Morning News Replay 2-18-26

wanted to have a candidate for office on his show. State Representative James Talarico, if you've been paying attention to politics, you kind of maybe know who this guy is, possibly. But you'd have to really pay attention to know. You really would. He's a candidate that has, I think, for those on the left, attracted a great deal of attention. In ways that former candidates like Beto O'Rourke have, he's running in Texas for the U.S. Senate race in 2026. And like it seems like we do this every couple years where the Democrats get all spun up that they've got like the one. They have the candidate. And that candidate is finally going to be able to win any kind of race in Texas anywhere. Recently, it's been U.S. Senate races, but, you know, before that, gubernatorial races as well. It's never true. It never happens. But they've targeted Ted Cruz a couple times, and they've gotten all hot to bother over this candidate or that, including Beto. But it never ends up materializing. Well, he's the latest one. He's a state rep. He is a Presbyterian seminarian. So he's, I think he rose to sort of. recognition and prominence by having maybe one of his speeches in church might have been filmed and then that was passed around democratic social media and now he's a rising star and i don't know who cares the point is is that he's like the thing in the moment he's current thing and i'm always in favor of current thing He is current thing. So Stephen Colbert, being the dutiful Democratic leftist that he is, wants to promote this guy. So he invites him onto the show. And, you know, there was a study that was done. When Stephen Colbert was going through his thing, when he got bounced off the air, and then he came back, there was a study that was done about the guests that he chose to have on his program. And it was shocking how in the last like 10 plus years, the Democrat to Republican invite a number of people that have been on his show, it was something like... 120 to 1 or something. It's something absurd. I mean, it's just so transparently Democratic cheerleading. It's not even funny. So he wants to have James Talarico on the show. Well, his network says, well, hold on there, buddy. Hold on there. We've got the equal time rule. And the Trump administration has showed renewed interest in an expansive... interpretation of the equal time rule to basically mandate that you invite people on the show. If you have somebody from one side of the aisle during an election, you have to have somebody from the other side of the aisle also there to give their perspective on it. This is something that we here at the radio station know quite a bit about. So they told him no, or at least Stephen Colbert said no, and then it went from there. To the point here about what Stephen Colbert just did.

He goes on the air, I think it was yesterday or the day before. Two days ago, I think it was Monday. He goes on the air and he basically says, we were going to have this guy on our show today. But I was told by CBS, I can't. So immediately what he's doing is he's setting it up as some sort of forbidden fruit. He's like, there's something that they didn't want you to hear. They're afraid of it or whatever. And then he says, and because they told us we shouldn't talk about this on the air, let's talk about it on the air. That's literally a direct quote from him. And that was funny and everything, but that was also false. And CBS came out and literally sent out a memo yesterday that said that's not true. We didn't tell him not to talk about it. And we also didn't tell him not to have the guy on. So what Stephen Colbert did is he sets up a phony controversy where this guy was not allowed to be on the show. And then what he did is he recorded an interview with the guy. Yeah, put it on YouTube. Not on the show. Yeah. Same set, same interview. It looks like it was on the show, but it wasn't on the show, and then he throws it on YouTube. And it gets like 3 million views or whatever. Three million views from people who already like James Talarico and Stephen Colbert. So does this thing, does this do anything to convert a voter anywhere? No, but it did successfully, I think, create an impulse that people would go watch it. Well, got the guy's name out a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Sure. So then doesn't that not just prove what he's trying to do? I find that to be very disingenuous. Like, I want to promote this guy. I like him. If I was in Texas, I'd vote for him. This is my dude right here. And I'm going to try to make this big thing so everybody's starting to talk about him. To me, it's one of the phoniest things I've ever seen in my entire life. If, if, if CBS actually had real concerns over equal time, it's not like that's an unfair fear. from them, given the rule and how it would potentially be enforced. I mean, what Stephen Colbert is attempting to try to do here is he's trying to say that Donald Trump is afraid of this guy. Donald Trump's FCC doesn't want him specifically to talk to anybody. As if in 2026, anybody can prevent anybody from saying anything anywhere. Like, I'm sorry, but just how he did this alone proves that no, nobody's trying to shut you up because they can't. They simply can't. It's not possible. If, if, if I was told at this radio station, I couldn't interview this person, I couldn't talk to that person or whatever, you know what I do? Three and a half minutes later, I leave this building and I go interview him somewhere else and I did.

stream it or whatever. You know, there's ways around literally every rule. And the FCC equal time rule doesn't apply to streaming or anything like that, which is why he can get away with it. So he basically creates its own demand for this interview and then fills it with the offline interview on YouTube. Success. Yeah. But why should I care about any of this? Especially since this guy is going to lose. There, let me just, let me be very clear. I almost never do this because I always leave the door open a little bit. I always give you that one percent chance that something weird might happen. This guy will not be elected. There is a zero percent chance. And I do mean it, zero percent chance that this guy is a senator from Texas. He's just not. Okay. You know, John Cornyn is the is the Republican candidate in, in Texas that's running for reelection. He is facing a primary challenge. from a couple Republicans, including Ken Paxton, who's the attorney general, I don't think he loses that primary, but assuming he does, either one of those two candidates, Wesley Hunt or Ken Paxton, will be much more electable statewide than Mr. James Talarico. Well, a lot of talk over the years past, I don't know, 10 years about Texas maybe turning the corner. Yeah. And went backwards because the Hispanic population in South Texas went red. Okay, so. Correct. Going the wrong way there. But all this talk, and it's been going on forever, and I talked to people, I lived in Texas for 21 years. And, you know, I watched the big cities. I mean, there was something going on because now it's Tarrant County, which is Fort Worth. And if they get enough counties to all go blue and they've gone blue, we'll see. But as one person from Texas told me, I'll believe it when I see it for a Democrat getting elected statewide. It's. I mean, could it happen someday? Of course. Yeah. Is it going to happen this year? No. No, it isn't. Austin and Dallas and San Antonio and all the major cities, just like everywhere else in America, are certainly more blue than they are red. Although they're far more red than they are in other states. So like Portland here is almost 10 to 1 Democratic, right? Believe me when I tell you, that's not Dallas. Portland is, after getting here, Portland reminds me of San Francisco. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's incredibly one-sided. And it's definitely one-sided in Texas, but it's not that much one-sided. And that's a huge difference because if you are at 60-40 or 70-30 instead of 90-10, it doesn't sound like a big deal, but you're talking about a swing of literally hundreds of thousands of votes. By doing that statewide, it's a big deal. And then the rest of the state is as beat red as you possibly can. Yes. So they're nowhere close. They're nowhere close. And believe me, this guy's not going anywhere. The Democrats have gotten excited about him because he's basically like a rebel. He's someone who is thumbing his nose at what the expectation of him would be. He is a, he is affiliated with a Presbyterian church.

