes and have taken people's homes, and that has taken people's lives. I've been in the fire zones, and you can see how fast and devastating these wind driven fires are.

I know people from all over the nation are asking how they can help. So here are two essential ways. First of all, support the California Community Foundation wildlife Recovery Fund at Cal fun.org, and support the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and support lafd.org. And in addition to shelters, Airbnb is offering free. Okay, hold on. This woman I know we just barely entered this, but she's going to ask everyday people to donate here.

When you just cut this department by 17 million and you wanted to cut it by 23 million. Now what was the deal due back? What was the cause to donate to who? It's the like. You can donate to the firefighters Association. Please. Calling on all of us to donate. When she just pulled 17 million? No. From this department.

I'm donating my dollars to the people who just lost their home. What? People are so tone deaf. So tone deaf. Wait, what would that money do? I have no idea. I'm sure. Pay for supplies. I'm sure. Which they need, obviously. But you just cut their budget by 17 million. Actually, I can't. You know what? I've met my quota today of nonsense.

I've hit my non sense peak and it's 915. We have 45 minutes of a show left and I've already hit my non sense quota. I don't know, I don't know, we did just get a text. I feel like we need to address this. We addressed it in the 6:00 hour. We haven't since. Which is this person is saying why is nobody talking about how the fire started?

Wind alone doesn't start fires. Good point. We talked about this in the 6:00 hour. If if this fire was happening anywhere else. East Idaho we always address. How did the fire start? I do not understand why it isn't being asked or answered. Okay, so I just went online. How did the Palisades fire start? And let's see, this is Newsweek.

Okay. Julie, let me read. And the headline is how did the Palisades fire start? I'm going to read until we have a clear answer to that. Okay. Firefighters are battling multiple fast growing wildfires in Los Angeles that have destroyed buildings and forced thousands of people to flee their homes. Did we get the answer? No. Almost 3000 acres have burned in the city's Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

After a fire broke out on Tuesday morning, about 30,000 residents were ordered to evacuate. Did we get the answer there? Nope. Two more blazes broke out later on Tuesday. The Eaton Fire has since burned 1000 acres in the hills above Altadena, prompting evacuations for parts of Altadena and Pasadena. The Hearst Fire has burned at least 500 acres in the San Fernando Valley and prompted evacuation orders for some parts of the area.

Did we get the answer there? No. This is paragraph four, by the way. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has declared a state of emergency, and officials, have warned that the worst may be yet to come, as extreme winds that are challenging efforts to contain the fires are expected to continue for days. Did we get the answer there?

No, that's paragraph five. Okay, here's the next paragraph. The Palisades Fire started at around 10:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday. The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to Cal Fire. So they're saying we don't know. We don't know. We buried it real deep. Can the headline then be cause of Palisades? Palisades fire under investigation? Absolutely. Can't stand clickbait.

I can't stand it either, but I it just goes back to say exactly what the text are saying. No one's talking about it. Yeah. In the bottom line is what's with all of these fires? They're tragic. They're devastating. This is not very many acres. The the devastation is the money that has burned up. Yeah. Because this is such valuable land and because the homes were worth so much.

So the true devastation is not the the breadth of the fire. Yeah. It's the valuable items that burned up in the fire. Okay. I have not been in the conspiracy corners of the internet, but for some reason, Julie, my mind went to Maui and there are conspiracies about how that is prime real estate. Yeah, and those people got like 700 bucks or something.

Yeah, right. Also, I'm sorry. Finished. Well, I guess the last point that I would say is when you don't know how the fire started, then your mind starts to imagine how the fire started. And in the course of that imagination, you start to wonder, what are there massive land investors that could pick up these plots now for pennies on the dollar?

Because people have fire destroyed homes that are not insured? Yes. So that's the part I was going to say, but I figured you were getting there as well. So do people come in and scoop up the land? There is also laws on the books, and I do not know if L.A. County has this kind of a law, but if you vacate a home and they can rule it, the government can then go in and rule it condemned, which, of course these are going to be condemned homes.

Yeah. Sometimes there's laws on the books where the government can come in and seize the land because you walked away from it. What? Yes. That exists. This has been an issue in western North Carolina. This is why you have people in the middle of winter camping on their own land, because they do not want the government to come in and seize the land, because their home cannot be lived in.

I did read about this, and so I don't. That's Western North Carolina. I do not know what L.A. county's laws are, and I don't know what Hawaii's laws are, but it's important to understand all of the pieces that are a play here. When you're looking at why these fires started in Hawaii, there's a there's been a lot of talk about the fact that very wealthy people live or not live on land in Hawaii.

