Mike Porcaro, behind the mic of your 50,000 watt blowtorch. News Radio 650, KENI. Live from Anchorage, it's your news and information blowtorch. conversation on your front Thank you, Cousin Rich. Appreciate that very much. And we're here. It's a Wednesday. And joining me, as he does every Wednesday, is the one and only Dr. Bruce Kiesling.
Hi, Mike. How are you? I'm well and thankful and I hope you're getting well. I'm getting well, yes. I'm better. That's good. Better is better. Being in the mere presence of... Your medicalness. Boy, you know, I did the laying on of hands. I think that's what happened. Okay. Well, we'll accept that. All right, we've got some questions, and blowtorch907 at gmail.com is the address to send in your questions.
And Diane sends in a question. She says, I received an unsolicited email from a company that was selling a supplement containing, is this Hesperidin or Hesperidin? Hesperidin. Hesperidin. There we go. I was going to get to that one sooner or later. This substance is supposed to help... in lowering blood pressure, repairing insulin resistance, lowering elevated blood sugar levels, and arresting abnormal blood lipids. What is hesperidin, and can it do all the things claimed?
Hey, Diane, I saw when I looked this up, they do a deep dive. I saw that they even touted it will help with eye floaters, which I'd be very personally grateful for. There is no high-quality clinical studies evaluating Hespardin alone for eye floaters. It doesn't do any good. And so you ask, what is it? You know, it's a flavanone glycoside, if that helps you at all. But it's found in citrus fruits. And its name is derived from hispariridium, which means for fruit produced by citrus trees.
So eat a lot of citrus if that's what you want to get, where you want to get it, because this is another one of these really flaky, misrepresentation, fraudulent kind of things. So I looked at a number of reviews. None of them found. evidence that hesperidin affected blood lipid levels or high blood pressure. They found that no improvement of any consequence of endothelial function.
It's really, you know, they give spam a bad name because, you know, if you ever went to a Mr. White Key show, he did really glorify spam. And I lived on spam to a certain degree when I was an undergrad. So let's just call it junk, junk mail. So Dan, when you hear this supposed to help, well, that doesn't mean that it does. That it has no metric to it, whatever.
It means that marketers, as you know, Diane, you get it, are counting on you to gloss over words like may help. And maybe if you gloss over that, you might think that it conclusively does help. No, no. There's no credible research to conclude that it actually does anything of consequence. And also, what does help mean? Measurable results do not exist for this product.
So let's say you get this. Does it have a UPS or UL certified label? No. And so you have no idea what you're getting in it. Are you really getting a spirited? So I get these emails too, Diane. And I do what I'm sure you inevitably did with this as well. All right. Bert sends a question and he says, I'm a senior citizen and I'm a bit worried about all this talk about a measles outbreak.
I had measles as a child almost 70 years ago. Does my natural immunity need a booster shot? No, no. I'm 77 and I've not had a booster either. um to kind of review it those of us who were born before 1957 we have we're considered to have immunity and because almost certainly we had the infection it is so contagious it was impossible to escape it in our youth and So this is all before vaccinations came into being. But if you are born after 1957 and vaccinated before 1968, then there's an issue.
uh a not a live attenuated it's a dead virus doesn't work as well so those folks between born between 57 68 uh if that's all they got then they should get at least one dose of the live attenuated vaccine And then after that, after 68, and if you're vaccinated between 68 and 89, you receive just one dose of the measles live attenuated vaccine.
And after 89, the standard is to get two doses. If you only got one dose of the live attenuated, you're probably protected. But if you want to boost it, fine. And I guess I want to just. really summarize it Bert that if you're really worried there's no downside to getting a booster but you don't need to Bert and I didn't get one and I'm not going to get one I don't need it because we had the live one we certainly did
We had the live one. I think I almost remember it. I do. I remember being sent over to play in a house with a bunch of kids that had measles. And guess what? I got the measles. right and it wasn't it wasn't fun no no unfortunately we didn't get to complications the encephalitis the deafness are all the things that can develop so but you know be assured
You're okay, Bert. Chuck says, I have seen a few of my buddies come down with RSV. We are all in our mid-70s. I thought RSV was a childhood disease. Is there a shot for old guys? Well, it is a childhood disease, but all ages can get RSV, and they do, Chuck. But the most vulnerable demographic are the very young, five years old or so. and seniors, which you and I are in that category. So, Chuck, you didn't mention, how are your buddies? How long, how badly were they ill?
I hope they're all doing fine. Because in seniors, RSV typically causes mild cold-like symptoms. Like a runny nose, cough, low-grade fever, sneezing. I'm sure I've had RSV in the past. but I never had it actually tested for that, it can lead to more severe complications like pneumonia, especially in those with underlying health conditions or weakened immune systems.
So the official recommendation, Chuck, is that a single dose of the FDA-licensed RSV vaccine for all adults 75 and older and adults between... 60 and 74 who are at increased risk of severe RSV and those are the immunocompromised for whatever reason. There are three RSV vaccines currently available.
They all work equally well. So it's whatever is stocked, wherever you go to get it. You can get an RSV vaccine at any time, Chuck, but the best time to vaccinate is probably the late summer and early fall before RSV. usually starts to spread in the community, although it's going around now for sure. The RSV vaccine is not currently an annual vaccine, but the...
One of the things that nobody's really asked, but I think I'm going to ask for the audience anyway. If someone's immunocompromised, how much good does a vaccine do? Because... the vaccine has to have an immunologic response okay so that's my argument behind getting two flu shots because if you're immunocompromised or your immune system doesn't you know boost up in a robust fashion like
You know, the seniors. That's why I've always said, well, get another one in January. Okay. Well, if the RSV is for immunocompromised, then what's the efficacy? How effective is it? And it drops off in people that are immunocompromised, but it's still up in the 70% range. it doesn't mean you won't get rsv it's kind of like what we said before about the flu vaccine doesn't mean you won't get it just means you won't die of it you won't get the severe complications and so
That's why when they say, well, should you get it, the RSV, every year, the jury's out on that. But on immunocompromised folks, they probably will need to get it because they say it's good for two years. But I think that the reality will be that it wanes after one year. So I have to admit, I haven't gotten an RSV vaccination. Have you? No. Okay.
I'm sure I've had RSV and maybe I'm rolling the dice. Maybe it's, you know, vaccine fatigue. There's no rational reason why I haven't gotten an RSV. But then I'm not always rational. I try to be. But in this instance, you know, as far as my mother's concerned, now 98, it's not, you know, it's not a multiple choice. And she got desperately ill with the influenza A here just last month.
it's up to you it's available your question is you know answered I think it's not just a childhood illness and we're vulnerable Chuck and you have a shot available to you so What about flu? Is it too late to get another flu shot now? Or if somebody has only had one, there's a lot of flu going around. There's a lot of stuff going around. Yeah, actually, what we're seeing...
