Lars Larson Northwest Podcast 2026-07-30

Quietly, ladies. You ready for the bit sober? Exactly 15 seconds will be on the air. 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 Niles. He is an existential threat to democracy. Here's your host. Quiet, please. Lars Larson. Hey, welcome back from Lars Larson. I'm back from a couple of days of vacation with my granddaughter and my family. I've got to tell you something, I think it is especially crazy when you've got one of the major, the major American cities, one of the biggest cities in the United States of America. And if somebody were to say today, does your city have a police chief? People would have to say, well, we don't know. We understand he might have been fired, but we're not entirely sure. And if you then said, well, let's get some clarification. Does the police chief live in the city? And he say, no. He actually lives a couple of thousand miles away in another city. He says she have a non-resident police chief, but you're not sure if he's still the police chief or not. No. That's exactly what's going on, and it's happening in Seattle. Let me get into the details of that in just a moment. First, welcome to the Lars Larson Show. And welcome to Conspiracy Theory Thursday. I'm not sure this one fits into conspiracy theories, but you're always welcome to join in what we call the best conversation in talk journalism. At 866, hey, Lars, that's 866-439-277. And as always, if you're a naysayer, we put naysayers right to the head of the line at 8-6. 666-439-277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarsen.com, and you can vote in our poll on X. We put up a brand new X poll every day on our accounted X at Lars Larson Show. We also duplicate that question at our website, Lars Larson.com, but we're a conservative show, so don't vote more than once. If we're a Democrat show, you'd probably be able to vote as many times as you want to make a paper ballot for that. But... Let me get back to the police chief in Seattle, Washington. His name is Sean Barnes. Does he live in Seattle? No. He actually makes his home in Chicago, Illinois. Yeah. And then commutes all the way out to the left coast of America where he's not always there when big things go down. Like the terrible mass shooting that happened at Seattle Center over the weekend. People died. People were wounded, including a toddler who was wounded. One of the alleged shooters is dead in the shooting. One of the alleged shooters is in custody. And significantly, the third alleged shooter is, well, they haven't found him yet. And so you can understand how Sean Barnes, the commuter police chief of Seattle, Washington, except he may or may not have been fired depending on which source you believe in as of today.

Boy, when a reporter started asking Sean Barnes some questions, he didn't exactly keep that cool that you would ordinarily expect from a police chief. Take a listen. Let me take you something. I don't have to tell you where I go. I have a medical procedure I've got to do on Friday. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to know this. I have. been here working as hard as I can for this city from the day I got here. Do you got that? No, no, you listen to me. There are reports that you're not in town often. There are reports are wrong. Do you understand? You understand? I work. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Now, that was a staffer who literally a big staffer, a physically large staffer, who had to insert himself between a reporter who was doing his job and asking questions, and Sean Barnes, the commuter police. chief of Seattle, Washington, who allegedly was not doing his job because he wasn't where he needed to be. When three people died in a mass shooting at the bite of Seattle, big food festival it was going on at Seattle Center. So 51 years old. We are told that he may have been fired by the current mayor, who's nothing to write home about, by the way. Katie Wilson never had a real job in her life. Mom and dad pay all her bills. She doesn't stay home with her kid. Her husband, he doesn't work either, and mom and dad pay for their living, until she got the gig as mayor of the 13th largest city in the United States of America. And now she's got Sean Barnes, and she may or may not have fired him. Now remember, she's a total full-on left. socialist liberal. So for her to fire the DEI police chief of Seattle is going to be a bit of a, well, it's a problem. And then consider this. The fact is, one thing we do know, while we don't know if Sean Barnes actually lives in Seattle or lives in Chicago, we don't know whether or not he still has the job of chief of police of Seattle. We do know one thing. Sean Barnes is a person of color. He's a black American man. And it shows that there were nine civil rights groups, black organizations in Seattle, who are all standing up for the chief, apparently because of his skin color. Take a listener, Reggie Witherspoon. We have a lot of leaders in this community, but I assure you. You will hear from us in an exponential fashion. We have to admit, look, man, I'm well read in my history, and we're just not taking this stuff anymore. That day is over. I know the slave master is still alive in people's minds, but there's a lot of us who know better. So we're going to rally big time that the mayor know that this was not a great decision if she sustains it. And that we are going to do all we can to make sure that if she gets another person has got to be the right person. I think it needs to be another person of color for sure. But we don't know exactly what we'll do right now because we're hoping that she reconsidered. Well, this is black organizations that feel compelled. I wish a reporter had been there to ask them the question. If Sean Barnes had not been a black...

Police Chief, would you be here demanding that he be retained, which is what they're demanding? Would you be demanding that a similar person of a similar racial background be hired? Has it ever worked out well to hire people based on their skin color or gender? I mean, Kamala Harris was hired based on her skin color and gender. Didn't exactly work out well. Ketanji Brown Jackson placed on the Supreme Court because of her skin color and gender. didn't exactly work out well. But that's exactly what these so-called civil rights groups are doing. And then Jay Cho, Jonathan Cho shows up, and he had one of the best questions I had heard asked of this civil rights group, so-called, that showed up to demand that the mayor retained the police chief because he's black. But if you're going to fire him, hire somebody else who's black. And Jay Cho, I thought, had one of the best questions I'd ever heard. In fairness to the mayor, isn't the deputy mayor half Korean half? Look, that's a pretty high-ranking official. I just, I just wanted to. We're not doing this. Doing what? Doing what? You asking, you asking these biased questions. That's a biased question. I'm just asking a truthful question. I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand either. So you've got a group. that says it represents the black community in Seattle demanding that the black police chief be retained because he's black. But if you're going to fire him, Madam Mayor, who's a socialist white lady and a lady of privilege, because mom and dad pay her bills, that you should hire somebody else who's a black individual because they're black to be the next police chief of Seattle. If anybody understands that logic, I would love to know what it is. And then you've got this. At least as long as Sean Barnes is still talking in the media, and Katie Wilson, the mayor, is still talking in the media. You don't know what they've done? They're not saying the G word anymore. They don't say gangs. They've actually created a new thing, and this happens in the language in politically correct America. They're calling them small groups of people that appear to be at odds with each other in our city. I'm quoting that. Small groups, not gangs that are fighting. or over gang territory or gang this or gang that, they are small groups who appear to be at odds with each other because you can't say the G word in politically correct Seattle. And apparently that means more than dead people and bullets flying at a public festival. You're listening to the Lars Larsson show and the Radio Northwest Network.

Might find yourself looking. Guided by a shared purpose and a spirit of collaboration, Emory University students push each other to think creatively and work cooperatively, knowing that different perspectives lead to new ideas. What makes Emory special is that it has very rigorous academics, but a community that is willing to support each other. People are always willing to study together and work hard together. Learn more at emory.edu. If you don't want to talk but want to be heard, email Lars at Talk at Larslarson.com. He actually will read it. Now, here's Lars Larson. That makes a lot of sense, a lot of nonsense. Right, your bloody will write. 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 wrapper, or mainstream media bias. So, if you're choking on the smoke of Northwest wildfires like my family and I have been. lately, the story only gets worse when you take a close look at the details. The grasshopper fire, for example, has torched at least 14,000 acres of trees owned by all of us in the Mount Hood National Forest. Now, that fire has forced at least dozens of people to flee from their homes. But the important thing you ought to know, the area was identified years ago as a danger and tagged for fuels reduction, which is not rocket science, by the way. And then the tree huggers like Oregon Sewed the Forest Service that delayed the work to clear those hazardous fuels and reduce the likelihood of wildfires. The American Forest Resource Council points out that Oregon Wilde scored more than $50,000 for the attorney's fees. So let me add it up. Bottom line, taxpayers who own the trees and want them protected paid the cash to keep the forest at risk thanks to the lawyers. If you were to put it to the citizens, how many would vote in favor of putting those shyster lawyers from Oregon Wilde out on the fire lines with a shovel and a Pulaski? I know I would vote for that. Instead, we're funding their paychecks while the trees we own go up and smoke. Glad to get your calls at 866. Hey, Lars. That's 866-439-277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarsen.com, our ex-pull. After his performance yesterday, 111 times Dr. Anthony Fauci pleaded the Fifth Amendment, even though by law he has no right to plead the fifth. That evaporated when he got that presidential pardon. So despite his federal pardon, should President Trump find a way to prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci? Alternative to that would be Congress to refer to the DOJ for a contempt of Congress. Should there be some way to prosecute, Dr. Anthony Fauci? I would vote yes on that. You can vote any way you like. You'll find the question at Lars Larson Show 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 Truck Service.com. Our question of the day, brought to you by Multnom a Medical Clinic, no pills, no shots, no surgery, fix what's actually causing the problem at Multnom a medical clinic.

