2.6.2025 -- NLS -- Legislative Shifts & Ben Fuhriman's Bill

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they discuss the latest political developments, policy changes, and community issues. Topics include legislative updates, economic shifts, and local concerns that impact listeners. Tune in for insightful commentary and engaging discussions.

Key highlights: Neal opens the show with a weaker voice, relying on Julie to help lead the conversation. They discuss a newly introduced bill by Representative Ben Fuhriman and its potential impact. The episode also touches on recent legislative activity and other noteworthy news shaping the day’s discussions.

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Transcript

And good morning. It's 807 on Newstalk 1079. It's Thursday and welcome to the program. You can hear my voice. It's a little weak, so Julie's going to help me out in the monologue here. The dialog right. Yeah. So yeah. Welcome back. And, Julie, we had the eve. Interesting. We had a bill that was introduced by Representative Ben Herman.

Newly minted legislator. And here's what he had to say. Hello Mr. Chairman. My name is Representative Ben Furman. Representing district 30 which is Bingham and Butte counties. I'm here to introduce to you our 32112. This is on the surface, very simple. We are simply changing one thing on line 32 on the first page, and that is the school bonding capacity.

And we're increasing that from 5% to 8%. And that's it. We're not changing or touching anything else to do with bonding or the processes or anything. We're simply increasing the capacity with this resource. With that, I'd ask for your, introduction of the hours, and I stand for questions. That's actually a 60% increase in the bond capacity. All right.

Let's. So when Ben says that's it, that's quite a bit, to jump 60% in bonding capacity, that could further and put, you know, school districts in debt. So I guess what they're saying is they can ask for more money, which has been such a successful strategy in Idaho over the past couple of years. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know. I don't know if that's really the the problem here. I, I think the limitation has been the high threshold that you need to pass bonds. The 60% or the 60 or 67. Yeah. I think it's whatever that one of the it's super six point whatever super majority. So I don't know if it in fact if this goes up and it tempts education leaders to say, hey, we can bond to 8% capacity now, we can ask for more money.

Asking for more money actually makes it less likely that your bond is going to pass, because a lot of voters don't like the sticker shock they've seen with a number of bonds. It would be interesting to talk to the school board trustees in an honest moment of district 91, and not that they're not honest, but yeah, they're trying to navigate a landscape that's very difficult.

Yes. Asking patrons for more money to help with their obvious. And I state that without any problem, obvious needs in that district. I will be interesting to ask them, how do you feel now about running the super bond that you ran for a quarter of $1 million? No. Of course. Yeah, it's sort of $1,000,000,000 billion quarter of $1 billion asking that.

And was it successful? Yeah. Yeah. It's a very a very good question. So, well, you know what? All of this, Julie, we could actually take this issue and expand it out. And I think this is why so many people are saying, let's rethink education because K through 12, these local brick and mortar schools, when you're spending other people's money, it is demonstrably true.

Things cost more when you're spending other people's money. If you if you go on vacation and you go out to eat and you're on a budget, you spend less money, then if you're, if you have an expense account with your corporation and they're buying dinner. Absolutely, absolutely. You might choose a different restaurant if it's your check where the bus is checked.

Yes. Exactly. So so there's that. We also had another bill introduced. This is Brandon Shippy. This is one. Julie. I don't know if we're going to dive in headfirst today because it is abortion. It is controversial, and I think it has a lot of nuance. But here's what happened. Committee. The intent of this legislation is simple to uphold the equal protection principle found in our US Constitution and Article one, section two of the Idaho Constitution, to protect the lives of pre-born children equally under Idaho's criminal and civil laws.

Just as we protect the lives of born individuals to eliminate provisions in Idaho law to allow for intentional killing of pre-born life or permit coercion against pregnant mothers. This legislation recognizes that life begins at fertilization and seeks to ensure both justice for the for pre-born children and protection for mothers. This legislation amends Idaho Code to explicitly include pre-born children in the definitions of person beginning at fertilization.

This reflects the scientific, biological, and moral reality if a baby in the womb created, it created in the image of God is equally human as we are, and it is then the intentional killing of a preborn child should be recognized and treated under homicide laws. Just as with any other human being. Okay, so there you basically have it that an abortion, if this law is passed, would be equal to murder.

In in Idaho. Thoughts? It's a very nuanced position that I'm going to take. I refer to abortion as murder. I do. Yeah. But just because I refer to that doesn't mean the courts will recognize that. Yeah. And I feel like we need to keep at the forefront the fact that our current abortion legislation, the way that we define it in the state.

Yeah. And the and the law that we're asking our practitioners to uphold is I'm in a in the middle of a court case. Yeah. Right. I don't know if this is the time to bring this forward when we haven't even settled the current law that we have. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think they're potentially unintended consequences of this, too.

So I would say, as you said, there's a lot of nuance of step lightly. If a woman has a miscarriage, should she be investigated for negligent homicide? If maybe she didn't take the prenatal vitamins she should have been taking? How far could you go on this? Boundaries are very difficult to define. They really are. And and while I, I believe that, Representative shipp, his position is morally defensible.

I don't know if it's politically feasible or legally defensible. And so I, I look at it and for me Julie and you and I feel like you and I are on the same page with this. How will it turn out? I don't care about your intentions actually. I care about what is the real life result of what you're trying to do.

My concern with this, which is a huge leap from where we are right now, and it may be morally defensible. You may take people who are actually leaning our way, but then solidify them into the pro-choice camp by taking a position that feels, to a lot of people, pretty draconian. That now, if abortion is considered First-Degree murder in Idaho, there's a lot of people who are in the middle fairly pro-life that are going to say, that's too far.

I'm not on that side, and you're actually going to solidify and strengthen the opposition. That is the real political impact that I'm talking about, potentially, that I would not want to see happen. I believe these issues are of such deep importance that we have to we have to execute our strategy very smartly and in a way that wins people over and wins their hearts and wins their minds over, and helps them to stop and think, what exactly is this?

I'm not sure a bill like this, if it gets passed, actually accomplishes that. Yes. Yeah. I, I have repeatedly asked for our lawmakers, for our local county representatives to think about about what we do and should we be doing it? Yeah. You said politically, impactful, I would say politically slash culture impact with the way that you represent it.

And then I would say political slash litigation impact with the way that I presented it, when both of those are downsides. I don't think this is a good idea for this time. Yeah. Yeah. No, you you're not wrong. All right, let's go to our. I believe this is our friend Bill. Bill is at you. Yes. Good morning guys.

How are you? Good, good. Hanging in there. What's on your mind? Good. It's been fun to watch the lives in Total derangement syndrome since the election day. It's just been comedy show every day, you know? You probably have seen the reports on the Ukraine and kind of. This is my little area of expertise, that Zelensky just came out and said that he's willing to accept the peace proposal under two conditions NATO and getting nukes.

And, General Kellogg, who is Trump's envoy to Ukraine, basically said zero to slim to none chance that either one of those is going to happen. And I'm really happy to hear that. Yeah. Because, I mean, Putin wouldn't go for that to to have Ukraine nuclear armed and belong to NATO like that. Wouldn't that be a deal killer anyway?

