Lars Larson Northwest Podcast 2026-05-12

Three. Quiet, please. Ladies and gentlemen. Are you ready for the big soap? In exactly 15 seconds, we'll be on the air. is the Lars Larson Show. President Trump is one badass president. He secured the border at the level we've never seen before. Honestly, provocative talk with Lars Larson. For our country and for our children, the best is yet to come. Broadcasting across the Pacific Northwest and covering Oregon, Washington, and Idaho on the Radio Northwest Network. And now. He is an existential threat to democracy. Here's your host. Quiet, please. Lars Larson. Welcome back to the Lars Larson show. I have a confession. I absolutely despise Nicholas Christoph. Now, I know that some of you are big fans of Nicholas Christoph because, after all, he's won the Pulitzer Prize. He's a big deal columnist or was a big deal columnist with The New York Times. But I'll tell you what he's done lately, that just goes way beyond the pale. The fact is, this is a guy that I think is inherently dishonest. He is a guy who about four years ago decided that after decades as a New York Times columnist, after winning the Pulitzer Prize, his wife has won the Pulitzer Prize, he's lived in China, he's lived most of the last half century in New York City, that he would come to his home state of Oregon and that he would run for governor, and then he lied. And this is the problem with... people who work in journalism. If I lie, I expect to get called out on it. And in fact, I expect many of you to do that. If some of you have caught me saying something, and they say, Lars, that was inaccurate. And, you know, most of the time you're right. I mean, the other day I had one where I said, I can't even remember what it was, but somebody emailed me and said, Lars, oh, I know, I might have said that Alaska was the 50th state. Hawaii is the 50th state. Alaska's 49. I'm happy to be called out on those things. And people like Nicholas Christoph, the New York Times, should be called out as well. So what has Christoph done lately? You know what? He published a column this week in which he says that Palestinian prisoners sitting in Israeli jails and prisons have been raped on a regular and routine basis, that they have been beaten on a regular and routine basis. And get this, it gets this bad. that Israeli police and prison dogs have been trained to rape prisoners. Now, I know that sounds completely cockamamie, like something you'd read in a tabloid that you might buy at the supermarket checkout line. No, this is coming from none other than Pulitzer Prize winner Nick Christoff of The New York Times. And if you say, but maybe he has the facts on his side, let me suggest something to you. Where did he get the facts? He got them from NGOs that are linked to Hamas, a terrorist organization that has been funded, aided, and abetted by Iran. Now, does that sound like to you, I mean, even if you don't work as a journalist, even if you've never worked as a journalist, does a terrorist organization that has a decided point of view about the whole Middle East situation, does that sound like a good...

source of information for something as outrageous as yeah they're training the prison watchdogs to rape the prisoners and that prisoners are raped and beaten on a regular basis you know these charges have been raised a lot a lot of times they've been investigated And there are times where the state of Israel finds that somebody has been abused, that somebody has broken the law. And believe it or not, the Israeli courts actually have ruled against the state of Israel from time to time, just like the American courts occasionally rule against the American government from time to time. But is any of this well-founded? What are the other sources for Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Christop's crazy story about rape and beating and all of that? Well, I'll tell you what they are. They're NGOs, non-governmental organization. And where do those non-governmental organizations operate? Well, they operate in the Gaza Strip. This is how they claim to know all this information. And you say, okay, well, hold on. What are the criteria for operating within the Gaza Strip? Oh, I know. Hamas, the terrorist organization, according to the U.S. State Department, is the functional government of the Gaza Strip. So if you're a non-governmental organization, I mean, even one of those warm fuzzies like Doctors Without Borders or any of the other do-gooder groups out there that raise lots and lots of money and say, we're going to go and help the people in the Gaza Strip. How do you get into the Gaza Strip? You have to have the permission of Hamas, the terrorist organization that is, according to the U.S. government, the functional, and I don't know that even Democrat or Republican governments would disagree with this, they are the functioning government of the Gaza's trip. So, if you're on Hamas side, you can get in, and they will allow you to operate. If you say bad things about Hamas, then you have a problem. And just remember, Nicholas Christoph's column, which I consider absolutely excrable. If you don't know that word, it means toilet stuff. This is from the New York Times that just won another Pulitzer Prize for photographs taken by a guy who made fake photographs and got caught making the fate photographs. And the New York Times had to apologize for it. But hey, when you get a Pulitzer Prize, that's worth additional circulation, additional newspapers or web clicks or whatever. So this is the kind of nonsense. But let me give you one more element to it. If Nicholas Christoph says, but I got this straight from the NGOs, and you know, they all have pure hearts. Yeah, they may have pure hearts, but if they operate within the Gaza Strip, they are doing so only with the sign-off of a terrorist organization. And if they were to contradict the terrorist organization and say, no, that's a whole bunch of hogwash, guess what?

Hamas is perfectly capable of saying, you're not going to be allowed to operate within the Gaza Strip. And then all your donors are going to say, well, if you're not there anymore, we're not going to give you any money. But let me give you one more reason. There is a professor Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of what is called NGO Monitor. which is something I think that is sorely lacking in many American cities. There ought to be somebody whose whole job is to do nothing more than watch these non-governmental organizations. Because if you haven't noticed, the NGOs are the ones that were sucking up tens of billions of dollars of fraud throughout the United States. They make up the homeless industrial complex and basically the do-good industrial complex. So what is Steinberg says? He said, what was going to happen is this week a report was coming out called Silence No More, a civil commission report on all of the sexual violence that happened after that October 7, 2023 attack. Yeah. where the hostages were actually raped, where they testified to that themselves, and they weren't sitting in a place where a terrorist organization did tell them what to say. That report was citing 430 interviews, testimonies, meetings, and all that. 10,000 photographs and video segments, and all of that was going to come out. and the Palestinians and their aiders and abettors, as far as I'm concerned, the Palestinians are aided and abetted by terrorist organizations that achieve their means by going out and blowing people up and killing people, and at least in some cases, putting babies in microwave ovens and things like what happened on October 7th. So, he says this report was coming out. And at the same time, Nicholas Christoff decides, let's come out with something really shocking that will draw most of the attention away from that report and put it somewhere else. And who cares if you can't actually prove it? Who cares if your source is a terrorist organization and the NGOs that operate under that terrorist organization? Who cares? Yeah, I would expect that given the current standards of the Pulitzer Committee, Nick Christoph will probably score another Pulitzer for all of this. I think he's a thoroughly dishonest person, and I think he ought to be ashamed of himself. Glad to get your calls at 866. Hey, Lars, let's, send emails to talk at Lars Larson.com. Naysayers always go to the head of the list on the Lars Larson Show, and you're listening to the Radio Northwest Network, serving the states of the Pacific Northwest.

Right now with... Speak now or forever hold your peace. 866, Hey Lars. That's 866 Hey Lars. Now. Back to the Lars Larson Show. That makes a lot of sense, a lot of nonsense. Right, you bloody well right, you know you got a right to sit. This is the Northwest nonsense. How much longer do we have to sit for this nonsense? That great moment every day, where Lars brings you the cold, hard facts without any liberal wokeness from the daily dead fish rapper or mainstream media bias. You know, if you want to run for governor in Oregon, the rules. has long been, lose Multnomah County, you will lose the entire race statewide. Now, a brand new poll shows how the infamously liberal voters of Multco call taxes a top concern. You know, hell has truly frozen over when the liberals don't like taxes anymore. In just over one year, the number of voters worried about taxes in Multnomah County has nearly quadrupled, according to this brand new poll. And one has incumbent governor, cryptocurrency Tina Kotek done with... taxes, she begged the legislature to pass billions of dollars in additional taxes to feed an insatiable government specifically ODOT. A week from today, the 19th of May, voters decide the fate of that crazy tax hike. I'm betting it goes down in flames by about 70 to 30 percent. If Kotech had made any difference in housing costs or homelessness or crime or anything else she promised, Rose City voters might have tolerated the higher taxes. This might just explain why other polls show that Portland voters disapprove of Tina Kotek by a two to one margin. So get ready for Oregon's first Republican governor in four decades after Ed Deal wins the entire race this coming November. Glad to be with you and always glad to take your calls at 866. Hey, Lars. That's 866 439-5277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarsen.com. And, of course, naysayers go to the head of the line. Anytime you call and you disagree with me or other things you've heard on the show, we will put you first in line. Just come prepared to make your point. And our ex-pull question today, should every American state drop its gasoline taxes until the conflict with Iran ends? I understand that in most cases, even if you drop both the federal tax and the state taxes, it's not going to make a gigantic difference, but at this point, 50 or 60 cents a gallon would make a big difference for families that are having a tough time. President Trump is right to call for a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax of 18 cents on gasoline. I think it's about 25 cents on diesel as a short-term affordability tax cut for more than 100 million drivers and truckers. He proposes doing this until gas prices go back down. I would imagine he is right. They will go back down.