And I'm not, this isn't a plug necessarily for PCA, but I will say that, you know, the clinics that I found at primary care associates, they have this machine that will test for like 80 different, 60, 80 different bugs. And so when you go in there, you can find out exactly what you have. Is it a community coronavirus? Not the COVID coronavirus. Is it mycoplasma? We're finding that that's a lot more common.
Is it RSV? Is it COVID? And you can really get precise medicine. And for the most part, the insurances are covering for that. So you can... You can find out what's really going on, and the beauty of that test is that folks come in and say, just give me a Z-Pak. That's what I've always had. I need a Z-Pak. Well, you know, maybe if you have mycoplasma, that's appropriate, but, you know, you can come into a room and you can tell someone, this is what you have, which is a community virus.
And we don't want to give you C. difficile. We don't want to give you a super infection. So this is the course of events. Or they can say, okay, you have RSV. And this just means that you're going to have a cold. longer than the usual cold but you will get over it but if you get this that or the other complication will deal with it at that time so you can have some precise answers
based on really pretty wonderful technology. So do you go in and do you ask for that? I mean, what's the... Well, you know, at the primary care clinics, they have, all of them have this available. And it will be explained to you what it does. It will be explained to you on the basis of what your insurance is, whether it's likely to be covered or not. And if you have to pay for it out of pocket, it's still pretty pricey in a $300 range.
But if you're sick and you want to know exactly what's going on, I know it is expensive, but it's precise. Fortunately, insurances are covering it. That's the good news for sure. Well, we come to a last question, which is a really interesting question. Ed, he says, my wife and I are retired and have a great network of friends. We would like to move closer to our kids on the East Coast, but I also know the value of close friendships and well-being right here. Any thoughts?
Mike, you and I were talking about this before the program started. It never fails. Each week, this audience provides at least one, for me, very provocative question. So, Ed. My wife and I are similarly situated as you are, and we have considered moving, but we haven't, and we won't. Our reasons I'm not going to go into unless we have time for it, but our network of friends here...
have been significantly reduced because all of our friends have chosen to move out or to be absent a large portion of the year. They're snowbirds. Some return for a short while yearly, and we catch up. But that's nothing like... what it was like when they lived here full-time we were raising our families so ed in my 50 years of practice i witnessed hundreds of patients who considered your question for themselves of those who chose to move out
About a quarter of them moved back within three years. And another quarter, summer birded or snowbirded. And by that I mean they established residents elsewhere but returned to Alaska for three to four months in the summer. they went out in the wintertime they didn't relocate outside permanently so let me share what i learned to recommend from their experience
What I would ask you to consider, put down on paper or on your computer a spreadsheet of objective data to help with your decision. Make a list of your network of friends and separate them into two categories. Real friends in one column and agreeable acquaintances, pleasant company in the other. And without going into what constitutes a real friendship, I think you understand where I'm coming from when you try to distinguish.
between these two categories among your network of friends. When you identify your best friends, then you want to have a close and candid conversation with them about two other categories they will fall into. Real friends who are staying in Alaska indefinitely. And those who plan to move out for much of the year or full time. And what's their timeline? Okay? So agreeable acquaintances and, you know, pleasant company, you're going to find wherever you locate.
Just by the nature of your question, I'm sure that you get along with a lot of people. And if you choose to mingle and engage in whatever community you're in. But it's the real friends that you'll miss. And some of your real friends you're going to be closer to than your wife. And your wife will be closer to them than you. And you better respect that. I mean, of course you will. So if you find that many or most of your local network will be decimated by their own moves, travels.
frequent appearances especially if they are your best friends that'll make your decision easier of course you too can choose to split your time here and outside So what another thing that I learned from my patients take stock of what you will do with your days if you relocate You don't have any problem now ed with that because
established routine or as you put it your well-being in retirement that's established what role will you play will you play with where your kids live they have lives of their own And you might just ask yourself the question, what role did your parents have in your life, you know, when they got older? So among my patients, the happiest who relocated fell into two groups.
one group relocated because they were truly fed up and disgusted with the darkness the cold they couldn't get outside comfortably If they ever did find enjoyment in Alaska, they certainly no longer do. And the environment itself has diminished even their enjoyment of the friends that they made here.
Now, these folks were, like I said, disgusted. So their decision was straightforward. If you're miserable on your job, then you want to change it. If you're chronically unhappy with the weather, then do something about it. Permanently relocate.
or snowbird and these were the happiest among the relocators of in my practice ironically though ed those who moved to be closer to family had more difficulty adjusting depending on how they were able to engage and what the expectations were with the boundaries and all that how to engage and titrate their involvement with the families that they move close to
Those who were embraced by grandkids and got really involved with them, which in turn took pressure off their parents, they did the best. They were happiest. The grandkids were the glue. So every person has a story, and every person's favorite story is their own. How will real-time, day-to-day living impact your kids' lives, your grandkids' lives, and your life? How will it evolve?
What are the details of your merger with her family? As far as locations, I think every location has its charms. I don't know how many times I hear people, Alaska, Alaska, how can you live in Alaska? Okay, every location has its charm, some harder to find than others. Also, Ed, there's family, and then there's in-laws. Okay? Be sure to have a clear understanding.
of the in-laws feelings not just what they say to get along with you and their spouse it ain't necessarily so the things that you're liable to read in the family bible okay meanwhile it's important to mention that those who couldn't decide among my patients on this question, they did the sensible thing and they procrastinated. They rented a home. or an Airbnb in the area closest to their kids, and they tested it for a month or three.
It's an expense, but it is much, much less expensive than actually selling your home here, relocating and buying another one, and then finding out it's not working out for your well-being or for necessarily your family either. Also, if it turns out to be exactly what you want, you'll have a leisurely pace of shopping residences in the area. But Ed, finally, I have to say, isn't it great to have freedom of choice? Really.
I hope this has been some use to you. I know I've enjoyed mulling my experiences with patients about your question. So I now turn it over to Mike. Mike, you can do your program anywhere in the United States. Why are you still here? Because this has been my home for 50-plus years. We do have friends here. It's home. I mean, I don't know what else to say. Does it drive me crazy in the winter? Yeah.