Right. But you go even beyond that. Who's going to pay the 3% of Ukrainian fees into NATO? It's going to be probably the United States. Yeah. And again, Ukraine. Ukraine has nothing to do with the North Atlantic Treaty, per se. Because, you know, you start inviting all these countries for political reasons, for protection or guarantees that have nothing to do with the North Atlantic.

And that was the intent of the treaty originally. But you're going to have a whole bunch of your listeners who are these crazy pro-war mongers will, you know, slam down? Yeah. Trump and, you know, the presidency and all that. Yeah. I think if the Europeans want to do something with Ukraine and create a separate some kind of a European, group to protect Ukraine or protect any other country for that matter, that has nothing to do with Atlantic, North Atlantic or any other body per se.

But it's just going to be a European protection group. They can certainly do that. But the United States should be no part of the, you know, on that particular NATO, proposal. You know, Bill, I don't know if we've ever actually asked you this question. I mean, that that part of the world is near and dear to your heart.

It's where you came from. But do you agree with us that the the amounts of cash and resources that we are sending to Ukraine, it's time to put that to an end? Absolutely. A long time ago and we we've had these conversations actually. Yeah, I have absolutely no problem because there's a lack of accountability. There is massive corruption in Ukraine.

You look at the Zelensky, how he started and how he's finishing up the power grab that he was humbled in the beginning asking for things, and now he demands things where a lot of that stuff is completely, totally disappearing. And, you know, part of it played into into the U.S. hands because we were able to turn over our old equipment.

So the industrial complex in the U.S. loved the whole arrangement, but I think, you know, it's this has been a stalemate for probably a year and a half to two. Nobody has won anything. All all that's happening is total destruction and, loss of life. You know, they're talking now. Over half a million killed Russians and close to 100,000 killed Ukrainians.

And reconstruction is going to be on the same, level as in guys of the Trump is proposing for the United States to take over and rebuild it into a Riviera. So it's going to be, again, massive, massive amounts of spending for really. No. Yeah. No reason. You feel for the people. And we tried we tried doing a lot of stuff in the beginning because we didn't think this was going to go as long as it did.

But at this point, this is just a total, stalemate and a destruction of property and life. Okay. We are recording this call. We will play it back if if we need to, because we have some listeners who think the only solution is to continue sending endless amounts of cash to Ukraine. But, you know, just like, just like the our school systems and Department of Education.

Yeah. Gotcha. We have one listener in particular that when I said, Zelensky comes here and demands money, he insisted that no, he comes and grovel because he's in such a bad way. And how could I ever think that he's demanding money? Yeah. So you you can see the demeanor. I mean, you could see it from the, spring and summer of 2021 to now and mean three years later, the complete, complete reversal in his behavior or 2022 to now, the complete reversal.

But yeah, I mean, it's totally you. You're going to have to make a deal. Ukraine will probably have to give up some territory. Trump has means. It's a brilliant suggestion that you might have heard, floated, with oil. Either we completely shut down Russia's oil imports or you allow Putin to, bring the oil out in exchange for 25% of the profit goes to rebuild Ukraine, 75% goes into the Russian, rebuilding infrastructure of their own.

Yeah. It's I think, in my opinion, that's a great, great suggestion because all Russia is, is one big gas station. Yeah, it's it's true. Bill. Thank you. It's it's always good to have your perspective. All right. You guys have a great day. All right. 208542127. And it's 822. I like that. Yeah. This is one of those situations where someone who's actually been over there in Ukraine, someone who has heritage with Ukraine, we should give them their their opinions and their their reflections, a higher value.

And I'm going to listen to Bill every day of the week before I listen to some retired general who is making bucks off the contracts of the military equipment that's being, manufactured and sent over there. Okay, I bill, is far less compromised than a retired general whose pockets are getting lined by this whole thing. Oh, that is that is so true.

That is so true. And and you do wonder whose pockets are getting lined in factually. I had a moment of of deep cynicism this morning after you sent me several tweets. X's showing how much money was going to New York Times and Politico and AP from the Biden administration. Was it from USAID? Yes. That's what you covering.

And I thought, is our federal government just one massive money laundering operation? Jeez, it sure feels like it. Where they dole out cash to their friends as either favors or rewards. And it the cycle just continues. They tell the media you keep us in power. We'll keep sending cash your way because we know you're a newspaper.

New York Times. You could probably use that $50 million. Don't talk about the dementia. Don't talk about Hunter's laptop. You reporting because you are influential and you'll keep getting your checks from USAID. Now, none of that is ever documented. But is that sort of the generalized understand of how this works? Oh, absolutely. I think I think that is happening.

The other thing that I think is going to come out with this Doe two reporting is you're going to see a whole bunch of family members of influential lawmakers, senators, Congress, congressmen, and women family members who have cushy government jobs, whose entire salaries come from things like USAID. And they're about to lose their jobs. So it's not just their pockets that are getting lined, it's their relatives pockets that are getting lined as well.

Yeah. Yeah it's slimy 825 on Newstalk 1079 let's go to the phones. Hi caller, how are you? Hey, Neal, it's Paul Hockey. How are you? Good. Good. Just calling in concerning your, your comments about, the school board and, bond issue. Oh, yes. I thought of you, Paul, when, we were playing this.

I wonder what Paul would say. Yeah. So interesting enough, you know, from a district 91 perspective, the valuation of Bonneville County, where district 91 resides, that would have no impact on us. We could bond up to 8 or $900,000 and be under today's cap. What that might help is some smaller school districts. I know we have a neighboring school district that needs the high school, but they're they're not able to bond for the cost of the high school because of this cap.

And, they reside in Bingham County, so maybe that's where that's coming from. Okay. But to Julie's point, yes, we did learn a lot with the $250,000 bond that we put forth. Not to correct you, Paul, but it was million, not thousand. I did the same thing. I did the same thing. So those darn zeros. Yeah. But yeah, we learned a lot.

And from my personal perspective, when we put that bond force again, it will just be for one high school, which from my perspective would be Idaho Falls High School. That's the biggest need in the district. I feel we have, and put that before the voters, which would be a much smaller dollar amount. Now, there's some negatives to that, you know, is the entire district going to support a bond that only benefits part of the district?

I don't know, it's been successful in other districts. So maybe it will be successful in ours, but it will be a smaller dollar dollar amount for that bond. And therefore may be successful. So but I think that's where I would like to see the bond go the next time we try a bond is just to try and address one school.

Idaho Falls high schools, the biggest need in the district right now, and see if we can get something done with it. Paul, while we have you. What what is the time frame like on this? When could you ask next. And is there, a fairly developed plan to put before the voters? No plan yet. I think we'll start talking about that the, the second half of this year and then put it before the voters the beginning of next year.

Okay. So you're away. Paul, I am completely spitballing here. I am not a school board trustee. I don't even know if this is possible, but you mentioned that it's hard to get, an entire district or entire amount of patrons to support a bond that will only serve a portion of the district by building one high school. Can district 91 open up their enrollment and say, if you can provide your own transportation, anyone can attend the new Idaho Falls High School.