He can step into a church and make a speech and speak to democratic progressive values. So he's essentially an apostate. And they love that. They love the Republican who turns to be a Democrat. They love the person who is not supposed to be a certain thing. Who is that thing? And this is what that guy is. So they think that they're going to ride this to winning. a U.S. Senate race in Texas, and they just won't. So all the efforts of Stephen Colbert here will be for not. Believe me when I tell you that. All right, I'm done. I'm done. Turning our attention to the international scene briefly. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been holding secret talks with the grandson and caretaker of Cuba's aging de facto dictator Raul Castro, as the United States puts unprecedented pressure on Havana's regime, three sources to Axios. The talks between Marco Rubio and Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro. Did I do that good? You like that, guys? All right, thank you. They're bypassing official Cuban government channels, and they show that the Trump administration sees the 94-year-old revolutionary as the communist island's true decision-maker. Quote, I wouldn't call these negotiations as much as discussions about the future, a senior Trump administration official said. Marco Rubio and his team see the 41-year-old grandson and his circle as representing younger, business-minded Cubans for whom revolutionary communism has failed and who see value in a rapprochement. rapprochement with the United States. Our position, the United States government's position, is that the regime has to go. The senior official said, but what exactly that looks like is up to President Trump and he is yet to decide. Marco Rubio is still in talks with the grandson called Raulito. The younger Castro is known in political circles by his nickname El Congrejo. The crab. The crab. He is the crab because he has a deformed finger. After 67 years of U.S. sanctions in Cuban mismanagement, the totalitarian government appears closer than ever to collapse as the island teeters on the edge of a humanitarian crisis. The power grid is failing. Hospitals are limiting surgeries. Food and fuel are increasingly scarce. Tourism is drying up. Uncollected garbage is piling up in some street corners. And by the way, I should tell you, I'm reading from an Axios report. So this is hardly like Fox News or anything like that. This is the characterization from a reliable mainstream outlet.

The troubles accelerated after Trump ordered the January 3rd operation related to Nicholas Maduro, which, of course, has raised fears inside Cuba that the same thing might happen to them. But frankly, I don't think it's necessary. When you're talking about that regime, it is already teetering on the edge as it is. And the leader of that regime is basically on death's door. So it's entirely possible that Marco Rubio was doing this kind of thing, anticipating that they won't even need to get rid of Raoul. and he will pass on or whatnot. And then when he does, they can actually maybe take action with a much younger and much more pro-Western, pro, even, dare I say, capitalistic regime in Cuba. If that kind of thing happens, dude, give the guy a gold bust with all the other things that have happened to Secretary of State so far. It'd be a very accomplished tenure, that's for sure. Laurel, how are you? Hey, Matt. I did want to, first of all, ask you about an email I just got from you. Just a short time ago about ranked choice voting. That's one of the things that has been a topic of conversation inside Augusta, obviously, recently, because of the bill that marched forward a little bit and it was seeking to increase the number of... sort of elected seats that it would apply to. So it's going to be for state offices, governor, House, Senate, etc. Now, I know they're waiting for some sort of a ruling from the main Supreme Judicial Court and then the main Senate would take action and whatnot. But what do you make of the attempt? That's my, you know, the political question here. What do you, what do you make of the attempt to do this? Why? Yeah, well, a continued manipulation of our Constitution to the benefit of one party so that they can maintain their stranglehold on power in Maine. LD 1666 would allow not just the primaries, but the general election for governor and legislative races to be decided by ranked race vote. And why? Why? Because it has always worked in their favor to this point. It's the only reason Jared Golden is in office. He's won twice by ranked choice voting, which I will point out the whole premise of ranked choice voting is that it's supposed to get you to a majority rather than simply a plurality. Plurality being where, you know, someone wins with the most votes, but that might be 35% versus 50% plus one. And then Jared Golden didn't even win by 50%. So it's a false premise, but the Democrats use it to their advantage. They do indeed. Do you think that it would actually remain to their advantage, though? One of the things I was thinking of when I saw them doing this is maybe a little careful of what you wish for. You know, in the governor's race, which is I think what they have their eye on. Obviously, they want to make sure that they win that. With Rick Bennett being in the race, like there's several scenarios I can come up with where...