It's their second or third homes. And they sure would love to get a hold of beachfront property. Oh, excuse me, I had a little cough there. And so is it important to find out why these fires started 100%? Yes. You need to know why the fire started. Just like it's okay to ask, why don't you have water stored?

Well, I think I think here, and this will take time. I want to know how the fires started. Obviously, that's the big first question. I'm going to be paying very close attention to who ends up owning this land when it's all eventually, eventually. That's what I think will be telling. Yes, absolutely. Absence in in absence of a rational understanding of how the fire started.

Lightning strikes. Blackrock can't can't cause lightning, right? Not saying Blackrock did anything like this. I just don't know how deep we're going to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole. But I there should be an an explanation. They should be able to understand and how like once the first one started, as embers are growing and the wind is blowing, it makes sense that a nearby fire could start.

But the sixth fire in the Hollywood Hills that started yesterday night or like middle of the night or late yesterday, you know, that's a it's not a long distance but it is a distance. Wait how did that start. Those weren't blowing embers. No, no. You have to ask a very good question. Hey why do we now have multiple I mean the weather hasn't started these fires.

The wind has made it worse. But these fires are under way. They're separated geographically and we don't have explanations for how they started. Right. Yeah. Somebody's got to start asking questions here. Yes. I only think that's the hard part for me is that the hard questions aren't being asked. And I believe that's because the media is going to cover for somebody like Mayor Karen Bass.

I think that I there's it's okay that Donald Trump preemptively months ago talked about how California is in such a dangerous place. Yeah, it's fine that you ask those questions. Everybody like on the left today is acting like, how dare Donald Trump politicize this. You just want to keep doing your bad behaviors that have caused destruction for it's season after season.

And now you've lost in incredibly wealthy homes. Is that going to be enough for you to finally say, hey, what's up? Yeah, it's a good question. It's crazy. All right, quick break. 924 on Newstalk 179, Neal Larson, Julie Mason and you. By the way, we will get to the phone calls immediately when we return right here on the Neal Larson one Newstalk 107 nine.

Okay I yeah. Water. Be back in a minute. Okay. Michael says. And Michael knows California. He says there is a possibility because that wind was headed downwind towards Hollywood, that that one could have started from the Pasadena fire. I'll accept that, Michael, if we have, a completely, like, non-biased, person show up and say that's where it came from.

That's fine. But the question should be answered. How did it start? And if if you're going to go to what's considered a completely medium down the road news article like Newsweek, I think that's where, Neal was reading from. And they don't even answer the question that that makes me real uneasy that we're not addressing the issue. Yeah.

And guess what, Michael? I'm the biggest autocorrect. I make mistakes all the time. So I get why it says dance studio. I guess it would do something like that. When I was typing. I feel like people deserve to know this. I feel like homeowners deserve to know this, I right? I mean, I feel like if you're going to ask me to donate to help people explain to me what happened, I, I feel like that's I'm not out of line asking those.

It was supposed to say Studio City. Got it. I, I feel like those are fair questions to ask. In the 6:00 hour I posed the I mean, when a hurricane hits Florida, if Ron DeSantis is not out in front 48 hours before that hurricane, is there lining everybody up and telling everybody what they're supposed to be doing, he's considered the worst leader that ever exists.

But Karen Bass was told about these these winds and how dangerous they were. She didn't return from Ghana. She stayed there. And it's it's being politicized. If you asked why she wasn't there leading her or her city, I just play by the same rules. That's all I'm asking for. I believe Ron DeSantis should be out ahead of a hurricane 48 hours before it happens.

And he's an amazing leader, and he is out 48 hours before it happens. It's okay that I asked the same of leadership in California. How is the bathroom? Oh, I was talking to Katherine about her report. Yeah. Is that excuse run its course. Okay. I got to come with something else. Well, the really amazing thing is everybody who's listening to this also uses the bathroom.

That's true. It's true.

928 on Newstalk 1078, Neal Larson along with Julie Mason. And we're going to go right to the phones. Caller thank you for waiting. Through the commercial break. How are you this morning? Go ahead, caller, you're on it. Hey. All right. We got to let him go. All right, call back, though. (208) 542-1079. Yeah. All right, Julie, so maybe we should tell our audience what our, Michael Coats had said.