Until we hit our enrollment caps, you know, that's actually available today. Julie. Okay. People can petition us at as long as there's room in that high school. And that's for anywhere in the state of someone from district 91 wanted to go to, Hillcrest. Like, I don't know why they would want to do that, but, like, if they wanted to go, you know, and there's room at Hillcrest they could petition, fill out an application and petition to attend that high school.

It happens. Actually, I was going to say it. It's not uncommon. It's not like there's hundreds of kids that do it, but it is happening every day. Yeah. Okay. I was just trying to think, how do you sell this to the entire voting population for district 91, when it only benefits a portion? And that was the first thing that came to my mind is that, hey, if you've got a 17 year old, they can they can come here.

Yeah. That, you know that that is an option. You know, my, my biggest hope is that people will just see the need and, and know that it's the right thing to do. And then when the tides turn and it's time to address all of the issues at Skyline High School that then the entire district will get behind that bond and support it.

That's I'm just putting a little faith in humanity on this one. Yeah. Hey, we'd be remiss if we didn't end this conversation with. That's not the point, Paul.

But I'm still going to try and make it the point. I know it's all good. All right, Paul, thank you for calling in. Love your insight. Thank you. You, too. Have a great day. All right. It's, 830 on Newstalk 179.

All right. It's 834 on Newstalk 1079 Neal Larson, along with Julie Mason. And, if you'd like to reach us. (208) 542-1079 on this Thursday. So on my commute, Julie, I saw the parallel lines of Brian that the transportation folks put down, which is, not quite as good as Michael Coates, but that's a pretty good predictor of bad weather coming.

Bad weather coming. Yeah. Did you know yesterday was what I'm going to get the exact wording right. But something along the lines of National Weather Man Day. Really? Okay. So happy celebration of day yesterday, Michael Coats and Jeff Roper. I have to look that up. I had no idea. Well, there's a national day for everything. February 5th.

Yeah. United States celebrates national weather man's day. Okay, I got really close I it sometime. No, you were exactly right. It honors meteorologists, weather forecasters and broadcast meteorologists, as well as storm spotters. And observe. We should have had Michael. I mean, you know what? In honor of National Donut Day, I choked on the donut one time.

We could have had Michael Coats on, I should say. What we should say is on your day of celebration, Michael Coats. On your day of celebration, you gave us high winds. That was the gift that what you're. We're celebrating national weather, man. And you gave us high winds as the gift. Thanks, Michael. Way to celebrate National Weather Man's Day.

We love to tease my. And it's it's all all good. Julie, I have to play this clip. Listen to these states and localities run education. They basically, that's where 90% of the funding for education goes. They already won that. They should run it. The federal government should not run it. Randi Weingarten, welcome to the Republican Party. Yeah.

Isn't that what Trump is asking for? Randi. Yeah. Like, I don't know, I actually heard her say this, but in the context of a larger clip that we had earlier this week. And so she put a bunch of texture around it to try to justify having the Department of Education. But that clip alone there, it's a little over 10s it is the justification for Donald Trump to go get rid of it.

That doesn't mean you can't have some federal money going to the states for educational reasons, but you don't need a cabinet level position, and you don't need an entire department on the federal level in order to address those particular issues. You could do it much more surgically, especially when teaching children in, say, Idaho is far different than teaching children in.

I don't pick California, but we'll we'll even pick a state close to us. The the the laws, the regulations, the demographics. They don't even come close to matching. No. Yet we're going to have a federal department oversee all of that. Yeah, yeah. You're right, you're right. I actually think that it's feasible, Julie, that we might see the end of the Department of Ed.

Yeah, I one of the things that will be interesting to see how it all plays out is the Department of Education does so much post-secondary like loans, grants, everything to college students. And I don't know how you shutter that. And and some people have said, I, I've watched a few videos on this and some people have said it's actually easier than you think.

You get funding institutions involved and you make them take care of it, not the government. Yeah, sell them all off. Sell it all off. Yeah, you could do that. And maybe that is possible. I think that is a bigger hiccup than actually I think the states are ready to take over the education. I think they want to. Oh, I think they do too.

I think they do too. I think maybe their concern would be because there is some money that flows from the federal government to the states. It's like a few years ago, 6%, I don't know. I remember that, but I remember being a little surprised by it because usually you think federal government pays for everything. No, it's it was it was mid-single digits.

The amount they send in in terms of the entire state budget. Yes. So, well, you could live without that money. But even if you were like, okay, we're a state. We don't want to live without that money. You could find other channels for it to get there for legitimate purposes. Yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this one carries forward.

I think it's one that definitely needed to be reviewed. The Department of Education is bloated. Yeah, along with many other departments in the federal government, but it is massively bloated. I have personal experience with this. I used to work with the Department of Education to secure loans for students in college. And, in three years out of Covid, they were still working from home, couldn't reach them, couldn't get Ahold of them.

You had a question and you needed guidance on how to follow the rules the federal federal government had developed couldn't get a live human. I was not here for this, but I did hear about it that when Will Kesley would fill in for me and he was trying to get some things done because he's a pilot and he needed some documents and things happening with the FAA.

Yeah, he couldn't get through like it was a mess. Same thing. And I, I feel like the federal government duly went into Covid mode. Everybody started working from home, maybe doing a zoom call once every few days or whatever. And they never actually returned back to work, even though the rest of us did. Well, here's the reality is most of America returned back to work within weeks.

Yeah. Not months, not years, weeks. Can I also say there was much of America that never stopped working, right. You and I didn't stop. We switched jobs, but we didn't stop working. Nope. We didn't stop working. Many industries didn't stop working. But the federal government could stay home for four years. Yeah, and they liked it so much they didn't.

Night. What is it? 94% of the federal government is not in the office. Okay. That's got it. That is coming to an end. Yeah. Yeah. This is why Doge was important. Yeah. Yeah. Super important. All right 841 Newstalk 179. We do need to break for our news here at the bottom. That will be back if you'd like to reach us, the stones Automotive group call and text line is 208542 179.

All right. To 848 on Newstalk 179. My mouth is a little salty today. The pink Himalayan sea salt that Julie just gave to me. My attitude's a little salty. I think all of our attitudes are a little salty. Yeah, I was going to say for about 30 days, but we're out of January, so it's going to be more like 37 days because we're six days into February.

Okay, Julie, let's do something really quick. I know we're on the air, so this may seem a little weird. I want you to, put your face right up to the microphone. Okay. Can you do that? Okay. All right. And, hold your hold your hands up and make the little circles with your thumb and index finger. Yeah.

Okay. Close your eyes and breathe in. Breathe out, breathe in. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Breathe in. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. All I could think is that if someone could see us right now, they think we're throwing up white supremacy. That's that's true. Like some gang sign. They were flashing gang signs in the studio.

Okay, wait. You do the arm part of it? Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Now, doesn't everybody feel more calm? I do feel it. Everyone feels better. Hey, let's let's expand this a little bit, okay? You do the arm. We're going to dissolve the Department of Education.

