UnBolted LIVE with Ben Edtl, former candidate for Chair of Oregon State Republican Party

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of unbolted. I'm M.J. bolt, your host. And with us today we've got Ben Edel from Oregon. Hey, Ben, thanks for joining us. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Thanks for having me on. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So Ben and I've talked just a little bit, and he's got a fascinating story. He's been very involved lately, and we've been sharing notes a little bit between Washington state, Republican Party and politics and Oregon State. There's a lot that are very similar, aren't there, Ben? [00:00:52] Speaker A: There's a lot of things strangely, in common. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:55] Speaker A: California, Oregon and Washington. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, no kidding. I, I posted earlier today, I said, I think we're in a runoff to see who could be the worst state to live in right now with our bills that we're passing. But hopefully we're all about changing that. Right. That's why we're involved. [00:01:11] Speaker A: That's why we're involved. [00:01:13] Speaker B: That's right. So then for people that don't know you or don't know your story, give them your story, give them your background about how you got involved and, and got, you know, you ran for chair of the Oregon State Park Party just recently and tell us how you got to that point. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's crazy. You know, basically we, I was a, I've been an entrepreneur and a business owner for about 25 years, and I'm born and raised in the inner city of Portland. So I never went far away from the heart of the city of Portland. Always been Republican since about 96 when I could first vote, register to vote at 18. And you know, I did some weird stuff when I was drinking for a couple years. I went Democrat. I don't know why, but I just registered as a Democrat. It's in the record if you really dig deep. But I was totally wasted most of the time. So that's why I probably did that. But, you know, 99 of my, my adult life, I've been a registered Republican. And I did some work early on in the early 2000s with the young, Young Republicans of county, which is the big county in Portland, and left when they did the Patriot act, which is, I couldn't believe that, that every Republican was backing this Patriot act thing because I was like, they're going to use that against us someday. Like, you can't, you can't just start, you can't just open this door, this, this can of worms. You know, there's got to be better ways to hunt down and arrest terrorists, but besides, you know, violating civil rights. So anyway, fast forward, I jumped out at that point in time, thought everybody in the political world was nuts and went to my own life just like most Republicans. Business owner, family, blah, blah, blah. And we. In 2020, I had been. In 2018, I had taken over a bankrupt coffee roastery and from a friend of mine, and I indemnified him from the debt. It wasn't like, you know, a fire sale. So I had all this debt to start with and we had, by 2020, had turned it around for the most part. We had started acquiring cafes and we expanded sales and grew from an 800 square foot roastery to a 4, 500 square foot roastery and we acquired three cafes. And we came. When I was watching Covid and, you know, I, I just, it was, I didn't. The heights didn't match the reality. There were, there were, there were. You know, someone had Covid and I was like, well, someone has Covid, but I don't know what Covid is. And so that's okay with me. And I'm not panicking. Then when they, when they did the lockdowns, when Kate Brown famously came out and so did your guy, whatever. I hate. [00:03:57] Speaker B: I wish I couldn't remember his name, but I do. [00:04:01] Speaker A: When, you know, when they came out and they said, they said two weeks to flatten the curve. You know, we're gonna just, we're gonna slow it down. We're just gonna flatten the curve of this virus for two weeks. We're going to shut down businesses and we're not going to shut down the churches. We're going to shut down the gathering points and all this stuff. And I was mortified. I was terrified. I said this never happened in American history. There's no way that at the time of the lockdowns in Oregon, there were nine people who had died, supposedly with COVID 19. And at the time, I believe they had COVID 19. Now I don't believe they did, but each person that had COVID 19 in Oregon, all nine of them that died were over the age of 83. Okay? And not to be, you know, racist against, you know, our elders, but the reality is at 83, you know, you, hey, it's not a threat to me and my family, okay? And there was no evidence whatsoever that Covid was a threat to me and my family. And so the fact that I couldn't choose to keep my business open for other people who felt like Covid was not a threat to them or their family, to me was an absolute wake up call. It was the biggest, fattest red pill that I've ever swallowed. And I went along with it because I'm in Portland, right? And I can see that the political, the other side, they were just like. So I thought, I thought. And I'm in the. I'm in specialty coffee. I employed 40 recently