Yeah. So Michael joins us all the time on, Facebook Live, which we love. We love because he has knowledge about things that we talk about. He also lived in California for an extensive amount of time. So what he's saying is that the embers, particularly in the Hollywood fire, that those could travel from Studio City, that the wind was high enough yesterday.

Now the wind has calmed down. Today, is still not complete. I mean, there still is a little wind, but it's not that 100 mile per hour. Gusts. Are we on? There we go. Now we're back. Okay. 208542 179 if you'd like to join us on the program. Yeah. So what I was just explaining is that we've been chatting with Michael Coats, who is really has a ton of knowledge about California and about these issues.

So what we're saying is that, he let us know that embers could travel from Studio City to Hollywood and, so the Hollywood fire could have started that way. He says Pasadena to the the two fires in Hollywood in Studio City could have started that way by embers blowing and then landing on roofs. And I will back this up, because if you watch footage, it's really bizarre because you'll have a house burning, two houses not burning, then three houses burning.

And so you have to go. How did it jump like that? Well, it was probably traveling embers that landed on the roof of the house or in the backyard of the house. And then that house became engulfed. But the next three houses were spared somehow. So, yeah, that I mean, the video footage matches that. He also said it's pretty crazy down there right now.

So maybe fire and investigators haven't been able to get to the root cause yet. I will give them that grace. But I do feel in other emergency situations we've had it happen much sooner than this. So, yeah, my thing is, you can't let it go. That question needs answered. It absolutely needs answered along with why doesn't California do a better job of clearing the fuel source, meaning getting rid of dead, trees and, like just cleaning up so that there's not a potential for it to spread as easily.

There's multiple facets here. All right, let's go to the phones. Hi, caller. How are you today? Yeah, me. It's you. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay, so of things on this fire, even the two coincidental that massive amounts of area the homes all sudden in the last six months to a year had their insurance canceled on fire? Yeah, you just certainly look that way, but it it looks two coincidental.

Two other news medias have been talking about how Gavin Newsom really created this. When was it? Four years ago. And Donald Trump is telling this is how you fix it. And they didn't do anything about the ground cover. And then they drained what they took out four dams that would have reservoirs. And now you don't have the water, and now you don't have water pressure in the hydrants.

So the fire truck can pull up and you can save your house, but there's no water, no water. No. This whole thing is really quite criminal. Not just an accident. It's really. Yeah. Newsom really drove them to it, so. Well. And thank you for the call, I appreciate it. And Gavin Newsom lashed out. I, Anderson Cooper, had asked him.

He heard it, but he prefaced it with, I really hate to have to ask you this question because we're friends and everything. But Gavin would not answer the questions. We're in the public safety phase. I hate to even ask this question, but the president elect chose to attack you, blaming you for that. It's, one can't even respond to it, and it's, you know, people are literally fleeing.

People have lost their lives. Kids, lost their schools, families completely torn asunder, churches burned down. You just gave all the reasons why Trump is ripping on you. You've created the situation, Gavin. I don't have an issue at all. I don't think that Trump has politicized this. And here's why. He was asking these questions far before the tragedy happened.

Multiple times when he was president, he addressed this in a lengthy explanation of what California needs to do different three months ago, four months ago, when he was on the Joe Rogan podcast, he talked about how California is in a dangerous place right now with their fire, their fire safety, and the way that they haven't addressed things. So he's not politicizing this.

He he cares for those people. It's that there needs to be a change in California. This is not a one off event. They have a fire season and they don't address it. And and this is a little different because it has it's a smaller in acreage fire a very expensive fire. I mean the estimation is it will probably be the most expensive fire that has ever hit and that the America's like the most expensive, just simply because of what was destroyed in it.

I don't know how you don't ask the questions. I don't feel like that's politicizing it at all. Yeah, I don't either. And I don't think there's I don't think there's a time window for a, for a catastrophic fire that a lot of this could have been prevented, that you can't start asking questions. Was it politicizing it to ask why the mayor of New Orleans didn't put up the barriers to prevent a truck from running over ten people, or 15 people like I?

That's not politicizing. That is a question that needs answered so that it's not repeated. Yeah. Is it is it politicizing to ask Ron DeSantis, why didn't you have the linemen all set and ready to go? Because we knew the power was going to go out from this hurricane? No, that's a fair question to ask because there there's going to be another hurricane.

Yeah, there's going to be another fire. Yeah. There's going to be another man who gets in a truck and tries to run over people. Yeah. There was a very cringe moment, Julie, when Joe Biden was there standing next to Gavin Newsom. And he's there is the president. It's a big disaster. And a and he said, but I know I know you've you've your homes are ruined, your communities are destroyed.