Okay. Let's do this. Good, good. Elon Musk is going to fire about 80% of the federal government. This is fun. Like this is very relaxing and cleansing and less salty. Yes that's right. Yes it's good. All right. (208) 542-1079 if you'd like to be a part of the program today, Jerry, ready for another Caroline Leavitt clip of all day long?

All the time. States and localities run education. They basically that. Okay. Hold on, hold on. Got to get to software right here. And one more thing before I wrap up, because I do want to get to these meetings. And I will see you all at the EO signing later this afternoon. I would just say that you brought to mind California and North Carolina, who continue to be on our hearts, and the president and this administration are committed to ensuring that these individuals get the funding that they need.

And I would just say a strong message to Democrats who are out there pretending to be outraged about the long list of crap that this administration is cutting federal waste and funding, like $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala, 6 million to fund tourism in Egypt, 20 million on a new Sesame Street show in Iraq. 4.5 million to combat disinformation in Kazakhstan.

I could go on and on, and I'm happy to provide this list to every single one of you. Democrats are outraged that the American people want to be, they want their tax payers going to good uses, not stuff like this. But then they're very quiet about the fact that there are still North Carolinians and people in California who have lost everything.

And in the last four years, the federal government did nothing to help them. This president will continue to put Americans first. And I think the successes of this week so far speak to that. And it's only Wednesday. So I'll see you guys later this week and we'll see you this afternoon. Kaboom. Kaboom. Like she basically she's saying, why does the media not care that Ireland is getting tens of thousands of dollars to put on a transgender play?

But we have people living in tents on their own land in North Carolina, with no help from the federal government right now. And they're silent about it. Yeah. I also I would present near exactly the same argument to those people who are frustrated with those cutting jobs. Today's the deadline for the buyout that Trump gave federal employees. The buyout deadline is today, so people are going to be out of jobs.

Yeah. If you're playing the little violin for those people, you darn well better be doing the same thing for the people in Hawaii who lost their homes via fires. The people in North Carolina who lost their homes from the flooding, the people in California who lost their homes from fires. You better be operating genuinely. Yeah, and not just for your own interests.

I have a very good buddy who took the deal. The buyout? Yeah, took the buyout. That's make a big change. Which I thought, you know, that's good for cam. Pivoting is okay. It is okay. Because I will tell you, this would be my calculation if I worked for the federal government right now. And you're right. Today's the deadline.

Right. Let's close of business today. Yes it is. You're thinking. Okay. Let's say I don't take the deal, because I want to keep my job here. You're boogie. Your job may go away anyway, in 3 or 6 or eight months, because Elon Musk is not going to stop and Trump's not going to stop getting rid of the waste, fraud and abuse.

And even though your particular job you might feel is important. It may fall under a larger umbrella of waste, fraud and abuse. And you may not survive that that cut. But you won't get the buyout. You'll just lose your job. It'll be that it'll be that quick. So I think a lot of people are probably calculating that that you know what it really is may maybe a good time to get out.

And I love how it was structured. And a reminder those people will get paid to September. And so it gives them six months, seven months to try to figure out what I'm going to do with my life, to refocus, possibly move whatever it is, and take a new job. And you're still getting paid? Yeah. Why not? Right on.

I mean, there's an incentive to get out now. 854 Newstalk 1079. By the way, we have received so many Valentine selfies Julie. Yeah it's been fun to see. And we are a week from today actually giving away a night stay at the winners choice of either destinations in or Black Swan Inn. And all you got to do is text us your love selfie.

It could be, when you get engaged, an engagement picture. It could be a wedding picture. Maybe it's a vacation picture, or you just want to put the love, hand out of the heart hands. Yeah, the heart hands. Just send it to us at (208) 542-1079. We'll put it in the mix. We'll be back.

All right. That's our one. We have our two of the Neal Larson Show coming up.

That I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done. I will not let you down. I am truly honored. Honored that you have asked me to take on this role. Pam Bondi, now the full fledged attorney general of the United States of America. You just heard that clip from yesterday thanking the president of the United States for selecting her and pledging she won't let him down and she won't let the country down.

So and furthermore, Julie, there's so much this is you and I have talked about this. This is like drinking from a fire hose. Already Secretary of State Rubio has been down to Panama. They have set up a framework for the United States to purchase the Panama Canal. Of course we built it and then libs gave it away during the Carter administration.

And we're paying we're paying for fees to go through a canal that we gifted to then Panama, who then turned around and gave control to China, China, and now, Donald Trump is well striving to correct all that. So we've kicked the Chinese out, basically, and they can probably pass their ships through, but they aren't going to control it.

Now all of our fees are going to be waived. That'll save millions every year. And I think Panama is open to us purchasing the Panama Canal because and can I say this, Trump never explicitly talked about using military force to take control of the Panama Canal. No, that was some speculation that lefties did. Yeah, I will say Trump's language was vague, like we'll get the Panama Canal back.

You know it. Yeah. He didn't flex. Yes. He flexed a little bit but never overtly said, we'll send our troops down and retake the Panama Canal. But he left that hanging out there. Well look how willing Panama is to deal. Yes. With just one visit. By the way Marco Rubio goes down there. Yeah. One visit and we're in.

We've made a massive stride in comparison to what the Biden administration or any administration prior to this did. Yes. Severed ties with China. No fees for America. And now we've got a pathway to owning the Panama Canal. That is America First. That's American greatness. And that's exactly what I kind of have a feeling that the trajectory of what we're seeing at hyperspeed, by the way, with the Panama Canal, may also happen with Greenland.

It could very well. This is, I thought, exactly the same thing when he brought up what was potentially possible with the, with the Gaza Strip. Yeah, y'all, you're Pooh Pooh every idea he has, but somehow he seems to get a portion of the idea through. Yeah, he shoots as far as he can. Yeah. And then he gets 80% of it.

Yeah, yeah. That's true. Now the left will focus on the 20%. He didn't get and call it a failure. Trump knows exactly what he's doing. Yeah I yeah I also love that he is talking openly about Canada becoming America's 51st state. It's because he got Trudeau governor Trudeau like it. It's just so great. Now do I think that's going to happen.

Do I think, we'll be doing this radio show in 2028 talking about, the from the great state of Canada, our neighbors to the north. What? No, I don't actually think that's going to happen. I don't think the UK is going to go for that. I don't think the Canadian people really want to be the 51st state.

However, I think Trump can extract some things from Canada because of it. I think so too. Can we talk about the Gaza Strip for just a second? Oh yeah. There's a dream to have it be a Riviera. Maybe the 52nd state, maybe the 52nd state. I want to remind everybody how big the Gaza Strip actually is. You're looking from like, you're like Idaho Falls to Rexburg.

Like that's the length. Yeah, most of it is about two miles wide. I think some of it's about six miles wide. Yeah. This is not a very, very big stretch of land. Yeah it's very small. I was watching a news report by somebody who is an expert in the area talking about is this possible, is this even a possibility that we could move the Gazans out.