Glad to get your calls at 866-439-5277. Our question of the day, brought to you by Multlima Medical Clinic, no pills, no shots, no surgery, and get better fast, Multnom a Medical Clinic. Does the SAVE Act disenfranchised voters? And if you wonder, Lars, what's the SAVE Act? I'll remind you, it's the one that the United States Senate should be passing right now if Republicans could just grow a backboat. or sell their piece of their anatomy and get the job done. And what does it require? Number one, you must be a citizen to vote. Number two, you have to show picture ID to vote and register. And number three, your ballot has to arrive by Election Day. Anybody who thinks that's not common sense, feel free to call the show and tell me how the SAVE Act doesn't make total sense. So I got this note from Edwin Gray. Lars, if the SAVE Act disenfranchises all the potential voters the Democrats claim it does, then I say, great. If providing your ID or other documents to prove your citizenship is too cumbersome or difficult, then I would venture that those people can't be bothered with that are the same people who can't be bothered to be informed about the issues or candidates that they're casting votes on. I, for one, don't want that type of person canceling out my vote, signed Edwin Gregg. Edwin, I'd have to agree with you. And now today's Daily Grill. Insane. Are you come? Ridiculous. They get more and more ridiculous. Flat out dumb. You're even Denver than I thought. Who deserves today's Lars Grill of the Day? Maybe you're just really, really stupid. Presented by Oregon City Garage Store. You know, almost every day of the week, I could give you a brand new example of how government is so... casual in the way that they do not protect the money that you pay as a taxpayer. Remember that money is taken at the point of a gun. Consider this. A Washington School District now admits they are missing almost a thousand Chromebooks. Those are laptop computers, but they're called Chromebooks. They're relatively inexpensive. They're about $300,000 each. They're missing $300,000 worth of Chromebooks. Washington State Auditor's Office released... a report on Thursday of last week detailing what they called significant internal control deficiencies. Now, do you think anybody got fired over that? And how tough would it be if you said, we're going to sign this Chromebook out to a student. We're going to tell the student, if you don't bring it back at the end of the year, you and your parents are going to have to pay to replace it. The same way they do with library books, the same way they do with lunch money that you owe for the lunchroom, the same way that they do if you don't bring your textbooks back. But the district apparently said Centralia School District failed to properly track and safeguard theft.

sensitive assets, specifically student crone books. I remember when I graduated high school, they said if you don't pay up the library fines, if you don't replace the books that are missing, if you don't bring all the equipment back, you don't get to graduate. I think that's fair. Our best email of the day, but you can always send more to talk at larslarsen.com. Robert writes in Lars. Love that you're on TV now. We are on Portland CW from 2 to 4. Main reason for the email. I agree Ed Deal would make a great governor, but he doesn't have a chance in hell of beating Tina Kotek, even if the criminal offer was made to Chris Dudley. and I believe it was. The state is socialist to elect an unknown conservative. I was deeply torn between voting for Chris Dudley and Christine Drazen. That was until Dudley got desperate and broke the 11th Commandment and started running an ad saying that Drazen was an ally of Tina Kotek, which it could not be further from the truth. They need to focus on beating Tina Kotek as Republicans will not gain seats in the Oregon House and the Senate because the ballot measure for transportation. I want to mention one of the things. The other 19 and I were just exhausted. We've been working out on the farm, and we came home on Sunday, and we said, why do we do grubhub instead of going out to dinner? So we ordered up Grubhub. It's kind of a luxury, but we don't do it all that often. The young lady who brought a young lady named Jessica, and I don't think I'm saying too much, but she said, you're Lars Larson. And I said, yeah, despite the dirty clothes and all that, yeah, I am. And she said, I've got to tell you about this. She had run into a guy running for office. He was trying to get her vote, and he failed. Because she asked him about homelessness. What are you going to do to hold people responsible? And he said, are you trying to put a price on human life? And she said, yeah, when I'm trying to support my 16-year-old son and I'm having tough time because of the taxes and you're wasting my tax money on ineffective efforts to deal with homelessness, yes, we do need to start taking account of what it costs. I think Jessica was exactly the Lars Larson Show.

Have something to say. Have something to say, but don't want to talk? Email Lars and talk at Larslarson.com. Back to the Lars Larson Show. Welcome back to the program. It's a pleasure to be with you. I was absolutely astounded, although in some ways I was simply, I had my feelings about government confirmed when Seattle's transit agency called Sound Transit, they announced, hey, we're $34 or $35 billion in the hole. We're way short of being able to do what we have promised the voters and the taxpayers were going to do. And we're going to do it anyway. And we'll figure the money out later. And I thought, boy, you can do that with small amounts. But when you're $34-35 billion short, how is it you say, press ahead, keep on building, we'll figure out the money somehow. Even though they've already taken money from the voters, they've already made promises. Well, the guy who knows this issue better than I do is Charles Prestrude, who's director of the Coles Transportation Center. Charles, welcome back to the program. Thank you. Happy to be here. Have I overstated Sound Transit's plight and their decision to continue construction? No, I think, if anything, you may have understated the mess they're in. Well, tell me, tell my audience why. Well, as you pointed out, $34.5 billion, or whatever the latest number is, is a huge budget gap. And it's not like they can... overcome that or fill it by raising fares or tweaking the projects a little bit here and there. They're already going to bump up against their debt limit. So there really is no good answer that they have that preserves the system plan that they have sold to voters. They need a major rethink, and instead what they've done is kind of mixing and matching the various light rail extensions in hopes that somehow they can come up with some political compromise. But that really doesn't solve the problem, that they're not going to be able to deliver anything close to what they promised voters. And yet when you go to the voters and you say, we're going to issue bonds, we'd like you to take on the obligation of making the payments. And you promise, if you'll authorize this amount of money, we will build X, Y, and Z. And then you decide we can't possibly do what we promised to do. Is that failure something that should just simply end the project altogether and say, we're going to have to refund the money. We're going to have to reduce the taxes that are being paid by people who are paid. I mean, to me, it'd be like saying you can buy a car for $50,000. And you say, and the car will come with all these things. And then the dealer says, hey, we're going to lose a lot of money because we've agreed to supply this automobile with these features.

for 50,000 and we're way short, that's way short of the number that's needed to actually do that. The car dealer can, I guess, hand it to you and take the loss, except in this case, the car dealer is a separate entity. In the case of government, it's government that has made the promise to people, we will take your money and we will build this. And they now know they can't possibly build it because they're 34.5 billion short. So what's the proper solution to this? If it were up to me, and believe me, they're not taking my advice. Instead of getting in this nasty debate among their board members, they should put a revised plan on the ballot and give the public the opportunity to say, yes, we like this revised plan that presumably actually could be implemented, or turn thumbs down on it and then roll back the taxes. But Sound Transit has not been willing to consider this. They are determined to go forward and retain all the taxing authority they currently have. I mean, because in this case, if I'm right, Charles, the vote was $55 billion by the taxpayers, right? So the taxpayers said, we will pay $55 billion, you will build us what you promised to build. The Sound Transit folks have now said, we're 35 billion short, which means they're short, two-thirds of the amount that was originally approved. We need that amount to actually build what we promised to build. They lied to the voters. And if they come back and say, by the way, would you like half the project for the amount of money you've already paid? Or do they go to the voters and say, you're going to have to give us another $34, $35 billion, or we won't be able to build it at all? I mean, how do you frame that question? Well, they don't even want to ask the question. So what they've done with this so-called enterprise initiative, which is a polite bureaucratic euphemism for a rethink. or a salvage operation in this case. They're looking at ways they can push out completion, you know, defer projects by five or ten years, truncate some of the lines. For instance, the one to Ballard wouldn't go all the way to Ballard. It would stop at Seattle Center. which is short and useless the line to west seattle would only add two stations but it would still cost four or five billion dollars So they're trying to work around it without having to go back to voters or really even turn all the cards face up and get a more complete consideration of alternative plans that would be affordable. Now, Charles, I read what you write at Washington Policy as head of Coles Transportation Center. This is hitting every average household in the Sound Transit District with $1,700 a year.

like 120, 130 bucks a month is going out of people's pockets to pay for very regressive taxes. That means they hit the poor harder proportionately than they do the wealthy. And so, and the repayment now may have to be pushed out literally to the end of the century? I'm afraid so. Because Sound Transit is facing much higher costs, some of which they should have anticipated, They're going to have to borrow more and borrow more for longer. So even though early on in the planning process, they talked about when they get projects completed, they'll be able to roll back taxes just to a level needed to operate the system as opposed to building it. They're going to be piling on so much debt that... I can't foresee any time in the future when they would actually be able to roll back the taxes. And by the way, isn't government borrowing a lot more expensive today than it was even five years ago? Yes, it is. And you mentioned affordability, and I just want to point out that when Sound Transit says affordability, it means something very different than it would to you or I. When Sound Transit says affordability, they mean their ability to spend. So, for instance, if they increase taxes, raise fares, borrow more money, to them, all of those things make it more affordable. But to people like you and me, it's less affordable because those things all mean we're going to have to pay more taxes. And by the way, the people in Ballard ought to feel completely screwed over because they voted for it in part because they said, we're going to bring it to you. And now Ballard's being told, sorry, you're not going to get a light rail line, but you're still paying the cost. I think that's the kind of thing that if private business did it. the attorney general would be suing those private businesses saying you've defrauded folks but when sound transit does it they just say let's stretch stretch out the repayment to the end of the century that's charles press route director at the coles transportation center back in a moment you've got the lars lars