graduated gender studies majors so they could pour coffee. And I didn't care because I don't. You're cute, you pour coffee, whatever. So. And I'm like, you know, I gave Brown 14 days because she said two weeks. And on the 15th day, she didn't remove that lockdown. And so I went around to all my cafes in the Roastery. I said, put the chairs down, take the signs off the doors. We're open for business. And it was absolute pandemonium within my, my company. And we're gonna be fine. We'll be fine. I said, everybody sit down and shut up. Listen, I'm gonna be fine. You're not gonna be fine, okay? So it's gonna be on me, not you. So if you want the job, we're up, we're open, we're going. And what that led to was an absolute cancel of me personally. Personally, as a conservative, as someone who is not following the lockdowns. I was watching business owners in Portland literally check themselves into the loony bend after being canceled for not following the lockdown. But I refused to back down. I stood up. We went through the entire process of getting vandalized every day. Death threats, threats to my kids, threats to my wife, put on the news on a regular basis for killing people. And not one single Covid trans transmission could be tracked at any of my businesses. And I, and I still was like you. Because there, because you can't. There's nothing coming back on me. And it is, it is freedom and liberty. This is America. I do not care what you say about me. I don't care what you do to my family, what you threat, what you say you're going to do to my family. I put videos of shooting AR15, having my 10 year old shoot AR15 around and find out because, because, because it was terrifying and it was awful. And my wife would, would call me, you know, five blocks from the house in tears, afraid to go home. It was the worst thing. I mean, I can tell you I know why people don't go through this. I know why they just shut up. I know why they just shut up and go along with it. Because what ended up happening is that by the end of 2020, especially when George Floyd happened and all this stuff, we, we, we Lost everything. The supply chain was destroyed overnight by Covid. Every cafe that we served was. Was shut down through the roastery. Our cafes were holding on by a thread. I'd have to drop one, drop one. And I was down to one. And I finally, honestly, I'll tell you the story. Three in the morning. I'm in a. I'm in a really severe mental crisis. Spiritual crisis. Our friends had invested, my father in law invested. We had all this money tied up. It was a million plus dollar business and we were, we were. It was all gone. And, and not only was it all gone but. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Whoops. We lost you. Ben, are you there? [00:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm here. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Okay, there you are. [00:08:36] Speaker A: I don't know where we lost but anyway it was a really incredibly brutal experience. My wife was like probably on the verge of leaving me because she was just stop, stop like that. You can't. You're destroying our entire family. But I went down to that. I was, I was in this crisis and I. About three in the morning, I'd gone down to my roastery in the middle of the. Of the night. 3:00am 2:33am And I just needed to drive. I got had to get out of my house. My support group, I called them. I didn't. No one is picking up and I got on my knees and I'm just going to tell you, I don't know if you allow swearing. I've already done it already so if you don't, I've broken the rules already. [00:09:12] Speaker B: Well, family policy of institute may not post this video. [00:09:16] Speaker A: So I can edit videos, I can bleep it out. Okay, but what I. I'll take it easy. What, what I, what. What I said was. I literally was on my knees. I said God, what the f You want me to do it right now? Like what do you want me to do? You want me to do? Seriously? I was so pissed. I was like what do you want me to do? Made no sense to me at the time and why I, why this was happening, you know. And, and, and. But God kept telling me fight, fight, stand up fight, stand up, fight. I could not ignore that. And I tell my wife this. I tell, look, I'll do whatever you say, babe, unless God tells me otherwise. That's it. You're. You're like, there's God and there's you. I mean there's it really. You got the highest human, human ranking on my list and there's very few people that can tell me what to do. So if any other than that even my mom couldn't tell me what to do. So I'm like, I'm like, you know, this is a really huge accomplishment anyway. We, I just didn't understand it. And God said, I want you to go into politics. That was the answer. And I started laughing. And, and I, I. Because, you know, I thought you go into politics after you've had a certain success business. I went into politics after the, after an incredibly loud and, and glass house crash and burn. Okay. And everybody saw me in Portland crash and burn. And, and that was the craziest thing about it is that's what you, that's what you want me to do next. Like, okay, you know, you know, I'm. I ain't trying to, you know, you are. So. Okay. So from there I started FreeOrgan. I wound the business to sound, and I started Free Oregon because I needed