You know, you mentioned finances. And one thing that struck me when I was reading through the governor's supplemental budget proposal, I mean, it is looking to raise spending to basically $12 billion. I think it's like $11.93 or something like that. But I was looking at the numbers, and that's not even true. Because when she's taking the money out of the Rainy Day fund. And that whole multi-hundred million dollar little boondoggle she's creating, she's not counting that as budget money. It's one-time spending money. So really, this two-year budget cycle will be well over $12.2,000, something in that range, because that money is being sort of counted in a tricky way. Strikes me as particularly disingenuous, I suppose. Do you think that there's any legs to this proposal, though? Are you hearing democratic hesitation, or are they kind of all about it, you think? You know, color me surprised there's manipulation going on regarding the budget. That never happens. Joking aside, yeah, I think that there is a little bit of internal politics going on regarding this budget. The immediate reaction from the speaker actually regarding the $300 checks, I don't know if anybody else noticed, but from what I could see from my seat in the second row, it didn't look like he clapped. Yeah. is a little bit of a tell. I think there's some back and forth going on regarding the budget, and that some of that was a surprise. So I don't think it's a slam dunk, I believe we'll be entirely at 12 billion or beyond. And I think the reason the $300 checks are not a slam dunk is because if the Democrats in the legislature raid the rainy day fund, they want it to be for one of their pet projects, not to give money back, but to spend more money outright. with a government program. So I think there's a lot going on there with the back and forth. We haven't started the back and forth in the legislature yet, but buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride. Yeah, you know, that's a good point. I mean, there's a long list of things that they've wanted to fund for a long time. And when you think of two or $300 million dollars just kind of available on the table there like that, you know, do you want to do it for a one-time gimmicky $300 check? basically to aid the U.S. Senate campaign of your governor, who's now a lame duck in leaving office, or do you want that $2 or $300 million for that thing that you really wanted? And maybe you dump it into that. I do wonder whether or not – I feel like that money's gone either way. Like they're going to take the money out. It's just a matter of what are they going to spend it on, right? For sure. Yeah, they're spending it. It's just that their priorities may not align. One final question for you, Laurel, and this kind of gets more of your political hat on before I let you go. As you look forward to how this election is shaping up, I realize it's only February. So there's a lot of time left. There's a lot of things that will solidify, you know, how this goes for everybody. But you're talking to a lot of people on the ground and you're sort of at the grassroots level right now. What are you hearing in terms of the attitude of Maine people right now? I mean, is what they see out of Augusta, Mills, the Democrats, etc., are troubling? to them? Do they not pay much attention and it's not a big deal? How do you think this shapes up in terms of the environment for both the Republicans and the Democrats running at all levels this year? Is it going to be advantaged in one direction, you think?

Yeah, you know, I think I hear a lot about affordability from Maine people, and it's not the same use of the word that Augusta Democrats use it. Mainers can't afford life right now, and I hope that that plays into the election, because if it does, then this won't be a typical midterm election year where the Democrats continue sweeping the state because of who's in the White House. I think we'll see. Something different here in Maine, because we know who's at fault in the last seven years who has been increasing the price of energy, our taxes, and the general cost of living. That is Augusta Democrats and giving them power year after year. So that's what I'm hearing from Mainers is simply that life is unaffordable. And so... that's where I am guiding folks and talking to folks that if you don't like the way life is going, let's change something in November. If folks do you want to check out more about the rank choice vote email that you received, they can check out my podcast, speak up with Laurel Libby on all the usual places that folks consume podcasts. Where all of your great podcasts live, go check him out, you'll find Laura Libby there. He is with us now. Craig, how are things, sir? He is here. Things are going well. Lots of news across technology from your New York Times article all the way through some major changes in the whole AI field. Indeed. So we talk a lot of AI. So let me get to that in one moment. I do want to start with that article that you're referencing that I mentioned earlier in the program. Dinner is being recorded whether you know it or not. This is actually like a longstanding. question or concern about this type of technology advancing. So if you don't know what we're talking about, meta smart glasses and many things like it, right? There's other products that are similar to what meta is developing here. But I remember a long time ago, Craig Peterson, Google Glass. Do you remember Google Glass when that was first, I think. put forward something like 2012 or something like that is a long time ago um people got freaked out by it because it's like you're wearing glasses you got a little camera there so you can surreptitiously record things as you are walking around and then there was questions about whether or not they'd create like a heads up display on your sunglasses or something like that so you're like you know, tweeting while you walk and other weird and wild things. But the recording of everyone around you all the time is kind of the creep factor here. So I'm sure you are familiar with the article and, of course, the technology. Can you tell us a little bit about where we are with this right now? Is this a technology you feel will be ubiquitous and everywhere in our society soon or not? Well, I think it's going to be hard to avoid. If you look at the numbers here, META has been selling these glasses by the millions, and that's kind of crazy. Now, META, of course, these are the Facebook people have done things back and forth when it comes to facial recognition. So, for instance, they would automatically tag or suggest tagging people who are in pictures that you post up on Facebook and say, you know, this is so-and-so, so-and-so.

And that kind of creep people out. So they've actually backed off that one little bit. And what you're talking about now is an interesting one because there's been an internal document that was released just a couple of weeks ago now that's talking about whether or not they should release the next version of these glasses that, as you pointed out, have a case. and audio, and meta internally is looking at it saying, well, we want to be able to do facial recognition, much the same as they did in regular Facebook stuff. But the problem is people might consider that, and this is shocking. I know. Are you sitting down? I'm sitting down, thankfully. Okay, okay. All right. It's very shocking. So they're thinking that people might think this is somehow an invasion of privacy. It's shocking. It's shocking. It's absolutely shocking. So internally, they're having these discussions. Externally, they're releasing the devices, and they're saying, well, it's just going to make your life so much easier because it'll identify people. And as usual, they're kind of bringing this into the foray in a way that people would say, well, of course that's the right thing to do because they've got badges that can be used at conferences by the blind. So the badge will identify the person that's in front of them or that they're talking to, et cetera, so they know what's going on. So you can say, yeah, okay, well, that makes a lot of sense. Why not do that? It just, this stuff just kind of leaks its way in. Google's had the Google Glass, which was an abject failure in so many ways. And some of that was because of a little red light that came on when things were being recorded. So people turn those off. So Google Glass. Yeah, exactly. Google Glass has, oh man, I was just thinking about some creepy things. Google Glass got pulled and now they're coming back with it. Ultimately, the wearable AI technology is where it's going. We've got Apple's former top designer Johnny Ives, who is involved with a startup right now, and they're coming up with something. Last year at CES, Consumer Electronics Show. There was a few companies that had little badge type things that you could wear that had AI that was connected to them over the cells of our phone network, data network. So it's going to happen. There's no two ways about it. Maine is a one-party state when it comes to consent for recording, which means one person. that is involved in that conversation or videoing, et cetera, has to approve of it. So, for instance, the New York Times article that you mentioned here, it was talking about this guy working at the restaurant and somebody recorded him through their, apparently their metaglasses and posted on TikTok and got two million views of it. And so people were coming to the restaurant wanting to get selfies with them, he's trying to figure out why, what's going on here?