Clinic Thomas Triplett writes in. Lars, the Portland City Council is populated by a bunch of rank amateurs. The notion that the Trailblazers would negotiate over the moda at a meeting of the City Council displays the city's naivete. The city and the Blazers need to get out of the limelight, stop posturing, limit the members negotiating teams, and exchange privately the what-ifs, signed Thomas Triplow. Well, Thomas, the problem with that is you've got to comply with Oregon's public meetings law, and that is a problem. And now today's Daily Grill. Insane. Are you complete? 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 they're just really, really stupid. Forget it by Oregon City Garage Door. I want to give the Daily Grill today to a woman by the name of Keaton, Celeste Keaton. And what does she do? She is a co-owner. Celeste Keaton is a co-owner of the WNBA Seattle Storm, the women's basketball team. She apparently storm. formed over to a couple of young ladies, teenage girls who are wearing t-shirts talking about, well, about boys playing in girls' sports. They were wearing t-shirts that were called X, X, X, and X, Y, athletics. And they held up signs that said, thank you, Sophie Cunningham, for speaking up for girls. Do you know what this woman did? This older woman who owns part of the Seattle Storm, so apparently she's not on food stamps, that she apparently... felt it was necessary to go over and badmouth these two girls and then curse them out. Well, now the WNBA, at least to their credit, have decided to suspend her. She is a co-owner of the Seattle Storm. She is now banned from attending the team's next five home gains and fined for doing that because she cursed two 16-year-old girls who simply went to a basketball game. My favorite post on social media from Steve. Lars, the decline of downtown Portland is obvious to any of us who workshop or enjoy entertainment and go to church there. I'm sickened when cleaning around my downtown church near PSU. No regular street sweeping, continual tolerance for the heavy public use of illegal narcotics, police apathy, some of them who wish Narcan weren't so readily available. We need law enforcement. Actually making punishment of criminal activity painful as a deterrent, these humans need to be cleaned up and back in society and back in the world. workforce signed Steve in Tiger. Steve, thanks very, very much. To your calls now, it's a Thursday. It's the Radio Northwest Network serving the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Troy, welcome to the program. What's on your mind?

Hey, Lars, I just read yesterday that the Supreme Court on the U.S. Supreme Court on the shadow docket has lifted finally after one year or longer. He finally, Susan Alsop's district court judge injunction, providing Trump on firing, getting rid of a bunch of bureaucrats. So my question is, if... president would finally be able to proceed and go on and fire or lay off hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats and finally, you know, clean, and drain the swamp. clean up the bureaucracy? Well, they've given, the Supreme Court has given the president authority to fire independent agency heads like the FTC commissioner. We've talked about that, but they've also blocked him from firing others because they say he didn't provide enough due process. That's really the bottom line with that one. And whether it's about firing federal employees altogether, no, no. The Supreme Court has not done that, but they have said he can fire some of them. Let's go to Ed. Hey, Ed, I understand you're running for office. What are you running for and where? I'm running for the second district here in Washington, taking in Watkins, Skagit, Newhomish Island, and San Juan County. You mean second congressional district, right? Yes, yes. Okay, you're running for Congress. Why should voters want to put you in? What would you get done? Well, I'm running against Rick Larson, who's been in there for 26 years. And I don't think he's done that much. No, I bet I want to know what you're going to do. If you got in there, what would you do differently? Well, for one thing, I would not vote for the things that he did. Actually, be against him. What are you in favor of them? Well, I'm in favor of the immigration laws that we have too many illegals here, and they need to be deported. I think that's a good idea. Ed, thanks very much. You've got the Lars Larson Show. The Lars Larson Show.

Portland's news, traffic and weather. Interviews, podcasts, local, and national news. Get it all at larslarson.com. Now, back to the Lars Larson Show. Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson show. You know if you listen to this show that for years I was tracking the development about what I thought was one of the best firefighting tools out there, the global super tanker. And in fact, lately I've had emails from people saying, hey, Lars, whatever happened to that plane? Never, never got hired by the U.S. Ford. Eventually, the plane was simply, well, the gear was dismantled, and that was that. So we're left with private resources, other kinds of resources, both firefighters on the ground and fire, and some support from the air. And one of those supporters is Derek Holdstock, who's owner of Western Fire Resources. Derek, welcome to the program. How are you? Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate you having me on. Well, let me ask you this. Is it the case that the firefighters are ready, but then the system says wait for us to clear the red tape? Tell my audience what's going on. Yeah, in a way. I think first it's important to understand the difference between the public and private resources to fight fire. And here I'm talking about ground-based resources. So during peak fire season, private contractors supply more than half the engines on the largest fires. And we work on a daily rate that must cover all of our costs, so including payroll, taxes, fuel, maintenance, insurance, all that stuff, including the original purchase of our apparatus. And then, of course, income tax chips away at what's left. By contrast, you have taxpayer-funded cooperator fire departments, and when they get ordered to fire, they receive near full reimbursement for all incident expenses. Plus, they receive an additional hourly rate that's not tied directly to expenses. And this results in a surplus that functions as profit. And that's often two to four times the daily profit the contractors can expect to earn in a normal year. And in many slow years, a lot of contractors lose money due to fixed overhead expenses. So if you look at just the way we're dispatched, from a dispatching standpoint, Cooperating fire departments exclusively can be ordered through mechanisms like the Confligation Act that Oregon has as well as EMAC. And, you know, when those programs are employed, private resources cannot be ordered at all, regardless of whether they're closer. Those programs are just not for private resources. Private resources come and play. Hold on. Stop for a second. Eric, you're telling me you could have a group of firefighters with gear and personnel closer to the fire, but because of the bureaucracy, you said, no, send the other folks because they're...

because of the way the system works, instead of saying, no, these firefighters are closer, send them out, get the fire out. Absolutely, yep. You know, it's not always the case, but Oregon specifically has a tremendous number of firefighting resources more than probably any other state, in fact, definitely more than any other state. And I know of quite a few that are sitting right now when fire departments are coming from a long distance away to try to get to these fires. So what would it take to break through that logjam of red tape? Well, we still have the interagency coordination system, the interagency dispatch system, and cooperators are preferentially ordered through there, but you can get to contractors further down the list. What really needs to happen is... A couple things, really. First, you have to understand it's a profit motive for these fire departments to participate in this. We've created this way for them to make money. And some of these government agencies, you know, because that's what they are. They're local government agencies. You can use the surplus to buy more engines and then get bigger and have more resources out there so they can make more money. This extra funding, you know, I mean, if it's truly needed by these local jurisdictions, it should come through direct support. It should not be tied to emergency response because whenever you tie it to emergency response and that results in either delayed response or, I mean, just think about this. If we're moving resources away from their home jurisdictions that purchase the resources to begin with, you know, they could be back defending those areas. They could be doing fuels mitigation. They could be doing preparedness, all that kind of stuff. And we're pulling them out of there for hundreds of days a year. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. No, and in fact, the idea of a profit motive, ordinarily in the private sector, I think the profit motive is a great driver of excellence and low cost and everything else. Well, you've got a government agency, and you say, we're trying to generate what you would ordinarily call profit, excess revenues that then we can spend on other things. And, of course, it may get some perverse incentives that say if a city or a county or the state says, well, if we don't have to spend $5 million on new fire rate. because we were the ones who were responding and got the extra $5 million through this other pot of money, then we can back that $5 million out and use it for something else. Maybe something completely unrelated to fire. Am I right? Correct. Correct. Correct. So I think the solutions, you know, first we need to remove that profit motive. So reimburse cooperators only for their true cost to government plus, you know, reasonable depreciation. We need to dispatch by proximity, where local and mutual aid resources are dispatched first, like they are now. Yep. But then go off of closest available regardless of ownership. And then once they start receiving, once the incident start receiving replacement resources, I think it's important to get those home jurisdiction and mutual aid resources back home to cover their home jurisdictions, because that's what their purpose is.

And then finally, you know, there's a lot of things in fire that are not emergencies. Extended attack, there's often plenty of time to get resources there, mop up, patrol, fuels mitigation projects. We should not be pulling public resources away from home jurisdictions to do these things because they're just simply not emergencies. Private resources do not have jurisdictions to cover. So it just makes sense to use them because you're not creating a hole somewhere else. No, because imagine this. You're in some town, and you've had fire resources pulled away. Yes, you're covered by mutual aid by nearby cities. So if you're in Tigard and you're covered by a city next door, King City or whatever, that that's one thing. But if you're going to tell your taxpayers, by the way, we might be a little slower on that EMS call to respond to your house for a heart attack or something like that because some of our rigs have been diverted out to fires somewhere else in the state or even somewhere else in the... region all of that is diverting resources from the people who are paying for the service right that is correct wow so anybody moving in that direction and who do we have to convince to make this happen Well, I've been working. It's hard as I can myself to kind of bring this issue to light. I've talked to some people in Washington. It's just so ingrained in the system. It's really hard to break through. And for people to understand that, because, I mean, nobody wants to say, well, we don't want a fire department to show up to our fire. What they don't realize in this fire department might be coming from the East Coast or something. It's going to take days to get there when you have. have closer things. So it's not these days. You don't want them to show up. You just want the right ones to show up. And these days with diesel going at what, six, seven bucks a gallon, it's not cheap to move big fire rigs from point A to point B, is it? No, it's not. And I don't know if you hear the traffic in the background, but we were on our way to a fire and we had a rock go through our radiators. So we got canceled from that fire. So I mean, that's other expenses. You know, you get halfway to a fire. You break down and they send you home and you have to start over again. Not a good idea. Hey, Derek, thanks for the background because I'd never realize that this was the kind of problem that it is. That's Derek Holdstock. He's the owner of Western Fire Resources. Does that make any sense to you that you'd end up paying more money to have the government agencies respond, and they end up making a profit if they can then spend on getting bigger or buying more equipment? And the private contractors know not so very much. You're listening to Lars, Lars, and Joe, and the Radio Northwest Network.