to. Even if there was only seven people like myself in the city of Portland, we needed to connect. And that was it. And so what was crazy is that I posted this, this video at the last day that our business was open. And I just laid it out. I was on Instagram and at the time I had about 115 followers. Okay. And, and I put this video, it's like an eight minute video just laying out. It's still there, still on Instagram. It's way, way, way, way, way back, back, back to November 2020. And that video got 50, 000 views. Okay, wow. Well. And I've never had anything like that. 100 followers, 50, 000 views. Now today, if I had a video that 50, 000 views, I'd be disappointed. But I mean the, the, but back then, like I'd never seen anything like that. And, and it was like the whole war just happened right there on my Instagram. And we started Free Oregon and we did these weekly meetings. I was. The best thing we could do is just gather, like use our constitution for our own advantage. Free speech. I've used that. And now let's gather, let's assemble. Okay. Let's really utilize that First Amendment. So assembly was zoom meetings once a week for Free Oregon. And the first one we had, I think I had like four or five of us on there. And the second one had like 18. It was so cool. I was like, there's 18 of us on here. And then what's crazy is that when the vaccine mandates came, the weekly town halls began getting five to seven to 10,000 watchers every single week. And we would max out on Zoom with 300 people in our town halls. Every single week. It was crazy. Like we would turn it on and like 45 minutes to an hour people would wait to get to make sure they have feet in the town hall. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Wow. [00:12:49] Speaker A: And, and Free Oregon became the largest civil rights group, true civil rights group in the entire state. We brought all the major lawsuits protecting the defending teachers, nurses, doctors, police officers and frontline workers from being forced to take the vaccine mandate. We sued in the state, we soon in federal court. We brought multiple lawsuits. We, we, some of those are still going today. Some doctors that were, that had their license ripped out like they, their lawsuits were, are still going to this day that we started back in 2021, you know, because it was November 2020. December, January. Right. It was only the first, like four or five months. So what happened was because I became a statewide leader almost overnight politically. So God was right, you know, go, go into politics. God was right. What can we see? Right. And so, so that's been my path and it's been a hard fought path because, because of all the pressure and the attacks that I get over and over and over all through this time, the entire Republican establishment in the state of Oregon, the core of the group, has done everything they can to keep me away from the resources, the funding and the influence. And it's been a huge battle. And no matter what happens, even this last week thing with the, the, the GOP chair who resigned in disgrace because he's got $80,000 in stolen money from banks from, from check fraud and he's currently being sued. Of course, it sounds like he's a pedo as well. On top of that, he resigned very quickly because he's outed. Right. He got caught and, and, and there, there's nothing he can do. So I mentioned that. Wow. You know, we have a really, a systemic problem within the ORP because if they're going to, when they have two to three really great choices, truly, they pick the worst one. And I mean, you got a broken picker. We would say if every one of your, you know, your significant others are screwed up in the head, maybe it's you. So. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah, so I want to reiterate that because I mean people, some people that are new to politics, politics, especially the Republican Party, might not, you know, might have missed what you said. You said the Republican Party. Here you are, a businessman, an entrepreneur, you know, in, in a blue state that's, you know, fighting the fight, walking the walk, organizing, getting people to come together during one of the hardest times. [00:15:21] Speaker A: Hundreds of thousands of dollars. [00:15:22] Speaker B: Right, Right. Yes. And, and they. You said the Republican Party did everything they could to basically block you or. [00:15:31] Speaker A: Or did. [00:15:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:33] Speaker A: Keep the door shut. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that's why it's. That's how. That's how. That's what's become. Right. Like, I had a conversation with the new chair of the ORP today, and it was. And I know her very well. She's a very good person. I have. I have a lot of faith that she's going to find the courage and the strength to. To lead this party in a new direction. I have a lot of confidence, but I'm not fully right. Like, you can't. There. There's. There's so much pressure in that position. What it truly takes to change the direction of our party is more than I think most people can handle. And because you have to. You just have to have courage. And in politics, what I found is you've got evil bastards that need a baseball bat to the face until you never see them again. Okay? They're awful. They