And and then somehow go through different contracts, revitalize it, put up hotels, make it, make it the beautiful place it can be because it is gorgeous. There's parts of the Gaza Strip that are just gorgeous. This expert was saying, do you not understand? It needs to be raised anyway. Yeah, most of it's inhabitable. Yeah. Right now, you know, with the destruction that has happened, that makes sense.

If you think about from here to Rexburg, a and the the war torn area, it is. Yeah. That it would be inhabitable. Yeah. If you're gonna have to clear it all out and rebuild, why wouldn't you go with Trump's idea or at least a portion of Trump's idea? Well, you you should. And you know one example that I look at and I mean the comparison is different here.

There's obviously some key differences. But after World War II Japan was decimated, especially Hiroshima, Nagasaki. We actually went in once they surrendered. And you know, we thought, okay, we we can help them out. Now, there was actually sizable amounts of U.S. help to get Japan back on its feet. And it didn't take all that long. And now you have these shining gems of cities in Japan.

The same thing could happen in Gaza. You see how quickly in places like Dubai building happens in and growth happens. And if there's anybody who knows how to do it, it's Donald Trump. He changed the New York skyline. He knows this stuff. This is his forte. So when he goes in there and he says, yeah, we're going to we're going to bulldoze this thing because it needs to be there's not really anything usable left, but we're going to build something beautiful that the the people will treasure, into the future.

And a yeah, I can see five, ten years down the road, Gaza can look totally different. Yeah, yeah, we'll just have to see. I, I just tell that whole story to remind people. I don't know why. Why we insist upon putting a big no on everything that he says in the mainstream media. It all it does is benefit him because any proves you wrong.

Yeah. Well he he does and I, I, I, I'm not even sure what the media, the mainstream media Julie, is so much less potent now than they were even four years ago. And I think a lot of it has to do. I, I do think you had some people that saw the growing influence of social media, which is why far left, forces took it over for a while.

And then Elon Musk was the one force big enough to come in and say, this has to stop our democracy, our republic. For those of you out there who may get concerned about the words here, our Republic is too important to let it fall because of the influence of too an algorithm, essentially. And so I think the game has changed dramatically.

And I don't think the legacy media has the, the, the, the sway and the influence that they used to have. Yeah. We reported on a story. I think it was two days ago. We talked about it. It was not very long. We talked about a pretty briefly. So most of the listeners probably didn't catch it, but we talked about how there was potential that the the current U.S. government would go in and buy TikTok.

You and I didn't love that. Yeah, we we said if that happened, we'd prefer, you know, a sunset. You have three months to then turn it over to private industry. Yeah. Because we don't want state owned media. We don't ever want to get to that place. Over the last 48 hours, all we figured out is that that we currently do have state owned media.

Yeah. Politico received $8 million last year. That's it could potentially bankrupt them that that money is now gone. Yeah. If that's what happens if you if you lose your government aid and your, your publication can no longer function. You were state owned media. Yeah. You you were and and state bribed media is state owned media. And I think that, like I said this morning, it was hush money.

It was the Biden administration saying, you know what? You know what you need to not report on. And, you know, you need to keep quiet about and you'll keep getting your grants every year from USAID. But you know what you need to do. It never had to be stated. They just now they're just like, okay, we know these grants will stop if we if we say dementia or Alzheimer's or whatever.

So they didn't dig. We lost journalistic independence because our federal government was sending millions and millions and millions of dollars to some of the biggest voices in the media. Absolutely. Yep. It was state owned media. Yeah, yeah for sure. All right. 917 (208) 542-1079 if you'd like to join us on the program this morning, a great day yesterday, President Trump signed this with my action this afternoon to putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women's sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of title nine and riskier federal funding.

There will be no federal program.

So this will effectively end the attack on female athletes at public K-12 schools and virtually all U.S. colleges and universities. I don't think we've missed anything, but if we do, we'll make it up very quickly with a, with an order. Okay. So this was this is great because I've seen some people say on that Trump can't tell these schools what to do.

And he's not he's saying if you want federal money, then you can't have boys and men play against girls and women. Yeah, it's that easy. You can keep doing it if you want to do it, if you think that's what's right. But there won't be any federal money going to it. Yeah. Perfectly fine. Executive order. I don't see an issue with this at all.

The taxpayer dollars. I don't pay my taxes thinking that money is going to go to cover a man pretending to be a woman who wants to swim and and destroy everybody and take scholarships away from people. Yeah, I don't pay my taxes believing that a man pretending to be a woman is playing on the San Jose State volleyball team and harming girls with the wicked shots in the in the volleyball game that are happening.

I that's not what I want done with my taxpayer dollars. And I believe most of America does not want that to happen. Yeah. So fine. This is great. Great EO yeah. And there was a great moment too when he invited the. And he's sitting there and the girls are behind and maybe 8 or 10ft and probably for just safety protocols or whatever.

And Trump's like it I think I'm going to be fine. And he invited all of them to to crowd around her. You know what I really appreciated? He didn't smell any of their hair. He didn't put his hands anywhere that was sketchy and inappropriate. His hand stayed on the desk. Yes they did. I mean, I'm I'm glad that our sniffer president is gone.

Former sniffer. Let's go to the phones. Hi, caller. How are you? I mean, it's you. Yeah. Go ahead. Yes, I'm, for this reduction in the federal government. You know, to me, a federal employee thinks that, you know, they've got to made that really don't have to produce, like, in the private sector where you got to, you know, make yourself productive to keep your job.

Yeah. Well, in the federal government, they don't have to do that. And the perfect example is that I called VA. I'm a veteran. I'm asking for some help. And they take a message, we'll call you back. And then they probably don't write. Well, I'm still waiting. Okay. Yeah. You might be waiting a bit. Yeah, might, might be a minute.

So and I but you know what I think a lot of people can identify with you, that they try to get things done with the federal government. Julie, you talked about the Department of Education and student loans earlier. We talked about Will in the FAA, especially since Covid, that they they truly descended into a place of complacency that they really haven't climbed out of.

And I'm I'm with the caller time to time to cut the fat. Yeah. Absolutely. I, I you see these memes all the time about the IRS and, and the expectations of the government on the American people versus what the American people can expect their government to provide for them. Yeah. You know, the memes, they'll be like, oh, we're going to write this incredibly complicated tax code, not explain it to you, but leave it completely up to you to file your taxes, and then we'll ding you for for screwing up the tax code.

Yes. Like that happens all the time, right? I that this is true with other parts of the government that there's these expectations on the American people are far greater than the expectations than the for the employees of the government. Yes. Yeah. That's that's true. That's true. Let caller let's go to the phones. Hello. How are you today.

Good. How are you doing. Better now. In March of 2024 I filed my taxes. My dad had died and left us a chunk of money. And there was $90,000 paid into the IRS. I called three, 4 or 5 times a week at the beginning. I got people midway through starting in June. No one answered the phone but I got three letters, two threatening and one they were going to repossess my house.

Oh well then in December, all of a sudden, because their excuse was their system was down, I got the check and $4,000 interest, and I even had a couple of the congressmen helping me and they couldn't get through. Nobody answered the phone. Nobody answered the phone at all. And we need to get rid of the IRS.

