@Chrisontheair Chris Merrill - Best Of!

You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.

Chris Merril AM six forty more stimulating talk and on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. We are pulling back. People are saying, no mold, forget about it. In fact, if you were like me and you grew up poor, you didn't have lucky charms. You had something that was the equivalent like fortune totems, or you didn't have cheerios. You would have oat circles, and you didn't have fruit loops. You'd have fruit rings something like that. Right, you didn't

It was good. In fact, in some cases you got so you like them better.

I always hated the knockoff cheerios, but I thought that the knockoff wheaties.

Were fine, Right, I mean, you just got so that you got used to it.

There are other things that you can buy that are store bought, that are reasonable duplicates, and stores are getting better at this than they were when we were younger, which was so so.

Many millennia ago.

But Treehouse Foods is one of the country's largest manufacturers of private brands, they're the ones. So if you see something that is the equate brand from Walmart that may have come from Treehouse Foods. If you see the Safeway brand that may have come from Treehouse Foods. If you see which is like or excuse me, you see like the Safeway Albertson's. If you see the Kroger brand from like Ralph's, may have come from Treehouse Foods.

They make a bunch of that stuff. However, we are seeing the whole.

Egg thing going on, with the price of eggs going up, which certainly is not in any way, shape or form a money grabbed by the egg manufacturers capitalizing on the spike and prices due to the bird flu. Coffee prices are going up, and of course we may start seeing more prices jumping because of the threats of terraces tariffs.

Is from the Wall Street Journal.

Giants like Kroger Albertson's Costco boosting investments in their branded products. Private labels are growing faster than name brand goods heading into the pandemic, and then consumers stuck at home with money to spend, went back to the national brands and low cost brands.

We've seen now a resurgence for a couple of reasons.

Because you have higher grocery prices, retailers are expending their store brand offerings. Walmart is introducing a premium line of food called Better Goods along their Great Value brand. So you've got the Great Value and then you've got Better Goods, which is supposed to be the step up. But now people are even saying, we're just going to cut back on even the low cost stuff. To me, this is a bad omen. You've got consumer confidence. You may have

What are they cutting back on?

Derrito's When you stop in at the circle K or the shell station, there's no there's no big bag of chips. If you've bought a bag of chips at the gas stations lately, have you seen the price on that, it's seven bucks. Seven bucks for a bag of potato chips is not even the family size bag. I know, I sound like a grumpy old man. I understand, but I'm gonna be grumpy. I don't like it. So people are cutting back and what they're buying. That includes Doritos, that

I don't have high hopes. So what can you do?

Could you turn to one of those dollar stores. Nope, because have you been to a dollar store lately? Nothing costs a dollar anymore. And now Dollar General says they're not even making any money and they're shutting up shop.

Dollar General is closing nearly one hundred store The company says it plans to close ninety six locations by January of twenty twenty six.

That's not too many, though, I think Dollar General opens more than one hundred a day. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. This is from Whas by the way, I believe this is in Louisville.

Dollar General CEO says that the number of closings represents less than one percent of the company's.

Overall store base.

It also plans to close forty five of Dollar General's Home to corese stores popshelf.

I think no Dollar General had home to course stores. Did you know then Bed's through dollars? All right? The DECI that was quick, Amy, you get credit on that one. That was very quick.

The decision came after a view of the store performance and conditions to determine which stores should be closed or maybe be rebranded. Now, as of now, it's not known which locations are set to close. There are more than thirty of those stores in the Louisville metrics.

All right, so again I told you that it was from Louisville. Did he just say rebranded if they're going to close or rebrand? So you rebrand from a Dollar General to what a dollar Lieutenant? I don't understand what the rebrand would be. You go more high end Dollar General. There's no lower end Dollar I mean, Dollar General is what it is. It's just cheap, cheap. All the dollar stores just cheap. Tell you, man, I would think Dollar General would do really well as people are worried about

We'll find out how it plays out. Okay.

If I am six forty, we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.

Okay, if I am six forty, more stimulating talk, Chris Merrill.

Big questions are coming up about the people being deported, especially when we find out that we're trying to deport people who have a legal status in the United States, including green cards or well respected positions within major universities. It kind of started with this Machmud Khalil, who was a guy protesting at Columbia. Many many schools were protesting during the demonstrations over the warre in Goza, right, most

Possible. But when it comes to the world of politics.