And as I get older, my tolerance decreases for darkness and cold. But, you know, maybe for me, it would be good just to kind of get out of here for a couple of months in the winter and come back. I love the summers here. And for as long as I've been on this program, which has been, what, six or eight years, whatever, you talk about it, but in terms of actually going out for extended length of time, you're a workaholic.
You're here, really? I know. I don't know how many weeks you actually spend out of the state. Well, we used to spend probably six weeks out of the state. And you're right. In fact, I take my little equipment with me, and I can do the show anywhere, and I have. And we used to spend a lot of time down in Napa. Napa has gotten real expensive, and it's California, unfortunately. If we can move Napa out of California, we'd be fine.
Well, that's the other thing about relocating, and you go in and you kind of romanticize, glamorize with that, and that's why it's really important to live there for a while. I should mention that one of the reasons why I enjoy the cold, I enjoy the winter, actually, I get out during the time of greatest light every day and walk dogs for four miles, and that is very crucial. That's very good. From my spirit. My wife, Les Sochi, has been spending time in the lower 48.
with my son who has just finishing up his work as a resident in neurosurgery. And the good news is after 20 years of training, experience, residency, research, since high school he's hardcore alaskan and he's returning to alaska he has been offered a position in the a-team and we're lucky to have him back for the neurosurgery here in town
And so he will be starting here as a neurosurgeon. So we have both our sons here with us. So that's why we're staying. Yeah, and that's important. Your kids move closer to you. It works for us. All right. Time to go. If you have questions, send them to blowtorch907 at gmail.com. And, Doc, we will see you next week. Look forward to it. Keep pushing the fluids. I will do that. We'll be right back. Now, back to the Mike Porcaro Show with Crash on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Welcome back, everybody.
5-2-2-0-6-50. It is 38 degrees here in Anchorage. Maybe we'll get spring. It's definitely slushy out there, though. We're talking lots of slush. It's miserable. Our second breakup, third breakup. I think it's the third. Yeah, it's getting crazy. 40 in Palmer, 38 in Soldotna, 37 in Homer, Talkeetna 39, Fairbanks 31, and minus six up in Prudhoe Bay with a winter weather. Well, we are happy to have as a guest Michael O'Neill.
Vice President of Legal Affairs of the landmark Legal Foundation. And Michael is a graduate of Villanova University and the Catholic University's Columbus School of Law. And Michael, welcome to the program. Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you guys. I'm listening to you talk about the weather up there. It makes me sound like you guys must be ready for spring. By the time mid-March rolls around, you must be...
You must be ready for some nicer weather, huh? Yes, we are. And summers up here can be absolutely glorious with our long days. It's just lovely. And great fishing. Oh, that sounds awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about the Landmark Legal Foundation. Sure. We are a national public interest law firm. We're an exempt organization. It's funny you're hearing about all these exempt organizations around Washington, D.C.
They're getting all this government grant money, right? Well, we are an exempt organization, but we've never received one penny, one dime in any kind of government grant money. So we're wholly privately funded. We are, again, a charitable organization. We promote liberty. We fight against tyranny. We promote separation of powers.
So, of course, people like me have been very busy in the past few years because it seems like every day there's another separation of powers issue that's coming down the pike. And I just think we live in really exciting times and we're grappling with a lot of important constitutional issues.
And we really need to seize the day and address all these incredible issues that our country is facing. Well, we certainly are. In fact, we just had one, and one is actually ongoing with President Trump deporting. a bunch of ne'er-do-will criminals from Venezuela to El Salvador, and a judge, Judge Boesburg, essentially saying, turn that plane around and bring these people back.
And I guess I just wonder, the guy's a U.S. district judge. Yeah. And, you know, as an attorney, as a guy from the legal foundation. You know, you've got respect for judges, and we do, and we should. We should have respect. But their word, I mean, you kind of wonder sometimes, are they over their skis here? Is this guy... Absolutely. And there's a couple of things to unpack with all this. And the issue, the particular case you're bringing up is a great way to illustrate.
all the issues that are floating around with this. So first of all, the big issue that you touched on is this power of a district court judge. Does a district court judge have the power to impose a nationwide injunction, injunctive relief? that is effective throughout the entire country. Imagine some judge in Washington, D.C.,
thinking he knows what's good for the people of Alaska and imposing some sort of injunctive relief that affects people in Alaska, or vice versa for that matter. We live in a big, broad, diverse country, and local judges, and essentially that's what they are. You know, there's about six...
There's closer to about 700 of these individuals, and they serve in each respective district in the country. And this big issue, this meta issue that I think the United States Supreme Court is going to have to grapple with... is the extent to which these judges, these district court judges, have this immense, over enormous power. It's really hard to contemplate it, to actually issue these nationwide rulings.
that affect not just their districts and their jurisdictions, but the entire country. So that's really the big issue here. And then, again, illustrative of this particular issue, you had a judge here who was well over his skis in issuing this decision. President Trump... ran on a platform of identifying and deporting the worst of the worst.
Immigration reform, getting a hold of our border, getting control of our border. Well, one of the first steps he needs to take to getting control of illegal immigration is identifying and deporting the worst of the worst. Well, this is what he did. He utilized his power under a statute called the Alien Enemies Act. There's a law that was passed in 1798. Just because it was passed in 1798 doesn't mean it's not valid. It's a valid law. It was affirmed by the Supreme Court post-World War II.
He uses constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, and the individual, the chief executive who's charged with protecting the security of the United States... directed his Department of Justice, his Department of Homeland Security, and his Department of Defense to engage in this operation where they identified and rounded up individuals.
who have been deployed essentially narco-terrorists, right? These are the worst of the worst, individuals who've been deployed by Venezuela with ties to the Venezuelan government to essentially wreak havoc in our country. And he wanted them rounded up and put on a plane and sent to El Salvador to one of those supermax prisons. I would venture to say that an action overwhelmingly supported by the United States.
challenge anybody to find some sort of opposition to that. I mean, nobody in their right minds would oppose that. Well, of course, this judge decided he was going to put a stop to it and say, because I think they're motivated by a lot of hatred for Donald Trump and opposition to anything and everything he does.
And the judge decided he was going to utilize his power, and I would assert to improperly utilize his power, and try to put a stop to it. And again, this is illustrative of kind of the bigger problem here of the power of these judges. Well, and I guess it's really interesting because it kind of even got even wilder when Chief Justice Roberts came out and made a statement about the fact that impeachment...
is not a remedy if you disagree with a lower court decision. And I would say, you know, obviously there are the courts you go through. But it seems to me that the good Justice Roberts might be a little bit worried that Congress may be having second thoughts or maybe... their patience is running out with some of this nonsense because it seems that everything that president trump does is being challenged or stopped by a district court judge
Absolutely. You think there is an orchestrated movement to oppose every executive action by the president. So we have 96 injunctions in six weeks that have been issued. 83 of those, 96 have been issued by other partners. Judges put in place by either a Democrat elected president, so Obama, Biden, maybe Clinton judges. Maybe, I don't even know if there's a Carter judge out there. But anyway, so you have this problem. Obviously, it's partisan that's run amok.