Yes, agreed. Thank you. I think most people will have stories like this. Oh, one of the things that I believe could be listed in probably top five of things that bothered people with the Biden administration. When you got DACA, you got the men playing in women's sports, all of that. I think the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents graded almost every American citizen.

Yes, I would agree. But even with that, it didn't seem like their customer service levels it improved. Oh, not at all. Enforcement improved, but to help people get compliant, that didn't improve. All right. 924 now Newstalk 107 and we'll be back. All right. How's Facebook Live today? Good thing I new computers coming because it is angry today is it.

Oh I wanted to look at your task manager and look at it. Yeah.

Under what is what you frown when I open it up. What was that? Should be good.

All right. By the way, James, I don't know if you're watching right now, but if you are, thank you for dropping these electrolytes off. I've been using them the last couple of days. I appreciate it. And, because I had this theory because I really have to be very deliberate about drinking water or I don't drink my water.

So when I am deliberate about it I will get a headache quite often after about 70 or 80oz. Anyway, I read some stuff on it and that can be your electrolyte balance. You know, potassium levels, whatever. Manganese anyway. So, James heard me whining and complaining about it. He's like, I'm sick of hearing Neal whine and complain about this.

Anyway, so he dropped off this little. It's a stack of ten tablets, inside this, this little thing. So thank you. James. I've had, I think it's helping, like, better energy. And it, But it doesn't help with the charm. I've noticed that I'm not. Darnit, I'm not that I'm not nearly as. When will there be a risk pill?

When are we going to get that? I don't know, but I need it, I need it. Oh, remind me, just say the pill after the show. Because, the pill that the pill. But, it's just not everything. It's not for me, by the way. It's just I thought of something when I was on social media. The other.

That was fun. But I can't say.

All right. 928. We're back on Newstalk 1079 rolling along. We've been pleasantly I don't know if I'm surprised, but we've been pleased with the number of love selfies that, our listeners have sent in. Of course, we are in a week going to give away a night stay at either destinations in or Black Swan in Winters Choice, and it will be on Thanksgiving Eve.

Now, it's designed for you to present that to your loved one on Thanksgiving or on Thanksgiving on Valentine's Day, and then you can use it later. So it's not a Valentine's night stay. It's just you can give the gift on Valentine's Day, and then you can plan a little, you know, weekend, whatever. Look, you want to have two celebrations.

You can have your celebration that that is dinner or whatever for Valentine's, and then you later get to go celebrate love again. Yes. And either go to the destinations and or the Black Swan is. Yes. And so all you really have to do is text us your love selfie. It could be an engagement photo or a wedding photo, or a vacation photo.

And we have your phone number. So that's how when once we pick a winner, we will reach back out to you and let you know that you want. So we'll we'll look them over. We'll have some, fair party. Yeah. Some way of, picking on it, because we have a lot of our very dear listener friends who, have sent that in, and we can't just pick our friends to win.

So we'll we'll, we'll do it. I was told there's been something fun that's happened with watching the selfies come in, because we open up the selfies and we're like, oh, that's so cute. And and we've had some come in where I'm like, I know that person. I had no idea they were a listener. Right. So we've discovered some fans that we weren't aware we're listening, which is fun too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So again that number is 28542 on us. And I was thinking it would be funny if somebody texted in a picture and I was like, wait, that's not their husband.

Sorry, my poor brain. This happens to my daughter all the time because she's married to, it her husband has a twin. Yeah. Molly. Full time. Yeah. I have been told, like someone to ask me, did your daughter get divorced? Like. No. Okay. I just thought I saw her husband with a different person in Brolin's. Yeah, he's a twin.

That's his wife, right? That's. That's funny. But at the same time, it's like that could be the cause for rumor. Yes, it could. And. All right, the stones automotive group, Colin. Text line is (208) 542-1079. And like here's one that came in a few minutes ago, their anniversary in Maui. Oh, yeah. That's from one of our. Yeah. No, I saw that one, one of our faithful listeners.

Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Okay. Julie, what did you know? We interviewed, Senator Lenny this morning, and we talked about getting rid of the affidavit, the voting affidavits which people can use in lieu of showing their ID. Like, you can show up. No ID, no nothing, nothing. And just say, I just want to vote by affidavit.

And all you have to do is sign your name to a little card. I think I actually did this once when we first moved, and I didn't yet have a utility bill at to show and to prove residency. My driver's license was from a previous, so I'm like, I'll just use the affidavit. And I did. It was really, really easy.

But at the same time, it it gave me a little concern, like, can anybody just show up and say, I want to vote and I'll sign your affidavit. But they actually don't put any resources in to investigate if the affidavit is true or not. Right. I'd like to know and again, I this is not throwing any shade at the county clerk's or the secretary of State.

I would like to know how diligently do they go through each affidavit to prove that person is who they say they are, or is it just the honor system? It might just be the honor system. There's a couple things about this interview that I really liked, one of them being Senator Lenny, employed exactly the same version of deciding about this legislation that Senator Cook employed when he was determining his vote for the library bill.

If you remember, we interviewed Senator Cook and he said, yeah, I just decided to put it to a test. So he showed up at the library in Boise area. He didn't tell us which library, just to see if there was pornographic material available to children. And it was not only available, it was on display on one of their tables.

That changed his vote on the porn in libraries. Bill. Yeah. Senator Lenny did exactly the same thing. Instead of just going, hey, I've heard this exists and I want it to stop. He actually tried it when he went and voted. He purposely did not take his driver's license, told them he did not have his driver's license. They had him sign.

It was incredibly easy. And then he asked, are you going to do anything to verify that I'm actually that person? And he was told no. He employed the same thing that Senator Cook did, which is watch it work in practice and see if something needs fixed. Senator cook determined, yes, we've got to get porn out of libraries. Senator Lenny determined.

Yes. This is an easy way to cheat. Now, is it an expensive way to cheat? No, there's not that many. But we want a no cheat system. Not a just a, It's not that bad at cheating system. We want a no cheat system. Yes. Oh, yeah. That. And that's one good way to tighten it up. I do think and he cited was it Connecticut?

New Hampshire, I think is what you said you were Hampshire. I knew it was a snooty northeastern state, but, they have maple sirup. Yes. Right. So New Hampshire, you have to add a biometric. So they actually, if you want to sign the affidavit, you can do that. They take your picture, and that picture gets attached to the affidavit and you're connected to it some way.

And then you have to leave your fingerprint, which I like that, but you're adding layers of bureaucracy and process to your election workers that I don't know if, if we want to do that, because that comes with the cost. And yeah, you know, and and so maybe the smartest move is get rid of the affidavit. You want to vote, you got to show your ID.

Yeah. Hey I'm fine with this. And and tightening it up, I mentioned to Senator Lenny in that interview that the version of the bill that he brought forward, which is just get rid of it. Yeah. Is the no cost way to make this work. Now, if you want to do the New Hampshire way, you're going to add some additional costs.