Can't listen to Lars Live? No problem. Get the podcast 24-7 at Larslarsen.com. Now. More with Lars Larson. Welcome back to the Lars Larson show. It's a pleasure to be with you on a Tuesday. Always glad to get to your phone calls and emails. If you want to join what we call the best conversation in talk journalism, it's here every day at 866.6.6. Hey, Lars. That's 866 439 5277. Naysayers always go to the head of the line. Send emails to talk at Larslarsen.com. And this segment of the show is brought you by 540 Training.com. Concealed carry home. invasion defense and personal defense find them online at 540 training.com our ex-pull question today and it's not the first time we've suggested this on the show president trump is now calling for a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax now that will make some difference because the federal gas tax is 18.3 cents per gallon on gasoline about 25 cents per gallon on diesel but The states, the states have gigantic gas taxes, some of them as high as 50 cents a gallon. Can you imagine that if we understand that what's going on in Iran right now is temporary? In about two weeks, we're going to come up on the 90th day since the conflict in Iran began. So is it worth saying, let's give American families some room? by suspending the gas taxes yes the expenses will still have to be paid at some point but sending money into the federal highway trust fund uh... of which about three percent of it goes to transit which means it's not doing those average families much good at all how about suspending the gas taxes should every american state and the federal government suspend the gas taxes till the conflict with Iran ends. I would vote yes on that. You can vote on it any way you like. You'll find the question at Lars Larson Cho and at Lars Larson.com and brought to you by Ultimate Truck Services. If you rely on trucks for business, Ultimate Keeps your biggest assets on the road and running right. Find them at Ultimate TruckService.com. I want to present you with a mystery, and I'm going to suggest that the Seattle public schools are trying to positively affect the outcome of a union election. Now, I'll make my case. You have a Seattle teacher accused of physically abusing a child. Now it's pretty serious. That teacher has been put on paid leave for the last six months, but that same teacher is running for the presidency of the Seattle Education Association, even though on administrative leave following allegations from a family that the woman running for union president physically abused a child.

And you say, okay, maybe the accusation is real. Maybe the accusation is false. The woman is a special ed teacher at Rising Star Elementary in South Beacon Hill, a leading race to preside over the union and represent 6,000 Seattle public school teachers. So, what's my objection? The accusation was made six months ago. Now, The Seattle Public Schools did notify the Seattle Police Department about the allegations. And I would ask you this. How long should it take to go and talk to the teacher in question, any other adult witnesses who might have seen something either positively or negatively for the woman accused? Talk to the parents, talk to the child. Now, Does it take six months to do that? I don't think so. I mean, I'm not an investigator, but think about it. What do you have to do? You have to go and maybe see some medical reports for the child being taken to the doctor. You could talk to the child. You could talk to the teacher herself. You could talk to the parents. And if there were any other people at South Beacon Hill, at Rising Star Elementary, you could talk to them. Should that even take six weeks? I mean, I'm not saying you could get it done in six days, but why in the world is this not resolved? I think what's going on is that the Seattle Education Association, the district wants to stay in good stead with them. And if they were to tell the membership, the 6,000 public school teachers represented by this labor union, by the way, this woman who's running to be the president of your organization is accused, perhaps credibly, of abusing a child, physically abusing a child. Well, of course, the folks at the school district, Bev Redmond, who is the spokeswoman for the staff and public affairs specialist for the Seattle Public Schools, they won't talk about it because they say it's an ongoing personnel investigation. They did notify the Seattle Police Department, per their own protocols, they require the district to report any suspected child abuse or neglect to proper authorities. Actually, they're understating that. It is state law in the state of Washington, also in the state of Oregon, also in the other 48 states, it is the law that if a teacher or any of those other people who are mandatory reporters even suspect abuse of a child, sexual abuse, or any other kind of abuse, including physical abuse, they are required to tell the police. Here is the Seattle Public Schools trying to say, well, we're following our own protocols, which say call the cops. They don't bother to mention it's also state law that they have to do it. But why in the world would they protect this person and say, instead of simply saying, We've finished the investigation. Six months have gone by. We've determined either the child was abused or the child was not abused. And if somebody can think of a great reason why it would take anything approaching six months to determine that it's either true or it's untrue or it is, we're not able to determine one way or another, and then announce the results. I think the Seattle Public Schools are trying to protect this person who may end up.

as the president of the teachers union, even though if she has been accused credibly of child abuse, do you think they're going to continue this person in the job of teaching at a public school? I would hope that they would not, although not necessarily, you know, we don't know one way or another. Or is it a paid vacation for another teacher? I know that some of the people have been on administrative leave would be happy to tell me it's not fun being on administrative leave except in this case if you're running to be the union president and you could use six months off the actual job so you can go out and campaign for that position getting six months off with pay and that's what administrative paid leave means then the taxpayers are funding her time off to run for office If that makes sense to any of you, I'd be glad to hear the explanation. It makes no sense to me, and I think things are going wrong. When you can't fairly quickly, interview a child, interview the teachers, interview the other potential adult witnesses, and there may not be any of those, interview the parents, and then make a decision. Did this teacher abuse a child? And if so, should she continue to be a teacher in the public schools at all? It's Tuesday. It's the Radio Northwest Network, and you're listening to The Lars Larson Show. The Lars Larson Show.

need when you want it. FM News 101. KXL is Portland's number one source for news and information. KXL FM, Portland, Vancouver, Salem. This is CBS News on the Hour. Your home for original reporting. I'm Jennifer Kuyper, some emotional testimony at a House Oversight Committee hearing into the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and document release. CBS is Cammy McCormick. An Epstein survivor identified as Rosa says she was subjected to repeated sex abuse and rape. And despite efforts to protect her identity, her name has appeared more than 500 times in court records after the Justice Department's release of the files. My name was exposed to the world. Now reporters across the globe contact me. I cannot live without looking over my shoulder. I can only imagine... The long-term impact this mistake will have on my life. The field hearing took place in Palm Beach, Florida. The head of the Food and Drug Administration resigned CBS's Olivia Rinaldi on the departure of Marty Makary. One of the reasons I'm told that he is out at that post is over youth vaping because there was an effort to start approving, re-approving some of these flavors that... It could be seen as appealing to younger members. A doctor in Paris says a French hauntavirus patient is critically ill and on an artificial lung. The World Health Organization says the outbreak has now reached 11 total reported cases worldwide, nine of which have been confirmed. The overall tally includes three people from the cruise ship who died. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Celine Gounder says this is not like COVID. It is more deadly if you get it. But the key word there is if you get it. It is less infectious. COVID was airborne. Most of the transmissions with hanta virus are direct intimate contact. Two former cruise ship passengers are being monitored in an Atlanta hospital and 16 are in a special facility in Omaha. A Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador has appeared in federal court. The hearing focused on the Department of Homeland Security's effort to deport Kilmar Obrigo Garcia to Liberia. Abrago Garcia's attorney, Simon Sandoval Motionberg, noted Abrago Garcia agreed to be deported to Costa Rica, but DHS would not go along with that. Since the government is unwilling to send him to Costa Rica for really unexplained reasons, the order continues that they're not allowed to deport him to Africa instead. And since they're not allowed to deport him to Africa instead, the order continues that they're not allowed to take him back into ICE custody. Abrago Garcia faces human smuggling charges in Tennessee. U.S. consumer prices climbed sharply again last month as the war with Iran pushed energy prices higher. The consumer price index rose 3.8% from April 2025. CBS's Kelly O'Grady says on a month-to-month basis. Prices were up 0.6% in April. Wages were only up 0.2%. You don't want that gap to widen. Stocks closed mixed on Wall Street. This is CBS News.