And then he found out, yeah, he had been recorded without his consent. So if you're not in the picture, is it legal to record them? Because in Maine, if you're on a phone call, you can record that phone call because you're a party in that phone call. These laws are going to be confusing. New Hampshire has an all-party law, so it probably would not be legal to use your metaglasses in New Hampshire and in many other states. Oh, my gosh, all of these issues. Yeah, I mean, sure, but then that means that anybody who has a cell phone that's surreptitiously recording like a Little League game is breaking the law too, and nobody does anything about that in New Hampshire. You can see the camera. Oh, no, totally. Yes. They're recording. I completely agree. Which is totally surreptitious. So, yeah, and that's the key here. You talk about Google Glass failing for those who are familiar with it. I mean, if you saw the images of those glasses, I'm not surprised that they failed because it looked like some sort of futuristic sci-fi, cumbersome, ugly, dumb-looking glasses. Like, I wasn't ever going to put that on my face and walk around and start snapping pictures and recording people. But if you are, you know, with the meta-glasses and things that are like it and maybe things that are coming down the pike pretty soon. If you can make those look like regular glasses with a really tiny little camera that's barely noticeable and it's sort of something that you can just kind of wear around. That strikes me as a very different thing altogether. And with the society the way that it is, with everybody obsessed with filming everything and recording everything all the time and the narcissism and everything else, it just strikes me that this will be something that is adopted, particularly for people who have actual glasses. I would imagine that, you know, getting these as frames with... with prescriptions inside of them is absolutely going to be a thing. You know what I mean? It is. They've even partnered meta here with Rayban. Right. So they look like Rayban glasses. Yeah. And they've got a small lens. If you look at the glasses, you can see the lens, but how many people are going to do that? So I personally think it's an invasion of privacy. I'm not sure what we're going to do about it. Okay, well, with that happy news, let's move on to our next topic. Craig Peterson joining us, as he always does on Wednesdays. You mentioned AI and changes in the industry. Forever, what are you talking about, Craig Peterson, when you bring that topic up? Because it is a very volatile industry right now. I think that's one thing we already know. So give us a little more detail. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this last week, both open AI and Anthropic came up, or two weeks ago, came up with the new models. And Anthropics said they were eating their own dog food. Now, for those that aren't familiar with that, it's a tech term, which means that you use your own product. So Anthropics said that the versions that they came up with, which was the Opus 4.6, which is amazing, by the way, was 100% developed using their own AI.

Now, obviously, the AIs are not good at just doing things by themselves. The AIs require a lot of human supervision, so you've got to bet there are some good programmers, engineers, ethics people, which, by the way, Anthropic has kind of an ethics-first mentality, unlike Open AI and some others. And they came up with something that really is kind of, I think, the trend of the future, right? We're worried about what happens when AI can rewrite itself and decide what it's going to do, that we're not at that point yet, but where Anthropa comes out and says 100% of it was developed using AI, that's something to note. And by the way, Open AI's new model is terrible, and people are really not liking it. So, I mean, that just gets into what we've talked about recently, which is the shifting sands of, like, even the companies and how they, you know, what they have produced and how those things are doing overall. Yeah. You know, and one thing that I've noticed, and you've said this yourself on this program, too, is that different, different AI models are very, very good at different things. Like, if you need an image created, there's... a good go-to location for that or two or three there's like there's a there's a top 10 list of how they all do if you need something uh you know sort of written and and more of the kind of like help me to you know articulate this thought then there's different models which are pretty good at that uh but maybe not so good at image creation and then you get into other things obviously One thing that I know you have talked about here is how to navigate through all that. If you're sort of dipping your toes into this universe and you're trying to figure out what's good at what and what should I even use and what shouldn't I and you don't know too much about this, where should you go to either learn more or use multiple tools or otherwise deal with this? How do you do that? Yeah, there's a few places that you can go online. The place where most people get their open source, their public large language models is called Hugging Face. And you can go to Hugging Face. You can see all kinds and there are thousands of them out there now, including some of the top ones like Quinn, which is from her friends in China. It is an Alibaba. product, if you will, but it's absolutely free. You can run it you can use it, which by the way is bringing up another issue, which is have there been purposely things put into Quinn or some of these other large language models that are there to maybe send information back to distort things, right, et cetera, et cetera. So you can do, you can look on that to there's a couple of different AI sites that you can use. to kind of figure out what's what and which is the best ones. Right now, just in general for most people that aren't going to do all of the research, TLDR, right? Right. The bottom line is that OpenAI has been trying to compete directly with Anthropic in order to really kind of get the programmers to start using OpenAI. Therefore, OpenAI's ability to write has dropped dramatically with the latest releases.