He said he didn't. It didn't seem to him like people were interested in adding those additional costs. Understandably, we're trying to cut costs. We're trying to be a state that runs in the positive. We want less government overreach, less. If that's the case, let's just get rid of this way of voting because it's not necessary. Yeah, yeah, I and I agree with him, especially when you don't have to vote on the day when you have plenty of time in between.

So what would okay, let let's play armchair secretary of state here because we don't have film McGrane in studio today. What would your hesitation be if you're the Secretary of State, why would you not want to get rid of the affidavit system? I don't know what his response would be, but if I was a secretary of State and I was being pretty neutral, I might say something like this.

Hey, we're just trying to fulfill the needs of all voters. It's a very simple way to fulfill the needs of all voters, and it's not a way that can be exploited very easily. So of all the things that we're trying to do there feels like there's more of an upside to allowing the affidavit system versus getting rid of it, because it's just such a small amount of people that use it.

Now, that's not the way I feel, but that might be the way I would answer if I was secretary of state. Okay, so while you're Julie Mason playing the part of Phil McGrane. Yes, on The Neal Larson Show, I want to ask you a question. It it is easy to exploit. Oh, I think it's very easy to exploit.

What I mean is that it's there's not very a very broad expanse of people that can exploit it. What did he say? There was 1200 in the entire state in the last election. That's not a massive amount of votes. So a secretary of state might say this is such a small concern, we're not going to put effort towards that when we're trying to do other things, to tighten up the election process and make it run as smoothly as possible.

Yeah, for me, just get rid of it and then you don't even have to worry about it. There is no tightening up, or there is no worrying about the very narrow breadth of the cheating that can happen. Well, yeah, that's that's true. And you know what I mean? I'm, I'm not a county clerk, but I play one on the radio.

I'd be happy to be rid of it. It's just one less thing. You have to babysit. Yeah. That's right. It's one less. Well, just take it off your plate. That's that's kind of a you mentioned the school library issue, and Senator Cook. Okay. There's been a development on that issue. Apparently National Book Publishers, authors and the Donnelly Public Library, as well as a handful of Idaho parents and students, sued Idaho officials on Tuesday to block the state's library materials law.

That lawsuit was filed in federal court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho. It challenges Idaho's law, adopted in 2024, that requires libraries move materials deemed harmful to minors or face lawsuits. That lawsuit alleges Idaho's law violates the constitutional rights of publishers, authors, parents, librarians, educators, and students by forcing public schools and libraries to undertake drastic measures to restrict minors access to books, or face injunction and or monetary penalty.

Can I explain to these people what drastic actually means? Yeah, they misspelled reasonable. Drastic measures. Oh, so putting the books up on a shelf that kids can't reach. Oh that's drastic. Okay, maybe I didn't understand the meaning of the word. Maybe Webster's has changed the definition since I last looked to that. So I guess my question is, is one of standing and I don't know how the rights of students are violated and parents are violated.

They still have every right to go and check out that book. Lots of lots of rights aren't available to minors. They can't vote. They don't have that right. They can't buy alcohol. They don't have that availability. So when you when you say rights, their parent is their custodian. The custodian can then determine if the child wants to read it and the right is available.

Well, that that's true publishers. Let's look at that because they're saying the constitutional right of publishers, what is limited about their constitutional rights. If you're a publisher, you can still make the book. You can absolutely publish the book. You can sell the book. You can do whatever you want with the book. You don't have a right to have it distributed in every single library.

Every single book is not distributed in every single library. There are, I know, probably millions of books that aren't on shelves. I've written a book, Julie. It's in about 6 or 7 libraries. I'm suing. Yes, I have can't have been stepped on. My dystopian novel has a constitutional right to be in every library in America. Can I join this lawsuit?

These people are. So you want to sue? Look, look, it's not even supposed to be in every library. It needs to be in every section of every library, every section. Even though you have a clear concept to your book and where it would be located with the Dewey Decimal System. Right? That steps on your rights. It needs to be in the nursery books.

Library portion of the library needs to be in the science portion of the library. It needs to be with all of the maps. In self-help, you miss self-help self-help for certain. It needs to be there. Yes, it's not just one book in the library in every section. You know what an injustice I am suffering right now. Yeah, your rights are trampled on.

Okay, Julie, these people are just. They are the snowflake iest of snowflake. Yes, they are. You can still get the book. Yes, that's what's crazy. It's if you're a parent and you want to go to the library and say, hey, I need the hardest core porn you can, you've got because I want little Billy to see it. He needs to learn, you know, you can still do that.

Yep. Nobody's going to stop you. Yep. I hope I hope we get a reasonable judge on this. I can't believe we're still having this fight. I can't either, I you know what? You know what? This is? We've all probably seen that divorce proceeding that goes on for years. And after a while, neither one of them want to give it up because it's their new purpose.

Like, it's just principle. Now they've got to. They've got to win. They have to. And I feel like we're kind of at that point now where this is really absurd. You have grown up librarians that figured it out. Yeah. And they didn't have much to figure out. It's just you have a counter or you have a special high shelf or something that's all that was required.

This wasn't elaborate. But, even the look, I love small town libraries. All right? I do not. I'm right, I write books. I want my books to be read. So I should love libraries, and I do. But when you look at the Donnelly Library, you can go to Ikea and get a little lockable shelf. That's all they would have had to do.

They don't even have to leave their darn library. Amazon would have delivered them one. I yes, they would have. That's true. And I almost want to call the prosecutor in that county, wherever Donnelly is, and say if your little library did this, would that shield them from your prosecution and just see what they have to say? Yeah. All right.

It's a small town, the library and the prosecutor probably first. So they may not answer. They had dinner together last Tuesday. All right. Okay. Quick break. 20854210790 it's Thursday guys. So this kind of is our post show right here. One more break actually after this I am tired of talk. We have to talk about it because in the news I'm so sick of it.

I'm so sick of the library. Where are the freaking grownups on this? I don't know. Okay, let me ask you this question. And maybe the answer is both, but I'd love your thoughts. Is the important thing to them the Holy Grail to be able to peddle porn to kids? Or is it to win a legal battle to win a political battle?

Like what's important? The political victory of Idaho's law going down in flames? Or is it they really, truly want little kids to see sexually graphic stuff in books? You know, I don't know. I would say at this point it's probably the political victory. I think initially the gut reaction was that we need to teach four year olds how to give BJs.

Oh, I just about said it. Yeah, yeah. No, I got you right. Yeah. And which is it? Isn't it nauseating gut turning to think that. Oh, they're needed a four year old how to perform oral sex. Yeah. But whatever I think it's moved past that now. And it's just the political victory for them at this point because they lost the initial battle.

Yeah. The war isn't finished. They've lost the initial battle. Yeah. And now they just got to win. Yeah. And then I would also say they're teaching kids how to give bleeps in other ways. Yeah. Libraries are probably their least effective way to teach kids how to do that. It's happening all the time on TikTok. It's happening on internet sites.

It's it's being inferred on YouTube. It's like, yeah, there's other ways that it's getting in kids hands. Yeah. Donal is right next to McCall. What county is McCall in? I don't know if a search. Donnelly. McCall? It's territory includes sections. It's either Valley or Adams County. Oh, no, I don't want Donnelly. Let's say Donnelly. Donnelly.