But guess what? I'm a grandpa. But the good news is I'm a great grandfather. As of the day I can go to TikTok for a baby girl. Okay, that applause was not there. It was like, awkward. Like, why is he saying this right now? Yeah I well he's saying it because he's not a complete and sound mind.

He's not. And you know what? There is actually a little grace. There is grace but it is it's evidence that this man shouldn't be making decisions like oh by the way sending another 500 million to Ukraine. That happened yesterday. Another 500 million. Julia. That's not much though, when you consider the billions and billions, what's another half a billion?

Yeah. What is that? All right, let's go to the phones. Caller go ahead. How are you today? Oh, they hung up. It does make that hurts. Yeah, it hurts my soul a little bit when I hear that noise. Does it feel like rejection? A little bit? All right. (208) 542-1079 it's 936. We're going to break away, but we'll be back after this.

On Newstalk 1079.

Hey guys. Sorry we had a little business. We had to take care. Some internal reading we had to do. Yeah. Yeah. I, there's things to be grateful for. The wind has died down today. That will make it possible for the helicopters to get up, at least to get some containment. So that's good. One of the good things they said is 40%.

Okay, good. Got that guy. Is there a Lydia fire? Lydia. There's six. And I don't know the names of all of them. Yeah. Yeah. So good. I also, I really appreciate people who come out and say the things they say, like, James Woods was interviewed, talked all about how, important people are. It's just a house.

And and the most important thing is that we have people who are taking care of each other. There was a person, pharmacist being interviewed on Fox News this morning who basically opened up his pharmacy to help people, because a lot of people left their homes without their medications. And there's an older population down there. Yeah. And they need it.

So this pharmacy completely opened up and and is is helping people with, you know, like micro doses, giving them three days or five days just to at least get them through, until they can get their like from their regular pharmacy or another order for filled by a doctor or whatever. Yeah. Hey, good things are happening. Good people do a good job of taking care of themselves.

You know?

This is interesting. I saw this, noted that his visit was canceled. Michael saying Biden was supposed to be in Palm Springs area to dig at it, dedicate the new monument just outside of Joshua Tree National Park. My work photographer friend was in the desert all day on Secret Service, locked down, waiting for the president. But with the fires, he never left Los Angeles, so he never even went to Palm Springs.

Okay, here we go.

941 on Newstalk 179, phone lines are open on the Stones Auto Group. Colin text line (208) 542-1079. It's Neal Larson and it's Julie Mason on this Thursday. How cold is it this morning, Julie? Something like 19 degrees right now. It's better than yesterday, I guess. Yeah. It's chilly. Yeah. You're you're I know I'm not going to talk about the giblets.

Okay, I got brave. I walked, four and a quarter miles in that weather yesterday. I went walking the weather, not you. It wasn't me. The weather was not the bad thing. It's the. Not everybody clears their sidewalks, so, I was all over the place. It was there were parts where I was skating. Parts where I was, you know, four inches deep in snow then.

Yeah. Yeah, but I made it. It's good. Yeah. Well, good. I did suggest to you that you live about a one minutes drive from the mall. You might might want to go to the mall and walk. I know that's sort of an older Golden Girls kind of thing to do, but it might be more comfortable and less dangerous.

I think there should be some kind of a program that if I log miles at a mall, it increases the amount of money that I'll get in Social Security. Like it? It should be relative. If I'm taking care of my body in a mall, then I should be able to have a bigger health benefit, like a big monetary benefit.

In the end. Here's the thing you're going to hate what I'm about to say. You'll live longer, so you'll collect Social Security longer so you will be getting more money from who are we kidding? That program's not even going to be in existence by the time we get there. You're saying we're like 5 or 6 years away from bankruptcy with Social Security?

You and I have spent our whole lives putting into that program, and we're probably not going to get a dime from it. Probably true. You're right. It's an institutionalized Ponzi scheme, and we're the we're the schmucks who are going to be holding the bag. Yep. Walk in the mall. Yeah. Walking the mall looking for something to eat in the garbage cans.

Guys, can I have the rest of that pretzel? So can I go on? Yeah. So McDonald's rolled out, menu shake up this week. Oh. They did. Do you hear about this? No. So they've extended the popular $5 meal deal for, like, a few more months, but they also have a value menu category. And so they're going to have things like you, buy one, add one for a dollar option that includes breakfast.