And especially when it comes to something so significant as war and war where religion is involved, you have to be my side or the other side.

You're either with me or you're against me.

So Khalil and Khalil was in large part part of the demonstrations at Columbia. We saw those at UCLA. You see your Vine, Berkeley, Stanford, Santa Cruz. There's been a number of California schools. Of course, we're taking part in these protests. Some of them did feel distinctly anti Semitic. That doesn't mean everybody there was, but it wasn't like they were stopping it from being anti Semitic either, So

His lawyer says, you didn't have a student visa. He's a green card holder.

He's a permanent legal US resident. They said, oh, we're taking that too.

What this is.

This is like when you were a kid and the bully came by and punched you and said give me your lunch money, and you said, I've got my lunch money, but please don't take my allowance.

I just got it.

And the bully goes, oh, can give me that allowance too. That's basically what's going on. So the State Department says, we want a student, we're taking away with the student visa. The lawyer says he didn't have he's a part US resident. Oh, we're taking that away too. And why is that? Because Trump has signed an order, signed an executive order to cancel and deport the students and all the student visas of any hamas sympathizers on college campuses.

That's a tough one.

And the reason it's tough is again, you're allowed to disagree. Even if your disagreement makes you a total a hole in the eyes of the majority of people, you are still allowed to disagree.

In America.

You may remember after nine to eleven there were a number of politicians who came out and they said.

Look, one eleven was abhorrent.

It was a terrible chapter in American history, and that said, you kind of understand why some people hate us, and they were lambassad They were.

Told, how dare you? You can't say such terrible things about America.

Don't you know we're in a war against terrorism, and yet you're still allowed to say that. Even Congress persons were saying that they don't approve of nine to eleven, but they kind of understand why other countries, why other groups hate us.

Now dare you do that?

The real kicker on this case with the Khalil is that Marco Rubio, formerly known as Little Marco, did a press conference right after the arrest and he said, this is not about free speech. This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with.

But it sounds like by all accounts he did.

He had a student visa, then he had a permanent green card, and now we're just claiming you don't have a right to be here because we're policing your ideas now. But it's not just him. There was also a doctor who was detained. Now a highly regarded kidney doctor.

Just after six pm.

Six from ABC.

Seven Saturday, planes carrying more than two hundred Venezuelan prisoners left the US after the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a law from the late seventeen hundreds that allows the government to deport non citizens without due process during wartime.

Are we at war with Venezuela? Anybody? Anybody? The answer is no.

Less than an hour later, a federal judge temporarily blocked the president from invoking the law and ordered the planes to turn around, saying any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States. But the planes never turned around, and video shows the alleged gang

All right, So that is key, And I guess I thought there was more of this. Deported doctor. I want to talk about this deported doctor or the detained doctor. I'll do that here in a second. But also, you just heard the report from ABC saying we didn't like what the judge had to say. The administration just says, hey, what jurisdiction do judges have? What can federal judges? They don't really get to talk about us. They have no

Kay if I am six forty Chris Merrill Live everywhere and.

The iHeartRadio you're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.

I am six.

Forty on demand anytime the iHeartRadio app pleasure bring with you. Thank you so much for hanging out, making us a part of your day. We appreciate it. YadA, YadA, YadA, lots of thank yous blah blah blah.

So but here's what you came from. Do you want to know stuff? I get it.

I mentioned before I'd boned up the audio that we had a doctor who was detained because she went to a funeral. Well, it happened to be the funeral of a Hezbollah leader. Is she a member of Hesbela I No, by all accounts she is not. However, just being at the funeral, which attracted tens of thousands of people, was enough for the current administration to side eye her and say we don't really like you doing that, so why don't you not come back again?

ABC had the story.

Another deportation in recent days is in the spotlight. Protesters are demanding the return of doctor Russia Alawi, an assistant professor at Brown University who's a kidney transplant specialist.

Ah kidney transplant at Brown Universe. What is that? Who's that?

It's not even a real college. There's so much ado about nothing. My god, we're just deporting Ivy League doctors now.