I need a simple solution that... If you're surrounded by Northwest liberals. I cannot stand these morals any longer. If you don't come with me this incident, I should run amok. Come to the place where common sense prevails, the Lars Larson Show. Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. I love to get your calls. I'm going to tell you something. The fact that Seattle, Washington, 13th biggest city in Seattle, and very much a part of our Radio Northwest Network territory, which is Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. My family and I spent some time in Idaho over the last few days. A great place, gasoline and diesel, about a dollar plus a gallon cheaper than right across the border. So you've got that going on. But consider this. Nobody knows if the city of Seattle has a police chief right now. I mean, I find this almost comical because it'd be one thing if in a small town you didn't have a police chief and nobody noticed for a while. But here's Seattle, Washington. And they got this Sean Barnes character who apparently doesn't even live in Seattle. He's registered to vote in Seattle, which might be a concern because it sounds like he's voting illegally. I said sounds like he may be legal, he may be not, but at least he's more legal than an illegal alien. He's only coming from Chicago instead of coming from, you know, from Honduras or Guatemala or someplace like that. But Sean Barnes is contacted by the Seattle Times, the Daily Dead Fish Rapper of Seattle. And they ask him, are you still police chief? He says you'll have to call the mayor and find out from her. Well, apparently, Katie Wilson, I don't know what she's going to do. Somebody suggested maybe she ought to call up her mom and dad. I mean, mom and dad have been paying her bills for so long. She's not capable of being a real adult on her own. Maybe she should call mom. Mom, should I keep Sean Barnes on his police chief or not? Because I'm just not quite sure. He's a DEI hire, and I'm a white privileged girl. You know, people may give me a hard time if I fire the DEI police chief. And now we've got the black community and eight civil rights groups that are saying, if you fire Sean Barnes, at least hire another person of color. I mean, this is what passes for leadership. in both the Pacific Northwest and in the United States of America. In any case, welcome to the Lawrence Larson Show. It's Thursday, Conspiracy Theory Thursday. If you want to join what we call the best conversation in talk journalism, it's right here. At 866, hey, Lars. That's 866-439-277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarsen.com. And, of course, you can always vote in our ex-pull. You'll find it at Lars Larson show and at Lars Larson.com. Bruce writes in from... Kirkland. Lars, can you imagine, ever imagine, a city the size of Seattle led by a NEPO baby for a mayor, protected by a police chief who's as dedicated to Seattle taxpayers as he is Senator Ron Wyden to his constituents. Ha ha! In Oregon, he's talking about the fact that Ron Wyden has not lived in Portland in more than a decade. He lives in New York City with his very wealthy wife who has business ties to New York City. His kids go to school in New York City.

And Ron Wyden then pretends to be a U.S. Senator from Oregon. But Bruce goes on, all overseen by a one-party dominated government officials at all levels who can't figure out Seattle's 36% office vacancy rate and businesses of all sizes fleeing to red states. These clowns remind me of the great comic. Children's entertainer Chris Weddes, known as JP Patches. JP's fiefdom was the city dump. The real clowns we have in government now are determined to turn the entire state into a dump. At least we shouldn't feel as acutely the loss of individual liberty as will much of the nation should the DSA goons, that's Democrat Socialists of America, succeed in bringing communism to our shores. We've already been subjected to spikes in the cost of energy as little more than a shakedown by government. in Washington embraces Orwellian doublespeak by calling what is clearly a tax on income and excise tax. Now we can't describe a gun battle by young hoodlums associated with rival gangs as having anything to do with a gang, hopeless, signed RIP Seattle, Bruce Hay. You know, he's right. I mean, that's why. A week or so ago, I was complaining to you that we have government agencies that literally will not call an inmate or a convict in prison, an inmate or a convict. They are an adult in custody. Now, both Oregon is doing that. Washington State is doing that. And now more recently, you've got the mayor of Seattle and the police chief. as long as he is police chief, but who knows, because nobody knows at this point whether Sean Barnes is still the chief of police or not. Sean Barnes doesn't even know. I'm not sure Katie Wilson knows, but they both come out in a press conference, and they won't say the G word. They will not say gangs. I mean, how easy would it be to understand if your job as a politician is to communicate? to citizens in your jurisdiction whether it's seattle whether it's washington whether it's oregon uh... no matter where it is your job is communicating wow there were some people shot at seattle center three people died multiple people were wounded including for god's sake a toddler and you come out you say well Who's doing the shooting? Well, they were small groups of people that appear to be at odds with one another. I'm not joking. I'm using the actual words of idiots like Sean Barnes, and he does sound like six kinds of idiot, and Katie Wilson. Small groups of people who are at odds with each other. Could that be a gang? Oh, no, no, no. We don't use the G word around here because, and do you know why they don't want to use the word gang? because they say the word gang is associated with people of color. Now, even though there are white gangs, they're also brown gangs and black gangs, but they don't want to use the G word because it's associated with people of color. And that would be not very politically correct. And of course, it seems that Seattle City Hall, just like Portland City Hall, is more concerned about being politically correct than they are about saving the lives of people who just want to go to an event like the bite of Seattle.

Go down to Seattle Center, listen to some music, eat some food, that's all you're interested in doing. But they're more concerned with, we can't call them gangs. Gangs is too, it's racially loaded. And then, of course, you get these civil rights organizations, so-called NACP and the rest, and they all show up at City Hall, and demand that a guy be allowed to keep his job because of his skin color. Now, do you know what those groups would have said 50, 60, 70 years ago if white citizens had showed up and said, hey, you can't fire that guy, he's a white guy. That was wrong. And it was wrong. And it's just as wrong for these civil rights groups. They're race hustlers to show up at City Hall and say, you can't fire him because he's black. Oh, but if you do fire him, we insist that you hire somebody else who's also black. Because hiring somebody based on their skin color is the best way to get a good police chief? Does anybody actually believe that nonsense? I would love to talk to this Bishop Witherspoon, you know, this character. I'm going to have my producer. uh you know mackenzie prunty i'm going to have her put in a request for bishop witherspoon to come on this show and explain how hiring people or not firing people based on their skin color is legal constitutional moral or produces a good result because i don't think it does any of those you're listening to the radio northwest network the larsson show

FM News 101. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel, right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. is the Lars Larson show. President Trump is one badass president. He's secure 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 place. Larson. Hey, welcome back to the lives. Larson, Joe, it's a pleasure to be with you, and I'm glad to get to your phone calls and emails now. I think everybody agrees that traffic is a problem, and it really doesn't matter which kind of city you live in, big, smaller, otherwise, it's a problem. The question is... For the Portland metro area, whether spending $15 billion is the right answer for a way to get across the Columbia River. And by the way, when I say $15 billion, the number could actually be as high as $18 billion, and that's the estimate today. Given its growth over the last half dozen years, there's no guarantee that it won't be closer to $20 billion by the time they're done. So I thought we'd talk again about this subject to John Lee, whose District 18 position to Washington State Representative. Representative Lee, welcome back. Lars, thanks for having me on. I always appreciate chatting with you, especially on transportation and our ridiculous interstate bridge replacement boondoggle. Yeah, because it is a boondoggle, and I guess I'm prepared to be wrong in my proposal that I thought this whole project was going to rapidly come apart, but now we've got even the Trump administration, the Secretary of Transportation, signing off, and you're asking. Secretary Duffy, Sean Duffy, for a different kind of decision. Tell my audience what you're asking him for.

