5.7.2025 -- NLS -- Virtue Signals, Boise Flags, and House Bill 93

On this episode with Neal and Julie, the show dives into a range of controversial and politically charged topics, centering on education policy, local government overreach, identity politics, and federal-state dynamics. Neal critiques what he sees as excessive virtue signaling from white, cisgender liberals and questions the inclusivity of progressive symbols like the rainbow flag, suggesting they now alienate others. The discussion turns toward the ideological imbalance in city governments—particularly Boise—where left-leaning councils, in his view, don’t reflect their broader communities.

Julie contributes with insights on House Bill 93 and school choice, addressing tax credit funding mechanisms and how the Department of Education’s evolving federal role could impact Idaho’s local districts. The conversation also touches on Trump-era policy shifts and their possible effects if the Department of Education is dismantled. There's some back-and-forth about flags flown by city governments and whether they serve as legitimate expressions of inclusion or political provocation.

The episode weaves personal reflection with political skepticism, leaving listeners with a provocative take on cultural identity, government roles, and the battle over public education in Idaho.

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Transcript

Well. Happy Wednesday. We're halfway through the week. How are you? Oh, bother. Welcome. It's good to have you with us. We have a lot to get to today. In about a half an hour, we'll talk with Debbie Critchfield. She is the state superintendent of public instruction. We get lots of education issues that we're going to address. Of course, house Bill 93, the parental choice and education being among the premier questions that we will ask, will ask about its implementation and the plan moving forward now that parents have a choice.

That sounds nice. It sounds really nice. And we are unabashed, unapologetic supporters of parental choice in education. And so we come from that angle. We'll also ask her about Donald Trump's hope, ambition and effort to dissolve the Department of Education. How would that impact education in Idaho? It's a great question. And furthermore, if you have questions or thoughts you'd like expressed on when during our interview with Superintendent Critchfield, send them to us on the Stones Automotive Group call and text line drama in Boise at the Boise City Hall.

And last night, the Boise City Council voted 5 to 1 to bring their treasured, most treasured flag into compliance with Idaho law and basically did an end run around the law that was passed in Idaho and made it an official flag of the city of Boise. Now, I will never understand the left. I mean, I get it, I can explain it, but I don't understand why they arrive at the conclusions that they do.

And one conclusion they've arrived at is if we make LGBTQ people more prominent, everybody will feel better. And if that the flag, the pride flag for some, and quite frankly, I'm going to be honest with you. And it's not a flattering assessment, but I think we have far too many white, straight, cis liberals that sort of feel some level of need to virtue signal to find an outlet to say, look how I'm so ashamed of my cis ness.

I'm so ashamed of my straightness because we are the predominant, demographic category when it comes to sexual orientation and to pay penance for my straightness and sickness. About which I am ashamed. I'm going to hoist a rainbow flag on an official flag pole, and then maniacally cling to keeping it up there. And they do it as a form of penance.

It's actually an expression of self-hatred. And instead of hoisting a truly unifying flag that covers everyone like, I don't know, the American flag, that's not enough for them. It's not enough to say, you know what? We honor everyone. They have to remember the Orwellian, I think this is Animal Farm, that some are more equal than others. Nothing could represent that idea from an animal farm better than raising a pride flag, which honors only one fairly narrow segment of society ity.

And they think it's inclusion. They think it's unified. Look how unified it is. It's not at all. The American flag is the unifying flag. That's the one that says your free speech rights are protected. Your personal freedom is protected. Your equal justice under the law is protected. It's the American flag that is the unifying flag. And it's, a flag that carves out a part of the population and then elevates it, making it more special.

Then that's the in their mind that's unifying. But that's how they function. They are toxic. They are destructive, and they are divisive and they think they're being well, they say, I don't know if they actually think they are, but they think they're being unifying by being dividing and by being divisive. So they got it passed. Here's just a clip of the audio from last night from the city council meeting.

Mayor McClane says this is a very friendly. Actually, that is definitely not mayor McClane. I apologize. Here's the, here's the clip. So the proclamation has the legal effect of making the flags comply with HB 96. And I'd say this we are changing the system because we must, because in order for us to continue to use this, the story and remind all of us as a city who we are, and to give voice to those values, we must change the system.

And that includes adding additional flags to our list of official flags in the city of Boise. You know what this says? This is stacking the court. This is the same idea that the liberal well, they don't say a word about that now do they? They only say that when they're in the, majority now, they'd like to put more liberals on the court, but as long as Donald Trump's the president of the United States, they don't want to add any more justices right now.

In fact, I would venture to say nine justices on the Supreme Court is sacrosanct. And you can't possibly discuss adding more. They would zip it and they would gaslight the heck out of you. This is stacking the court flagpole version. This is well, we already have a city flag. We don't really need to add more, but when you want more to get a particular outcome, then you'll add more.

That's it's what they're doing it. It's it's such an interesting. And honestly I and I should know this guys I'm a political I have a political science degree. I don't know well enough the demographics of Boise to know how this is going to impact mayor McClain. Now, I again, I don't know, but I can speculate. I and and maybe we could extrapolate some info if we were to look at outcomes in different legislative races within Boise and see how people vote.

But if you're a center left person and I don't mean sort of the far left crazy, you know, person banging the pots and pans just to get attention for your message. I just mean the average person going about their day that might typically vote kind of Democrat. I'm not so sure that they're in support of what mayor McClain is doing, because this really is an end run about a law that was passed by the legislature.

And I think you can argue among reasonable people, we probably should not have governments flying politically divisive flags. Is that fair enough? Like I could say to you and and let's say you're on the left and you and I are having lunch, you're enjoying some tofu, something or other. Meanwhile, I'm eating a thick, juicy, delicious steak. So we're at lunch.

We're eating and we're talking about this. And I say, hey, let's cut a deal, all right? Let's make a deal. I'm. I'm a conservative. You're a liberal. Let's cut a deal. How about I not fly the Trump flag or the Gadsden flag or the whatever? And you don't fly the rainbow flag or the pride flag or the, you know, we love everyone with a bunch of different racial kids.

Hands on it. How about we just fly the American flag, the state flag, and an official city flag? That is a traditional city flag. Not a not a manufactured one as a loophole, not the loophole manufactured flag, but the actual city official flag. How about that? We won't fly because we have some flags on our side that you find very divisive.

I remember a few years back, you might remember the big culture war we had over the Confederate flag. And there was an effort, even among some Republicans, more moderate ones, that they felt like they needed to cleanse the culture of the Confederate flag because slavery in the South and all of that, even though the Confederate flag was not an overt support for racism or slavery, it was just too adjacent to it.

It was just too, too much in the proximity of that. And it made some people feel like, so we got rid of it. We won't even fly that flag, because I think society's kind of moved on. And you don't fly. You don't fly your divisive flags. We won't fly cars. Let's fly the consensus flags, because as far as I know, only the crazies hate the American flag.

But it's a consensus flag. The City of Boise flag, even though they had a little to do about it a few months ago because somebody wanted to replace it. And and too many people liked it and they said, no, you can't replace it. And so they said, okay, fine, we won't replace it. We'll keep the old one that we're kind of bored with.