The new value menu will also include more app exclusive offers like local food and drink deals organized by the franchisees. Okay. And McDonald's is trying to reignite growth after several dismal quarters, the value perception of the chain has dimmed among its cash conscious customers. The average price of items has soared about 40% since 2019. Joe Biden inflation scuse me, you really have a problem over there.

I got something, I got him, but I don't know. It's some kind of a lung infection. I don't know what it is. The company says this is in line with its rising costs. The chain announced the new menu in November, shortly after an E coli outbreak that caused sales and traffic to nosedive. McDonald's said it would pump $100 million into marketing and aid for franchises most heavily affected by the health scare, which has since ended.

So what was the E coli scare at member? They. It was because we had this conversation because I'm confused at why it was only in the Quarter Pounder. Hamburgers. Yeah, they pulled the Quarter Pounders, but they left the rest of the meat. Yeah I gotcha yeah. You know, what I find is the perceived danger of E coli for me is attached to how hungry I am.

Nails the man who sniffs it before he eats it. And he's like, well, it has been in the fridge for three weeks, but, you know, leftovers may stay good if I haven't eaten for, like nine hours. E coli is not that big of a threat.

I know that this ketchup expired four months ago, but gosh, I need something to dip my fries in. So yeah, we're good to go. Do they print the expiration date on the little ketchup packets? Oh, I don't I doubt it. Here's my test okay. This is my expiration date. If you squeeze it and it's brittle, it's outdated. Gross.

So gross. I thought you were going to say something like the ketchup comes out not bright red. It's a little darker now, although, like I have come across, I have not eaten it. By the way, for anybody who thinks maybe I have, like, mustard for some reason it will dry out after a while because sometimes those packets are transparent.

Yes, and becomes powdery. You don't have mustard, you have chunks across. Yeah. So Taco Bell announced it's launching exclusive deals for their loyalty members through January 13th. Okay. Is that something you're proud of? Like, do you put it in your bio on Instagram? On Facebook? Taco Bell loyalty member. Yeah, I don't think that's on your LinkedIn profile.

Although it would be funny, I think I'd probably hire that person. Graduated summa cum laude. Taco Bell loyalty member. So. But listen to this. I don't know if I get it. Help me understand this. The promotion is called manifest Miss Rewards. What's manifest miss was blessed. Is that a widely enough known enough term to make a promotion out of it at Taco Bell?

Oh, yeah. Okay, clearly you're asking the wrong girl. Well, I know, but I've never even heard that term manifest. Miss. I don't know what that even means. Now I'm searching manifest, miss. Is it a play on Christmas? Like, is it an extended from the Christmas season? I don't know, maybe. Yeah. So, it's all a Taco Bell thing.

Introducing manifest miss. A week long celebration of manifesting in a way only Taco Bell could from January 7th through the 13th. Okay, is this sort of mocking or taking advantage of kind of all these TikTok and real videos that are like a manifesting very well? Could be, because of, you know, quantum physics. It's a very catchy term.

Right. And if you just put it out in the universe, it just comes into reality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Taco Bell loyalty program I have a new goal for 2025. Okay, I'm going to manifest free tacos. I think we'll get there. I don't know, I bet if you belong to their app thing, you get a certain amount of free food.

You know, I mean, unlimited free tacos. That's like. That's my manifest. You keep. You keep manifesting. Go right ahead. No, I'm not even eating tacos right now. So, you know, here's what I'm happy to see. Like, I, I eat far less truly how you know me compared to, say, five years ago. How much fast food? Oh, so much less.

So much less than you used to. So much less. Yeah. Okay. We're not very smart. We're not manifest mas. Yeah. It's mas means more in Spanish. Oh, someone helped us. We're not very smart. Manifest more. I thought it was a Christmas. We're not very smart. Okay, but, No, wait a minute. I'm going to defend us. It's a bad promotion to combine an English word with a Spanish word.

Yes. Well, if we didn't pick up on it, how many people haven't picked up on it? That's true. Yeah. Yes. You're right. You're like a manifest mas. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it means manifest more, which makes a lot more sense now. Yeah. Okay. Did somebody in the tech stuff. Yeah. Somebody in the Texas somebody the Texas so clarified for us which we never I don't think we ever made this clarification when it initially happened.

So the E coli the reason they only the quarter pounders couldn't be served is the onions are in the Quarter Pounder meat and the E coli was actually in the onions. Okay. So that's why the Quarter Pounder was pull. So my question is and sometimes people ignore science. But if you're grilling those patties and it gets up above 160 you're good.