Well, my hope is that they will look at it like a business person would. In a macro sense, the two states are building a bridge from Hood River to white salmon for $1.1.2 billion. Why on earth would you spend 15 times that much money on a bridge that's actually 900 feet shorter from Vancouver to Portland? It is just ridiculous on that level. coupled with there's so many pork barrel spending projects loaded into this. It's a total rip-off of the taxpayers, especially as you and I have talked many times, who on earth is going to build a bridge that's going to last 100 to 150 years and replace three lanes with another three lanes. It's ridiculous. And if I could get in in front of Sean Duffy. the DOT Secretary and say, Mr. Secretary, none of this makes sense. Put this project on hold, get your IG to come in and take a look at this. We know you will find waste, fraud, and abuse in this. Let's stop wasting the taxpayers' money. See, that's the thing I don't understand, because, Representative, John, you and I know each other reasonably well. I've asked the Secretary of Transportation, come on. I don't know Sean Duffy himself had never met him before Trump made him transpose secretary, thought, well, he's at least going to be better than Pete Buttigieg. But then when we began asking, will you come on or send somebody else from the Department of Transportation on to talk about whether or not you're going to sign off on this boondoggle bridge over the river that has exploded in cost? From $3 to $5 billion, the original estimate, it's now at $15 to $18 billion. and there's no guarantee it'll get done at all, or that the two states have the money to do it. So will you come on or send somebody else on from your department to talk about it? Instead, we just hear, yep, sounds like they've signed off on it. Do you wonder whether maybe the transportation secretary is talking to somebody other than the critics of the IBR? Oh, in a sense I can guarantee that, and citizens have asked me, well, why on earth would they approve that? And I suspect because you get the congressional delegations from Oregon and Washington constantly whispering in the ear of Secretary Duffy and all of his assistants saying, no, we need this. This is so important. They're misleading him about numerous aspects of the project, and therefore he has. sadly listen to them instead of giving audience to some of us that have raised appropriate questions. But my still hope, and I am the eternal optimist, my friend, is that... Even since they've phased this, they don't have enough money to complete phase one. They are between $1.2 billion and $2.2 billion short of the money just to do the first piece of this. And neither Oregon nor Washington really have the money to finish that. Both have huge needs in transportation. And of course, as you've talked about to your audience many times, 83% of Oregon...

voters just said no to new transportation taxes by governor kotech and therefore there is no money on the oregon side to pony up their half of what is unfunded right now and washington's not much better off we've got at least eight billion dollars in needed maintenance and preservation for our roads and bridges No, it doesn't make any sense to go that direction. John, thank you very much. That's Representative John Lee. He represents District 18 position 2. And if I ever hear a naysayer who wants to make the case for the IBR project at $15 to $18 billion, I'd be glad to entertain that call. Let me go to Bill in Cottage Grove listening on KPNW. Hey, Bill, welcome to the Radio Northwest Network. What's on your mind? Hey, Lars. Well... Having listened and seen some clips about the police chief of Seattle, one of the things struck me most was that the reason he was gone was because he was at an all-black event for police officers. And it hit me as very racist. And I would say the same thing if they had a white event. with nothing but white police officers. I think that's wrong. It's a brotherhood. You know, there shouldn't be a separation between the two, especially in that line of work. I totally agree. And just to back up what Bill's saying, Sean Barnes, the man we've been talking about. who's being supported by a bunch of race hustlers in Seattle, who've all gone down to city halls saying, you can't fire him because he's black. But if you do fire him for the bad, you know, for not being there when the city needed him after a mass shooting at Seattle Center, hire somebody else based on their skin color. He was at the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Officers Conference in Dallas, Texas. Now, why would he do that? I mean, I have the same objection bill that you do. I have the same objection that Congress has the Congressional black caucus or that various legislators will, they'll caucus with a group based on skin color or based on gender. I don't think any of that makes any sense. I don't think it's legal. I don't think it's moral. I don't think it's ethical for people to say, I'm going to be a member of a group, like the Association of Asian Journalists or the Association of Black Journalists. I don't think organizations like that should exist any more than there should be one called the Association of White Journalists or the Association of White Talk Show hosts. None of that should actually exist. It should bother anybody that if you say, I'm a member of this group. Why are you a member of that group? Because of my skin color. Hold on. Who except a Klansman belongs to a group because of your skin color?

I don't think it makes any sense at all, and I think you're absolutely right. And Sean Barnes ought to be asked about it. Why were you going to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement and Austers? And should we assume that the same bias that leads you to join or to go to one of those conferences, like the one that was going to in Dallas, at the time of that mass shooting, are you giving different kinds of service? to black citizens of Seattle, then you would do white or Asian citizens in Seattle? Is that the way it works? Back in a moment, we'll talk about Dr. Anthony Fauci. You're listening to the Lars Larsson show. It's a family-owned dealership. taxes. What's seeing you, Robin Hood? So you think you're overtax? Overtaxed, overworked and paid off with a knife of clop or a rope. Why used to be treason? Fluently. This is the Lars Larson Show. Well, if I become a punching bag, I'm a punching bag, but I am very happy to testify before any congressional oversight committee. I have nothing to hide. I have, I can explain and validate everything that I've done. So, you know, it's going to be inconvenient if they actually are out there essentially threatening to make my life miserable. But it's, I mean, I'm going to do what I need to do. And that is cooperate fully, because we have nothing to hide at all. At all. Now, that was Dr. Anthony Fauci four years ago in 2022 in the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the vast overreaction by both local and state government. So that's what Anthony Fauci was saying. I got nothing to hide. I'll be happy to cooperate 100%. Fast forward from 2022 because I think most of us who followed this story very, very closely, and I would have to say I follow. and the pandemic and the government shutdowns and everything else very, very closely, lived it myself, just like many of you did. But now, what do we have? We have Dr. Anthony Fauci, who's called up to Congress to testify. And then yesterday, he sat there and pleaded the Fifth Amendment 111 times before the United States Senate yesterday. Even though he has a presidential pardon. Here's what Senator Josh Hawley had to say to Anthony Fauci about that. Well, nothing says honesty like taking the fifth, huh, Doc? Let's try something. What day the week is it today? On the divisive counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. What color tie you're wearing? On the advice of counsel, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Now, that's Dr. Anthony Fauci, four years ago when he had nothing to lose and no reason to suspect that he might be called up to testify. And about what?

about things like this, about the fact that the American taxpayer funded research, gain of function research, and when it became illegal to do it in the United States, because even Barack Hussein Obama saw that it was such dangerous technology, he ordered that it not be done in the United States. Now, I think Obama meant don't do it, period. But what people like Anthony Fauci did was they and their friends, Dr. Ralph Barak and others, said, oh. Obama says we can't do it here with the taxpayers' money. Let's take a dangerous technology like gain of function research on various viruses. Let's take it to a communist adversary of the United States, and that would be China. And let's do the research at a lab where they also do research for military purposes. Let's share that information with our communist adversaries. They apparently thought that was a good idea. They did that. And then they lied to the American public. And we now know a lot of the lies told by people like Dr. Anthony Fauci about the masks, about the six-foot distance, about the vaccine or the jab, which many of us, I'm one of them, said, I'm not going to take the jab. I don't trust that stuff. And I don't trust the process the government used to get to that. So then Josh Hawley, Senator Josh Hawley, had to point out that Anthony Fauci does not have Fifth Amendment rights. And why? Take a listen. Let's just get one thing straight. You don't have any rights under the Fifth Amendment because you've been pardoned. As you very well know, as the Supreme Court has been clear for a century and more, Brown v. Walker, 1896, when he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege. You know that. Your lawyer is sitting behind you now shifting nervously in their chairs. They know it. This isn't about the Constitution. This isn't about the law. This is about contempt. Contempt for this body and contempt for the American people. Now, you know what's going to be great is when the Congress, and I hope they do this, if they don't do it, they better explain to the American public. go to the Department of Justice and say, we're going to refer to the Department of Justice Anthony Fauci to be found in contempt of the United States Congress. And as Senator Rand Paul put it, admit it was a mistake to fund dangerous research in China. Admit that the risk of this dangerous research exceeded any possible benefits. Ask for forgiveness and pledge to help the government devise safeguards so a man-made epidemic never happens again. But then, Senator Josh Hawley had to point out that Anthony Fauci, he was busier putting public employees to work on plans to make Anthony Fauci richer than he was already. But I think I know why you're doing it is because you don't want to answer questions. It's because you did all kinds of terrible things. It's because during the pandemic, you got rich, didn't you? You got rich while people were dying, hundreds of thousands of Americans, over a million in the end, and you were getting rich, and not only were you doing that, you were using federal employees with taxpayer money to apply for and solicit cash prizes.

For you personally, cash prizes totaling over a million dollars. You did all of that during the pandemic, didn't you? Now, that's Senator Josh Hawley, and he points out that Anthony Fauci was very, very concerned about making himself richer and about covering his backside. Because when anybody suggested, well, maybe it came from that Wuhan lab. Anthony Fauci knew he was the guy through which the NIH took the funding. and got to that lab and took American taxpayer dollars and used them to develop dangerous viruses in a Chinese communist lab that was sometimes used by the Chinese military. But Anthony Fauci had prizes to win. Take a listen again. In November of 2020, when millions of Americans were suffering from COVID, what were they doing? I tell you what they're doing. Fulkers was on your behalf. soliciting and gathering information for a cash award. Let's look at it. We've got his email right here, right over my shoulder. Fulker says, I'm working on this nomination for the Dan David Award for Anthony Fauci. We need to beef up the COVID part. Do you have language in the can that you could share that delineates how we responded in new ways to COVID? He sends this to multiple federal employees. What was the Dan David Award? Do you remember, Doc? It was a $900,000 cash award. $900,000 cash award. And he got it. Yeah, Anthony Fauci got it. He definitely should have to answer questions. I kind of wish that the Congress, the members of the Senate, had called up Anthony Fauci's attorneys and said, does your client understand? He does not have Fifth Amendment rights. And as it's been pointed out, in the history of the United States Congress, only a couple of members of the mafia. mob bosses have invoked the privilege more than the 111 times that Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights before the U.S. Senate yesterday, when in fact, because he also has a presidential pardon, he has no Fifth Amendment rights. He's not entitled to it at all. Glad to be with you, glad to take your calls. 866. Hey, Lars, send emails to talk at Larslarson.com, and you're listening to the Radio Northwest Network.