Every Sunday, moderator Margaret Brennan goes face to face with top leaders to make you better informed. Face the Nation, Sunday on CBS and streaming on Paramount. I mean. Ladies and travel. You ready for the big soap? In exactly 15 seconds, we'll be on the air. the Lars Larson Show. President Trump is one badass president. He secured the border at the level we never seen before. Honestly, provocative talk with Lars Larson. For our country and for our children, the best is yet to come. Broadcasting across the Pacific Northwest and covering Oregon, Washington, and Idaho on the Radio Northwest Network. Mars and Niles. He is an existential threat to democracy. Here's your host. Quiet place. Welcome back to Lawrence Lawrence and show. Welcome to the show in which we're going to interview a pencil. I know that sometimes I may have referred to somebody as a pencil neck geek, but in this case, an actual pencil, which is running for governor in the state of Oregon, along with a lot of other candidates with much more name familiarity. So it's a pleasure to welcome to the program, Pencil. Thanks for coming on the show. Hi. Actually, Pencil couldn't be here, but my name is Day Schubert. I am a pencil's campaign manager. Oh. See, I thought you were, I thought you were Pencil. Well, you know, sometimes the campaign manager is also, you know, in the head. Well, help me understand why is, and I guess Pencil goes by pronouns or some kind of stuff like that. Well, you know, Pencil isn't an adamant object, so it or they is fine. But, yeah, so we're going to talk about why am I as a human dressing up as a pencil? Let's start there. It's probably easier conversation. Pencil is a former college professor and literacy advocate running for Oregon governor. So what's the point of this kind of candidacy? Yeah. So the point of the candidacy is because Oregon is 50th and in fourth grade literacy. And there's only 50 states. So that's pretty bad. And what's shocking is how few people know that. And so I've been working for years trying to bring what other states have done to help kids learn to read and to improve educational outcomes. We've brought people in from Mississippi that's done some amazing things, and Colorado and other places, and Oregon continues to just say no thank you. And so after many years, we're just trying to figure out how do we get people to realize that this is...

a few things which is one this is a crisis like even if you don't have kids like people aren't moving here because they're looking at the school system they're like high housing prices and like the schools are 50th what and also people don't start businesses here you wouldn't move somewhere where you don't think you're going to find employees so this is a this is a crisis both for education and rest but also um the the issue of um you know we uh how do you get this message out to people and get them to believe that you can actually change it? Right? Because what I think has happened and a lot of people just don't think like, well, it's just been like that for a long time. We just need more money. I don't think that. I don't think my audience does either. In fact, it might surprise you the statistic you gave is the same one I give and have been giving for literally years telling my audience that Oregon is bottom the barrel. when it comes to reading, math, literacy. Graduation rates are great, so they hand you a participation trophy in the form of a diploma at the end of 12 years whether you know anything or not, and they actually passed a law saying you don't have to know how to do math or read or write to be able to get an Oregon diploma, which is kind of admitting that you've got a failed system and the people in charge of it are going to continue to let it fail. I'd like to know what Pencil's prescription is for fixing it. I think Mississippi is a good place to start. I've been literally telling that story for about three or four years. I talked to the governor in Mississippi several years ago and several times since then, and they've done amazing things, and they spend about two-thirds as much on public education as the state of Oregon does. So what's Pencil's prescription? Yeah, and I'm glad you brought up Mississippi, and here's what's great. Mississippi, as it sounds like your listeners know, and what I want to say is like... This is a non-partisan issue. Like, I think we can all agree. Children should read, be taught to read and through math, right? And like, a diploma should mean something. So I just want to start there. And the second thing is Mississippi is great. Mississippi, 49th in the country, and now is number one for fourth grade literacy. Okay, how did they do it? Well, what's great about it is that for 15 to 20 years, they've been doing a bunch of things, but still have a bunch of other states. And so we have models from states all over the country. Now we can look and say, all right, like, they experiment, it's great. We can benefit from them. And have a couple of things that these places all have been common. So Mississippi has in common, but there's also other places. And with a couple of things is, This is the broad one, and I'll get a couple of specifics. The broad one is that the Department of Education in many states is compliance-based, which means they set out the money, and then, like, the schools do things, checkboxes, and they just check. What you need to do and what they did and transform their Department of Education was from a compliance base to outcomes, which means the funding is attached to outcomes, which seems really obvious, but actually is not how many states functioned and how work and definitely does not function.

On the specifics, the things that when I talked to, I also, I didn't talk to the governor, but I talked to many people who wrote the literacy policy and also implemented the literacy policy and brought some of them out here at various times to talk to legislators in a couple of states, including Mississippi. And where they kind of started was, and this is what Mike Pence is trying to put in. I've been pushing for years, and we've gotten nowhere with legislators and the governor. The first one is we need to train all K through three teachers and administrators and what's called the science reading. And if you want to learn more about that, it's pretty much. Your phone's breaking up just a little bit. I have to tell you that. My throat was breaking up. Oh. Okay. I'm sorry about my. I've had that. Believe me, I've been there. But let me ask you about something. You say it's nonpartisan. And I understand people think I see everything through a partisan lens. But... Democrats have been running this system for the last 40 years in Oregon. They're in charge. Democrats have been the governors. Democrats have been the lawmakers. Democrats are the heads of the school boards. And the Democrats have very good friends of the labor unions. Mississippi is a right to work state. So you don't have to belong to the union, or you can belong to the union, but the unions in Oregon are supremely powerful. And I think if you made it outcomes based and said, you're going to show performance or you don't get the money. I have a feeling the labor unions, which are 100% Democrat-oriented, are going to say, no, we're not. We get paid whether we produce results or not. Do you think that's one of the problems we have to solve? Yeah, I completely agree. And here's the thing. Whether you're left or right, like we're talking about an education system in Oregon. This system, you're looking at, there's a problem. You're looking at who's in power. The Democrats have been in power. The Democrats have chosen not to make changes. This is where I would say that the issue of, and I just the wording there is a little bit, it's not outcomes based funding is not. take the money away from you, and that's not what Mississippi did, actually. And that's really important. It's not like, oh, if you don't shape up, we're going to pull the money. But they did much more so, and this is where we have to have this conversation, I think, you're right, about the union's role. And I say union, I'm separated from teachers. This is not the teacher's fault. Union and the teachers are separate, okay? But the union has a lot of power in Salem. And one of the things that union, but also COSA, which is this administrators as well as the school board association of Oregon. They've fought against with anything that's a mandate from the state.

And so they often say local control, local control, local control, okay? And what Mississippi did differently was say, no, the state actually is responsible. We are taking responsibility for how students are doing, and you have to do certain things. And again, this is the platform I'll run through really quickly, which is we're going to take a little piece. I know we're going to hit a break here. Would you mind staying into the next segment? Yes, sir. Okay, because there are a few things I want to ask you, with regard to this. We'll be back in a moment. The campaign manager for the pencil running for Oregon governor is going to stay with me. We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Lawrence Lawson Show and the Radio Northwest Network. Local, national.

Lars has you covered. Call him from anywhere. 866, Hey, Lars. Now, back to the Lars Larson Show. Welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm glad to get to your phone calls and emails. I'm talking to Jay Schubert, who is a former college professor and literacy advocate, now the campaign manager for Pencil, which is running as one of the candidates for Oregon Governor. Let me ask you about this, Professor, and that is... One of the things Mississippi did that is so easy and so relatively inexpensive, doesn't have to really cost anything at all, is called the third grade gate, which says if kids get to the third grade and they're not finished with that level of learning. and not ready to go on to fourth, sending them on to fourth and fifth and sixth, which is what does happen in both Oregon and Washington. They just send kids on. They socially promote them, even if they're failing. And if you're not able to do the third grade work, I think you're probably going to be a bigger failure in fourth, fifth, and six. So does anybody advocating for that and would Pencil be in favor of that kind of thing that Mississippi does right now? Yeah, so it's a great question. And here's what I say to that is that the Mississippi does that, but there's a lot of other states that are having, like I said, great outcomes. And when you look at it, that only works. Like when you say it doesn't cost anything, they actually don't hold very, it's called retention, right? They actually don't hold that many kids back. And here's why it's everyone, no one wants to have their child, like, and that means the teachers, the schools, everybody have kids be held back. It does, it's. And again, let's talk about the money after this. But you have to, what Mississippi did was not just that. Mississippi trained all the teachers, Mississippi brought in tutoring for kids that were struggling, and Mississippi got resources to the places that needed them most. Those are the three things you have to do, as well as have a licensure exam for the teachers who are coming out of school so that on day one they're teaching, right? And then the third grade, depending on the state, like, that doesn't seem to be the thing that moves things. Because if you don't have any of those other things, then you're going to be holding back like everyone again. I would agree. And when I've talked to the governor of Mississippi, I said, what did you spend on tutoring? Because Mississippi has almost, it has three quarters of the number of people in state of Oregon, about three million people, four million in Oregon. So a 75% size. He said about $30 million. I said that's a rounding error in Oregon education. Oregon spends 18,000 bucks per kid per year. Mississippi spends 12. So you'd think they'd be able to find the tutoring money and say if at the end of third grade you're not ready for fourth, you're going to spend the summer being tutored. And frankly, I like the fact that parents would be troubled if they're told their kid is going to be held back. Do you know what I think that would encourage? parents to get involved in their kids' education. Because if you're told, hey, your kid ain't ready for fourth grade, the kid's going to be held back. And the parents say, well, how do we stop that? tutoring, you getting involved in where your kid is. In fact, if in November or December, you're told heading into the Christmas break, hey, your kid is probably not going to go on to fourth grade because he or she has not come up to the third grade level.