So Open AI is poor at coding and poor at writing. Anthropic right now, their opus is, as I mentioned really, absolutely amazing from programming. And they've even built legal stuff into the latest Anthropic Opus, where it can write legal documents quite effectively now. So Anthropic has a few different models. It has its baseline, which is haiku. It has the sonnet, which is the good general purpose one in Opus, which is really, really smart. So that's what I would do. I would look at those. Google Gemini is quite good. Currently, it's kind of an all-seran across the board. A lot of people are using it. And of course, GROC AI has really been taking over a lot of the charts. when it comes to research and some of the writing. It's so much better. It's so, I'm sorry, but it's so much better. It's ridiculous. I've tested it out where I've just, you know, you know how people use it for Google now, right? Like, hey, tell me about the, you know, the 30 years war or something. Just randomly pick some topic or whatever. And you ask, you know, chat GPT that, you ask GROC that, you ask Gemini that, you ask anything else that. The difference in depth and quality and actually accuracy, too, that you get out of GROC is actually stunning to behold in comparison. It is. Yeah, it's really remarkably different. Yeah, part of SpaceX now, right? X-A-I all together. That's going to be one heck of a public offering that comes out. Yes, it will. But yeah, GROC is really good generally, and it's also I think what they must have done when they were feeding it all this data is they must have spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if it's deluni left stuff or if it's actual fact. You know, Wikipedia has been used to program, if you will, so many of these large language models out there, and it is pegged left almost entirely now, which is a shame because the guy that founded it wanted all of the truth to be out there, and he's very upset about how far left it's gone. But that's what OpenAI used. That and videos from YouTube, which is kind of interesting too. So we don't have much information about what... when Grock was used for training, but they obviously had a very strong base. It's quite impressive. Well, that's unfortunately where we have to end. Craig Peterson, we appreciate you being with us as always. Thanks for your usual, interesting conversations, and we'll talk again next Wednesday. BJ McAllister, Eric Lusk, with us as usual on Wednesday morning. Gentlemen, how are you? Good morning. Happy spring training. Ah, yes. I like that. Eric, how are you? pictures and catchers, and we have lost a couple of real pillars of American culture in a period of about 72 hours. Robert Duvall, who famously said in...

in not not platoon apocalypse now my friend apocalypse now apocalypse now he said willard at some day at some point this war is going to end you know he said it somewhat sadly and of course Reverend Jesse Jackson whom I saw in Washington DC at a rally in 1986 And he was as exciting as any rock concert I've ever been to. You really had to hand it to the guy. for being that motivating as you were sitting there. But he had a lot of quotations, and I'll read you one of them. This is Jesse Jackson saying, there is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then I look around and see someone white and feel relieved. He hit a lot of notes in his lifetime. Actually, I was going to ask about Jesse Jackson as my first question here, just reflecting on the life and legacy of Mr. Jackson briefly before we get to the other stories here. Since Eric already brought it up, BJ I'll slide over to you and just ask to reflect on his life. I know he wasn't really like an important figure in the last several years. He's kind of faded. from public attention, but oh boy, he was very important for quite a while. So tell me a little bit about your reaction. Most certainly, you know, he was absolutely, as Eric mentioned, a pillar of American society. And someone who lent his voice to many, many power struggles that existed, including at the J. Paper Mill during that strike, he showed up and stood by the workers. And clearly he was someone who always fought for the voice of the little guy and made sure that organizing and rhetoric helped win the day. All right. Well, we can safely move on. Appreciate our eye on politics team being here with us as usual. I want to turn our attention to what's going on in Congress right now. The House passed the Save America Act. And this is, of course, a longstanding, you know, sort of push for the Republicans. And there's a lot of parts of this. I'll actually go to you, Eric. I know that Susan Collins has weighed in on this. So there's a little bit of a main angle to this as well. got obviously, you know, voter ID stuff that's included in that, as well as a number of other changes. Can this ultimately in any way pass the Senate or is it just dead via filibuster? And what do you make of this issue? I mean, is this a winning issue for Republicans in 2026? What do you think?

I think it is a potentially enormously dangerous losing issue for the Democrat Party. And if we believe Nick Shirley, the citizen journalist who uncovered massive welfare, Medicare, healthcare, education care, fraud in Minneapolis. and is now in the process of uncovering what's going on with 125-year-old voters in California. This is a potentially massive losing issue for the Democrat Party, and in the great state of Maine, where here we are. I think six months after discovering paper ballots showing up at a private citizens residence in Maine with an investigation that is now being sort of sidelined and hidden by the Maine Attorney General. And you've got a secretary of state who initially was going to investigate it. her own election processes, but now she's running for governor in the state of Maine. This is a real hot potato, and I think if I were in the Democrat Party, I'd do everything I could to gum this thing up. And even if it were to get through the halls of Congress, it's going to wind up in the courts. A question that we have yet to see really resolved is going to be how much can the federal government get involved? in the elections of individual states. And I don't know you're going to have a resolution before November of 2006, even if the SAVE Act were to go through. But this is a true hot potato in the era of mail-in ballots. The state of California mails everybody a ballot whether they ask for one or not. Gee, what could possibly go wrong? All right, BJ, your take on the same question here. Obviously, this is one of the big things in Congress outside of the whole Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which I'll get to in a minute. This is the other thing. So what do you think of this and the political ramifications of it in both directions? Well, thankfully, we have a recent measure to look at to see how Mainers feel about restrictions to the ballot box. Just as they did this past November, they handily rejected restrictions to the ballot and access to voting. And I think that's where most Mainers will fall on the Save Act. You know, there are serious flaws with this legislation. You know, I'm sure the listeners are aware of the challenges of this.