need to be threatened, thrown out, completely ran out of town with pitchforks and torches. Then you got people who are political animals that know how to vote at certain times that later those votes come back to bite them, but politically, they got where they needed to go. Okay, I can live with that. Then you have people that just frankly, are cowards, and they're. They're in it for all the wrong reasons. They want attention, they want people to like them, but they're scared to tell the truth. They're scared to do the right thing. They're scared to sell their constituents on what's really going on. And they're scared to stand up to a fight and a fight that might cost them. You know, every political fight I've been in has cost me. Every political fight that I've been in has cost my enemies more. So how do you think that's going to work out in the end? I'm pretty confident that the doors are going to be kicked down. It just depends on what doors need to be kicked down. And, you know, I ran for chairman because I have more influence than the ORP itself. And the reason why is because I represent Republicans. Okay? That's it. The Republicans in Oregon, I speak for. They elect me in the primaries. Regardless of where I'm at, I keep those positions, those elected positions. I've been elected the nominee for Senate and for the house in 2022, 2024, and I continue to do that job. Just because I lost the general election doesn't mean that the Republicans in my district haven't elected me to represent them. I will not stop representing them. Okay, that's, that's, that's, that's me. Yeah. The ORP has completely stopped representing Republicans because they represent themselves. They look out for who. It's a social club. Right. We want this person to be our new leader because this person isn't qualified to lead anything. They've never had it than a CEO. They don't understand. Right people, right seats. They don't understand that to achieve something of grandeur takes sacrifice and blood and sweat and tears. They don't understand that. So they avoid the blood, the sweat and the tears. And we have what we have now, which is two decades of absolute, abysmal, undeniable failure of the Republican Party apparatus in the state of Oregon. Two decades. We have not taken any power anywhere. [00:18:42] Speaker B: What's your, what's the status in Oregon? We talk about it. You know, they have the trifecta in Washington state and they almost have a super majority in each of the House and the Senate. What, what is your guys's situation in Oregon? [00:18:57] Speaker A: Republicans have not controlled any branch of government in any way, shape or form in 20 years. [00:19:04] Speaker B: So very similar. [00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah, 20 years. [00:19:07] Speaker B: So it's not working. It's basically. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Yeah. But hey, you know what? It's not working. Let's keep trying harder the same way. [00:19:13] Speaker B: The same way. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's do the same thing over and over again for 20 years and see if that works. Let's try 21 years. Let's try 25 years. [00:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:21] Speaker A: So it's insanity. And the people from the rp, they get offended when I tell the truth. But here's the thing. This conversation we had today was about this. When you. The only thing you can get, the only way you will have credibility as a leader of the ORP is, is if you acknowledge the blatant fact before everybody's eyes. We have failed. We are a failed party in Oregon. This is how we fail. This is what we're going to do differently and this is what success is going to look like, you know, at this different points of this, of our future short, you know, mid long. And these are the benchmarks we need to hit and this is how we have to change. [00:20:01] Speaker B: That sounds like too much common sense business approach, Ben. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it truly is. It's so much common sense it's almost painful. But that's not the path. I mean hopefully that's the path Welcher will take. I support her 100% in that I know her personally. She's A very good person. She's not a bad person. She's not gonna. She's not the kind of person who's evil. She's not that at all, whatsoever. She works hard. She busts her ass. She wants to get Republicans elected. She sacrifices time with her family, money, everything else, just like all of us do. And she wasn't ready to be the chair of the party. That didn't. In her mind, I told her today that she is ready, but now is the time to decide what you're going to do and if you're going to follow the truth or if you're going to survive being chair and. And surviving being chair can't be the objective. It won't help any Republican in the west coast whatsoever. But knowing that if she does decide to find the courage and go the courageous route, that I will have her back 100%. That she will not be alone to take fire, that my artillery will come and destroy the enemy. And God has her, and God has us. To get this far, despite the most powerful people that I've gone after in this state, I've gone after all the most powerful people, and I've touched them all dearly. And that's what we have to do. That's how we win. That's how the rebels take back their country. We. We have to do it. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:34] Speaker A: We went against the British. What. What if they can do that? We can do this. Right. [00:21:39] Speaker B: Big part of the problem. And, you know, I saw this before when Donald Trump was first president, how dysfunctional the Republican Party was nationwide. Right. It was only after I ran for office in 2022, similarly to you, that I saw how dysfunctional it was in our state and locally as well. And it almost feels like it's a. It's an intentional dysfunction, like it's controlled opposition or something's going on. Somebody, you know, uniparty, whatever you want to call it, but it's real and it's true. And until we get people to step up, like you and others that are going to be courageous and take their own personal agenda out of it and do the what's right by people, and you do have to. You have to make a decision, you're going to do stuff that's going to piss people off and you're going to. You have to stand for truth that people aren't going to like. And people with a lot of power, right. And people like their power, don't they? [00:22:34] Speaker A: They like their power and they're not going to give it up without a fight. And they may not even give it up without their life. And that's the reality that we're facing. I think that, you know, we live in a bubble where we think that we live in this world where people stop at red lights and, and go at green lights and we have these laws and things that protect us. But I think a lot of Republicans, a lot of people on the right of center believe that the world is actually a dangerous place and we have the right to protect ourselves and our lives and our family and our property. Because when you have something, someone wants to come take it away always. And so there's always going to be that good and evil happening in our universe. It's both. One needs the other to exist anyways, and so it has to be there. But good has to win. Good has to, to, to be the dominant force. And, and so once we, if, if we're in this business of politics because we are looking for something, then that's not good, that's not serving. It's, it's self serving. And this is exactly what I, what I explained to the entire delegation right there at the front of the room. I said, I said, you know, yeah, I mean, it was, it's, it's. Who are we here for? Right? Who are we here to serve? And are we here to serve ourselves in this room, or are we here to serve the people out there who are, who are relying on us to represent them in the political, in the political landscape? And, and we're not, we're not representing anybody out there. We're not really doing it. And at the party level, at the county level, the counties are doing it. You know, it's. Counties work their ass off. The counties are great in Oregon, but, but there's, I'm sure it's the same in Washington. The county people are like, let's go knock doors. Let's get on those. Let's raise money. Let's have a bet. Let's get the candidates down here, go recruit. The counties are, are phenomenal, but the counties go right up against the ceiling, you know, with everything that they do. And I hate to break this to you, but it's China. And it's not just, it's not Oregon, it's Oregon, Washington, California, and it's China. [00:24:48] Speaker B: So we have to look at, at information. We have to go follow the money, connect the dots with where whose pockets are being filled. Right? [00:24:59] Speaker A: Yep. And right now, see, the genius part about this is how you know it's China because what's, what the Democrats are doing is is something that no Democrats in the United States or Republicans would ever consider really doing. But what they've started doing, especially with 2020 and all the, the funding that came from the Fed and everything else, they created an NGO economy. And in Oregon, they were already doing that. So in Portland, we had this homeless crisis for seven years leading up to 2020. So homeless emergency orders, all this stuff, but you get the homeless people in, you call for the emergency, you take all this funding and you give it to the NGOs. The homeless problem increases. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger every single year, which it's done since the emergency was declared. There's no denying this fast. And these NGOs become making money. See, there's this town just outside of Portland called Lake Oswego. And Lake Oswego used to be in the 90s, in the, in the early 2000s. It used to be filled with successful entrepreneurs. It's the richest. One of the richest municipalities in the state of Oregon. [00:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:08] Speaker A: And Dunthorpe is right next to it. But what, what, what we have now in Lake Oswego is a bunch of people that run NGOs. It's incredibly blue and. Yeah, it's crazy. It's an NGO economy. And what they're doing is they're taking hundreds of millions. Billions. Billions of dollars. Billions, truly. What's that? Yeah, billions of dollars. And they're, they're taking it from the taxpayer and they're giving it to themselves. And that's what's happening. That's Chinese. That's communist. The redistribution of wealth is not from the rich to the poor. It's from the