And I think the bigger problem here, and as an attorney and a practitioner who practices these courts, it really upsets me that the American people are losing faith in the judiciary, the integrity of the judiciary. Look, the only thing, not the only thing, but one of the great things that the judiciary has going for it, and particularly the United States Supreme Court,
is the fact that most Americans hold it in high esteem and have great respect for it. Well, again, I think that respect is eroding. And once that respect is lost, it's lost for good. It's really difficult to get that integrity and respect back.
So I do think it's incumbent upon the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts, interestingly, gentlemen, Chief Justice Roberts, his title is not Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. His title is Chief Justice of the United States. So he is the head of the judicial branch. And so it is incumbent upon Chief Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court.
to rein in these lower court judges. Look, they had an opportunity to do it a couple weeks ago with that USAID ruling. I don't know if you get a gentleman. Remember that case? Yes. Exactly. The Supreme Court took a pass on it. Four of the justices had disagreed. There was a great...
dissent written by Justice Alito that really kind of laid out the problems with it. I think now they passed on it. That was to their detriment. I think now with this case, this case involving this temporary restraining order issued for these narco terrorists.
It comes up before them, and I submit to you it's going to come up sooner rather than later. I mean weeks, not months or anything like that. The Supreme Court should not let this opportunity pass by, and they need to send a clear and definitive message that judges operating outside their jurisdictional authority... are going to be rebuked in the strongest possible terms. That will go a long way to getting the judiciary's house in order. Again, my take is this.
is you should have an opportunity to get your own houses in order before you have to rely on outside parties. Now, again, as you said, Congress does have a role here. All these courts are inferior courts under our constitutional structure, and they are established by statute.
in other words, established by Congress, and Congress does retain jurisdictional authority over them in the judiciary act. So they could pass a law stripping them of jurisdiction, and all these sorts of things are roaming around. From my perspective, I would really like to see the Supreme Court get its own house. I would have to agree, and I think a lot of people don't understand that these courts are empowered by statute.
They're not empowered by the Constitution. There's nothing in the Constitution that says district court. Absolutely. The only court that's discussed in the Constitution is the Supreme Court. has an Article I power to establish inferior courts. And again, there's the Judiciary Act. I think it was the first one was 1789, and then subsequent Judiciary Acts have been passed. But those lay out the jurisdiction and establish the lower, quote-unquote, inferior courts.
And ultimately, you know, Congress has the jurisdiction authority there. Obviously, they also have the power of the purse. It's interesting. That's why it's imperative that integrity and respect for the institution of the judicial system is intact, because that's really their strongest thing going for them. They don't have any...
power of the purse like congress they don't have any executive authority they don't have like like the executive branch like the presidency they don't have they don't have that sort of thing so it's really incumbent upon the full faith of the american people trusting in the courts to uphold our principles and
You see this. You see this orchestrated effort. You see these judges that obviously are form-shot. You have these sophisticated parties who are bringing these lawsuits. They know exactly where to launch these lawsuits. They know exactly the kind of relief to ask for. They increase the likelihood of success. They have these judges that are just, unfortunately, rubber stamping a lot of these decisions.
I mean, we could talk about the legalities of the problems of it. We can get into the details of it. But let's assure that this judge in Washington, D.C., in this particular case, is operating well outside his jurisdictional authority. He should have never... He should have never signed on to this temporary restraining order. He should have dismissed the petition and thrown it out.
But he didn't, and now we're left with this mess. Exactly. Well, Michael, I know you've got another engagement here. Actually, my plans change, gentlemen. I can stick around if you want me for another segment. I'd love it. I think I'd love it.
I had a change of plan, so I'm good to go. Okay. Well, see, I was living up to my word to get you out of here. I appreciate that. But hang on, Michael. We'll be right back. My guest is Michael O'Neill from the Landmark Legal Foundation, and we'll be right back. We are back. It is 4.50. We have about six minutes left in the segment. Michael O'Neill, Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Landmark Legal Foundation.
is kind enough to stay with us during this brief segment. And, Michael, let me switch gears if I can. Sure. One of the things we've been talking about is pardons and the auto pen. And those two things are kind of interesting. My reading of the Constitution doesn't say that a president has to sign anything with a pardon, but he has the power to provide a pardon.
And then you also have the whole idea of the auto pen. So what's your take on all this? That is an interesting question. I'm glad you asked it. It's interesting because we kind of bat that around in my office of late. The pardon power is plenary. There's a lot of P's there. The plenary power of the pardon. And up until this time, it's never been challenged. Presidents have always exercised the pardon power.
And the most controversial pardon in history, of course, was the one where that was Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. And that was a blanket pardon. That was a very broad-based pardon that he gave for Richard Nixon. And I think a lot of people in history... kind of has arrived at the conclusion that it might have cost Gerald Ford the presidency.
So that was the most controversial one up until Joe Biden, of course, who clearly grotesquely abused his pardon power to the point where he issued those pardons where they were for a 10-year... thousands of pardons to individuals for a 10-year window for anything they might have done. I mean, it's strange credulity to think that that's how the framers and our founders envisioned the exercise of the pardon power.
And I think we flipped it around, and I wonder if this is on the agenda here, is to actually test the extent to which the pardon power is exercisable by the President of the United States. And I don't know whether – the bottom line here, gentlemen, is – I don't know, and I really don't think anybody knows because the power was never abused to such an extent where the bounds of it had to be tested from a constitutional standpoint. But, of course, thank you, Joe Biden.
for destroying and shredding the Constitution to a point where we've managed to go over almost 250 years with this power, and it's never been abused to the extent to where we've actually had to test it. But now I think it's a valid question. And I think you're raising the issue. I think it's a valid issue because the width and breadth of these pardons really, again, it just boggles my mind. You're saying anything from 2014 through 2024.
anything you might have done. I mean, can you ever think that the framers envisioned when they were, you know, awarding their enshrining the presidential pardon power of the Constitution, that that was how they envisioned it? I mean, I can't ever think that that was how it was. So how would it work? Yeah, I would take a pardon. A pardon would be something that you've done.