presents to married women and their ability to register with their new last names. The legislation does not speak to the ability to present a certificate for name change, you have to present an official document that has your new last name, and that's about 343,000 women in Maine who could face new barriers casting a ballot. But what Susan Collins is doing here is very clear. This is not going to pass at all, and she is already fundraising off from it. This is clearly an attempt to build support and in the Republican base and to gardener contributions from donors. And she is not... alone here. But certainly there are Republicans who are opposing this, including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has broken with Republicans on the bill, saying that it's a one-size-fits-all solution and a step towards nationalizing elections. This is a losing issue for Republicans. Is it a losing issue for Republicans? Eric Lusk. I would love to have your response to what BJ was just talking about. I think BJ is speaking down. Maybe he's mansplaining to women saying that they're not capable of being able to show that they had a maiden name and now they have a married name. I think... I think most of the women I know are able to pull off that move, but it is a winning issue. Voter ID is a winning issue in the Democrat Party, because 70% of Democrats believe there should be some type of voter ID when you go to cast your ballot for elected officials. It's a 90% plus issue. among Republicans, and it's 85% or so among the unenrolled. So this can be a winning issue for whomever it is you're going to be asking regardless of their party. Do you need to spend some time making sure you get the question or the issue or the legislation crafted correctly? Yes, I do. And I also think that when I listen to the Democrat Party speak down to women, Never mind minorities, they're insulting some people saying, you're telling me I'm not smart enough to know how to show an ID, but I can in any other area of life where I go. Never mind getting on an airplane buying alcohol or even checking into a Jon Ossoff pef rally in the state of Georgia. Jon Ossoff being the Democrat senator from Georgia.

I'm sorry, but what I'm saying is not talking down to women. What I'm saying is the legislation is silent on the ability of someone to show that name change. It's specifically no language in there about the ability to show the change from a maiden name. So no, the legislation does not allow for that. One follow up for you, BJ, before we maybe wrap this topic and then move on to another one. You had mentioned that sort of main people had weighed in on this. Do you, and this is a genuine question, do you draw? any real conclusions in any direction from the vote that just happened on that referendum? Because for me and my part, I don't. I don't think that it tells you that it's either popular or unpopular with Maine because it was such a tainted question with the construction of how it was worded on the ballot to say nothing of the campaigns and so on and so forth. And the inclusion and the controversial inclusion of many provisions inside of that particular referendum that... that, you know, I think made it potentially more unpopular than just a straight-up voter ID question would have been. Does that really tell you all that much about what made people think about the question of voter ID specifically? I think in a vacuum, you make some good points, but when you look at the on-balance votes on democracy issues and access to the ballot issues, main voters have repeatedly stepped up to protect access to the ballot and defend democracy. Any final thought, Eric? I have, I don't think it's a secret the way the main secretary of state is allowed to shape how the question is asked is often not in the spirit of what was put forward by a particular ballot referendum. I don't think that's any secret, and I think that was very much the case in 2025. I don't see the Democrat Party having any interest in simplifying this particular issue because for some reason it works to their advantage to not have something as simple as voter ID. All right. Well, we can kind of go from there. I mentioned the shutdown that no one's talking about. It's a partial shutdown. It's Department of Homeland Security. Negotiations in Congress continue over this whole. situation, although I think as we've maybe noted, even on this program, it doesn't seem like there's actually a heck of a lot of fire under anybody's rear end to get anything done here. Your thoughts on this, BJ McAllister, let me start with you. You know, same lens I want to look at this through, right? You have a showdown here over ICE, the Department of Homeland Security funding for it. Obviously, ICE raids and immigration enforcement stuff is tied into that. Is this at all a political risk to be doing what is going on right now in Congress, particularly the Democrats shutting down the government or the one section of the government over this issue? Or is it a winning issue? Do you think that the ICE situation has made this a popular place to be? What do you think? I think what the Democrats are proposing are all reforms that are tremendously popular. You know, they want to bar federal agents from entering private property without judicial search warrant. Americans agree. 69% of Americans want that. They want to bar federal agents from wearing masks, also broadly popular. 55% of Americans are in favor. They are proposing a series of measures that are common sense and that people like further. The longer this discussion goes on for Republicans,

the better it is for Democrats. You know, we've seen in October, Republicans' lead on immigration was 13 points. Just this week, it's fallen to just four percentage points. That's a huge swing on an issue that's traditionally a Republican issue that voters side with the Republicans on. And clearly, they have gone too far here. Also, Trump's handling of the issue earns strong disapproval with 49% of adults strongly... disapproving of this. That's up from 34% disapproving of his actions in the last polling numbers. And finally, voters through three separate polls now say that President Biden was better overall than Trump. This is the president that was very unpopular on his way out. And so as long as Chuck Schumer can keep this in the discussion, the better it is for Democrats. Do you agree? Eric Lasker is maybe they're a different take coming my way. What do you think? Donald Trump won election in large measure on the argument that he was going to shut down illegal immigration into the United States of America. And in doing so, he used laws. He used laws that were passed by Bill Clinton in 1996 by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. And in the 82nd Congress, if anybody cares to go back and see. who was president in the 82nd Congress or in leadership in the Senate, leadership in the House, you'll find that in every case the Democrats had the trifecta in the 82nd Congress. It was Truman and the Democrats had a majority in the House and the Senate. What's really amusing is immigration control and enforcement is funded through the year 2028. So this isn't going to impact 2000, isn't going to impact ICE being able to pick up people, remove them from the country. And part of enforcing laws is homicides are down 20% in the last year. I really hope Chuck Schumer keeps at it because FEMA will wind up not having money. And in a piece of ironic justice, the D.C. water authority didn't maintain the lines properly. And now they have got the biggest sewage spill in American history right there on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. So Chuck, you go right ahead. You keep the funding from getting back to FEMA so they can clean up the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority mess brought to you by someone who used to work for the Water Authority that looked after the quality of water in. Get this, Flint, Michigan, which has been in the news for 20 years with lead in the water. That's what you've got right now, Chuck Schumer. You get the sewage to show for it. Stick with it. All right. Well, as a sort of maybe final topic, I think possibly depending on how long you guys take on it. I do want to turn our attention to Maine here specifically and maybe get another temperature check on the U.S. Senate race, specifically because Susan Collins has been mentioned so much in the past week or so. You know, even today as discussing the SAVE Act and other issues, you know, she's kind of in the middle of the DHS thing. She's kind of in the middle of the SAVE Act thing. She's kind of in the middle of everything. And on my radio show and on TV, I hear.