But if you love it, we won't change. And like the Mia flag, that's a consensus flag. Only crazies think that that's a controversial flag. But I'm telling you, the pride flag is incredibly divisive. The Confederate flag would be divisive. A Trump flag obviously divisive. How is that not fair? It reminds me of the tariff negotiations. You give us a 25% tariff, we're giving you a 25% tariff, you give us a 10%, we'll give you a 10%.

And you have these reciprocal arrangements. Why doesn't that work when it comes to the symbols that are flying on official municipal flagpoles? Why can't we have a reciprocating agreement? There? We don't fly Trump. You don't fly pride. How about that? We don't fly Confederate. You don't fly pride. I is that is that that heart and is are you those of you who are on the left?

I mean, I guess I can talk to you directly. We're having lunch. By the way, how's the tofu? I hope you're enjoying the, the, gluten free dressing that you're munching on there. That's great. Why is that so difficult? Meanwhile, I'm putting more barbecue sauce on my steak. But why is that? Why is that unreasonable?

You keep your, you know, what? Flight in your window at home, put it on your own flagpole in your yard. Hang it from your Prius or your Subaru wherever you want. On your own time, on your own property, on your own thing. And that, I think, cuts to the heart of this particular issue. If this flag was not divisive because they're they don't they think it's unifying.

They think this flag is inclusion. They think it's weird and demonstrably it is not. There are people who feel excluded and oddly enough, marginalized by the flag simply because they look at it and say, okay, the your sexuality, who you sleep with, who you're attracted with. Why is that a subject for a flagpole at a city hall? Well, why is that?

That and I, I'm I guess I'm glad that the other side feels somehow more accepted because that flag is flying. But it comes at a relationship cost. It comes at the cost of any efforts at consensus in goodwill. Furthermore, just, you know what? If I were, McLean's political advisor and I sat down with her for lunch and I said, do you want to become absolutely unbeatable?

Because here's how you would be unbeatable in the next election, because you are spending political capital on this and you're violating the law. And even though you pass this ordinance, you're violating the spirit of the law. But if you want to become politically unbeatable, hold the press conference and say, in order to be compliant with the law, we will take this down because we we value the law, even the ones that we disagree with.

But we will find other ways that we can honor our marginalized communities. In this, I see I'm using all the buzzwords there. We're going to honor our marginalized communities in our city because we do want everyone to feel included. And sometimes the American flag doesn't make everyone feel included. So we will be holding events. We'll be. But whatever.

Now, some of you would probably disagree with that, but there's not a state law that would say they can't do it. I mean, already the city of Boise proper, you know, the government of the city of Boise, they do all sorts of things like that. But that would have been honoring the law that would have satisfied sort of the people I'm talking about, the center left people that are not diehard woke cultural lefty ad, activists, but instead are you know what?

I agree with the pride flag, but I can understand the legislature, and it shouldn't be on the flagpole. You would win those people over to the left. They're always going to vote for you. You can always do the wink, wink at them. You're not going to lose people on your left. Who else do they have? And you could have one over the middle in this situation.

But now what's going to happen? There may still be some legal avenue that the attorney general can pursue. So we'll see. And obviously, this is an ongoing situation. I do believe that this is going to be priority number one for the Idaho legislative session in general. Fact, I will bet they have a bill passed and signed and implemented by the end of January, maybe early.

Early February, because I think most people look at this and we are sick and tired of the universities in Idaho. Not all of them, but particularly the, well, Boise State under Trump was a good example, doing a double middle finger to the legislature. And I think we're all so tired of lefty city people doing the same thing, the double middle finger, and just openly, defying a law even through a loophole.

So the saga continues. And by the way, Salt Lake City, the very same day, or maybe today they're doing it. It's the exact same thing. I mean, obviously it's orchestrated. 825 on Newstalk 117 quick break. We'll be back and in about ten minutes, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield will join us. What why is DIY a stretch there?

Because you didn't. There was no like I took something that's manufactured everywhere else and did it myself. Why you got to be so negative? Okay. Welcome back. It's at 829 on Newstalk 1079. Let's take a minute here and talk about town and country gardens. Julie, we were sort of patting ourselves on the back because we got on Google Maps yesterday and we did the aerial view, satellite view of our yards.

They really are greener then. Then the yards are right. Now I say that with come be part of the really green club and and get the four step lawn program. Well it was kind of an eye opener for me because you've talked about this because you're the way your lot is situated, your grass butts up against your neighbor's grass.

Yes. So you can tell the difference between the greens just by visually looking at it. My entire lot is surrounded by trees, so there isn't grass that goes directly up to my neighbor's. Yeah. So when we pulled that aerial view up, it was shocking. I know it is. It's amazing. It really is. In fact, I had one.

I made the rec slash because I ran out of product. I didn't get enough. And so I only got half of one lawn, and I gave it a couple of weeks. And the difference was stark. There was a line of demarcation. Yes, there really was. And if you go on, on, it's Apple Maps that actually took the satellite footage at that time.

The Google Maps don't show it, but the Apple Maps did anyway. It's it's remarkable. So get the four step lawn program. The satellite footage proves it. It's going to make your lawn greener than it's ever been. And you can get it at town and Country gardens. All right. South of Idaho Falls, across from the malting plant on Yellowstone Highway.

All right. It's 831. Quick break will come back when we return. The state superintendent of public Instruction, Debbie Critchfield, will join us for a few minutes. We got a lot to ask her about education.

All right, superintendent Critchfield, can you hear us? I can, good morning. How are you? I'm doing pretty darn well. What about you guys? We're good, we're good. Wonderful. All right. It seems like the news cycle moves at light speed, so sometimes we feel like we're drinking from a fire hose. But it's. I can only imagine. It's all that.

I'm sure you've felt that way, too. Yeah, well, especially. Yes, I know we'll talk about it with the federal staff, but yeah, I guess it's better to have too much than not enough content, right? That's for your line of work. Good. Good problem. I tell people this all the time that our choice is not what do we talk about?

But what don't we talk about? There you go. There's so many worthy, worthy topics I love it. Yeah. So our plan we definitely want to talk about House Bill 93 parental choice and maybe just the implementation of that and the Department of Education on the federal level. And what happens if that were to go away? But what other, education issues do you want to make sure we hit on?

What's our our time around 15 minutes. Yeah. 1515 okay. Does that include a break? No, we can if we if we just do 15, we'll we can do it all in one spot. So. Okay, so I only ask just to for to answer your question so I don't you know, there's always a million things to talk about.

Yeah. I do think the federal, piece will you know, that ought to be that ought to give us probably half the time, itself. Let me think here. I'm trying to think of as we're kind of, you know, wrapping up, the school year, maybe some of the, thing. Well, if you want to touch on this, this is this is what I think is a fun thing.

But we've we've got something planned that's optional for for any schools this next school year to, commemorate or celebrate America's 250th birthday. So I could maybe talk a little bit about that. I don't know if that is, you know, that that wouldn't take too long. We have, you know, we've got work that we're doing, to change up senior projects.

And so that went through the legislature. So I think that would be a great one as well. Okay. They're not like hard hitting, but I think it just kind of, you know, especially the senior project one goes towards, aligning what our, what we're asking our kids to do, with the world around them. So one of the, one of the things that I could ask you about as well is the end of the Empowering Parents program.