Idaho. Do do do do do do. Valley county. Valley camp. I'm 52 years old, and I've always been a resident of Idaho. And I don't remember Valley County. That's okay. It was too far down the alphabet. I was memorizing all of those B counties. There's too far down the 44. Why do we have so many B counties?

Don't know there's a ton. Like there's 44 counties and there's at least ten B county, like a fourth of the county. Start with B no.

I don't have an answer for you. Three of them are right in a row. Bannock. Bingham. Bonneville. Oh, I know Butte. I mean Bannock, Bear Lake, Benaiah. Bingham. Blaine. Boise. Bonner. Bonneville. Boundary. Butte. Wow. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. And you know how easily we could have had a Bora County? Oh, yeah, that could have happened easily.

Could have happened. Yeah. There's only one V Valley County, so it's A1V. We spent too much time in fourth grade making our being map of Idaho for media. Remember to memorize all 44 counties. Yeah, I had to figure out where the beans all went. Okay. Did you like Idaho history? I did, I you know how I talk about, Asian culture and how it makes me sad?

Yeah. And kind of scared because I don't know what was framed in my little kid mind, you know, that there was so much abuse of women and everything. Yeah, I have a touch of that with Idaho history as well. Not near as severe. Oh, really? But I always feared that the Native American women were so harmed. I kind of made me, like, scared a little bit when I learned about Idaho history.

And who was your fourth grade teacher, miss Mrs. Stanger? Okay, Mrs. white for me. And here we have Idaho winning her way to fame. Silver and gold in the sunlight. Race and fortune lies in romance. Oh, it's a romance. I think it's romance. Right? Her name? Sure will go singing. Singing. You're all going to have this in your head all day long.

They're going to be there. Ears are scarred from our singing. I know they're like, who cares about the song? You guys are horrible, Julie. The Idaho history soundtrack. But if we were Beyonce and singing like that, we would win a Grammy. That's true, that's true. Linda sang Valley County back in 2020 and 2021 where were crazy with mask mandates.

So she's saying that kind of gives you an idea of the culture in Valley County. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Somebody sent oh, wow. Hold on. Oh, wow. Hold on. Oh, wow. Hold on.

950 on Newstalk 179. Julie, I want to read something to you. Okay. This, I believe, is from a local library. I'm not sure which one. And in a laminated sign, there is a Sharpie. Stop sign in red. Okay. And underneath that is typed pursuant to Idaho Law 18 1517 B something or other. Beware of these books.

Beware of these books. Books, especially fictional ones, have been known to broaden people's intellectual horizons, expose people to new ideas, empathize and explore the worlds of those who are different from them. Think about difficult questions and other effects harmful to minors. Of course, minors cannot be trusted to make their own decisions in any context. Do their own research on the contents of a book, or mentally emotionally deal with the ramifications of new ideas.

As such, if you would like to borrow or read a book from these shelves, please have your parents contact the teacher so she does not get fined, sued, or sent to jail as a result of something a student chose to read. Okay, I, I'm going to ask that someone sent us. Yes, I saw it. I have some follow up questions that can't be answered right now, but I would say I think it's pretty safe to guess the person who wrote this or constructed the language on this did not vote for Trump, right?

You I think that's a very safe to say. Yeah. And then I would then I would go you would never employ this on a, on any other level. This is your bitterness. Yeah. About anything conservative anything that that you're using language here that has so much hyperbole in it, so much over the top, yet you're going to sit there and say that Trump is over the top.

Yeah, I can pretty much guarantee, oh yeah, for sure. It's very pouty. It's very you know what? Lots of books do this. Oh, someone said it's in a teacher's classroom. Of course it is, I think so, not a library. I did see some books on a bookshelf behind it, but, So. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I would too, if I could talk to this teacher and say, you know what?

There are a lot of things kids aren't able to decide for themselves. Like running out in the street when they're three. Yeah. Like, not grabbing a hot curling iron when they're two. Like, I could just go on and on, like not putting an entire candy into their mouth when they're 18 months old. All of these things are for the protection of children.

Yeah. So, you know what? If this was, my kid's teacher, I might ask him. Would there might be a change? Yeah. Which they may be very, very happy that I asked for that. They might. Okay. 954 news talk 1079. We've got a quick break here and we'll come back. We'll wrap up the hour after we return on Newstalk 1079.

How do you just want to laugh? Do you just want to laugh for a second? Yes, please wait. I'm not even going to say the name. We have somebody on our Facebook Live that's from Oregon. Okay. They're taking issue with the concept of getting rid of the RFID it. Yeah. They actually contend in the Facebook Live that Oregon does it the easy way, which is they send a ballot to your house, you turn it back in and quote, Oregon has virtually no fraud in their elections.

Okay. Okay. When do I need that? It. You know what, Julie? Oh, this. I threw away all the cancer tests. I got rid of every cancer test I could find. I have cured cancer. We can't find any cancer. No cancer anywhere. Okay? They need to listen to the Lenny interview. He talked about this because with this system, there's no way to actually figure out if it's fraudulent, right?

Oh, goodness. Man. It's good. It was worth a good laugh. It is a good laugh. That's actually. It's a good laugh. Really quite funny. Very, very funny. Okay, let's see. We have about a minute. 13. Should we just do one last plug for the love selfies? Okay. Where is that notification? An update to the Samsung account privacy notice to something.

How could I guess my question back? Sorry, I'm done laughing. Now. I'm just curious. How do you know there's no fraud in a system like that? How do they know there's no fraud when there's no ability to find the fraud? Well, you don't you don't know. You don't know. You don't know. I, I don't know how to say that.

You don't know. Do you know how easy it was to copy my parents signature? I did it all the time. I parents who worked full time, more than full time hours. Both of them, I was it I was the poster child for latchkey kids, which meant I filled out all the paperwork that went back to school. Do you know how many times I forged my parents signatures?

Like, you know, can I make a confession? This happened just the other day. I migrated all of our phone lines out of our national carrier because they're horrible. And, my wife had left, but she was the primary on this one account. So guess who got to be my wife? Jessie did, because she was it. I was like, I need feminine hand signature.

I'm saying this. So. Yeah. All right, 950 hold on, hold on. Here. All right. 958 on Newstalk 1079 Julie, we have love to all of the love selfies that people are sending in. Of course, a week from today and right around this time in a week, we're giving away a night stay at either destinations in or Black Swan Inn in Pocatello, and the only thing our listeners have to do is find their or take their favorite selfie or wedding picture, or engagement picture and text it to us super easy.

We want to give you away this fun gift certificate to like Neal said, Black Swan in our destinations and easy also because they're located on separate ends of the listening spectrum. So if you're from Pocatello area, Black Swan in if you're from Idaho Falls or up north, destinations in, send us your selfie. (208) 542-1079 all right, well, it's time to end the show.

Mark Lee, VanCamp and Robbins up next, Julie and I. We'll see you tomorrow. We've got a big show planned for you tomorrow.