the Susan Collins ads, both pro and con. So, boy, it's already a thing. So BJ McAllister, let me get a quick temperature check from you on, you know, state of play in the U.S. Senate race here. And as usual, I want you to both comment on sort of Susan Collins and what she's done recently. and how that plays into the politics of this race, good or bad for her. But also, you know, there is a race over there in the primary, and you're seeing jockeying for position with Mills and Graham Platner. How is that going? And what are you hearing? B.J. McAllister. I think we are just seeing the beginning of this. And, you know, just this past week, Democrats have placed their first fall TV by to the tune of $20 million. And it's only going to go up from there. I think when we look at what Susan Collins is doing, there's no question. She's masterful at this. She has won so many contested elections for a reason. And right now, she sees at least one of her. Democratic opponents doing a tremendous job fundraising. And so with her vote on the SAVE Act, she knows that she's got to do something to get more donations from that Republican base. And that is why she's taking, again, a measured approach to make sure that she can vote for something without it actually becoming law. On the Democratic side, you know, Graham Platner shows no signs of slowing down. He has just launched this new town hall tour. And, you know, every time he packs a room with people. we all talk about it. And so I think he continues to display a very well-run machine. Now with that said, obviously both sides are on TV now and the spending will continue. Unfortunately, I do think the way that this will all play out is who's got the money in the primary. Is that true, though? Before I go to Eric really quickly, do you think that at some point we are all so exhausted from this and sick of it that more money helps? I do think to a point, yeah. I mean, what we haven't seen yet are the negative ads. And those are certainly going to be coming. Right now, the candidates are doing some, you know, pretty vanilla self. promotion type advertising. But, you know, a lot of people aren't as tuned in as we are or as the listeners are, and they get a lot of their information from the advertising. Whether they like it or not, they vote based on the advertising and study after study shows. So I do think that the money will matter in the primary. With the general, as we saw with Sarah Gideon, you eventually hit a point where you just can't do anything more with the money. The dies cast. Eric Lusk, you got about a minute. Go ahead, sir. It's real hard for Janet Mills to go out there, run on her record, and be something of a moderate within the Democrat Party at this point after you have the media whipping up people getting murdered in the streets and hunting down illegal aliens with clubs. But ultimately, I think the establishment Democrat

Janet Mills wins out over Graham Platner, but she's not going to be able to run on her record. And yeah, have fun spending money in the primary to get one of these two people across the line. But it isn't going to be enough to have all of the socialist disappointed. Graham Platner didn't win and then count on them to come out and beat Susan Collins. I think Susan Collins isn't pretty good shape. All right. And that's perfect timing because right there, we got to go to break. Appreciate it, Eric. Appreciate it, BJ. We will talk to you guys again next week. Let's go to the phones though. 879-9-426. I'd love to hear from you in this last half hour as we wrap up the show today. Dennis from Kittery has decided to jump into the fray. Dennis, how are things? Hey, good morning. How are you doing? Not too bad. Not too bad. Hey, I listen every morning to you guys without fail, and I've been putting this one off, and I'm like, now I've got to call and talk about it. I just can't stand it anymore. He can't stand it anymore, ladies and gentlemen. What is it? I've had all I can stand. Like Popeye said, I can't stand no more. I don't know who's going to win the Republican primary in this race against Susan Collins. You know, I think the young... The Democratic primary, I mean. Democratic, I'm sorry. The young progressives, I think, are in love with Graham Platner for some reason. And I think the older traditionals will go with Janet Mills. But how absolutely ignorant would the voters of Maine have to be to unelect the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee? Are you kidding me? Quite, quite, yes, quite. I'm like, look, I mean, just look what she's done for this state since she took that chairmanship. And even if the Republicans lose control of the Senate and she's not the chair, she still has enormous clout in Washington, D.C., compared to any first-term senator that went down there. Oh, absolutely. And in fact, I'll go even a little further than you are, Dennis. The Republicans are not losing the Senate. I mean, in order for them to do that, obviously Susan Collins would have to lose. You'd have to lose in North Carolina. And then something bizarre would have to happen. like losing in Texas, which I talked about earlier today. The map is not good for them. It just isn't. You want to know where the Republican incumbents are that are retiring this year? That's always the biggest opportunity, right? Big open seat. It's Alabama, North Carolina, Kentucky, Iowa, and Wyoming. All red, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, the closest that they have, they have a shot in North Carolina, sure. But outside of that, you know, the incumbents running again are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma. It's the gut, the Kansas and the Nebraska's, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Florida, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio. I just named...

All those states and not a single one of them is even in question. They're all going right. Well, there you go. It's not happening. That makes me feel good. I was being hypothetical, of course, and just saying even if. I mean, because if you just look, look at the people in this state of Maine who begged for help for how many years that she produced. I'm thinking my sister's a schoolteacher, a 50-year school teacher, okay? And she's always worked part-time to supplement her income because teachers get paid squat, as we know, and was unable to look forward to collecting Social Security on her part-time income from her second job. Susan Collins fixed that. So for the teachers, for all the state workers, for the firefighters, for the police officers, look what she's done for clean water and the environment, the billions of dollars. I mean, we've... We would have to be absolutely out of our friggin' minds. Yeah, here's the question I have, though, Dennis, because that's all true. How much does the everyday regular voter understand any of that? Because I think here's my fear is that you have a pretty large majority of the people who show up on Election Day who don't know what a Senate... finance committee is you know what the appropriations committee they don't know what tenure or seniority is they don't know the importance of it they don't know the effect of it right like i'm sure you know about this if you work for say b i w I mean, you can't possibly be even a peon there, like at the lowest levels. You can't possibly not know that it's really, really important that she sits on that perch and that you're personally benefited from it. But, I mean, if you're just a regular old, like, convenience store worker or you're, you know, you're a small business owner who doesn't pay too much attention to politics or anything, you know, anybody like that. I wonder how much they get that because it's not something the... average everyday voter thinks about, talks about, or understands or anything like that, which is not to slam them. They just don't pay attention to that level. So I'm worried about that. I am. Well, and I think it's a valid worry, but that message needs to get out there. I think they're getting it out. There have been some Susan ads that have been put on by a pack out of state talking about what she's done for clean water and so on and for the firefighters' protective gear. I mean, those are out there, but I think the message needs to be loud and clear to the voters who don't understand exactly what we stand to lose. Yeah, no, it's a good point. And I hope they do make that point. And I hope it sinks in. And we'll see. And like, here's your dose of optimism, Dennis, and thanks for the call. The nearly $500 million that is likely to be spent in this race for both sides. But.