And if you have any thoughts on that, okay. If you wanted to address that too. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. By the way, Julie is here, I am here, I'm just. Good morning. I think you're listening. No, you're good. Yeah. You are good. Well, how has it been? You've been in for a couple of years now, right? Yeah, I love it, I really do.

Good. It's it's, challenging job. And you've got, you know, 190 districts in charters that obviously have their own elected boards and different things. And, and so you try to balance the local with the state. And now we're laying and layering and, and the federal. But I, I really do enjoy it. Yeah. Well good. Is it as taxing as you thought it would be.

More or less. I mean what. Well, how does reality match up to your expectation? Well, if you talk to my team, they will say that I choose to make it more taxing, than probably, you know, that what some are used to. But that's just my style, you know, to to go hard and, you know, I love traveling the state.

I just, I don't know, for me, with our schools being everywhere that they are, I don't know how you do the job just sitting from Boise. Yeah. You have to be out and seeing and hearing and and then when, you know, policies or laws come around, I can think, what is that going to look like? And that might work really well in Caldwell.

Yeah, but maybe not so much there or gosh, not that's not what it's like in Saint Mary's. And so that perspective is just been invaluable to me. So we had an interesting topic yesterday. And I don't know if we'll we'll get to this, but if there is enough time, the Mountain States Policy Center, they put out a piece you probably saw because it was all about education, and they had different metrics around like teacher to student ratios and oh yeah, and how many teachers compared to overall full time equivalent positions.

But one of the metrics was expenditures per kid. And some districts were up in even above 20,000 per kid each year. But some, like even Madison County, it was down around nine less than $9,000 per kid. And I would love your perspective. And we don't have time here because we have 15 seconds before we go on of why there would be such a wide disparity of expenditure per child, district to district didn't and shed light on that.

Yeah, and if not this time, let's let's do part two because we've I've got more information on some financial templates that we're putting out for districts to use. Okay. Here we go. And we're back at 837 on Newstalk 107. And Neil Larson along with Julie Mason and Julie. We're pleased to be joined this morning by our state Superintendent of Public Instruction, Debbie Critchfield.

Superintendent Critchfield, welcome. It's good to have you on. It's been a while since we've chatted. Yes, it has been a while, so it's great to get connected again. So much going on in education. So it's great timing. Yeah. Well there is a lot going on. Let's, let's bite off. You know how you eat an elephant. One bite at a time.

Let's bite off the parental choice piece right now. A law that was passed fairly, fairly controversially in the Idaho Legislature took a couple of years to finally get through, get the governor's signature. It's a $50 million program, at least to start out, and parents now can get a $5,000 tax credit. And they can then use that to make some educational choices for their children.

Now, I don't know whether or not you in favor of it or against it. I'm not going to drill deep on that, but it is your job now to help implement it. And I'd love your thoughts on what the the next few months, even the next year or two looks like for that program. Well, as you've said, this was a topic that has been discussed for several years.

I think the one common place where we all get together and agree is that parents have the ability and the right to make the choices of where their kids go to school, what that look like, how that was packaged up. That's really been the crux of the discussion over the last couple of years. And and we saw this last legislative session and an idea of how to have state support for those parents choices go through, the, the Department of Education and myself personally, actually will not be administering the program.

It was, it's all to be conducted through the Tax Commission. Okay. And and so as far as how the implementation and some of those things will work, those those aren't answers that I can give, but I can say this because I get asked the question and we've had parents call in to our office asking and inquiring. I thought, I don't want to be the person that says, hey, we're not administering this call someone else.

We at least want to make information available for families. We are a government agency that serves the state and we serve education. And so I sat down with a couple of the bill sponsors and and said, hey, here are the things that that we're being asked as far as timing, eligibility, what, you know, the first year is going to look a little bit different.

Money will be on the front end versus, subsequent years where it is a tax credit. And so, from that we developed a list of questions. They provided the answers, and we've made that available on the Department of Education website for parents. And I mean, they can call and and and ask questions and we refer them to, to this sheet.

And we've also told other districts and charters, if you're getting calls as well on the administration, either copy and paste what we have and put it on your website or refer them, to ours. We again, we want we want to serve. We're we're here to provide the information even though another agency will be administering. Okay, okay. I have two questions.

Just based upon what you said. So will you give that website so that the listeners know where to go, learn about those questions that you've already been asked. And then secondly, if you don't really I don't know if this is the exact phrasing, but you don't really have a seat at the table with this. Were you consulted?

Was there a lot of conversation between you and and those who were working on the bill? And is there now conversation between you and and the overseeing body, like, do you have a voice in any of this on this particular piece of choice legislation? I was not at the table, as it was put together. There there was another, piece of legislation and that didn't go far, frankly.

And, and I was at the table, for that and, and so on, this one, it was, you know, created, with, with folks, in a, in another way, as far as the communication between the agencies, there's with the Tax Commission and our department, there will have to be because you have to there's some verification of of students not being enrolled in public schools.

And so I would anticipate that there's going to have to be some modules that are signed, because clearly we're not in a position just to hand over, personal information about students to anyone. Even if in, in the legislation, it says the Tax Commission is, you know, going to administer that. So details and parts of the legislation will require us to have some things in place.

Like I say, around privacy of student information. So a question that I did want to ask, and in fact, we've interviewed Representative Horman multiple times on this, and I've always kind of failed to ask this question, but I think you would know the answer. One of the pieces of the bill is that it actually does not siphon money away from K through 12.

Like a lot of the detractors said, there's no change. So let's say Billy's going to go to a private school next year. That doesn't mean the money that would have been allocated to Billy follows Billy. That's not what funds the tax credit. It's totally separate money. You get to keep that money in K through 12. What happens to Billy's allocation?

What what what do you do with that money. Because your budget will not be reduced, even though there will be fewer kids in the system. So the I think there's a lot of ways. Why not a lot? There's a couple of ways to to address that. And look at that. Yes, it is true that because the money did not specifically come out of the public schools budget, you can say it didn't take away from public schools that got funded in its own way with it, you know, with the appropriations that went there, you know, this is a tax credit.

I think the other side of the coin that you'll hear, from a lot of folks on this issue, any time you, give a tax credit, you're reducing the overall amount that's available to be given not only to public schools, but, you know, anywhere to roads, to prisons, you know, fill in all the things that, you know, that the government, provides.

The other side of that, I think with the tax credit is the, the nature of, you know, the timing of it. And, you know, you, you let out with this for now, it's $50 million. I think the other concern is does that stay at 50, you know, do you continue to, you know, reduce the overall amount overall amounts available.

And, you know, we could probably speculate all day on all kinds of things. But for now we know that it's it's 50 million. The the the calculation of dollars that go into schools is is really quite a complex and complicated formula that takes in all the things that are supposed to represent a classroom. And I think that that itself is its own issue that needs to be addressed.

At this last session, I got a bill out of the Senate. It got held, at the desk at the House to fix the overall funding issues. And I think that's one of the biggest gripes, if that's the right word, that we hear from our our districts and charters, that we can't have two ways to fund schools. If indeed money is going to follow kids in this way, then we need something that looks the same on the public side.

If we're going to have less regulation over on a choice, then why do we have more rules and regulations on the public side? So I think there's a lot packed into this overall conversation that in some ways maybe has less to do with whether or not we think here it should make their decisions, but how we're funding schools in in two ways.