Not something that I, you know, may do or have done that you don't know about. Exactly. I mean, pardon, right. You've been convicted, the January 6th, folks. You were in the Capitol on January 6th. You served three years in prison or in jail, and you've done your time, and then you're getting a pardon. So, okay, there you go. That's an example.
But for something you might have done or you haven't been indicted for it, this is how it would happen. And I've kind of mulled this through. So what would happen, I think, procedurally is you charge one of these individuals with a crime, charge Hunter Biden with a crime, for example. Seek the prosecution.
Invariably, what will happen is he'll move to dismiss the indictment, and then a district court judge will dismiss the indictment and say, pardon's applicable here, indictment dismissed. Government appeals, the Justice Department appeals to the circuit court. Circuit court says, nope, pardon power is plenary.
uh indictment dismissed to the supreme court guess what the supreme court decides whether they're going to grant certiorari or not hopefully they grant certiorari and then everybody briefs and litigates it and we get into a fight about width and breadth of the pardon power. Again, an open constitutional question because it's just never been addressed. Exactly. In about a minute I've got left, the auto pen. Yeah. I mean...
You have to sign bills, right? I mean, you can't just use the auto pen. The auto pen is something that you do for letters or what have you. Right. Just give me, you know, 30 seconds on the autopilot, Michael. I wish, again, here we go. I wish I had a stronger answer for you. Clearly, it raises a lot of questions about the competency of the former president and whether he knew what was going on, I think.
But, again, never been tested. Here we are again. As I said when I first started this interview with you guys, we're in interesting times, and I really wish I could give you a solid answer, but it certainly raises some serious questions that I think could be addressed. Well, you've got a fun job, and you're good at what you do, and we'd love to have you back on. So, you know, please, if there's something that you think is something we should know about our audience up here.
from the Landmark Legal Foundation. We'd love to have you back on, Michael. Absolutely. Love talking to folks up in Alaska. That's awesome. All right. Michael O'Neill, you have a great evening, and hopefully we'll talk to you soon. You too. Take care. All right. Thank you.
All right, this is Michael O'Neill from the Landmark Legal Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Legal Center. That's a pretty good name for a place there. I was just looking him up. He's an Esquire also. I wish I could get Esquire next to my name. Well, you could. Just put it there. Okay, that is true. Crash does things like that. I've seen that. Olympic hopeful. Yeah, okay. You know, you should earn it. You know, I can sling some dogs for it. Okay.
All right, it is time to take a break. Come back for hour number two. So stick around. Mike Porcaro, behind the mic of your 50,000-watt blowtorch. News Radio 650, KENI. Live from Anchorage, it's your news and information blowtorch. on you All right, it is hour number two, and it's sloppy and miserable outside. Oh, is it ever? Awful. But we have a guest that will brighten up everybody's hour. A ray of sunshine. Exactly.
congressman nick bankage the third nick how are you i'm doing well doing well happy to be uh a bright spot on a soggy day well um You know, what the heck's going on? You're up here doing all sorts of stuff. Can you kind of give us an update on what's going on with you and what's going on with Alaska and the country? Oh, gosh. Well, where to begin? Things are going well. Things are going very well, actually. We're working on a number of pieces of legislation.
that pertains specifically to Alaska. We're trying to open up the resources that we were talking about opening up during the campaign. We're talking about oil and gas, mineral potential, revitalizing. the timber industry, and we're doing those things hopefully through the budget reconciliation process, and that's what a lot of the work in the Congress is going to be focused on here in the next several weeks. We've been working on this since.
even before I was sworn in, but we are absolutely under a true focus, right? We are laser focused. on ways that we can provide some support to the federal government for revenue, but at the same time open up the state again and lock in some of the progress that has been made already by the Trump administration.
permanently in a durable way that will allow us to continue to have the right to develop our own resources and chart our own course. So that's been the predominant focus. Of course, there's a number of national issues that we are also focused on. And the Trump administration is making rapid progress in ensuring that our border is secure. They've done an incredible job of that. In fact, border crossings or illegal border crossings are down.
more than 95% year over year. And that is tremendous, not just in terms of national security, but also our economic well-being as a nation, making sure that the folks that are...
in our nation are the ones that should be in our nation are the ones that were receiving the benefits of being in our nation. So many of folks who had been entering our nation illegally were sapping resources from tax-paying citizens, whether that be health care or education or housing, those illegal migrants that have been entering the country under the previous administration were just...
taxing local state and federal resources to the point where it was putting our own citizens at risk of not receiving the funds that they need. And so this is a great win across the board. Of course, there have been other wins. We passed the Halt-Fentanyl Act as well as the Laken-Riley Act, both.
out of the House and the Senate, and have been signed into law by the President, that help us not just to control the border, but also fight against this fentanyl crisis that has been ravaging communities. across the United States, including Alaska. And so we've found opportunities to deliver on the promises that have been made. These are promises that were made, now they're promises that have been kept.
and that will help to protect our nation and put us on a stronger economic footing. So there's a lot more to come. The two bills that I just mentioned, Halt-Fentanyl Act and Lake and Riley Act, were bipartisan. bills of support. We had a number of Democrats actually come over and tacitly admit that the policies of the Biden administration had failed.
and they voted with the Trump administration and the Republican conference to say, hey, we've got to correct these things. And so we'll continue to look for opportunities to do that. Budget reconciliation is going to be a great opportunity for Alaska. to reestablish its right to produce. And I'm sure there's going to be a whole lot of excitement over the next several weeks as more of this unfolds.
Well, it's been really interesting. I mean, you have a situation where we just had a gentleman on from the Landmark Legals Foundation talking about the judge's order. to turn a plane around in the air over in international airspace. And certainly you can imagine his opinion on that. But there's been a lot of this going on. And I guess the question I would ask, are you getting constituent feedback on Doge and specifically on tariffs? I know the premier...
British Columbia, Mr. Eby, was threatening our truckers with this. And Senator Sullivan, he was on the show a couple of weeks ago, kind of said, hey, don't do that because... We can bypass your port when we want to bring tourists to Alaska, and there's a whole bunch of other problems. So I don't know if that's something that you guys have been involved in in the House, but it certainly brought a whole bunch of...
news and attention up here. Yeah, so three things that you raised there, judges, doge, and tariffs. And so I'll hit those one by one. Sure. In terms of activist judges, we are seeing a number of activist judges take action that I believe is well outside of their authority against the administration. These are judges that are in particular district courts that have been packed with leftist ideologues.