The unbelievable amount of money that will be spent in this race means that you will be hearing that case from someone. Whether it's Susan Collins campaign itself, whether it's an affiliated pack from Washington, D.C., whether it's some shadowy 501C4 group from Oregon who just happens to have an interest in the race for some reason. You will hear that from someone. I just hope it sinks in. I don't know. I'm cautiously hopeful about that race. You know, Susan Collins and I have different views of politics. She's, I've always described her as in the family, but, you know, a distant cousin, to me at least. You know, I'm of a different kind of political ideology. But when comparing and contrasting her time in office, with what you would get from Janet Mills. By the way, not just Janet Mills, but Janet Mills for a single term, which she has already promised to do, just one term. She can ignore that, I suppose, but even if she did, to achieve even pathetic seniority in the United States Senate, she would have to be around for probably like four terms before she got into anything even reasonably okay. even marginally important? You know what's going to happen? If Janet Mills wins that race, she will be the ranking member, not the chair, but the ranking member of the subcommittee of the subcommittee of agriculture, something like that. It's going to be the most meaningless assignment ever with no power and no ability to steer funds, whether they be directly in the federal budget or whether you're talking about earmarks to the state of Maine. And I know that's not the only issue that anybody should care about, obviously. But with the construction of the main economy and how important it is that that kind of thing happens for certain industries, it actually is a pretty big deal. So it would be insanity to actually do that. And beyond that, the non-money things that Mills or Graham Platner would bring to the table just, good Lord, are so much worse than what Susan Collins, who occasionally frustrates me here and there. brings to the table. It's just, it's on a different planet. It's on a totally different planet. So my fingers are crossed. And I am optimistic about it because I think that either one of them, Susan Collins has a good chance of beating. I think she, I'm not going to ever say anything's guaranteed, but she would have an easier time dispatching Mills, in my opinion, honestly. I think that Mills is the worst possible candidate to run against Susan Collins if you're the Democrats. She's, On everything that Susan Collins is vulnerable on, everything that she's weak on, everything that could be a problem for Susan Collins, Mills is worse. Like age, being around forever, establishment politics stuff. It's just, it's not, if you don't like that about Susan Collins, you're not going to go with somebody who's just like it. So I don't think that Mills is in a good position at all. Graham Platner is more dangerous. But he also, he could go one of two ways. He could win. He could also get destroyed. He could get absolutely annihilated. I don't know. I don't know how that'll all, you know, play out. We'll see. Let me take one more call and then it'll take a break. Larry from Hollowell. Larry, how are you? Hey, I'm doing great, Matt. Listen, I noticed that Graham Platner covered up the tattoo he had on his chest. And I don't think most people really know the history of that tattoo. That tattoo...

People say, oh, it's a Nazi tattoo, blah, blah, blah. It's way more than that. It is a Nazi SS death head tattoo. And the SS were responsible for annihilating Jews. That's men, women, and children in the 8 million-plus zone. But he didn't know, Larry, he didn't know that that's what he was getting at the time. It was just a skull and crossbones, right? Yeah, I heard that. I heard that. I'll tell you what, anybody that puts ink on their body knows what they're putting on their body. That is such a, that's just a bold face lie. Yeah, no, I agree, obviously. Here's the problem, though. And I'll explain to you why this hasn't killed his campaign. And thanks for the call, Larry. Appreciate it. And I'm glad you brought that up because I think it's worth noting that that's not just like a bad thing. It's a horrendous thing to have that kind of thing on your skin. But here's why it doesn't work. He has wrapped himself so completely in progressive politics and being not just left, but extreme left, extremely progressive, far in the Bernie Brozone. Who is it who you see on the streets with the signs and hear from the most online and whatever else about... accusations of the Trump administration being Nazis and fighting Nazis and fighting fascism and all the language and rhetoric of the left. Where does that come out of the most? Is it the regular business guy moderate Democrat segment? Or is it the extreme progressive left? You know and I know that it's the extreme progressive left. Well, Graham Platner is extreme progressive left. So to the people who are in the extreme progressive left with him. And I have to say, even just anecdotally interested people that have watched this, it does not make sense how someone who makes their entire political identity fighting Nazis and fighting fascism and fighting the Hitler's of the world and bringing it up always, even in the most inappropriate and ridiculous times, it doesn't make sense that a person like that would also be like, ooh, love Nazis. Love the SS. Love it. Let's get a tattoo. It just doesn't track in their head. Now, I could explain how they actually can go together, but I don't think I can explain to a voter how they go together. I think you get to very high-level human consciousness here, and there's only so much detail they can pay attention to and understand. And to them, it just superficially does not make sense that he would be... He would have a problematic opinion related to fascism, Nazis, or even, you know, Jews. I don't think that people believe that he does, which is why he survived this. And that maybe is something that they should believe. And, you know, whatever. But I'm just, I'm trying to analyze mass human psychology here.

And when you're talking about voting, that's what you're talking about. You're talking about mass human psychology. And I think that's one of the reasons why it hasn't stuck. So believe me, it'll be brought up again too. I just wonder whether or not it gets any mileage, frankly, which is sad.