So I want to I want to do a follow up here. And I this is not a question that is sort of personally directed at you. It'll sound a bit Torpey here, but I just want to put the issue on the table. It's a tax credit, like a grocery tax credit or like, fuel tax credit or I mean, there you get a tax credit if you put solar panels on your house, does education feel like they're entitled to every single penny of excess money that the state might have?

Like, if that? Do you view the grocery tax credit as money that should otherwise be going to education? I don't think that the education sector views funding like that. I think the the angst about this legislation has more baggage attached to it than just simply saying, hey, here's a tax credit for for people who are going to make a choice.

I think it has to do with the fact that the current funding models really aren't aligned to our priorities, and don't get to the operational needs that our schools have today. The funding distribution model that we're using today is nearly 30 years old, if not 30 years old at this point. So I think a lot of it is is less to do with more and more and more and more more.

But what's the right way to send the dollars out? And that's the conversation I think we need to be having. And again, you know, with what the legislation, look like coming off of the Senate, that that's what we're seeking to do or what I'm seeking to do is to separate what is it that we're really talking about when it comes to the funding mechanisms for public?

And so we I was going to save this for another interview, but this question would fit perfectly here. Yesterday we talked about a report from the Mountain States Policy Center that went through district by district and highlighted a whole bunch of metrics, but one that I was most interested in was how much does it cost to educate one child in Madison County?

It costs just under $9,000. But there are other districts where it's twice and even three times as much. So when you talk about funding, how does Madison School District get it done for $9,000? But other districts are spending multiples of that. I mean, certainly there has to be a discussion about how the money spent if there's that big of a disparity in the amount of resource it takes to educate a kid, for sure.

That is, part of the overall discussion. When we when we think about the the makeup of our schools, there is going to be cost associated with more rural and remote places than our urban areas. We know that in some places it does cost more in the sense of, you know, you can get more economies of scale, when, when you have, access, to, to other resources, in larger areas that, you know, some of our smaller schools may not be able to get to, how are they, funding their priorities?

There is such a wide variance. And again, the further you get out in into, parts of Idaho, you're going to see, different costs. For transportation, for utilities. Those, those types of fixed costs, do vary. And I think that's one of the reasons why this last session, and I think we've seen a lot of it in the media recently, why that that operational part of the public schools budget is so critical.

And it's enough critical that you see, districts that will supplement for some of those areas. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, putting turf on your football field that that is supplemental. But increasingly we hear about these levees being fundamental levees, that that's a term that that I'm hearing from superintendents that, you know, they're they're supplementing, critical parts of of what they need to do because the fixed costs have gone up.

But the the mechanism for distributing the state dollars has not changed, you know? Okay. All right. Let's shift gears a little bit, just because we're running out of time. And we wanted to make sure we chatted with you about this. Trump has signed an EO, vastly changing the Department of Education and the way that it runs on the federal level.

After you've reviewed that EO and you are trying to prepare on the state level for the differences that will be there, what kind of steps are you taking now and how does that look for Idaho? Any communication that I get from, the federal or the U.S. Department of Education, we want to put that into, actionable items for districts.

If there's something that and charters if there's something that we need to do specifically, then I'm communicating with our district leaders and saying, this is what we got. This is what we've been asked to do here are the timelines. And I think we've got two recent examples where we asked our districts and charters to reaffirm, what they had already signed on to as far as how they would use some of their federal title dollars.

Those signatures had already been, signed in the fall, prior to, receipt of of the money with the federal dollars that they get. So I know there was a lot of national attention that, you know, now, the federal government is insisting that, schools, you know, sign, sign all these things, they had already done it. It was an resign, a reminder if you want to.

I guess, if you want to call it that. Indeed. You know, the moneys as received had to be used in the ways, that they were intended. Overall, I have I have not been, of the opinion that the sky is falling because the Department of Education is making managerial or administrative changes. Everything that we have seen has been on how to conduct the business, not stopping the service to kids.

And I think those are two really big distinctions, particularly when we think of congressional acts around education. That is very different than saying, here's how it's going to be administered. And I've been in education long enough to see this. The swings, dependent upon the the, the president on attaching social issues to federal dollars, that's very different than following what the congressional act says about what our duties are to support kids.

Do you, I know, I mean, we've talked to a lot of people because, President Trump has been talking about this quite a bit and getting rid of the Department of Ed long term. I know there would probably be some disruption and adapting that would need to take place if the Department of Ed goes away. But long term, if roughly the same amount of funding is coming into the state from the feds, but you probably would have more latitude with it then you have had in the past.

It is that going to be disruptive to the state's education system long term, or do you think we're going to be fine without it? I think we're fine without the department as a whole. I think what remains to be seen, is, is what the what the money looks like when it comes here, if indeed there are no strings attached.

I certainly would not want to see our, state say, well, the federal government has sent you this, so we are no longer going to fund these things. The majority of our money that runs our school districts does come from our own state dollars. But those federal dollars tied to to those congressional acts around special education, etc. are very important dollars.

And so I would not want to see, us as a state say, well, we're not going to take those dollars anymore, but we're also not going to backfill or we're going to take the federal dollars and now not put more money or you or the the money that we've been giving to public education. We're not going to put it in there.

So I think it's what do we do with this opportunity? It is right. That state should be directing the education for their students. I am fully supportive of that. That's where we are now. Now we can do it more fully. How we go about using those federal dollars is really going to be the difference of, can we go and do the things that we want?

Are we going to be put backwards a step? Okay, we'll leave it at that. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield joining us this morning. Superintendent, thank you for your time. We appreciate you, answering our questions any time. Thank you so much. All right. It's 855 on Newstalk 179. We'll be back. Thank you, superintendent. Thank you.

I realize I didn't know the website. Can I give it to you? Just in case you want to. We'll pass it along. Yeah. Okay, so it's sd.idaho.gov okay. So just and then people can click on where it says school choice okay. All right. We'll we'll mention that when we come back if you want to. Yeah I think they'll want it.

Good luck on the changes coming up. Well thank you I appreciate the time to talk and I'm always available and want to be available. These are great conversations so thank you. Yeah we again we appreciate it. It's a two way street here too. If you have anything you want to reach our audience just reach out to us. So okay well I'll be taking you up on that.

So thank you. That'll be great. Thank you. Have a great night YouTube and bye. All right. It's eight 59 hour two coming up on Newstalk 179.

Now I'm nauseated. Welcome back. And sour to of the Nielsen show. (208) 542-1079. If you'd like to join us on the program. Look, when I say East Idaho isn't Mayberry anymore, East Idaho isn't Mayberry anymore. No, it's it is definitely not Mayberry, anymore. So, Julie, we keep saying the deadline to get the star card is today, which isn't really accurate.

Okay, because you can still get it tomorrow, so it's not really a deadline. It's that real ID enforcement is beginning today. If you want to fly, if you want to go into a federal institution, you're going to need some form of real ID, which the star card is probably the the easiest way to do that. So, you're a if you don't get your star card by today, you're okay.

Unless you need to fly or go into a federal building, you'll probably want to go have it taken care of soon, but I and I will take ownership of this. I think I've participated in this idea that, oh, there's a deadline. You got to get your star card by today. And no, not really, but you know what I'm saying?