And the parents says, what do I have to do? Sit down with your kid and make sure they do their homework and do all these things and get it done. It could actually incentivize parents to do something because they don't want to be telling all their friends, yeah, Janie got held back in the third grade because she wasn't making the grade. Yeah, a couple things on that, which is one, it's too late by third grade, to be honest. So where the tutoring actually happens in Mississippi is in K and 1, kindergarten in first grade, because you have kids coming in and what it does is it helps them basically like catch up, especially if you're a multilingual learner, like if you're speaking something else at home. And so what we've seen is that that tutoring is essential in K and 1, and that's actually where you like. You know, if by third grade the level of tutoring you need is way more and also a lot more expensive. Fine. Then do it then. Is there any sign of Oregon is doing that, though? Is Oregon doing that now? So there, so two answers. Maybe, and this is the problem, which is the difference is that Mississippi and Mississippi is fascinating, right? A lot of people think, oh, it's a Republican state, it's hands off. No, in fact, like, it is one of the most interventionist. departments of ed in the country. They mandate what is taught in the schools in terms of curriculum, how it is taught in terms of teacher training, and what assessments the students are given in order to make sure that they're learning. We do none of that here. So there is tutoring, an amazing tutoring, in Corvallis, for instance. There's an amazing school, multilingual learners, and the K and the first graders are getting tutoring, and they're seeing amazing results. That is a one-off because that school chose to use some money that they got. So it's not consistent anywhere. The training also is not consistent. But I would just a note on the parents' role in this. You know, Oregon has been failing people in education for a long time, which means a lot of parents are not in the position that I was. My child was not reading. I paid a lot of money for him to get tutoring and now he is going to college, right? But if I didn't have those resources in our system and Mississippi system needs to work for the child whose parent doesn't, you know, maybe doesn't speak something or struggles themselves to read, right? So it's very challenging. to teach your child to read if you yourself struggle to read. And so I would say like this is, there's nothing wrong with the parents and the children of Oregon, like then or the teachers of Oregon. Our system is failing in the ways that we've been talking about of setting them up for for success. But really like parental involvement in all the research like has very little to do with whether a child learns to read or not in a lot of places where, but. Jay, one of the problems of this, and you say again, you said it's nonpartisan issue, I disagree thoroughly with that. But this is because from Democrats, do you know what we routinely hear?

Terry McCullough, for example, in Virginia, and union folks, like, oh, what's her name that's head of the national teacher, Randy, Wine Garden, has said, you, parents have no business telling us what we teach the children. They're not your children. Now, have you ever heard that from a Republican, and do you routinely hear it from Democrats? No, I don't agree with it. And there's a thing. You haven't heard that? Not that exact. And I will say this. Education and education funding and also, like, it is a state level. So, like, the federal law is interesting. It's not money, Jay, because... No, it's not money. I agree with you on that. Oregon spends 50% more than Mississippi and produces crappy results. Sure, it does. And what I'm saying is we can... When I say it's a non-person issue, what I mean is I think everyone agrees that teaching children to read is a good thing. When we look at the problem of why is that not happening in Oregon, then we get into politics who's empowered the Democrats or empowered the Democrats are the problems here. But I would say... that there are amazing Republicans, by the way, McIntyre and Boomer Wright, I've been amazing advocates. Ryan Walters of Oklahoma. No, no, no, I want to stay in Oregon. No, no, no, I want to stay in Oregon because Jay, I'm up against the clock, but we'll be glad to have you back any time. That Jay Schubert, she's working as the campaign manager for Pencil. The Larson Show.

the Lars Larson Show on X at Lars Larson Show. You never know what he'll post. Now, back to the Lars Larson Show. Welcome back to the program. President Trump wants to suspend the gas tax to give American families some relief at the pump temporarily during the conflict with Iran. But how much will it actually save you? And is this a good idea long term? Well, I'm going to talk to Steve Cotton about that. President of Cotton Wealth Management Associates, Steve, welcome back to the program. Well, thank you, Lars. Great to be with you all. Now, would it be good policy to allow Americans a bit of relief? I mean, if you were to suspend both the federal tax at 18 cents a gallon on gas and 25 on diesel and the state taxes, which go all over the boards, but as high as 50, I think even 55 cents a gallon. That would be quite a difference because I just filled my pickup truck up this weekend, and it was like $120 because the price was around $6. Drop that price by half a dollar or thereabouts, and that would make a big difference. Should we do it? Well, I think there's growing consensus on both sides of the aisle in Congress that it might be a good temporary measure to take. The Trump administration has now come out in favor of it. Congress would have to act to actually lower it or suspend it in some way, and that will take some time, but they could fast track it if they wanted to. And I think it's something in view of the status of negotiations with Iran. I think it's something they should seriously consider and act on immediately. You know, Steve, it almost sounds like you've got the same sense of this that I do. This isn't going to go on a whole lot longer. I mean, in two weeks, we're going to hit the 90-day mark or so, you know, three months of this since about March 1st or February 28th. So it's been going on that long, but it doesn't really seem like it's going to go on much longer or that Trump is going to let it go on much longer. And I've been told by the oil experts that the minute that's over and it's resolved one way or the other. In fact, even when we see in the last couple of weeks, hints that it might be. over, it might be coming to an oil futures immediately take a big sharp drop. Well, you're exactly right. The global oil prices are very sensitive to political developments. And right now, when it looks like the Iranians are not going to relent in any area, it looks like the President Trump has really has very few options. There are two things he can do. The first thing I would do is I would begin escorting tankers through the... straight of Hormuz two, three, four at a time. Yep. I would make that a priority, and I would make that happen, and even if there were some occasional attacks by little mosquito boats or something like that, they can deal with that. But I'd get that straight open, and I'd get those tankers moving and show the Iranians that they are not going to be the bullies and the thugs and impose a toll on international shipping. Second thing I would do is I would accelerate.

my attempts to topple this regime. I don't think we're going to see any sustained permanent progress in this area. I don't think Iran is going to rejoin the civilized group of nations until these Islamic radicals are gone. And people that want to trade with the rest. with the West and want to be at peace or back in power. Well, and in fact, do you think there's any potential that next week when President Trump sits down with the dictator of China, who the mainstream media insists on calling the president, or the prime minister, that you just say to she, this has got to end, and you folks have a lot of poll with your friends in Iran, make them bring this to an end, or I will end them. Well, I'm not sure that how much leverage the Chinese really have. Remember, they're buying Iranian oil. Now, there are other potential sources for them to buy from, such as Venezuela, the United States. Yep. I think the Trump Xi Jinping summit is more about are getting, you know, protected access to rare earth minerals. and China getting guaranteed supplies of oil and better access to our markets. I think Iran is, believe it or not, a sideshow in terms of the mega issues that those two leaders will be talking about. I think Trump administration thinks they can deal with this on their own if they have to with the Israelis. And I think the next phase of this, frankly, Lars, is covert operations against the IRGC elements. Yeah, because the IRGC is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not Iran, but Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They're really calling the shots, aren't they? Well, they are. There's some fracture in their government. It's not clear who is really in charge or how much in charge they are. But the IRGC are the ones that are talking to our negotiators. And there are some rumors that the leader that they appointed is not doing well. The government is fractured. But these are theocrats. They are people that do not much familiarity with the West. They don't understand Donald Trump. They've always been able to negotiate their way out of tough places before with past presidents. They're not, it's not working this time. And I think they're mystified by that. Well, and not only negotiate their way, do you remember during the four years of the guy I call President Autopenn, where the Iranians would say, we want this? And to a large extent, Biden would say, okay, we'll give you that. Now let's sit down and talk. And they'd say, okay, give us something else. And they were the kind of negotiators who got everything they wanted to a large extent and gave nothing up. And they've apparently decided that's the way they can negotiate with the rest of the world. We want, we want, we want, and you're not going to get anything. Except now they're up against somebody who's not going to tolerate that.