The Lars Larson Show. Portland's News, Traffic and Weatherst. Dropping a Portland truth bomb. My favorite thing about living in Portland is no matter how many fentany all overdoses happen, no matter how many tents get set up, you can't blame black people for that. Back to Lars. Hey, welcome back to the Lars. And Joe, it's a pleasure to be with you. Well, the courts keep striking down President Donald Trump's terror. So he's found a 96-year-old loophole. Who ends up footing the bill? And is this a good policy for us. Ryan Young is a senior economist and director of publications at the Competitive Enterprise Institute said CEI. And we talk to CEI all the time. Hey, Ryan, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me, Lars. So is this a good idea because when I see Smoot Josh Hawley, I think, okay, that was a bad idea back at the time. Is it a better idea today almost 100 years later? I don't think so. I think Ben Stein had it right, and Ferris Bueller's day off when he said that the smooth hauli tariffs did not make the Great Depression any better. No, they certainly didn't make any shorter. They may have actually lengthened it. But what do you think the president? I would like to know what you think the president is trying to accomplish with his use of tariffs, because I'm not sure if he's using it as a negotiating tool or as just a way to generate revenue for the Treasury or both. I think he just likes tariffs. And then his team comes up with justifications after the fact. It can be trade deficits. It can be revenue, negotiating leverage, whatever. He just likes tariffs, and it's a gut thing. That's what I think is going on, which is why he's not going to stop no matter what the courts do. Okay, does he have any idea why he likes him so well? I mean, there was a time when the U.S. government basically lived on tariffs rather than living on an income tax because the income tax didn't come around until about, what, 115 years ago. And until that point, we lived on tariffs and other fees charged by the government, didn't we? Or the federal government here? That's right. And in fact, the very first bill Congress ever passed back in the 1700s was, in fact, a tariff bill. And that could support the federal government as its main revenue source because back then the federal government took up two, maybe three percent of GDP.

The trouble is that's about all tariffs are capable of raising, and now our government is something like 23, 24% of GDP. So even if we are now taking in $300 billion a year in tariff revenue... Well, that's not enough to cover even the federal deficit, which is about six times that. So all that tariff revenue is two months worth of deficit spending, not even the regular spending. Now, in your heart of hearts, though, Ryan, wouldn't it be better if we had a federal government that wasn't eating up? What is it eating up now? 40% of GDP, if you add, and maybe that's when I added in state and local government along with the federal government. It eats up a gigantic chunk of everything we produce in America. Would it be better to have a much smaller federal government? Oh, goodness, yes. Think of what most of the federal government does. It's entitlements and redistribution. If you want a good pension, get an IRA. It's going to do better for you from Social Security. Well, especially if you're on the younger side. Medicare, boy, government health care. Doesn't that sound appealing? You mean health care run by the same people who run Amtrak in the post office? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Yeah, so first, swim down the government's responsibilities and make sure that those very important functions are done better, and privately then you can trim down the revenue and hopefully reduce or eliminate the income tax. But for now, tariffs, they're not cutting it. Well, and you're suggesting that Trump may be trying to accomplish that by choking off the beast instead of saying, I'm going to cut the size of the government. He says, I'll cut off the food supply first. The old Starve the Beast theory from the Reganiers. I've not seen the Trump administration use that, but I could see having some appeal, but the trouble is what the Reganiers taught us is that the Starved the Beast theory doesn't work. Congress is not swayed by deficits, as evidenced by this October when we will see the federal debts exceed $40 trillion for the worst time. And how are we ever going to pay that off? Or do we just plan to try to inflate our way out of it? There are two ways. One is entitlement reform, get Social Security and Medicare and Sustainable and private hands, or two, print it away with the monetary printing press. And I hope we don't go option two. Yeah, but is option one any better? Because is there a way to actually get the private sector or to privatize Social Security in time to actually make a difference? We might have if we've done it in the 80s 40 years ago, but if we do it today, is there enough time to get it done? There is. There is. There's lots of ways to do personal accounts. About 30 countries around the world have already done it. The U.S. is a laggard. In that regard, and once you have it set up, it is infinitely sustainable. It doesn't cause a drain on the treasury. It can be done. It has been done, and it shall be done.

But it doesn't produce any short-term relief. In other words, if you're looking at the end of money and a 25% reduction in people's benefits come 2034, getting people who are much younger onto either IRAs or 401Ks or some other kind of system like, was it Chile or Peru did, and very successfully. You're right about that. But does it actually provide you any breathing room to keep those? the remainder of the population that's already on Social Security, does it give you any relief of that problem? Yes. In fact, it's something that you have to do because of the alternatives. State will take three, maybe four trillion dollars to pay off current obligations. If you don't reform, we're not talking three or four trillion dollars. We're talking as much as $77 trillion. So you can choose one tough option, or you can choose a second much, much tougher option. Our forebears and their deficit spending ways have left us with no good options, and now we just have to pick between tough and tougher. I guess, Ryan, the thing I wonder about is how do you persuade people who are going to be told you've got a brand new system? You're going to fund your own retirement. Oh, and by the way, you're going to still pay for Social Security for all these people already on it, but you don't get to have anything come out of the system for you. You pay for it. You pay for the movie ticket. You don't get to see the show. Do you think that's going to be a tough sell? If we talk about it like accountants, yeah. But if you talk about it in terms of dignity or ownership, then yes, I do think a lot of people will be on board. Because suppose you work for 40 years, you pay into the system, and then you enjoy maybe a year of retirement, and then you die of a heart attack or something terrible like that. You get nothing. All those hundreds of thousands of dollars disappear. You cannot pass them on to your children or your grandchildren. You cannot donate them to charity. That money disappears because it was never yours. If it's a personal account or an IRA or something like that, you own your own money and you can pass it along. You can spend it how you wish or save it as you wish because it's yours. You don't have that under the current system. It doesn't treat adults like adults. It does sound like a much more attractive option. Ryan, thank you very much. That's Ryan Young. Ryan is with the CEI, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, talking about what's going on with both tariffs and with reforming some of America's financial problems as America's federal government heads toward $40 trillion in debt. Back in a moment, I'll get to your calls at 866. Hey, Lars, send emails to talk at laursons.com, and you're listening to the Radio Northwest Network.

Starting a new business? Have something to say? Give Lars a call. At 866, hey Lars. That's 866. Hey Lars. No. Back to the Lars Larson Show. Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. I want to ask you a favor. You're listening to the Radio Northwest Network. You should know that we try to serve the Pacific Northwest States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho with honestly provocative talk on a daily basis. We've got more than 20 affiliate stations all over Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to try to help us in that mission. If you want to jump into the conversation, you're certainly welcome at 866. Hey, Lars. That's 866. 399 5277 send your emails to talk at larslarsson.com and naysayers always go first so i get this email and i'd like to find out somebody who knows more about this so lars a friend who is a portland police officer was with her boyfriend so apparently it's a young lady who's the police officer traveling on highway 26 near mount hood was rear-ended by a semi-truck The dash cam captured the impact. They were in the white pickup truck in the video. The police officer was transferred to the hospital with a collapsed lung, fractured vertebra. This happened a couple of weeks ago. The trooper on scene said the truck driver could not speak English and needed an interpreter, had no driver's license and no insurance. Thank God for dash cams. Well, I would agree. I think dash cams are kind of handy, but in this case, I'd like to find out. Did they actually pursue the person? If the person could not speak English, needed an interpreter, had no driver's license, and especially no CDL, and no insurance, I'm not sure how much good the dash cam is going to do you because what are you going to do? Go after the person who sounds like he's what the lawyer is called judgment proof. There's no way to get any money out of him. Then it doesn't exactly help you out. You're going to be on your own when it comes to your medical bills and your lost time at work and everything else. And then this from Kerry. Lars, so why are Republicans letting Dr. Anthony Fauci get away with pleading the fifth? He's at least allegedly been pardoned by President Autopin so he can no longer has the right to plead the fifth. He can be compelled to answer questions and provide names. After all, we need someone to take a perp walk. Yes, we do. But when you say he can be persuaded, compelled to answer questions, they can tell him to answer the questions. If he does not, then they can say he is in contempt of Congress. They can make that referral to the Department of Justice, and the DOJ can bring criminal charges against him for contempt of Congress. But I think that's just about all they can do about that. Let's go to William. Hey, William, welcome to the Lawrence Larson Show. What's on your mind on this conspiracy theory Thursday? Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Larson. God bless you and your family, and thank you for taking my call.