I, I, I don't know, are these the same people who also said that if you're six feet apart, you're good? Because that's not true ones. No. 160 is a very scientifically sound standard for getting rid of all bacteria. So maybe they feel like they don't get those frozen patties up above that amount, like or it's all PR they're like, okay, we know the stories out there that these patties have undercooked that have E perhaps we can't we can't sell them maybe.

So maybe that's probably what it is more than anything. I bet you like if you if you came to me with a stack of frozen patties and said, these are infected with E coli, I'm not eating them. Even if you cook them, I'm totally eating them. I'm not. No problem. Right. So why not? Cause science is science. Look, I can miss a meal.

It's fine. It's kind of. I would rather miss a meal than be sick. You wouldn't be sick. Okay, I know I get it, I get it. I'm not going to take the risk. Yeah, there is no risk, but. Okay. It's 952 and Newstalk 107 nine. Quick break. We'll come back and wrap it up after this.

Oh okay. Wait, what now people are saying no, it was the slivered onions that go on top of the Quarter Pounder. Well, then just serve the stinking Quarter Pounder without onions. Are they so committed to the uniformity that they would say, we can't change the Quarter Pounder and put on anything other than the slivered onions? Like, is that I don't know.

But now that those now that the textures have clarified, that makes it feel way more complicated than it needed to be. Yeah. Look, you got McDonald's getting affordable again. Yeah, McDonald's getting rid of Di. I'm starting to like McDonald's again a little getting back on board with them. And Trump worked there. Yeah okay. Stephanie says the McDonald's in Pocatello did sell them without the onions.

Oh, maybe individual franchisees could could make a decision. I don't know. I did have fast food the other day, but did you have chick fil A? It was the only thing that sounded good. Nugs from chick fil a, so I ate them. Good for you. Yeah. I, did you hear there's a a raising cane's is coming to Pocatello.

Hey, did the Chubbuck people are addicted to Raising Cane's? They think it is. Have you ever been, I haven't either. No. Utah has. Raising Cane's. Yeah. They're demolishing Denny's in Chubbuck and putting in the raising cane. Oh, that's where it's going. Okay. Yeah. Here we go. We got a call.

All right, so we're back. 955 on Newstalk 107. Now let's jump right back to the phones. We've got a couple of minutes. Caller, what's on your mind today? Caller go ahead if you can hear us, go ahead and let him go. So we were talking about restaurants. Raising Cane's is coming to check. Yeah. Exciting for them. Yeah. Did they're there.

Taken a bulldozer to the old Denny's building and they're going to build a new, restaurant. Good, good. That's fun for Chubbuck and obviously Pocatello by. And as quickly as they build restaurants, they should have it ready in about 45 minutes. If if they've got the maverick people on board, it will be ready. That's that is true. All right, let's go to the phones.

Hi, caller. How are you today? Okay, we got that thing going. Okay. Let's try this one. Hi, caller, are you there? Okay. Yeah. All right. We'll have this fixed for tomorrow. We will? Yeah. It's a little engineering quirk, apparently. So. Anyway, I've never had a raise. I've never been to Raising Cane's. I've never been to Raising Cane's either.

But people rave and rave and rave about it, so hopefully it's good. Hopefully it's. And I hope they do well. I feel bad when we get a franchise type restaurant like we the other day discussed Popeye's in Idaho Falls. I think we did that on our Facebook Live. Hey, that is such a popular restaurant across the nation. It just didn't thrive here.

So I hope Raising Cane's does well. Yeah, I'm at their web site right now. It looks super good. Like yummy food. Yeah, like high end chicken tenders and great. So yeah, you don't get those at the freezer at Walmart.

Throw them in the air fryer I, I did see an X the other day that, chick fil A is going to do family meals. Now. So for like $30 you get this many nuggets and these two sides. And so that it's a little more friendly for parents to take like maybe two parents and three kids or whatever.

Okay, well that's good if X is true. I didn't do a deep dive, I didn't I have yeah, I have to fact check too many things. Well, I was, telling Julie that you have McDonald's there. Their their food is getting more affordable. Like, for a while they were trying the let's go the expensive route and obviously sales went down.

And so they're kind of coming back to reality. Here's the problem. They built their reputation on value that you come here, you're going to get a, you're going to get a meal for a really decent price. And they departed from that. Yeah. They got rid of die a few days ago. I'm starting to like get back to their roots.

But up, up, up. We're loving it. We're liking it. Not quite love yet. Not yet. All right. Have a great day. We'll see to.