Well, that's true. And frankly, the West has sent mixed signals all these years. You know, Obama gave them pellets of cash and tried to buy them off. out of their nuclear condition. That was unsuccessful. Biden was not any more successful with his very weak, very timid response. He was more robust with on the Ukraine war than he was with the Iranians. And meanwhile, the Iranians have continued to target our people, try to assassinate our president. They've killed men and women all over the world. They were the ones that sent very sophisticated IEDs, explosives into Iraq to kill our troops. They've been at war with us for 40-some odd years. and they've never had serious focused opposition until now. I'm talking to Steve Cotton from Cotton Wealth Management. So why are the Democrats so supportive of every bad guy that comes along? I mean, it doesn't seem to matter whether it's human traffickers or illegal aliens or Iranian crazy mullahs, but they're always on the wrong side of this. Can you explain that? Well, there's been a shift in the American Democratic Party, and the shift really started back in the McGovern years. And Clinton, when Clinton was elected and nominated and then elected president, he was seen as a moderate Democrat, and the liberals in the party really detested him. And once President Obama was elected, the party internally shifted to the hard left. They staffed the Democratic National Committee with very liberal staffers and operatives. And the progressive, so-called progressive game with some people who are the socialists in. I think you're right. Steve, I'm up against the clock, but that's Steve Cotton from Cotton Wealth Management. Back in a moment, you've got the Lars Larson.

all know that we all know that inside Lars's studio. Follow him on Instagram at the Lars Larson Show. Now, more with Lars Larson. Welcome back to the Lars Larson show. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm glad to get to your phone calls and emails. I got this email from Roger. Lars, I don't know about Washington, but here in Oregon, our brilliant leaders are out in full force painting stripes on our roads. Yep, you guessed it they don't fix them. They just paint right over the potholes and the sunken patches. Prime example of perfume. on a pig. On the bright side, when you're bouncing around tearing up your vehicle, you can see where your lane is supposed to be instead of is. And then about teachers. Pat Brett Kavanaugh writes, and Lars, I'll tell you why over six months have gone by in the investigation of that Seattle teacher suspected of abusing a child who's now about to become apparently the new head of the teachers union. The perp probably isn't a white male. How did you miss that? Well, I didn't miss that, and it's a very good guess, and it's probably actually right. To your calls now. Let's start with Ron in Tacoma. Hey, Ron, thanks for listening on KVI and the Radio Northwest Network. What's on your mind? Well, uh... Two things. I actually called about one thing, but while you were on there talking, stuff popped up. I'm going to get you with the first thing first here. Sure. I'm hearing there's a bombshell about Tommy, Thomas Matthew. Apparently, he was having a dark abusive relationship with a stepper, and he tried to pay her off, and now it apparently has leaked out. Just thought, you know, that's pretty interesting for Epstein Thomas Matthew. Yeah. But anyways, the riddle reason that I called Lars is because...

You don't. You don't. I mean, when you're saying that when they had those districts drawn, the way they were drawn, that they were drawn unconstitutionally, that you're talking about the redistricting issue, right? I believe so. I've got a chance to see everything yet. Well... you know, if you say, well, then that means the Supreme Court is now saying from this point forward, you must draw district lines not based on race. They have to be drawn in a colorblind manner, which is, as I understand it, that's the legal and it's the constitutional way to do it. Does that mean you can go back and undo anything that might have been voted on by a member of Congress elected to a district that was drawn illegally or unconstitutionally? No, it does not. And I don't know of a single legal theory that would allow you to do that any more than if you could have proven that Joe Biden's signature was put on a bill. And Joe Biden had no idea that his signature was being put on that bill, that you can take that bill and reverse it and say it's no longer a law because Joe Biden, the president at the time, or occupying the Oval Office, had nothing to do with signing it. It was signed by a staff or somebody else. It still doesn't mean you can reverse the law. And I don't know of any legal expert. who would tell you you could do that. And I think it'd be a fool's errand to go after that. Does that make sense? I guess, but we did win the war on racism about 200 years ago, and I'm just wondering if racism against the law, why don't they be in prosecuted for at least that? Well, because what would you prosecute them for? In other words, what is the crime? When you talk about prosecuting people, you're talking about a crime. Now, are there laws? For instance, do we go back and recover the 70 million babies that were killed under Roe v. Wade, even though the current Supreme Court says there is no right to cut to abortion in the Constitution? Okay, great. Does that mean we can undo that? No, we can't. Can we go back and undo any of those things that were done wrongly in the past? We can't. There's no way to do it. And in fact, I hear people make this suggestion all the time, Ron. And I know it's very attractive saying, well, if this person was illegally in their office, if their district was drawn incorrectly, then we can go back and zero out everything they voted on. No. I don't think, I don't see a single legal mechanism to be able to do that. Now, if you and I, you know, if you had a contract and the signature on the contract was not real, it was proven to be a forgery, somebody could say that contract there is invalid. And you might be able to recover some money damages for things that were done under the contract, that were done under a false document that had somebody else's signature on it. Yeah, you might be able to do that. But in terms of the law, I don't know of a single way that you could reverse any of the legislation that was voted on by those people. But what can happen going forward is we can say those districts have to be drawn in a colored blind way. And then you're going to get people who will be voting on...

of folks for congress to represent them not because of what their skin color is and ron let me tell you i mentioned this yesterday one of the most comical things i've seen in the last month or so was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez screaming and yelling about redistricting in tennessee and she said you see they're going to take away all of the black representation in tennessee by redistricting do you know the district she was talking about is currently occupied by a white male Democrat and the person who is running to challenge the white male Democrat in Tennessee is a black female Republican And so she's complaining that somehow we're going to take away things from black people. No, we're not. We might take things away from people who vote only based on somebody's skin color. And Ron, if somebody ever came to me and said, I'm voting for that person because they're a white man or a black man or a woman or, you know, transgender, I'd say you are a screwed up voter because nobody should vote. for representation based on somebody's skin color or their gender. Would you agree? I would, but you know, here we go again, Lars. If you look around, you just made my point. There's POC going back out talking about racism again. I don't know what needs to happen. Do we need to get a judge to do a court order to prevent these people from doing this continually? Well, I don't know that there's a way to do that. Because, Ron, everybody complains about gerrymandering. Gerrymandering was built into the system. The founders who said you have to do redistricting every 10 years when you take a census. And if you find the population is shifted, then you have to redraw the districts. They knew that that redrawing was going to be a political process. There is no way that I have seen. anybody even suggest for drawing those district lines without if if the democrats are in charge they're going to try to draw the lines to benefit the democrat party and if the republicans are in charge they're going to draw the lines to benefit the republican party that was baked into the cake so complaining about that is like complaining about it raining in the northwest in january you say no that comes with the occasion with the uh you know the the the situation you don't have any choice about it but John, good call, and I appreciate you listening in Tacoma. Glad to be with you on a Tuesday. It's the Radio Northwest Network, and you're listening to The Lars Larson Show. The Lars Larson Show.

Nobody does it better than Regent's Seven Seas cruises. Enjoy all-inclusive unrivaled luxury with unlimited shore excursions, indulgent cuisine, personalized service and more aboard spacious all-sweet ships. Visit rssc.com to experience the unrivaled. information you need when you want it. FM News 101, KXL, is Portland's number one source for news and information. KXLFN, Portland, Vancouver, Salem. This is CBS News on the Hour, your home for original reporting. I'm Jennifer Kuiper. Inflation accelerated in April the highest since May 2023 as the Iran War pushed up energy costs and more. CBS is Jared Hill. Costs are definitely getting high. Gas prices, grocery store prices. The consumer price index rose 3.8% in April compared to the same time last year, up from 3.3% in March. The war with Iran continues to push up gas prices. Now that's trickling into other areas like plane tickets and food. Groceries increased by 0.7% in April after actually dropping in March. President Trump is on his way to China for a summit with Xi Jinping and says they will have a long talk about Iran. They get a lot of their oil from that area. We've had no problem and he's been a friend of mine. He's been somebody that we get along with. The head of the World Health Organization says global leaders should prepare to see more cases of hunt virus amid ongoing efforts to contain the virus. CBS's E.N. Lee has heard from WHO Chief Tedros Caber Jesus. The World Health Organization has tied a total of 11 reported cases of the virus to the ship. The latest discovered in a passenger quarantined at a hospital in Spain. Given the long incubation period of the virus, it's possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks. One American who tested positive but is not experiencing symptoms is currently being held in a biocontainment unit at the University. University of Nebraska Medical Center. 18 U.S. citizens are being monitored at facilities in Nebraska and Georgia. An Epstein survivor identified as Rosa has given powerful testimony. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee held the field hearing in Florida as part of the investigation into the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and document release. Rosa noted that her modeling firm run by convicted sexual predator and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. relocated her to Miami where she says, Jeffrey Epstein was under house arrest for the molestation of underage girls at the exact time he was abusing me. Despite efforts to protect her identity, her name appeared more than 500 times in court records when the Justice Department released the Epstein files. Medical examiner Sterling McLaren says of the 41-year-old man. who scaled a Denver airport fence on Friday, crossed a runway, and was struck and killed by a frontier airline's plane. The best way to determine manner is to evaluate the totality of the investigation, seen findings, circumstances, and history. And based on all of those findings together, we determined the manner of death to be suicide. The collision sparked an engine fire and the plane was evacuated after the cabin filled with smoke. Twelve passengers suffered minor injuries. This is CBS News.