Sure. I served in the military for 20 years, specifically the Army. And at a certain time during my service, they came with this anthrax vaccine, as they called it. And it wasn't all of the Army that had to do it like with COVID, but just certain troops, frontline troops who would be in danger of being exposed to anthrax. So they started this vaccine program with no information. We tried to get information. They wouldn't, they were very tight-lipped about it. We had to sign paperwork that if we did not sign, they would separate us from service. So then after about five, five and a half years, bigger than Stuttgart, they just stopped the whole thing and with no information as to why, just suddenly it was over. So then a friend of mine who I'm known for a long time when he retired. He asked the VA specifically what can be done about those of us who received the anthrax vaccine during our service and they were very tight-lipped. They said we don't discuss that. We're not going to have anything to do. Okay. Can I tell you what I've been able to, I did a little bit of research on this, William. They still have a program that depending on where you're deployed, if you're in a high-risk deployment area, they still insist that people be vaccinated for anthrax. So that's still going on. It is not something that started and then stop. and they have specific requirements if you are assigned to go to a specific area of the world to serve the U.S. military, and you have to get the vaccine. They actually have a program that may qualify you for VA benefits because of adverse effects that are alleged to have come from the vaccine. So that's already... of the case. And in fact, you can go to the VA's website. They have an anthrax vaccine immunization program. You can see what's required. You can consult the CDC's anthrax vaccine, VIS, and then veterans seeking to file a claim can learn more at VA anthrax vaccine information. Seems kind of natural. So you made it sound kind of mysterious like it's a program they started and then stopped. That doesn't appear to be true. You also said, that, you know, you're kind of out of luck and they won't tell you anything more. Well, it sounds like the VA has a system for taking care of people who had adverse effect because of the vaccine. Were you not aware of any of that? No, sir, I was not. Okay, then you need to talk to the VA because I don't think you're going to be able to get, I mean, if you go to the VA and say, look, I think I had an adverse effect because of the anthrax vaccination, and I'd like to get some help. They have a specific program, and they program will at least allegedly take care if you've had some adverse effects as a result of that. I do want to bring you up to date.

on some new details because of our affiliate station in Seattle, and that's KVI. And KVI has a great story with some interesting additional details about one of the alleged gunmen in the shooting at the bite of Seattle on Sunday. Now, this is the one where three people died. A toddler was wounded. There is a 15-year-old who's been charged with first-degree assault with a firearm and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. There's also Junior Nico Simo, according to our affiliate KVI, killed in Sunday's exchange of gunfire. He was arrested two years ago because a cop found him. And there were reports of gunfire at Rainier Beach. They found this junior Nico Simo. He's dead now. He was killed on Sunday at the bite of Seattle at the mass shooting that happened there. They found him in possession of a, this is according to KVI, Glock 19, equipped with both an extended magazine and an illegal conversion called a Glock switch. That's what turns a regular semi-automatic Glock into a fully automatic pistol. It's illegal. But guess what? He was arrested as a juvenile. So apparently the records were all sealed up with his juvenile record. And now, of course, they're ultimately sealed because he's dead. And the 15-year-old arrested at the scene was carrying a polymer ghost gun, an un-serialized handgun, assembled from parts that cannot be traced through traditional firearms records. Okay, bottom line. The 15-year-old they have in custody, you watch. They're going to seek to charge him in juvenile court. If they don't, if they don't drag him into adult court as they should, then what's going to happen is his records will end up sealed, just like the dead guy's records were ultimately sealed. You're listening to The Lars Larson Show. The Lars Larson Show.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's 24-7 protection when you bundle home and auto insurance with progressive. And if there's two things you can count on, it's your smoke detector battery dying at 3 a.m. Not 3 p.m. on a Saturday when you have nothing going on. But in the middle of the night when you're fast asleep. Oh, come on. Get 24-7 protection when you bundle home an auto with Progressive. Just one more thing you can count on. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and third-party insurance, not available in all states or situations. This is the Lars Larson Show. President Trump has one badass president. He secured a 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 live. And now. He is an existential threat to democracy. Here's your host. Quiet place. Lars Larson. Welcome back for Lars Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you on a conspiracy theory Thursday. If you want to join what we call the best conversation in talk journalism, it's here every day at 866.6. Hey, Lars, that's 866 439-277. Send your emails to talk at Larslarsen.com. Is it possible? that Democrat lawmakers, while they talk a good game about providing service to citizens, that they're actually the ones who are choking off health care here in the Pacific Northwest. I thought we'd talk with Representative Dwayne Yonker, who represents District 3 that's mostly Grants Pass and that area. Representative Yonker, welcome back to the program. Thank you, Lars. Thank you for having me back. So now you've said Oregon Democrats have created a toxic anti-business and anti-health care provider environment in our state. Make that case to my audience if you would. Yeah, so basic math. Just last year in 2025, hospitals lost $480 million due to policies that are coming out that are being pushed by the Oregon Nurses Association. And people can understand, Oregon Nurses Association is also an affiliate of AFP, which is a teacher's union. And so that's Randy Wyinghardt and stuff like that. For two years back in early 2000s, they were pushing, you know, these policies, nursing staff policies and stuff like that, wages, stuff like that. But what people don't understand is nurses are not just these little nurses unions are not about.

the nurses. They have a bigger agenda. And we know that was Randy Weingard. And so they were advocating for the all care, you know, not healthcare for all. That is part of their goal. That's the union goal. And so the, with the Medicaid formula, hospitals are losing money. Asante down here in southern Oregon lost, looking lost $50 million, I believe last year. Yeah. And it's continued to lose more money this year. Because the compensation is 65 or 70 cents on the dollar, right? That's correct. These compensation, these hospitals are working for free for certain things. Now, we can remember, ONA also has an insight into the... to the Capitol. You know, Rob Nose, which is the chair of health care, is a former ONA representative. And then the vice chair is Travis Nelson. He was, he was the vice president of ONA and then you have Lesley Munoz, which is a DSA member on these health care. And so also what we need to know is, ONA is given $400,000 just this year to Tina Kotek. And then AFT is given $150,000 to Tena Kotech. They are all in. on pushing this stuff. It's their agenda. And you were talking about the pandemic earlier with Anthony Fauci. And you got to remember, AFP was advising the CDC. about what plans to push out on schools. Let's go back up. AFT is advising the CDC what to do. Now, we have a teacher's union telling scientists what to do and what their policies should be. These people are very powerful. They have a lot of power. I think they're over and all goals. What I see is... not about nurses and wages and, you know, breaks and stuff like that. It's an overall goal of dictating how our government we ran. You know what, Dwayne, the only thing you haven't mentioned, and it bothers me, because I think it's the easiest path to a solution to this, if you could get the money to be able to give 100 cents on the dollar, or even 95 cents on the dollar, so that when a doctor or a hospital or a clinic takes on a Medicaid or Medicare, Medicaid for the poor, Medicare for the old patient, that they get 95 cents on the dollar. You know where you can find the money right now? The state of Oregon, and I think Washington is not much different, state of Oregon said, we're going to provide...

Medicaid for the poor to illegal aliens. And the cost was $1.5 billion per biennium, $750 million per year. And then out comes Tina Kotek, who says, hey, we're $350 or $400 million short this year. You say, well, here's an extra $750 right there. Stop providing this for illegal aliens, for people who are not citizens of the United States, who under federal law have no right to Medicaid at all, none. So the only way you can fund it is by putting up the state money and just say, we're not going to pay for health insurance for people who are not legally in the country, who are not citizens. They're not entitled to it under federal law. Pull the money back. Now, there's the 450 you're short right now and another 300 million on top of it that you can use to bring the compensation rates back up closer to 99 cents on the dollar. What do you think? Yeah, I don't, I don't disagree. And I mean, let me, I, I think nurses are very valuable. I'm not attacking nurses themselves. I know you're not. The bigger, the bigger picture. I had, I had proceeded on Monday that was great nurses there. Everything went well. You know, my Republican colleagues and myself, I've continued to push. to try to change these bills. We're going to 2027. We're going to change these things. But people need to understand. As long as we keep voting for Democrats, they're going to keep spending money on illegals. That's what they're going to do. Then you hear everything out of their mouth. We don't have enough money. They're going to blame Trump. Then make them own it. Then make them own it. Say, if you don't have Medicaid or you can't get a doctor who will take you, here's why. They gave the money away. One and a half billion over the next two years to fund health insurance for illegal aliens who have no right to it under federal law, but the state is going to pay for it, and we're going to shortchange Oregonians to fund the illegal aliens. If you tell people that and make the Democrats own that, how long will it take? Maybe voters still won't wise up. Maybe they'll still say, well, we're still going to vote for him because they're Democrats. Would you? Do you think people could be that foolish? to say we're going to take people who've given away our health insurance and denied it to our families so they can provide it to the illegal alien families, but we're still going to vote for them? Is anybody really that dumb? I hope not, Lars. I hope that people realize and see what the agenda coming out of Salem is, and Tina Kotek is Oregonians, true Oregonians, United States-born citizens, people here that are residents. or have that legal citizen, are being second to health care, education, all of it. We are not first to them. Well, I'm going to tell you something. Imagine a dad who comes home and tells his family, hey, I'm sorry, I promise you I was going to take you out to dinner this Friday night. I gave all the money away. But I gave it away to some really deserving people. Now, no matter how much that family loves dad and loves the fact that he's generous to a fault and tries to help out people who are in need, what are they going to say when dad keeps saying, I'm sorry?