I this is much like our our stock market conversation. You know that people think Trump's the worst president ever. Because on a random Tuesday in April, your stocks didn't look so good. Yeah, I unless you're planning on flying today. Yeah. You've got time. You're okay. Yes. Just get it done. He'll run around with your hair on fire. Make an appointment, get her done and you're done.

And if you have a U.S. passport, you can fly with that instead of the star card. Yeah, yeah. It's true. So you still could fly if you. Yes. Well, that gets you into the federal building, too. I don't know if I would think. I mean, if you needed to show up for jury duty. Duty? And you brought a, passport, I think they're going to let you.

And that's an interesting question. What if they didn't like. And you said you had jury? Well, there's enough lead time with jury duty. Yes. Get it done. So, yeah. That, by the way, planned power outage in Madison County today for fall River electric. Now, wait a minute. It started nine minutes ago. So if it doesn't make any sense to tell people about it because their radios are already off, if they might be listening on the app on their cell phone.

That's true. Yeah. And hopefully they're loyal enough that they have. Yeah. And they probably already know that there's a power outage. So and maybe the power outage is late starting because that's true. It is government. That is true. It is government on a on a bridge up. And they're likely Mormons. So double reasons why they're going to be late.

Anyway go on a bridge update the sidewalk and barrier on Pan Kerry are still not done. I do not I do not know how a sidewalk can take this long. Okay, Julie, we're going to create a Netflix documentary on construction projects in Idaho Falls and Ammon. Okay. We are there's a there's an underground operation going on. Something's happening.

So there's a reason they take so long. Why? I don't know. Okay.

But if you're looking for a great amusement park. Right. Go ahead and hit that bridge on First Street. You'll be good to go. Yeah. That's true. You don't even need to pay for lagoon. There was some viral video out there. I don't have that. A Utah, maybe a car caught air going over. Some railroad tracks, which is.

Oh, made me think of that because I feel like you're going to catch air when you go over that bridge more than about six miles an hour. You probably you probably could on that that bridge reconstruction project that's not finished. That's that is true. Like, this is like building the Sistine Chapel. Like it. Can we call it the Sistine Bridge when it's done in 37 years?

It's it's not even the bridge. It's a sidewalk. Yeah, I can well, yes, I can carry it's a sidewalk, but we'll call it the Sistine Sidewalk. Okay, okay. Was it the Sistine Chapel that took my, like, Michelangelo. How many decades to to. Well, he was laying on his back. Yeah, that'd be hard to do. That's true. That would be tough to do.

Yeah. All right. Okay. I'm curious I'm curious what our audience thinks, Julie, of this Boise Flag fiasco. Okay. Because I'm, I'm going to be real straight with the audience here. Not that I agree with what the they did, but they are now technically, arguably and defensively in compliance with Idaho's law about flags that flag, the LGBTQ flag flying at Boise City Hall is now legal to fly because they made it an official flag of Boise.

The city of Boise. So what do you do now? Yeah. What do you do now? I think you wait for the proper legislation. I think you're wasting your time suing or causing any issues like that. So we're going to sit like this for a while. Do you know how boring the word wait is? It is. It's really.

It's not sexy. How about this? Let me because I. I feel like we need to give our audience something here. So I want to float a scenario to you for, what, three, four weeks out of compliance? If you're Attorney General Labrador, can you pursue civil action against the days they were out of compliance because if if you spilled chemicals on some property somewhere, the EPA is going to come after you for being out of compliance on those days.

If you're if you don't pay your taxes, the IRS is coming after you. And for weeks they flew a flag that was illegal to fly in Boise. Is there still some civil action that can be taken during that window of time? Sure. I mean, I don't know if there is or isn't. I'm not a lawyer, but if they chose to go that route, I think that's a fair penalty.

When I said wait, I meant this is not coming down. Yeah, until probably January of next year. No it's not. And so I would, I would just everyone prepare for that. But if, if the attorney general or someone else someone with enough financial backing in Boise can pursue a civil lawsuit for this, for that time frame where it wasn't passed as a city, well, it was affirming the proclamation that the mayor put out that I want to use the correct words.

So she put out a proclamation last week. The vote last night was to affirm the the proclamation. So but that meant there were at least, what, 3 or 4 weeks, three weeks, maybe that she was out of compliance. Yeah. Yeah. So so sure. Get restitution for that. Okay. Well, I think that she looks she, she did a pretty good move, I'll be honest with you.

Like, from a legal standpoint, it brings it into compliance. So I don't I don't say good move in the sense that I agree with it, but I would say politically, it's a pretty astute move on her part to get the council to, to vote for this thing. So and and she's clearly got the support. I that's the other thing that people need to recognize is that it was a, it was a, 5 to 1 vote.

Yeah. This was not close. No, not not even close to close. So let's go back to what we talked about in the first hour, Julie, about this, about the situation. I think that if you were to take Idaho's dozen largest cities and you were to collectively assess the political bent of Idaho's dozen largest cities, there's probably a few dozen city council members.

You would find that they are significantly to the left of the constituents they represent. One of the reasons that happens is because these are nonpartisan races. I think that this has to be addressed, and I don't think anyone should be required to put their party affiliation on, you know, on a on a ballot. But you should be allowed to.

And if you want to run as a Republican and list it on your city, ballot, then by all means you ought to be able to. I and when we talked about this in the first hour, I said I would love to hear an argument as why somebody wouldn't be okay with that. I think it's worth discussion.

And maybe somebody has a valid reason to not. But I would love to hear those reasons. Ed and go ahead. Texoma and call (208) 542-1079. Because, I mean, I think that's a pretty soft approach on your part that it's not required. But you can I, I would love to even have someone argue that it should be required. Yeah. Right.

And they now you can put independent. You don't have to put Republican or Democrat. Are there downsides to it? Sure. Yeah there are. But I'm going to tell you right now the downside to having city councils that are way to the left of the communities they represent, that's a massive downside. And and yeah, it'll take a trade off.

But this is how let's go back to proposition one. They wanted to fiddle with the party affiliations on ballots because they know they can't win. The left knows they can't win in that environment, so they win in city races. This is how you can sneak in as a liberal and get political power is go, go run for city council.

And yeah, maybe the the level of power you have is not quite that of being a legislator, lawmaker, governor or whatever, but it's something. And, we're seeing a I also think that we need a civics lesson, like a statewide civics lesson. So, Julie, if you could get the entire state to tune in here in the next few minutes.

Okay, I would appreciate for. Yeah, all 2 million of them. The cities are the creations of the state. The state runs the cities, the state runs the counties, the state. The state is in control of the cities. And I have seen very amateurish comparisons of, well, the city is to the state what the state is to the federal government.

It's hogwash. Garbage. That's not true. Cities only exist because the state created them. Counties only exist because the state created them and they are fully in charge. So when you see individual cities kind of going rogue and saying, we're going to create our own minimum wage here, we're going to do our own taxing thing here, we're going to do this.

No, you're not. I mean, if we let you, you can, but only if we let you there there are no inherent rights as a city. You get enumerated rights by the state. Individuals have inherent rights. Cities don't. Counties don't. Library districts don't. They are all bound by whatever the state tells them they can do. And, the anyone who makes that comparison is either being dishonest or they have a complete lack of understanding about the system.