I want to know what's going on in the world. I'm Tony. There are big questions that all of us are asking. I want to get you the answers. How are you? I'm Tony to Cofal. Join me on the CBS evening news. is the Lars Larson Show. President Trump is one badass president. He secured the border at the level we never seen before. Honestly, provocative talk with Lars Larson. For our country and for our children, the best is yet. to come broadcasting across the pacific northwest and covering oregon washington and idaho on the radio northwest network mars and now he is an existential threat to democracy here's your host quiet please lars larson welcome back to the laurence larson there are days where i'm a bit ambivalent about various topics because i'm not sure which way to go and i always like to reserve judgment until i can get some more information on board so uh three people are dead from hanta virus or hanta virus six people are infected and there are concerns about people coming back to the united states and back to other countries and now the experts say that this virus might be spreading easier than anybody had thought, should we be worried? Or is this perhaps another attempt by folks who make money on this kind of thing to say, hey, there's a gigantic problem and it could be as big as COVID? I'm not quite sure what is the right answer, and I'm not going to take a position until I do have a better idea. So it's a pleasure to welcome Rain Guest, who is founder and CEO of R. Water, welcome to the program. Well, thanks, Lars. Nice to be talking to folks in my home state of Idaho. Well, and I'm glad to have you on because we get out to Oregon, Washington, Idaho on the Radio Northwest Network. So tell me this. First, describe what is our water anyway. Well, actually, we're doing businesses aeroplane these days. And we have a, yeah, we have a patented device that creates a healthcare-grade disinfectant that actually mimics the body's immune system in fighting pathogens. So this is a liquid product. It's actually the active ingredient is called hypochloric acid. And that's what our white blood cells produce to fight pathogens. We make it in a machine. And we install this machine in hospitals and schools and hotels and different buildings. And then they're able to generate their own products on site and use it throughout their facilities. And now guess what? Throughout COVID, the people that had us.

They didn't really have problems with COVID because it really kills germs effectively. Very good. Well, I'm glad to hear about it. And I didn't know what it was. Tell me your take on what has happened with the infection of the people on the cruise ship. This cruise ship that was going to various places, but among others, the bird watchers on the ship apparently said, hey. I know where you can find a whole lot of birds. Let's go to the landfill. And I thought, well, landfills are notorious for a lot of things, rats that carry the hana virus among them. What should we make of this whole situation? And is it likely to be a big problem or just a few people infected? And I'm sorry for that. But other than that, no big concern for the rest of us who don't spend our time at the landfill. Well, now they're saying they don't think it came from the landfill because that strain of haunted virus, they say, is an indigenous to that area. Yeah. So, look, this is going to be as big as the government wants to make it, right? Earlier you brought up, you were kind of on the fence. Oh, God, please don't say that because our government seems to be able to make a mountain out of just about a little. Well, to your point earlier, you know, if there's a way that they can make money, they will do it. And the reality is they make more money off being reactive than proactive. So. Logically, would you agree that if there are germs out there, pathogens that are going to infect us and make us sick with hauntavirus or COVID or pneumonia or whatever it is, would it not be logical to kill those germs before they have a chance to infect us and spread? Yes, I would absolutely. And in fact, I've had lots of discussions over the years with medical experts who said, hey, we lose 120,000 people a year in the United States to hospital. originated of you know diseases and you say well could we kill could we kill all that they say yeah but it would take a lot more work uh in some cases not a lot more work but you'd have to sanitize rooms and things like that you think hospitals sanitize things have they been doing that for hundreds of years well apparently not as well as they could be doing it right oh large if you want to go down that rabbit hole i'm going to follow you down that okay go ahead 100,000 deaths a year that are reported from these hospital-acquired infections. So I overstated it a bit, sorry. No, no, no, no, no. You're understating it by far. Because hospitals get fined if they report an infection as a hospital-acquired infection. So they just don't report it? Yeah, correct. That sounds like the big cities approach to crime. I know how to bring down crime. We'll just tell people we aren't having any crime and not reported. And they've been doing that lately. Well, look at during COVID, so long as you had a sniffle, they would report it as COVID and get paid for it. Yeah. Yeah, so it's all about manipulating the numbers. But to your point, so.

over 100,000 deaths. We'll say 100,000 to be conservative because that's their number. Now, these deaths come from mainly C. diff, CRF and MRSA. You would think that because these are the pathogens that are causing the deaths in hospitals, it would be required that hospitals use products that kill these pathogens quickly. But that's not what they do. Generally, they'll use the health grade disinfectant that may kill MRSA, but it takes 10 minutes for the product to kill MRSA. And most of those products that they use have to be reapplied three times for them to stay wet for 10 minutes. And then only if they get a reported C. diff or CRS case, do they then go back and clean with something that kills C. diff and CRS. So that's one of the benefits of the products that comes out of our device. it kills all those things in under a minute. And it kills, am I right in imagining they don't use the more, to say a harsher chemical, because they say, yeah, this other chemical would kill it, but it's also maybe a little bit more toxic or a little bit more offensive one way or another? Well, that's part of it, but the other part of it is they're just out there chasing their tails, and I would make an argument that... You know, what we're talking about earlier, you make money off the more infections that you have. So there's a problem there. So the product that comes up, our device, again, it mimics the white blood cells, so it's hypoallergenic. In jails, the wardens even let inmates keep our product in the cell so they can use it freely. Something that's sad. Jail, we recently went in in Baton Rouge. Within 30 days of putting our system in, they had a 63% decrease in fungal infections, staff infections, et cetera, right? And I mean, those are real numbers. So today, in today's world, jails have better products than hospitals. And the reason is because, you know, sheriffs have to pay if they have to take an inmate to the hospital so they don't want to do it. So they actually are using something that works. But in hospitals, they get paid if you're sick. It's a bad, backward system. It really is. Rain, I'm going to look forward to talking to you in the future. One last thing, once a family member was in the hospital, had to stay a few extra days because of complications, and got pneumonia. And the respiratory therapist who came in, I was talking to him, and he said, hey, anybody who comes in here for more than two or three days and is in a bed for two or three days is likely to get pneumonia. I said, really? He said, yeah. He said, I see it all the time. He said, get in, get out as fast as you can. And that was one of the respiratory therapists who was working with the patient to try to get them over the pneumonia that they got because they were in the hospital. So you're preaching to the choir. I absolutely love the idea. That's Rain Guest, the founder and CEO of AeroClean, formerly known as R. Water. Rain, thank you very much. I appreciate the time.

Glad to get your calls and glad to get your emails at 866. Hey, Lars, that's 866 439-5277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarson.com. You're listening to the Radio Northwest Network, and coming up in a moment, the Southern Poverty Law Center is under federal fraud charges, but they're also in your kids' classrooms. We'll talk about that now. You're to lose. This is your home for honestly provocative talk radio. The truth every day. Back to the Lars Larson Show. Would you believe that the clan has been brought into your child's classroom? That is true if your kids are in school in one of 42 of the 50 states. 68 if you're an Obama voter. It is an absolutely extraordinary story that started a few weeks ago, but let me tell you the background in just a moment. First, welcome to the Lars Larson Show. If you want to join the best conversation in talk journalism, it's here every day at 866.6.6. Hey, Lars, that's 866-439-277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarsen.com. First, let's start with the Southern Poverty Law Center, an absolutely excreable organization. I mean, there are private organizations, political activist organizations, who are as evil as the Southern Poverty Law Center. What's happening to the Southern Poverty Law Center? Now, allegedly, they are out there to fight hate, to fight racism, to fight bigotry, to go after groups like the Klan and other hate groups, neo-Nazis or whatever. That is supposed to be their stock and trade. That's what they go out and fight. Except that a few weeks ago, they came under federal indictment for fraud. And what was the fraud? They were collecting millions and millions of dollars. in donations and they said we're out there to fight people like the clan and other hate groups only to find out that they were actually funneling hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to some of the very same hate groups so in other words they were making the problem that they were supposed to be there fighting worse so they could then go out and raise more money and say well you know you might have thought the clan was gone but it's got but it's not uh... and we need money to go out and fight it and then they would funnel money to the clan that at least is the charge here's where it gets worse here's where it gets very very much worse in forty two of the fifty states as i said the southern poverty law center has sponsored curriculum

that goes into the classrooms as early as kindergarten in 42 different states. This was all dug out by our friends at Defending Education, the president of that group, Nicole Neely, who you've heard on this program, which had once been labeled an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. That's another thing about the SPLC that makes them especially evil, because they are happy to go out and label honest conservative groups. as hate groups, simply because it raises more money. So what did defending education come up with? They have now published an expose that details how an SPLC education program called Learning for Justice. It used to have the name Teaching Tolerance, but now they call it Learning for Justice. Now, if you heard a name like that, If your kids came home and said, hey, we're learning this new curriculum. It's called Learning for Justice. You might think, well, that sounds kind of wholesome. What's the problem? It has now been integrated into K-12 lesson plans and materials in 169 school districts in 42 states and the District of Columbia. And according to the watchdog group defending education, the program reinforces far-left cultural and political ideologies, including what they call. anti-racism. Now, we first learned that term, I know, more than a decade ago. And if you say, well, I'm not a racist, anti-racism, sounds good. No, it's not enough to be colorblind. You must be an active anti-racist, according to the people who believe in that garbage, including Black Lives Matter, gender ideology, queer theory, white privilege, white supremacy, whiteness, and transgenderism. What's happening? Learning for justice is now in all those school districts in 42 different states around America, including state of Oregon, state of Washington, where I live, and what are they doing? How are they making use of this in the public schools? They are indoctrinating your kids into all these crazy ideas, like gender ideology and queer theory. In the schools, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Learning for Justice has resources called social justice standards and they want to help educators with classroom lessons planning social emotional learning in other words They're not just out saying we're going to fight the clan. They're out there trying to go out and indoctrinate your kids. They have produced film kits, articles meant for classroom use to help the students make principal decisions about when and how to take a stand against bias and injustice. Sounds good on paper. Let me tell you how I think it works in practice. Have you noticed that your kids seem to be walking out of schools an awful lot these days? I mean, every other week. There is some kind of protest. We're going to go out and protest racism. We're going to protest enforcement of immigration laws. We're going to protest for the climate. We're going to protest against oil companies. In other words, your kids have been turned into little social justice warriors. And if you wondered, this nonsense coming from, and you asked the school, and they'd say, oh, no, this is just part of what we're teaching your kids. Well, some of it is coming from a group called the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is now under federal...