I gave away everything my family needs to give it away to some other family because they deserve it more. At some point, the family is going to say, Dad, knock it off. Your first responsibility is to your family, not everybody else's family, correct? That's correct, Lars. In 2023, you've got to realize, too, also, they want to expand health care. Remember the law is in what Measure 111, I think it is, to expand health care to every single citizen in Oregon. Guess what they're going to do is they have to think of more money. They want to take more from businesses. Dwayne, imagine healthcare as run by the folks at ODOT. And then you'll know what's going on. It'll be the Abernathy Bridge every day of the week. You've got the Lars Lars.

Hair is thinning out. Progressive presents the Museum of You. We begin our tour with a unique piece, a relic from the early big screen television era. Remarkable. Next, we find a juicer which historians believe has only ever been used once. And finally, compact discs from the emo era. A rare find indeed. Some things should be history, but until then, you could protect what's important to you and save by bundling your auto insurance with the renters policy from Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers, not available in all states or situations. Disagree with Lars? Great. Mayseers go first at 866. Hey, Lars. Now, back to the Lars Larson Show. Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. I want to get to your phone calls and emails. And then I've got to tell you what happened at a WNBA game the other night. The fact is not much interesting, as far as I'm concerned, happens at WNBA games. I think that's generally the approach of most people toward the WNBA. The most interesting thing. that's actually happened in the WNBA is Caitlin Clark, who's an extraordinary player, but the rest of the players don't like her because she's a white female, and apparently they have a problem with that. Well, now they've got a new problem, and this problem happened at a game involving the Seattle Storm in Seattle, and they were playing at a place called Climate Pledge Arena. They were playing against the Indiana fever. And there were two teenage girls, two 16-year-old girls who were at the game, and they were wearing T-shirts. And on the T-shirt, it said X, X, X, and X, Y, athletics. Now, that's a reference toward boys and girls. Because most of us, not the politically correct folks, but the rest of us, the realists out there, understand there are boys and there are girls. And boys have one kind of, you know, of DNA makeup. X, X, X, and X, Y, and girls have another. But the politically correct folks out there, they don't like that kind of reference. They do like the idea that biological males can compete against biological females in sports as long as the biological males say they identify as a female. They identify as a girl. It's that kind of nonsense that's going on. So these two 16-year-old girls are sitting there at Climate Pledge Arena watching a... You would think it would be one of the most friendly environments you could be in. You've got two girls. They're there to watch women's basketball. They're there to watch two teams in the WNBA, the women's NBA. And they're carrying signs that say they're thanking Sophie Cunningham. who's an Indiana fever guard for speaking up for girls. That's what it said on their signs. Except one of the co-owners of the Seattle Storm, Celeste Keaton.

She's in big trouble now because she apparently decided she couldn't tolerate these two 16-year-old girls. This is a woman wealthy enough to be a part owner of a WNBA team. So she walks over and begins cursing at the girls, tells them they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and the girls acted reasonably. As one of the girls said, this is Annalee Wilson. a junior from Eastman High School in Wenatchie, Washington. She said, we were just sitting there with signs and said, we love Sophie, and thank you so much for speaking up. And so we're watching the game, and we're being super respectful. And this lady, an older lady, comes up to us, and at first, I think she's going to be nice. And then she asks, like, what are you guys doing? And she said, I hope Jesus can forgive you for the sin you're doing. And then she told us that we were being... Effing insane. She used a word that I can't use on the radio. She said, she was in tears. This 16-year-old girl ends up in tears after this confrontation. She said, I've never been yelled at like that. I mean, I've had people hate me on the internet, but it doesn't really affect me because it's just people online. But that just took me so surprised. I thought she was going to be nice. And then she starts screw. Cussing at us. She's also a woman. She just cussed out two 16-year-olds that were trying to have fun. We weren't trying to be political. We're just trying to support Sophie. That's what they were doing. Well, guess what? To some extent, Celeste Keaton, as I said, somebody wealthy enough to be one of the co-owners of a WNBA team, she was just informed that the majority owner of the WNBA team, the Seattle Storm, has just suspended her. Now, how do you suspend a part owner of a WNBA team? She has been told that she is not allowed to attend the next five home games of the Seattle Storm, that she is persona non-grata to be able to watch the team that she actually owns part of because of her behavior. And here's what they said. Opposed from the front office indicated the majority owner, Ginny Gilder. subsequently issued a public apology regarding the incident. We are aware that one of our co-owners made comments to two fans in attendance at last night's game. We apologize that this happened. Everyone who attends a storm game deserves to be welcome. We remain committed to creating an inclusive environment where every fan is treated with respect. Now, the girls that Keaton directed her comments toward were wearing shirts that said XX and XY Athletics and holding up signs that thanked Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana fever for speaking up for girls. So. You've got somebody who's a co-owner in a WNBA team who is so narrow-minded she can't stand the idea that two 16-year-old girls who had the money to buy a ticket to one of the games. They're not team owners like this Celeste is, but they're going to be yelled at by an older lady simply because they have a different point of view. On that note, oh.

We lost that call. But this is the kind of attitude that you get from the so-called tolerance crowd of people. You get people who will talk to you about tolerance all day long. But you know what the tolerance is? It's a little bit like Henry Ford allegedly said back in the day, you can have one of my Ford Model A's or Model T's in any color you want as long as it's black. And when people talk about tolerance, you know what they usually mean? They say, I'm willing to be tolerant of other people's point of view as long as their point of view agrees with mine. That's the kind of tolerance you get from modern liberals today. Now, she said, These girls were simply objecting to the idea that nobody was speaking up for the girls. Nobody was speaking up to defend what was going on in girls' athletics. Because you had all of amateur athletics, and now it seems even some of the professional athletes, who are not willing to stand up and say, if you're a biological male, stay in your lane. You're not allowed to go out and simply say, I want to compete as a girl. And we all understand the physical advantage that males have over females. If you don't believe me, how about Leah Thomas, the swimmer? And Leah Thomas is not a girl. Leah Thomas is William Thomas. William Thomas swam as a girl and set all kinds of records because he was swimming as something that he was not. And so these two girls who are at a women's athletic event. this storm game who was going on in Seattle against the Indiana fever. You'd think that would have been the place where they'd find support for that point of view. They did not, at least not from one of the co-owners of the storm team. And now the co-owner has been told you're not even welcome to come back and watch your own team play for the next five games because of your bad behavior. Glad to get your phone calls at 866. Hey, Lars, send emails to talk at laursons.com. You're listening to the Lars Larson Show and the Radio Northwest Network.

The Lars Larson Show Portland's news traffic in what? Lars reads every email. No, really. Look at larslarson.com. That's talk at larslarson.com. Now, back to the Lars Larson show. Hey, welcome back to the Lars Larson show. It's Conspiracy Theory Thursday. I've got to tell you something. Dr. John Lott usually has the straight skinny when it comes to statistical data about crime in America. And if you say that Lars, you've been telling us that crime is getting worse. Well, it is and it isn't. and it just depends on where you look and whether or not you believe in looking at the overall crime statistics, but understand that some of those crimes statistics come from a very, very tiny percentage of the entire country, but they cast a shadow across the rest of it. That might be a good way to describe it. Dr. Lott will correct me if it's not. He is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author, among other great books, of More Guns Less Crime. Dr. Lott, welcome back. That was great to talk to you again. Thanks for having me on. So I guess this is one of those problems of averages and looking at data to describe an entire country, but understanding that specific parts of the country might be in very, very deep trouble, while other parts of the country are having not much of a problem with crime at all. Is that a fair way to look at it? Yeah, no, that's accurate. You know, we recently did a study just to see how concentrated murders are in the United States. And 2% of the counties, 60 counties, account for 54% of the murders that are there. They have about 30% of the population, but they account for 54% of the murders. And if you look at what's called a murder map, to see how the murders are distributed in those counties, you find that about two-thirds of all their murders take place within roughly 10 block areas. So even within those counties, their murders are concentrated in very tiny areas. So by contrast, 53% of the counties have zero murders. A little bit over 16% have one murder. So you have about 70% of the counties in the United States have either zero or one murder. Their total murders only account for 3% of the murders that occur in the United States. So murders are very heavily concentrated. And there are other things just to know about these murderers.