Yeah, I would say that that's happening in Boise right now, that lack of understanding about the system, because they think this is concreted. Now, if you're a liberal and you you live in the Boise area, you think it's game set, match. Yeah. And that's not how this is going to work. So I can I we probably will not get a phone call about this, but I want to put a question out because I don't quite understand the flag.

Why is that necessary for your well-being? I think I've asked this before, but if you're on the left and this is important to you and you're applauding mayor McClain and joining in the rah rah rah here, why is it so important to you to have that flag on that flagpole? Look, this is one thing I can't I can't answer you.

I if there's things that aren't understandable in life. Right. For me, from my paradigm, pedophilia is not understandable. It's disgusting. Yeah, I it should never be condoned. And so that's just my that's my bar. Yeah. Right. Agreed. This is one of those things I just can't understand, because I try to put myself in the position of somebody who is a member of the LGBTQ community, you know, what kind of community do I have that's like that?

I have a religious community. What? I don't expect my city to fly a religious flag. You know, I don't that doesn't represent me. I can live in any city in America and worship as I choose. And so that's my premier look, that's the freedoms. That's the joy that I have. You're right. So I don't understand why your city has to be your representative.

Be you, and enjoy the fact that you can live safely. Yeah, yeah. And freely. Yes, you can start a business. You can. Yeah. That right. I so because I again I'm trying to venture into the psychology. The one flag that I will absolutely defend is the American flag. And there are other flags that I might like, but there's not loyalty there.

The way there is loyalty to the American flag, that those ideals are so deep in our hearts and in our nation's tradition in history that that makes sense, that you fly the American flag pretty much anywhere you want to. As long as it's done appropriately. But when you carve out a group of people that does not include the majority quite frankly, or when you carve out one element of life and you elevate that requiring collective recognition of it.

Which raising it on the flag at the tall flagpole at City Hall is requiring collective recognition of something. That's what I don't understand. And, and you know what I, I have a hip replacement. Julie. You're pregnant. Where's this going? When I was a kid, And, I mean, I guess technically, I still do, but I had a condition called leg cav per disease, and oddly enough, leg and cav were the name of the doctors that identified the disease.

It wasn't about your leg, and it wasn't about your calf. It varies. That's crazy, isn't it? It's leg with two G's and then Cav is called. So leg cav pertes okay okay. Basically my hip was misshapen when I was born and when I was seven years old, I remember the moment I was running around and my the ball of my hip joint just collapsed and it essentially was dead.

The blood flow to it made the bone just weak and so, it didn't. For about a year and a half, I wore a leg brace. I still have that leg brace hanging up in my studio, and at home. And, and it's for me, it's just sort of a reminder of adversity that I've overcome. And it was, sort of defined me, but not in a limiting way, but it was just that was part of my childhood.

And I, I had that and I remember the triumphant moment, we were living in Moscow at the time as my dad was finishing up his engineering degree. We went to a lake doctor in Spokane, and I remember them taking some X-rays, doing some tests. And that doctor asked, how long have you had this brace on? And we told them and he said, and I still remember it, I was seven.

He said, it's really not doing any good. Let's just not wear it anymore. And so I, I like it's, it's an emotional thing because when you're seven and you've had this leg brace and you think that's your life now and that's where you're going to live, you're going to have this leg brace with you wherever you go. When you get to take that off, knowing you don't have to wear that again, it, the first stop my parents took me to was a JCPenney store to get new shoes because the brace had its own shoe.

So I didn't have a pair of shoes, normal shoes that fit me. And we went and got. And I remember running around that JCPenney store in my new shoes, in and out of the racks of clothes, and I hadn't been able to run freely for the better part of two years. And I remember that mall. It was it was very important and, and and deep to me.

And the reason I say that because it involved adversity, it involved being unique and and one of only a few it it had a lot of thing, but I don't need a flag for that to be meaningful to me. I don't need a flag for I guess I don't understand. We're all marginalized by something. Julie's a weird conservative that likes hummus.

She doesn't need a flag for that. Like what? What? At what point does that flag become a necessity in your life? What? Why does that collective recognition of a marginalized factor, whether it's your gender orientation or it's a disease that you have or it's that you've given an organ to someone or what we could we could find all sorts of marginalizing factors in life that make us a minority, but don't require a flag to feel whole.

And that's the problem that I have, is that mayor McClain was willing to give really the legislature and by extension, the residents of the state of Idaho, because that's what you do when you decide to brazenly break the law because she thinks she said we must. If I played that audio back, she said we must do this.

No you don't. You're, you're overestimating the needs of people. If you think that a marginalized community needs to have a flag placed at a, at a central location, so it gets collective recognition. Yeah. I, you just eloquently described how I don't understand why you need that. We all have our own spaces. Yeah, right. Some people have a house, some people have an apartment, some people have an RV.

Some people live with their parents. Like what? You have your own spaces and at at the godlike version, you have your own autonomy. Everybody has control of their own body and what they do with it. If you'd like to wear a flag on your shirt, wear a flag on your shirt. If you'd like to have a pin on your lapel, wear that.

If you'd like to have one hanging at your home, do that like all of this is available to you. I don't expect my city to represent every personality trait or or hardship that I have. What I expect my city to represent is the freedoms that I have, so that I can then individually celebrate my use, my my uniqueness.

So I would add to that and I sure wish we could interview mayor McLean. Yeah, I I'd love that. And maybe if we reached out to him, we we've tried to reach out to the member of the city council that seems to be more conservative than unsuccessful. With that, I'm going to tell you right now, there is tremendous pain in society for the families of suicide victims, particularly young people.

There's tremendous pain out there for those who are struggling with cancer. I'm not going to say this groups deserving of this, because that's kind of the point of the whole conversation is I would ask the question, why are people who have gender, or who are not traditional, gender wise, whether it's their sexual orientation, their gender, why are they why are they more special then the families of suicide victims or cancer patients or what?

Why do you elevate them and say you're worthy of recognition? Cancer doesn't get its own flag. Suicide doesn't get its own flag. But being gay will get its own flag. How how do you make those decisions? Well, the argument can't stand up. I think that you would hear from members of the LGBTQ community, which is I didn't choose to be this way, this way, and it needs to be recognized.

You think people chose to get cancer? You think surviving family members, it was their choice to have their family member commit suicide, right? That's why we're where does the added specialness come to being in it, being gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans or I, I guess I, that would be one of the questions that I would ask, why elevate this when there's so many other people who are in pain that would love to have the the augmentation of social recognition, and if if it's so important to you to have your city recognized, you, you don't believe that there's other people walking those city streets that feel alone homelessness, yet that they feel marginalized

for a myriad. And I'll use their word, a rainbow of reasons. Yeah. Hey, it it is, you know, for a group that screams inclusivity, it sure not an inclusive group. No, it isn't. And it's very divisive because I think a lot of people just subconsciously and innately feel the exclusion that happens when they try to do what they do.

And, and I know I don't care what their motive is, I care what the outcome is and the outcome is. You have a lot of people who are feeling excluded and marginalized because they're saying the opposite. It's it's it's very, very ironic that way. All right. 931 on Newstalk 179, we got a break. We're way behind. But if you'd like to reach us.