And so when people attempt to sue the administration or bring an action against the administration, they do so in these particular districts in order to maximize their opportunity for a favorable ruling. And, you know, we have a separation of powers, and the president has certain authorities that have been granted to that office under the Constitution, and the president is deporting terrorists.
These are named terrorists. And this judge, when you consider that, the judge is saying, no, bring the terrorists back. Bring the terrorists back is what the judge is saying in that order. And that is absurd. It is ridiculous.
And I'm confident that that will be overturned in the courts at a higher level over time. But we do have this tension point between some overactive, zealous... judges in the judiciary and that needs to be reined in um we also have the efforts of doge doge continues to uncover incredible amounts of fraud waste and abuse throughout the government and Item after item, example after example of the most egregious mechanisms of funding foreign governments, of funding sort of backdoor activism.
that we're seeing the $20 billion that went out in the final days of the Biden administration to so-called NGOs, non-governmental entities that only exist with government money, and no real strings attached. This taxpayer money just went right out the door at the last second and in many cases we believe is being used to redirect to support political operations.
that are either attached to or sympathetic to the Democrat Party. And that is absolutely wrong, and it needs to be eliminated. Those funds need to be clawed back in the Trump administration and the Congress.
is working to do that when uh you talk about tariffs i've met many times with uh folks in the canadian government i think we've had six or seven meetings so far What we've recognized is that among the G20, these are the 20 largest economies in the world among the G20, the United States has the lowest tariff barriers. the lowest, and it's not even close. And when you look at the G20 nations and their aggregated tariff barriers, as well as non-tariff barriers, such as government subsidies,
to support their industries domestically. We have open access to our markets and virtually no access to theirs. And when you talk about free trade, you have to have fair trade. There's no such thing as
as unilateral free trade. It's got to be bilateral. And right now, we do not have fair access to these foreign markets, but they have open access effectively to ours. And what we're seeing from the Trump administration Yes, it's a shock to the system because this has been allowed to persist for decades, but we have a president right now who's standing up for the American worker and the American business owner, and they're saying, hey,
We want to compete on a level playing field, and we have been unable to do so, and we are not going to tolerate this kind of abuse of the American worker any longer. You want free trade? It needs to be fair trade, and that's what we're pushing for right now. Well, I think that's a great opportunity, and it's a whole different world down there now, Nick, because you're in the majority. Alaska has that representation.
I know that you were being tasked with some pretty high-level committee assignments, and, you know, you just got there. So what does that say? Well, you know, we only have one member of the House, as we've talked about. There's 435 members of the House from the 50 states, but there's only one from Alaska.
I have had the opportunity to expand our jurisdictional reach. I know that the previous member had four subcommittee assignments and two committee assignments. I have three committee assignments with eight subcommittee assignments. And so we're roughly double the workload. Are you showing off or something? Come on. Well, I'm just saying, you know, the numbers are what they are.
The reason that's important is because we want to maximize our jurisdictional reach. Yes. Because by maximizing our jurisdictional reach, we give the state more opportunities. to weigh in, to be a part of important programs, to make sure that the laws are being passed are consistent with what's in the best interest, not just of the country, of course, but also of the residents of our state.
Yes, I've taken on a bit more work than is normal, but, hey, this is an important job. And because we only have one person in that role, I'm more than happy to do it to make sure that Alaska is being represented broadly. Well, we appreciate what you're doing and keep up the good work. And anytime you want to talk about what's going on or need to get a message out, you know where we are and we'd love to have you back on. Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, everybody. All right. Thank you, Congressman. Congressman Nick Begich III. We'll be right back. Well, welcome back, everybody. It is 523. Glad to have you with us. And it's been a pretty busy show today. A lot of great guests. We started off with a doc. Then we had Michael O'Neill from the Landmark.
Legal Foundation, and our Congressman Nick Baker III. So we've done doctors, lawyers, and politicians. Man, you're on a roll here. Well, you know, every once in a while, you just have to essentially... get good guests on the show and give people an opportunity to hear, you know, intelligent conversation, which is odd on this show.
Oh, man. Crash will be back. Don't worry. We're winding down on the time with me here. So, you know, the bad humor will go. The fun humor will come back. And the intelligent conversation will cease. That's not true. I've heard Trash say many intelligent things. Yes, he has. wanted to get that recorded into the system so that I said that. Yes. Meanwhile, it's 38 degrees here, 39 in Palmer, 37 in Soldatna, Homer's 38, Talkeetna's 38.
Fairbanks is 30. Prudhoe is minus 5 with some winter weather advisories. 50 in Seattle, 46 in New York. Akaroa, New Zealand, 62. Pensacola, Florida, 69. Tampa, Florida, 67. Also 67 in Tifton, Georgia. And where our good buddy Crash is, it's mostly cloudy and 46 degrees at 1025 in the morning tomorrow in Tokyo.
And he's got to be having fun over there because he hasn't called us. No, I'm waiting for that. He's going to be... be really kind of messed up when he well more so than normal but he's going to be uh messed up when he comes back because of the time change well so what's funny is is all of us sprung forward one hour right crash has technically sprung forward a full
day and he's now going to have to fall back a full day. Groundhog Day, he's going to relive one whole day of his life. That's right. Imagine reliving a day in Crash's life. I don't know. That could be a fun movie. If the world is quite ready.
for that but it'll be fun so he'll be back on monday is that right i that is what i have been informed of course knock on wood we never know what will happen out there between our volcanoes and our weather and everything else so right speaking of that um The podcast of the interview.
with Matt Haney is up there. Oh, absolutely. It has been up there since about 20 minutes after he got done with it, and people are listening to it. There's some great information on it. When you look at it, it is the first of yesterday's podcast, or just look for it. It actually says right in it. interview with Mark Haney yes Matt excuse me and yeah because what they're saying is it looks we're going to get an eruption they believe
When exactly, we don't know. It's hard to predict those things. But it's showing all the signs that it's going to continue to grow. Right now we're in condition yellow. The next condition is orange. Guess what? Red. And it goes through those usually fairly fast. It's kind of like my stomach rumbling and everything. It starts to rumble on one side, and the next thing you know, all that lava's got to go somewhere. Yes, it does.
All right. It is 527. Let's take our break. When we come back, we'll take your phone calls. Stay with us. Welcome back, everybody. It is 5.32. And a federal judge has denied the embattled government-funded agency's restraining order. requesting against Doge. And this is about the U.S. Institute for Peace. Okay. Federal judge ruled in favor of the Trump.
Administration on Wednesday after a government-funded nonprofit organization filed a lawsuit protecting it from ongoing destruction from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The U.S. Institute for Peace filed a request for a temporary restraining order on Tuesday claiming that Doge had committed literal trespass and takeover by force of the Institute's headquarters on Constitution Avenue.