She reportedly had a valid visa, but was detained last week at Boston's Logan Airport after returning from Lebanon. Federal officials not commenting on why, only saying our CBP officers adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats. Nicoldy Antonio, ABC News Washington, all right, thank.

You very much, appreciate it.

All right, So we don't really know why we're not being told a whole lot. It's a little bit like Doge, where we just say, trust us, everything's going to be better after you let us do.

Whatever we want.

So you've had judges that say, you can't just declare that we are in a wartime when there is no war.

There's no war on Venezuela.

And so when you start finding Venezuelan gang members and then sending them to El Salvador using the seventeen ninety eight law, that doesn't fly, and of course the White House then in response said speaking of flying, sorry, planes already in the air, Ali Ali oxen free. And a judge is not very happy about that. So the judge said, look back in my courtroom. I want to know what's going on. And so the the administration showed up back in court and the judge said what happened? They went,

So basically they know the White House claims to have an UNO reverse card. So what can happen if suddenly you've got a.

Number of judges that are ruling against a president and the president says, yeah, I'm not gonna follow that. Yeah I don't like your order. Yeah you told me not to do this thing that I want to do, so I'm gonna do it anyway. And at some point you'd think the rank and files would stop doing these things. But I think a lot of the rank and files that are enforcing some of these laws kind of like it, and I think that the people who don't like it

I can't do this. I'm gonna head into the private sector.

I'm gonna try to find a job with my local police department or my sheriff's department, or or you're if you're in a specialized division within one of those enforcement alphabet soup agencies. You may be saying, I can go make money doing this elsewhere. I have a friend of mine that was she was an accountant. She was a forensic accountant with the CIA. Excuse me, with the FBI. My apologies, she's a forensic accountant with the FBI. And

She did so.

At some point, people are moving on, They're weeding themselves out. So what can the judges do if the president just ignores them effectively nothing? They can hold an agency in contempt. So you've got a district judge that holds the White House in contempt, and then what.

What if they don't want to be held in contempt? Nothing?

Nothing, They don't take control away, they don't do anything, and the president can always parton himself anyway, So there is nothing. The Marshal Service enforces the federal court orders. Do you know who the Martial Service works for, the Department of Justice?

You know who?

The Department of Justice is under the executive branch. All of the orders trickle down from the White House. So if you have a rogue president, I'm not saying this is the case, but if you have a rogue president, there's pretty much nothing you can do to stop them other than politically.

But is anybody politically going to stop this president? I don't see that happening either.

If you have if you have a powerful president who's decided to ignore his own responsibilities, so the office, there's no stopping that person, and that's when you end up with what they call a constitutional crisis. I AM six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.

Chris Merrill I AM six forty more stimulating talk and on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app.

Pleasure being with you. Do you remember it was a few years back that.

President Trump first term was paying tribute to the code talkers at a White House events.

And I just want to thank you because you have very very special people. You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what, I like you because you are special. You are special people. You

Yeah, really from the heart. Not like that, Elizabeth Warren. Okay.

So we paid tribute to the code talkers, especially because of what they contributed in both World Wars. Chalk Taw soldiers in World War One, Comanche troops at Utah Beach, the Navajo code talkers, of course, who you've heard so much about it iwo Jima. They were speaking in a language that the other troops couldn't they couldn't crack very difficult to uh, very difficult to crack the language, and especially because the code talkers started changing up their own language,

There wasn't a word.

There's a reason to have that word. So they came up with it. They called them pregnant airplanes. They didn't have a word for turtle for tank, excuse me, so they started calling those turtles. And so they would say, you know, turtles are inbound. And even if the even if the enemy could decipher some of what was saying, would they be able to understand that turtles meant tanks.

They could have, but they didn't.

And we thank in large part the code talkers for the work that they did in those wars that ultimately flemixed our enemies and helped lead to victories in both World War One and World War Two. At least we used to thank them because if you go now to military websites that used to pay tribute to the the Native American code talkers, the ones that you heard Trump praising while he bagged on Elizabeth Warren from the bottom of his heart for loving the country so much. They've

The Defense Department.

We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department with the directive removing DEI from all platforms. In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components Accordingly, they did not address the code talkers being removed. They did not address whether the code talkers are considered DEI figures. Although code talkers were part of a diversity push within the Department of Defense. They were part of a recruitment