(208) 542-1079 we have a boatload of texts that have come in. We'll share some of those with you when we come back. Hello, Facebook. Somebody sent us on a lighter note. Apparently, Utah made the announcement today. The hockey club is now the Utah Mammoth. Oh, okay. I know Yeti was the top one, but, Hold on. I'm going to read this.

Hold on. I'm getting spam texts. You okay? Okay.

So let's talk about your hip for a second, okay. In today's world, they would have caught that when you were little. And. And could there have been repair before more damage was done? You know, I don't know. I haven't done any research to see what progress has been made there. There might be like a stem cell treatment that would help blood flow to the to the hip.

So maybe. Yeah. I've never actually looked at that. But, so when Asher was little, he was probably ten months old or so. Yeah. When you would stand him up, his little fat rolls weren't identical, which meant he was. Something was going on that he was favoring one side more than the other. Oh, yeah. Okay. Because he was chunky in different ways.

Yeah. And there could be very innocuous reasons for that. But it was enough of a red flag that the doctor ran an MRI on him. Yeah. So. And he ended up having nothing wrong with his hips or whatever. Okay. But I think that we've learned to watch for those things and see the way kids crawl. And and that probably wasn't even paid attention to when we were little.

Yeah. So I wonder if they had caught it sooner, if there wouldn't have been as much damage to, maybe. Yeah, maybe there are things they could have done to maybe and they might not have known even back then, what to do. Yeah. Here we go. And 936 on Newstalk 1079, Neil Larson, along with Julie Mason and, Julie, we got a lot of texts on this flag.

Yeah. And some other things that day. There's a were dozens. So. So, just a couple of, texts here. Let's see. Forced acceptance. They know their way of life is outside of what is considered normal. They want the public to accept them as normal. Yeah, that's an interesting take. Boise is now a sister city, officially a sister city with Portland and Seattle anti-American.

And then another one said maybe the intent of flying the rainbow flag in Boise is to get conservatives to leave. I mean, how hard would it be to look at it hanging over Idaho Falls City Hall day in and day out? I'd feel as if I'd moved to Portland. So. Yeah. I would absolutely agree that the intent of the flag is to change the atmosphere of Boise.

Yeah I would agree with that. And I actually think they probably own up to that. Yeah I, I don't, I don't think that would be a a point of contention among the two sides. Yeah I think yeah. She's saying that they want to change the system. So that's their they're pretty open about that I think. Now do they we characterize it with a lot of cynicism and say you're turning it into Portland with homeless encampments in tent cities and graffiti and crime and whatever.

They, they'd never lead out like that. But I do think they want to, have it have more of a, a Portland flavor to it. Yeah. And that's what they're looking for and okay whatever I, I don't know. I was going to ask you this question, but there's so many angles to this story. So here Alaska right now Boise is its own city.

Yeah. But it also is the capital city. Does the capital of a state have a responsibility to represent the state as well as the city? Symbolically, yes. I, I think there is that if you're if you're the biggest city or you're the capital city of a state, you, you have an elevated obligation to, you are representing the state.

There's no way around. It's like a, high profile athlete is a role model. Like they can't get out of that. So, yeah, I, I think so. I do, they would argue. No, we're just another city in Idaho and we do what we want to do. From a legal standpoint, they're right. But I think I think symbolically, yeah.

Yeah, I feel like that. I have seen that argument made here and there. I don't think it's a prevalent argument, but I think that that's if you're on this side of the state, that's one of your frustrations, is that this is not who Idaho is. It might be a handful of elected officials in Boise that think this is who Idaho is.

And as mayor, McClain said, it's the story of Boise. But they have a responsibility to actually represent Idaho, to. Yeah, it's not the story of Idaho. No, it it isn't the story of Idaho. There. Again, I know we use the term gaslighting all the time. It does get overused, but that's because that's a tactic that gets overused.

So it's a term that's going to get overused. So you know here's the thing Julie. This is what I don't understand. I feel like McLean in some ways is a pretty astute political operator. Like this was a this was a good chess move on her part. I, I think it's the if I was putting myself in her shoes.

Yeah. It was the right move to make. Yeah it was. But what if you went look every city, especially a big city like Boise has a whole bunch of city parks, some city parks are named after somebody nobody gives a crap about any more. Rename a city park, call it Rainbow Park, and then plant a whole bunch of flowers in the the the pattern of a rainbow.

Like, she could have done something that was bigger, that still was not violating the law by flying the flag at City Hall. That would have given her just as much cred among the people she's trying to win credit from. So this is how I explained that concept that you're talking about in the first hour, early on 6:00 this morning, which is, we use a phrase, a line in the sand.

She drew a line in the sand. Yeah, well, your line can be deep and very defined. And that's what she did with this. Yeah. The park idea would be like taking a rake and making a really soft, very wide line. Yeah, and she could dance in and out of that line. Yeah. Walk back and forth. Be friends with the people on the other side of the very wide swath that you have made in the sand with the rake.

That's now what she did. Yeah. It's a deep defined line. Yeah. And I think she did it on purpose. Yeah. Her way to well, give the legislators the middle finger. I think so too. And I think it, it is very much designed to create disruption against your political opponents. And it's not it's not nuanced and it's not subtle.

But I, I don't know if it was her smartest move. Yeah. So she, you know what? She's one of those personalities that on a personal level, she seems very likable. Like she it's like Obama. Obama. Obama seemed really likable. You know, you'd hear him talk, and he he was just, you know, he didn't really look like a radical at all.

And you seem mayor McClain. She doesn't have purple hair and a tattoo sleeve. And ear gauges and pierced nose ring. Like, she. She looks like the young women's president, you know, like she she just has this very professional. What's the. I don't want to sound bland, but. Yeah. Yeah, she just has this persona that seems very ordinary, but her politics are radical left.

And those may be the most dangerous liberals of all. Is that the radical left? So they're not so obvious. Yeah. They're not, they're they're like they masquerade as mainstream and and people love that. Like I promise you, there are liberals in Boise that are proud that, hey, look, our mayor's a radical liberal, but she doesn't have purple hair and ear gauges.

You know, like, I think they like that because now they have someone who looks like they're representing in in the mainstream. Yes. Yeah, I know it'll be interesting. I think we have some probably non eventful months ahead of us. And there's going to be quite the little battle in January. Yeah. You know here's the thing. It gives lawmakers some time to craft what I think will be a good a good response to it.

So, other texts that we got, apparently if you have a concealed carry card that is not one of the accepted IDs, like a passport would be. Oh. Which I think is bizarre because I had to give my fingerprints to do concealed carry. I think that's weird. Why wouldn't that be an accepted form of ID? You have far more information about me with the concealed carry than you did with my regular driver's license.

But does the federal government have that info? And I don't think they do, I think not, I think it's a federal database that the star card is being added to. And quite frankly, I don't want a federal fingerprint database. I would prefer not also, but it's interesting that it's not a recognized that that's true. It's more intrusive. But someone said maybe the governor ought to call us a special session just to take care of the boy.

No. Yeah, that's not going to happen. Because that I think even conservatives would say we're going to spend tens of thousands of dollars, over this. And I don't think it's worth that. I think you you tolerate it. You plan for it to be one of the first bills in the session in January. In the meantime, if there's still a civil pathway to find some penalties for her for flying it, then then Attorney General Labrador ought to do that and and try to stick it to, Boise as much as possible.