And meanwhile, the judge, Judge Beryl Howell, mentioned and she motioned to deny the USIP's request. for the temporary restraining order. She says, I think there is a confusion in the complaint that makes me uncomfortable. I would say I am very offended by how Doge has operated.
in the institute in treating american citizens but that concern about how this has gone down is not the one that can sway me for consideration of a factor of a temporary restraining order which is emergency relief which is exceptional Howell was appointed as a senior judge in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia in 2024, and she was particularly concerned about the plaintiff's likelihood of success.
Two of the most important tests likely to succeed on the merits and likely to suffer irreparable harm are just a stretch for me, she said. So, there's one. Apparently for Trump. Okay. 522-0650. President Trump is also expected to sign an executive order. to abolish the Department of Education. He's expected to sign this order following through on a campaign promise to disband the department, claiming on the campaign trail that the department was full of radicals.
zealots and Marxists. A White House fact sheet states that the move will turn over education to families instead of bureaucracies. Trump and proponents of eliminating the department have long said the agency has failed American students. And I'm sure that's going to scare a few people in the education protectorate.
I was going to say protection. Yeah, they the Department of Education did not do what they promised us. And if they're not going to get rid of it, they need to literally whittle it down to like 100 people. I mean, honestly. Well, you know, I think what's happened is we look and we see some of the programs that have come out. We now essentially advance kids who don't really grasp the concepts of their grade level, but they get...
They graduate, and a lot of them can't read their own diplomas. Can't make change. And it's not certainly all the kids, no. I mean, we've got some really bright kids in our district. But when I start seeing the school board, for instance, saying, well, gee, you know, 35% of the kids are passing and we want to bring that up to 42%, that's hardly... high bar I mean it's actually what you're saying is we're content on letting most of our students fail
Even worse than that, though, Mike, is they say, you know, so they're going to, quote, get more students to pass. What I've seen... when they do this is they actually lower the bar so that more can come across. It moves the goalposts in closer. Exactly. And that is not solving the problem at all. That's actually exasperating it. Exactly. Exactly. Well, the...
Anticipating the closure of two elementary schools, this is from Alaska News Source, the boundaries of three elementary schools were changed to redistribute students from Lake Hood and Anaka Valley, which will close at the end of the year. along with new boundaries was further discussion on what to do with the two school buildings once they're empty. And I think that's going to be really interesting.
We've got a lot of school buildings, and we've talked about this, and Bob Griffin has been on several times talking about the fact that we have a lot of space under management. We have a lot of schools that do not have... what we would call an efficient number of students to justify having that space under management. That doesn't mean the kids are bad or the teachers are bad. It doesn't mean any of that. It just means...
There aren't enough kids in the school to make it efficient for it to be run. Meanwhile, we're spending money on it. And so if you're going to save money, and this is what the school district needs to do. And I think they understand that. Whether they'll do it or not is another story, I guess. But they need to start saving money. At the board meeting on the 4th of this month,
They voted to give the buildings over to two charter schools. Nunaka Valley would be used by the Anchorage Stream Academy. and the Lake Hood by the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School. Some disagree with that. Parents at Rikashula, which is where Crash's daughter goes now, but she's going to be graduating from that.
spoke at Tuesday's meeting asking the board to reconsider their March 4th decision. Ultimately, there was a motion to reverse the previous decision, but it failed. And the reason for that... is that there are more kids in the Rika Shula, the German Emotion Program, than there are in another school, and they need more space. And it only made sense to me to put them over there, and the whole...
The method of getting the Ricochula out and the other one in was very underhanded. Let me just put it that way. Okay, well, you said it. I did. I did. I mean, they didn't... put it out there. It wasn't, like, discussed. It was just brought up as a, quote, laid-on-the-table item. So it was a blindside, really. And they do that all the time. And I don't approve, but I don't rule everything, so. All right. So, anyway, that's what's...
going on with the schools. Yesterday, the assembly met, and immediately when the assembly meets, I put both hands in my pockets and hold onto my wallet. I was going to say, you should. The assembly members voted 8 to 4 yesterday to postpone a 3% sales tax. initiative before voters in a special election, which would have been scheduled for September 2nd. Now, it was postponed indefinitely, which essentially could mean the death knell for it. And I think they finally got the idea that...
Anchorage really didn't want it. And, you know, I noticed one thing. We've been talking about that bond proposition that's coming up. Excuse me. Let me take it back. That tax proposition that is coming up. It is not a bond. It's a tax. And what I noticed about it when I was looking at it again and rereading it. reading it through. It's a reoccurring tax. Every year, they expect to pull $3.5 million from the people in that tax area. And so it's going to be a continuing $3.5 million.
Doesn't that add to your – I mean that's going to add to your taxes. If it's outside the tax cap. And that's my question is because they keep moving things that are under the tax cap out of it. So it's like – letting them add and stack more on top of it. To me, if they'd have got their sales tax, it would have been one of these, so you're going to, quote, give me back money, but you're not really because you're adding taxes for here and here and here?
Well, the problem with this is, and if you're going to do a tax, and I'm not against a sales tax and I'm certainly not against a seasonal sales tax. Yeah, there we go. Where, you know, the tourists come up. And they get to pay for the privilege of going into our stores and using our facilities and all of that. And most of the tourists come from states that have sales taxes. And a 3% sales tax is pretty low.
Oh, especially, I mean, some of the places I know it's like almost 8% in some of them. That's 10% in some places. And I haven't hit that high, but oh, man. So anyway, a 3% sales tax, let's put it this way, a seasonal sales tax. Pick a number that makes somebody happy would be a good idea. But, but, but, but, all of that money should go to property relief, to property tax relief.
All of it. Not some of it. All of it. Because right now, it's the property tax owners, the property taxpayers. We're the people that pay for it. And so I'd like to see some relief. And this could be certainly a way. And the reason why I say seasonal is because I don't trust these guys. It needs to end. There needs to be a beginning and it needs to have an end. And there needs to be a number that it. that it costs that is only changeable by a vote of the people.
Right, a hard stop, basically, because if you leave it to them, oh, no, they'll find a way to slide another one in there. Oh, no, we're going to extend that. What you're going to have is you're going to have a sales tax that will never stop, and it will only escalate. and property taxes that will only escalate. And what you're going to end up is you're going to end up in San Francisco or New York or Seattle or someplace like that. So we don't need that.