of murders have a violent criminal history. You know, these are not normal people by any means. You know, there's often this kind of notion that anybody can just kind of lose their temper and go and commit a murder. And that's... That's not the case. And even the 10% that don't have an official criminal record, I suspect that many of those have been involved in crimes. They just haven't been caught or prosecuted yet for those crimes. I'm talking to Dr. John Lott, who's training, that's why he's a PhD, is as an economist. So he looks at the numbers. It sounds like if crime is that concentrated in those relatively small... a number of places out of 4,000 or so counties in America, you've got 60 counties that account for over half of all the murders. It makes it sound like the kind of problem that would be relatively easy to make a big difference in. If you said, well, then, let's focus the enforcement activity on murder in particular in those 63 counties out of 4,000 counties in the country. Is that what they do with the data? Well, I mean, that's what you could do. That's surely what you could do. Look, law enforcement and how you deal with crime is a local decision in the United States. The number of police you hire, the policing policies are determined by local governments. District attorneys are elected by local populations. And the vast majority of the country, local judges are elected locally. the decisions about how many you arrest because of the policing decisions, how many you charge with crimes because of the district attorneys, and how many, you know, when you do convict them, what type of sentences they face are all determined locally. And, you know, unfortunately, in some parts of the country, and you can just see this with some of the political debate that's going on right now with some. Democratic politicians arguing that we should abolish prisons and get rid of the police entirely. You know, there's some people who don't think that you should make it risky for criminals to go and commit crime. But that's, if you want to reduce it, you can go and put resources in those areas where the crime is. Well, it also seems like the kind of thing that once you start focusing in those particular areas, and even if you don't stop by zooming into the county, but you say within that county, where are the crimes actually happening? Do you think I'm right in suspecting that even within the county, they're very, very centrally located within that county in specific areas saying these are the places where most of the murders happen, and even the rest of the county is relatively murder-free or robbery-free? Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Look, I mean, the type of policy that you're suggesting has been something that people tried before. When Giuliani was mayor of New York, that's where they sent the police. They would go every day, see where the crimes were occurring, and that's where they would send the police. And, you know, obviously they had a huge impact on the crime right there. And what you'd find sometimes is that when you'd go and.

put the police in a particular area where the crime had been, the criminals would move. You know, they'd go to, you know, next door or something, and so they'd move the police to those areas. But after a while, when they kept on moving the police to wherever the crimes were, it had a big impact. And look, we can just see what impact this has this last year when President Trump federalized law enforcement in D.C. You had... a huge drop in violent crime and murder. I mean, he dramatically increased the arrest rates. You know, Judge Jean Piro, when she was the U.S. attorney there, the U.S. attorney in D.C. is responsible for prosecuting all crimes by adults. During the Biden administration, the U.S. attorney that Biden had appointed there refused to bring criminal charges against 67% of those who were arrested under Trump. That fell from 67% to 4%. They were bringing criminal charges against 96% of the people who were arrested. And not only were they bringing criminal charges against them, they were seeking serious penalties. The Biden administration, even the ones that they brought criminal penalties against, were not very strict penalties. So, you know, this isn't rocket science. If you want to reduce crime, you have to make it risky for criminals to go and commit crime. You know, like in January this year, there were two murders in the whole month in Washington, D.C. I mean, compare that to any previous year before they had done these policing policies that Trump had. Look at Memphis. where they also federalized law enforcement, a huge drop that they had in violent crime and murders. So. You know, it's very difficult to figure out the type of policy that you're talking about. And that's as long, Jon Ossoff you can get the folks who are doing the decision-making to not be afraid to be accused of being biased, because that's the first thing they'll do to shut you down. That's Dr. John Lott from the Crime Prevention Research Center.

Social property, what do the... Missed the Lars Larson Show? Get the podcast right now at Larslarson.com. Now. More with Lars Larson. Hey, 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. And if you believe in supporting American craftsmanship veterans and independent talk radio, go to my website and pick up the limited edition Lars Larson Show Challenge coin. Proudly made by American veterans, everyone comes with a personally signed thank you card from yours truly. And all proceeds. Every dime goes to benefit the veterans. None of it ends up in my pocket. to the pockets of my producers. I've got to tell you about something. This is just killing me. I started the day by talking about Sean Barnes, who may still be the police chief in Seattle, or he may be fired. We don't know. And this is how crazy it is. You've got the 13th biggest city in the United States of America, Seattle, Washington. You've got a mayor who's an idiot, Katie Wilson, her mom and dad still pay her bills. She's got a husband and a baby, and he doesn't work. She never worked at a real job until she got the job as mayor. Now she's in charge of a multi, multi-billion dollar city budget, and she can't make a decision to save her life. Consider this. The question is, Sunday, there's a mass shooting at the bite of Seattle at Seattle Center. And you say, okay, was the police chief there? No, the police chief commutes from his real home in Chicago, Illinois. I don't know if he lives in one of the suburbs, but he lives in the Chicago area. So he wasn't around. Well, was he around this weekend for the... shooting that happened in a city where he's the police chief. No, he was at a racially segregated police conference in Dallas, freaking Texas. He's put on by an organization that's all about black law enforcement. Now, does that tell you something about DEI hires like Sean Barnes? He said, okay, well, he wasn't there. Was the mayor happy about it? No, she wasn't happy about it at all. And then a bunch of civil rights organizations, so-called nine of them, show up at Mayor Wilson's office, and they say, we demand that you reinstate Sean Barnes, who may or may not have been fired, we don't know yet. And she says, well, and get this. Mayor Katie Wilson met with a coalition of black organizations. This is from the Linwood Times. For 40 minutes today, they say she will not commit to reinstating Chief Sean Barnes, but she will not admit that she fired him. Did you fire him? I won't tell you. Will you reinstate him? I won't tell you because I haven't told you if I fired him or not.

This is the kind of thing that passes for decision-making in liberal-managed cities like Seattle and Portland. It is pathetic. It is disturbing. It is wrong. And on that note, let's go to Kerry who's listening on KB&D in Bend on the Radio Northwest Network. Hey, Carrie, welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Thank you. In regards to the abhorrent Anthony Fauci mess. televised all over our nation yesterday. Yep. And we talked about it today. Horrible. Yep. However, the man that may have changed this country more than anyone else in decades with his lives was still supported by Democrats in the Senate. Are you talking about Anthony Fauci? That was... Yeah, Anthony Fauci. Several Democrats spoke up to thank him for his work, for being there, for being a part of the American tradition. It was inappropriate at that time to make this politically divisive. The man lied horribly, changed. our country forever, especially the young kids, and not to mention the small businesses, and I know a lot about that. And we still need to support him. Not very long ago, Marco Rubio was also in the Senate. One of the Democrats asked him about his shoes that she said were too big. He was shocked. but did try to answer the question before she left the room. And he said, is this the Senate or is this a circus? No kidding. Very well said. Kerry, thank you very much for the call. And I think you're absolutely right about that. Why the Democrats would defend the actions of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who, by the way, on the way into the pandemic, he was worth about $5 million. And how do I know that for a fact? Because people in high office like Anthony Fauci was when he worked for the government have to do disclosures. They have to admit how much money are they worth, how much, you know, what is their estimated net worth? What was he worth at the end of the pandemic? Two years later, he was worth $12 million. So apparently Anthony Fauci made $7 million during the two years of the pandemic and the big government overreaction. Let's go to Randy in Wenatchee. Hey, Randy, welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Well, I was just saying that on the forest fires and stuff like that, the reason the forest fires are... happening such regularity is because the trees get overcrowded and spruce budworm and things like that get on them and stuff like that i got this from somebody i knew who'd worked for the oregon forest department for 20 years named verne casey okay well

A lot of the Indian tribes, they thin their trees and they do selective logging. If we would go back to doing selective logging and send out these trees so they don't get overcrowded and get full of spruce butt room and stuff like that. You wouldn't have as many forest fires. I agree. Actually, Randy, what we should be doing is just logging period. Do you know that we had a period from the mid-50s to the mid-1980s? 30 years. We had one large fire of 100,000 acres. Today, the average for Oregon is half a million acres a year. The average Washington is half a million acres a year. And for those 30 years, we had one big fire of 100,000 acres. And that was because, number one, you maintain the roads. The Forest Service destroys them. Number two, you have people out there logging actively, both cutting and replanting, and you maintain that area. You have men and equipment and women as well out in those forests. And today, you've destroyed the roads. You've taken most of the crews out of the forest. And you don't have a way to fight the fires when they do get started. It's stupid and foolish, and it's very, very expensive because the logs that are burning up and then not being harvested after the fires, and they could be salvaged logged after the fires, they belong to the American people. And all of that value is being burned up because the environmentalists don't like the idea of cutting a tree. Well, the problem is most of those environmentalists live in woodhouses, and when they use the toilet, they use toilet paper, and that came from a tree, too. You're listening to The Lars Larson Show and the Radio Northwest Network. The Lars Larson Show.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's 24-7 protection when you bundle home and auto insurance with progressive. And if there's two things you can count on, it's your smoke detector battery dying at 3 a.m. Not 3 p.m. on a Saturday when you have nothing going on. But in the middle of the night when you're fast asleep. Oh, come on! Get 24-7 protection when you bundle home and auto with Progressive. Just one more thing you can count on. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and third-party insurance not available in all state or situations.