But yeah. Yeah. Somebody said, hey, why don't we fly a Maga flag? I'm not doing that because my argument is, is that the that the American flag represents my freedoms. And then in my personal life, I can do as I choose, right? I don't I'm not going to force people to celebrate or identify with a Maga flag within my city.

They don't have to know. And, and, and frankly, we have the high ground and we need to keep the high ground. So I, I would agree. All right. 945 20854 279 oh, let's talk about grand peaks primates. Julie, I talked about in my monologue, a hypothetical lunch I was having with a liberal and the juicy steak sitting in front of me was from Grand Peak.

Spray means like it was. It was delicious. I heard the slather. I was talking to somebody, one of our our coworkers out there, but I heard about the slathering of sauce that you were putting on. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Which some people think, oh no, a well cooked steak. You don't put A1 or, you know, whatever on it.

There is really two camps of that because I'm a no sauce gal, but I don't know Saskatchewan life yet. You just don't like any. You're very saucy, but you don't. You don't like sauce. I how bad would it be if I did like sauce? I know, imagine you wouldn't be able to put up with it. Layers of sauce?

No, but I you know what? I do like a well-seasoned steak that has, like, lots of pepper on it and salted just right and seared like it should be. So, grab your steaks and whatever else fits your fancy at GP Prime. Meat scum, ribs, dogs, chicken breasts, pre-cooked sous vide, crock pot ready meals a they have a whole bunch you can choose from.

Yeah. So get Ahold of them GP Prime meats.com. They're great friends of ours. You'll see on that website that you have lots of options, packages, everything. If you don't see something that you're looking for or you have questions, make sure you call them because you get a great customer service experience as well as quality meat at Grand Peak's Prime Meats.

All right. It's 947 on Newstalk 179. We'll take a break and be back. Ooh, baby, baby, I know mayor McLean does have one person who is saying they're running for mayor right now. I don't know how many people are actually have entered the race in Boise. Boise mayor opponent. Let me see. 13 hours dueling petitions Kiva TV. Oh, now wait a minute.

The there aren't dueling positions, petitions. Okay, that's the wrong story here. Oh, wait, they I think they had a mayor's race in 2023, so they're not doing one that they don't have one this year. Okay. Yeah. However, we could look at that 2023 race and maybe see who might run. There's a lady named Marion Jordan. So somebody asked if mayor McLean was the, was native to Idaho.

I knew we had talked about this before, but Wikipedia says she was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She lived in Houston and has a novia that's in New York before moving to Boise in 1998. Okay. I feel like we've looked at it before. The the opponent she had was a former Boise police chief who is now a woman, Mary Ann Jordan, who is now 70 years old.

So I wonder how that turned out. ChatGPT you're going to tell me, oh, baby. Babe, the conclave that just started. They're closing the doors. Oh, I misread that. Sorry. I was wrong. I don't know why Senator Mary Ann Jordan also ran, but Mike Masterson was another candidate. He was the Boise police chief, and I don't know how old he is.

Okay. But she won. It was basically 55 to 45. So she won with ten points. Pretty good. She'd been on the city council. Yeah. So back to the conclave. Yeah. Started just a few minutes ago. They shut the doors. They are only doing one vote today in modern history, there has never been a pope picked on the first vote.

Okay, so don't expect the smoke today. Tomorrow. If this vote follows tradition tomorrow, they will vote up to four times. Four times. Okay, trying to get the smoke. This reminds me of picking a speaker of the House. Multiple votes. You know, it would be unfortunate if, like, the boiler malfunction at the Vatican and a whole bunch of steam like that would be.

Or somebody flew a drone over the Vatican, and that drone just emitted some smoke and it looked like it was coming. Those little smoke bombs, and it looked like it was coming from the Vatican. Now. Yes, right. Here we go. Oh 952 on Newstalk 1079, the program is brought to you by Town and Country Gardens. You hear us talk all the time about the four step loan program, but they have so much more.

If you need seeds for your garden, they got them. If you need hanging baskets for outside, they got them. If you need houseplants, if you need mulch, if you need rock or bark or soil, whatever. They got it. And there's experts at Town and Country Gardens. They're going to be able to help you with all of your lawn needs.

Yeah a couple of days ago you recommended if you have like a weed in your grass you're not sure about it. Take a picture on your phone. Yeah. Go in there and talk to them and see what's the best remedy to get rid of that certain kind of weed. Or let's say you're worried about, what your apples look like on your apple tree or anything like that.

They can help you. Absolutely. And make sure you tell them that Neil and Julie sent you because they're friends of ours. They should be friends of yours. Town and country Gardens, located south of Idaho Falls, across from the malting plant on Yellowstone Highway 954. We'll be back. We'll wrap it up after this on Newstalk 179. I think we could do a segment of things Neil wanted to say during an endorsement, but couldn't.

Like when you're talking about taking a picture of the weeds and then I thought, or pick it, dry it, smoke it, and if it makes you feel good, tell no one about. But I can't really say that during the, indoors. Thank goodness. I don't smoke it. I'm not an advocate of that. So I don't, I don't think that's accurate.

The most the newest text I mean the flag's been up for ten years right. She just didn't take it down when she was supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. It's been up for actually more than a decade. One t you all right? We'll have about a minute and a half, so. Okay. Do we have. We don't have Irish tomorrow, correct?

Nope. Okay. Give me you lucky dog. Saucy. Julie. Okay, I am now using AI for everything, and I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I can't decide like it has accelerated a lot of things that I want to do to get done, but I also feel like it means I'm not flexing muscles that I used to flex, like mentally and so I don't I'm worried, like, I don't know what this what the long term impacts of this are.

I would say we just can't get soft. Yeah, I you know what? Isn't that every big it let me let me put it in a different context. I'm using my car to go everywhere now, but I don't know if it's a good thing. I'm getting far more places, far faster, but I feel like my leg muscles aren't as strong as they were when I used to walk everywhere.

I mean, is it kind of a corollary, like, maybe I just need to develop new muscles like, you know, I think there's a lot of similarities there. The difference is, is that our most important muscle in our entire body is our brain. Yeah. Because that muscle actually affects the health of every other muscle. Yeah. It's true.

Or. 957 on Newstalk 1079 we and Julie on this happy note. All right. Net approval rating handling crime. What do we have here. We have a positive rating for Donald Trump even in the most recent polling. Look at that at plus two points. Far better than Joe Biden who was so far underwater. My goodness he was setting records at -26 points.

You rarely ever see it. So Donald Trump ran in part on law and order. It was one of the reasons that he got elected. And at this particular point, Americans like what they're hearing from him on the issue of crime. And you see this right here with a plus two net approval rating, far better than Joe Biden left office with back in 2024.

Okay, Julie, you think about that. He's not underwater on crime. He's not underwater on immigration. I don't know where he's at on the economy. He's just got to keep going, keep winning, keep moving ahead. I agree, I don't listen to the mainstream media. It's different than what they're saying. Yeah, it is. It really is. They're crafting this weird alternate reality.

Well everyone have a wonderful Wednesday. Julie and I will be back here. And if you'd like to join us in the post-show, you can always text live to (208) 542-1079. That's 528542107 new 1079 new 107 new. All right. Okay, I'll catch you on the flip side tomorrow.