for raising money. and then spending it to support the very groups they claim to be opposing. In other words, it's like an arsonist who goes out and sets fire to buildings, but also works as a firefighter, because he likes to be the hero, he can show up on the fire truck and put the fire out. But if you found out, the same guy who's putting the fire out is the guy who actually started the fire, so he'd have an excuse to get out and climb on the fire engine and go out lights and siren to the latest emergent. That, to me, is the Southern Poverty Law Center all day long. And now to find out that they're throwing this kind of garbage at your kids in class, and you don't even know about it, in fact, I wonder how many classroom teachers even know where this stuff is coming from. If they're told by their school district, well, we've got this learning for justice thing, and we're going to teach the kids how to be anti-racist, and how to identify gender ideology and white privilege and white supremacy and all the rest of this. this stuff, even the teachers may not know exactly where all this garbage is coming from. Now that it's been identified as coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center, you know what I'd suggest? I would suggest that parents, call up your local school district. Get the superintendent on the phone. Or if you can't get the superintendent, get the person who's in charge of curriculum for the district on the phone and say, are you using any of this stuff from learning for justice? Anything from the Southern Poverty Law Center? And if they tell you, oh, yeah, they've provided us with all kinds of materials for the kids. I think what you ought to do is go to the next school board meeting and stand up and say, why are you using materials to teach and indoctrinate our kids that comes from a group? that has itself gone out and raised tens of millions of dollars over the years and then spent it to support groups like the clan and then turned around and said no no we're here to fight the clan your calls are welcome at eight six six hey lars that's eight six four three nine five two seven send your emails to talk at larsson dot com and you're listening to the radio northwest network now live on portland c w the larsson show

Larson wants to hear from you, even if you disagree. Naysayers get to cut the line at 866. Hey, Lars. Now, here's Lars Larson. Welcome back to the Lars Larson show. It's a Tuesday. It's the Radio Northwest Network. And together, we endeavor to serve the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho with honestly provocative talk. Glad to get to your phone calls and emails in a moment. I want to mention our X-Bull question today. Should every American state drive? its gas taxes till the conflict with Iran ends. I think the answer to that is yes. Oregon, Washington have notoriously high state gas taxes. And if Donald Trump is right in getting the Congress to drop the federal gasoline tax of a little bit more than 18 cents per gallon and the diesel tax of a little bit more than 25 cents a gallon, that would at least give some measure of relief to Americans during this conflict with Iran, which I figure is going to be over fairly... soon. Donald Trump needs to get that thing over. He needs to deal with the Iranians and if they're going to be intractable. then Trump is going to have to take other action to shut them down and finish this up. Should every American state drop its gas taxes till the conflict with Iran ends? You can find the X poll at Lars Larson Show on X. You can also find it on our website at Lars Larson.com and brought to you by Ultimate Truck Services. If you rely on trucks for business, Ultimate Keeps your biggest assets on the road and running right. Find them at Ultimate Truck Service.com. Let me go first to, let's go to Doug in Roseburg. Hey, Doug, thanks for listening on our Radio Northwest affiliate, K-Q-E-N, and on the Radio Northwest Network. What's on your mind? Yeah, you had the pencil for governor thing going on. They brought up the process of tutoring. Yeah. I was going to point out that the tutoring in Portland, at least when I was going to Portland Public Schools, was terrible. How long ago was that, by the way? Actually, 70. Oh, 1970. So not relevant at all to what's going on today, because I have a feeling they're not doing much of anything right now. In fact, you notice when I talked to the college professor was on with me talking about pencil for governor, and I said, are they doing tutoring? And she said, well, sort of. You know, it ought to be a definitive. Yes, they are or no, they're not. So whatever they were doing in the 70s when you were there, whatever they were doing in the late 70s when I was in public school, I don't think today even begins to compare to that. But how hard would it be if you said, Doug, Those folks over there are doing a really good job, and I'm turning out a less than ideal product. Wouldn't you immediately go and look at what your competitors are doing and say, I think we ought to do things more like they do it. Mississippi has gone from the bottom of the list to nearly the top of the list in about 12 years, and they've done it through some very simple measures that could be adopted by any state, except the teachers' unions don't like them.

Okay. The point I'm trying to make is that if you tutor the same information you're doing a class, you're not going to get any improvement. Doing the same thing over and over again, just as insanity. I agree. But if you have a kid who's at the end of third grade and can't read, and you put them into summertime tutoring, and the tutors know, this child has problems reading, let's teach the child how to read. That doesn't seem like rocket science to me. In fact, it sounds like something that parents could actually do. Let's go to John in Wenatchie. Hey, John, welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Lars, I just wanted to make a quick comment on the president's recommendation for dropping federal taxes on gas. I think that's a brilliant move. And the reason for that is that if you remove the federal taxes off gas, it will expose the taxes that are coming from the state. And if people are still complaining about... the high price of gas, I think they'll get a better look at see how much of that belongs to the state. Well, I think you're right, and John, I'll give my home state, Washington state, as an example. Drop the federal tax on gas, 18 cents a gallon. Drop the state gas tax, and I had that number in front of me. I think it's 40 cents in the state of Washington. So then drop the Climate Commitment Act, suspended for a time, which Bob Ferguson could propose suspending it for a time. That's about 56 cents a gallon. Right there, you've dropped $1.20 off the gallon of gasoline. Can you imagine what a relief that would be to everybody who buys gasoline in Washington State? And Oregon could do the same thing. The low-carbon fuel standard and the state gas tax drop those off, reduce the price by about a dollar. difference for families in the Northwest, wouldn't you? Absolutely. But do you think these governors are going to drop that tax? Nope. They will take every dime you've got and tell you they need more. And, John, that ought to be a sign of what's going on. I mean, if you had somebody who was doing a job for you, either for your company or, say, a remodel on your house or something like that, and he promised to do the job for X amount of money. And then a third of the way into the job, he comes to you and says, John, this is going to cost you some more. I'm going to need another 10,000. And you would say, hold on a second, $10,000, and then you give him the $10,000. Maybe you've gone insane, you give him the money. And in another, when he gets done with two-thirds of the job, he says, John, it's going to cost more money. I'm going to need another $20,000. If you've got somebody who's constantly telling you, whatever you've already given me, it won't be enough. Now, tell me if that is not an honest assessment of what Governor's Kotech and Ferguson are doing.

I mean, both of them have passed massive new taxes, and they immediately come out to the voters and say, by the way, all that money you gave us, it's not nearly enough. We're going to need more. Now, do you think I'm mischaracterizing them? No, I don't. My question is, do you think this tax issue on gas will play into the midterms? I think it should. I think what should happen. I think Ed Deal should get the Republican nomination, but even if it's Drazen or Dudley, I think the Republican candidate should say drop, suspend the gas tax for a period of time until Iran is over. Drop it right now. Now, the Democrat will refuse to do that. The Republican might just propose to do that. Let's go to Jason. Hey, Jason, what's on your mind today? Hey, Lars. I hope you're having a good day. I am, but we're close to the break, so you've got to get right to it. Yep, I'm getting right to it. All right. Christine Drazen over Ed Deal. My take is, and this is coming from the Second Amendment angle, is she, to me, has proven to lead the Republican caucus in stopping some of the worst. I think you should talk to the Oregon Firearms Federation about that, which is a Second Amendment group, and they will tell you Drazen's deficit. Well, and I will tell you this about the Oregon Firearms Federation, and I hate to say it because I used to support it a lot, but there's no solution coming from that organization. The solution is not more rules, but Jason, let's talk about it on First Amendment Friday. The Lars Larson Show.