We need to be smart. But, you know, if you're looking for additional revenue, start looking at and, you know, I never hear this. Start looking at pairing some stuff back. Everything we spend money on, do we need it? As far as I'm concerned, there's a bunch of things we don't. Do we need it? And I'm not dumping on city workers or anything like that. They work hard. They're good people.
But I guess the real question here is, get your house in order, city. Do we need to be spending the kind of money we're spending on what we're spending it on? And that's a question. That's open. If somebody's got an answer, I'd love to hear it. We spent, what, $161 million on the homeless. And that ain't even close to solved. And what happened? We have more homeless.
So I guess maybe that's a failure. So if we, you know, and we need to, it's certainly a problem we need to deal with, but apparently we're not dealing with it the right way. We keep adding another million here, another 10 million there, another 5 million. We keep buying buildings. You know, homelessness, you know, I can cure homelessness. I give everybody a home. Is that going to cure homelessness? No.
It's not because there are people out there that don't want to go into a home. They like being outside. They don't want to follow rules. You also have people that are addicts. You also have people that are mentally ill. There's a whole bunch of reasons why people are homeless, but our city has taken it upon itself to say,
Give them a home, and then they're no longer homeless, and we can check the box. And I feel so much better because I've spent a lot of your money. And we'll be right back. Now, back to the Micronome Show with Greg. On News Radio 650 KENR. All right, it's 549. And, Darrell, you were talking about the assembly meeting last night. There's yet another wrinkle here, a new wrinkle.
There's just, there were several interesting things that were put forward yesterday, and I didn't get to check the assembly meeting itself to see if this went through or not, but basically they were putting forward an ordinance. of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly, amending Anchorage Municipal Code Section 2111060, standards and sites, buildings to preserve historical solar access protection and height restrictions for the city center blocks.
otherly of Town Square Park and waiving the Planning and Zoning Commission review of the ordinance. In other words, last year, they took away all those rules so you could build as tall as you want and stuff. Well, now they want to add a caveat to it that... Town Square Park, you can't take away – how did they phrase that? It's historical solar access. Yes, the sun. The sun, right. So in other words, you can't build buildings south of it that are going to block the sun from Town Square Park.
park but the rest of us you know what if your son is blocked in your neighborhood in your area that's just the the price of of growth so i thought it was just interesting like i said i didn't get to see if this got brought up because
I tried to watch yesterday's meeting or chunks of it. And because there's specific things, I'm trying to find out what happened with the land acknowledgement and stuff, whether they went forward with that. But this one then caught my eye as I was looking through it and going.
Oh, wait, so we want to have limiting the casting of shadows on Town Square Park, but the rest of us, we can have the shadows. It's okay. Yeah, they're throwing shade on you. Oh, that was awesome, Mike. I don't believe I didn't think of that. I can't believe that. Okay. Well, I've got something on the land acknowledgement, but we need to find out whether or not it went through or not because it's nice to talk about it knowing the outcome. But there is some tape that we have.
uh talking about liberals from a liberal from a progressive guy named bill maher bill maher has a show on i think it's hbo something like that yeah and and he's uh he's let's just put it this way he's He's left of center. He's a progressive. He's proud of it. He doesn't mince words. He's a bright guy. And what I like about Bill Maher is the fact that he's able...
to look at something and glean truth from it, as opposed to being an ideologue. So while I disagree with Bill Maher most of the time, I do appreciate the fact that... On occasion, he will look at a situation and go, this is just nonsense. I'm going to tell you what it is. And so he describes what he thinks.
What is going to happen or what the left was trying to have happen to America? Yes, you can move too far left. And when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right at its worst. Canada is what American voters think happens when there's no one putting a check on extreme wokeness. They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes. And I'm generally with the gas pedal, but not if we're driving off a cliff.
Sweden opened its borders to over a million and a half immigrants since 2010. And now 20% of its citizens are foreign born and its education system is tanking. And it has Europe's highest rate of gangland killings. To which liberals say... Blaming immigrants for the rising crime rate is racist. Yeah, but is it true? Of course it's true. It's not a coincidence the quality of life went down after the Somali gangs.
Started a drug turf war using hand grenades. Calling it racist doesn't solve the problem. Exactly. And he's right. Nailed it dead on right there. And he's absolutely right. And that's from a progressive. It's not from a conservative. That's from a progressive. He has enough integrity to tell the truth. It's wrong. And this is what America...
was going to become. This is why having borders is absolutely essential. If you don't have borders you don't have a country. If you don't have borders you don't have anything. You've been invaded. And I'm not saying that everybody that has creeped across the border illegally... is a bad person there are people that wanted a better way of life i understand that my family came here looking for a better way of life they were sick and tired of all the wars in europe so they came to america
But you know how they came to America? Just as many of your forefathers did, through the front door, they came legally. They went through the process. They went through the wait. They went through the check. They came by boat and landed at Ellis Island and had to go through that. And if you've ever been to Ellis Island, you should go. It's a national park. And you should see what it looked like.
and understand the history of immigration in this country. And it was all sorts of people from all over. And then right outside, right next to Ellis Island, is Liberty Island. It used to be called Bedloe's Island, but that's where the Statue of Liberty is. And so you can see the Statue of Liberty from Ellis Island. And when you come into New York Harbor, you see it. And it's an amazing sight.
I was going to say, I know people who've taken that boat ride out there, and that's exactly what they say. They can see how awe-inspiring it was for the immigrants coming in. I thought of a great analogy just now, Mike. It's kind of like going to the bank. and asking for a loan. Well, it's getting money from a bank. You can do it proper, go and ask for a loan, go through all the paperwork, maybe get turned down, revamp things, do it again, or...
It's walking in and just stealing the money. If you're just coming across that border and doing it illegally, you're stealing the money. You are not coming in properly and getting your loan. Yeah, well, it's like me inviting you to my home or you're just deciding to come in. and eat you know it's like wait that's crash well that's different with crash but that that's just i guess you have to have secure borders
It's insane that, like I said, a lot of the progressives, that's their big thing. Well, we're a world, one world thing. Everybody should be. No. No. No, absolutely not. Have pride in your country. Have pride in your citizenship. And then we bring in all this. This poison, fentanyl and everything else, being brought into our country, killing Americans. Again, Trump has basically done something that Biden couldn't do. Not couldn't do.
Didn't want to do. Bingo. How about that? He didn't want to do it, which is to stop illegal border crossings. And now let's stop the drugs coming in. And Trump did it in a month, month and a half. 95% of the border crossings, illegally, border crossings have stopped. All right. I want to thank everybody for being on the show today. We will see you all tomorrow.