working class to the government. And now we're seeing it happen in Oregon. [00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:03] Speaker A: And Washington. [00:27:04] Speaker B: We've got teams of people that have been following. Yeah, we've been. We have teams of people that have been following that and, and digging into those NGOs here in Washington. It's, it's not, It's a. Not an official doge. Right. Like the federal government has. It's just volunteers been doing this, and they're finding that. They're finding, you know, I've been reposting a bunch of people that have been working on this. The, the money gets, you know, funded from the, the legislature to these NGOs, and then they, in turn, you know, have some nice salaries. And then these CEOs and other officers are, you know, even the same organizations are filling the candidates, the Democrat coffers. And it's taxpayer money. I mean, we've been able to prove it time and time and again, yeah. [00:27:52] Speaker A: It'S a huge laundry. It's a money laundering operation. It's criminal. It's criminal activity if anybody else was doing it. And so it's extremely troubling, but it is undeniable. Billions of dollars are funding through. The problems get worse, not better. And when you ask for accountability, you're ostracized, especially the Democrats. I've had a number of Democrats reach out to me from Alamo county who are in leadership and say they're defecting from the Democrat Party. We just had a Democrat lawmaker the other day announced that he's considering leaving the Democrat Party because it's, it's. The corruption is so incredible. But that's China. See, that's all to me that my. I suspect it's Chinese influence because we have Republicans who are in control of the, of the Republican legislative caucuses that are bringing money in from China, directly from China, or at least one step removed billionaires who make their money in China. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's a corrupt system. It is a very corrupt system. So you've been doing this, you've been active, and so you. When was the election for the chair position? [00:29:06] Speaker A: It was a couple of months ago. I went around the state and, you know, had a lot of support from people. I think people really like me. I think what happened was that the outgoing chair, they worked their ass off. They called everybody, they called every voter. They said, ben, if he becomes the leader of the gop, he's going to be too divisive and he's going to tear the party apart. And I've already said I would tear the party apart because it needs to be completely rebuilt. And I campaigned on tearing down the limb it's hanging by so that we can rebuild an Oregon Republican Party, Oregon GOP that actually is going to put up a real fight and actually go get power. And now, remember I was going to say earlier, when the job of politics is powerful, okay? It's not money if you're in, if you're a politician, if you're in politics, even if you're at the grassroots and you're in your. And you're donating your time and helping people get elected. The goal, the purpose, the objective is power. And that's okay. That's good. That's what politics is for. You don't go into politics unless you're seeking power. So we have to actually seek power. And when you go into politics to seek money, then you're selling the power for money. And who does that power Whose power are you selling? You're selling the people's power that you represent. So when, when we go and take power as Republicans or Democrats, our primary job is, is to represent that power to the people that we're, that we're taking it for. If we go and seek political objectives for money, then we're selling that power down the road. And, and, and so in business, as a business person, my job and objective is money. Sorry, if you don't make money, you can't do whatever cool thing you think you're doing. So you gotta be, you gotta go get money and in politics you gotta go get power. So when politics and if you, if you're in business seeking power, you're screwed. If that's your primary goal, you're not going to be a very good business person. But same thing goes for politics and it's okay. Those are just facts. You just have to say yeah, that's. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Right, it's about, yeah, yeah, well I'm sure you were a big threat to the establishment. And, and so what is the structure then in Oregon where if you've got these strong county parties, which is awesome and we've seen you know, kind of a change in the last couple of years over stronger conservatives taking over their local county parties, you know, becoming more effective. Right, but what is the structure in Oregon where you have these strong local county parties but yet not enough to get the chair election or what is the, how is the voting mechanism for your guys estate? [00:31:55] Speaker A: So the way it works is we have delegates that are elected by PCPs we call our precinct committee people. I think you guys have different bcos, but they're the same, right? They're the card carrying know party party members. And, and so they vote and elect county leadership and then that includes their chair, their vice chair, their secretary and then of course they, they elect their delegates to the state, to the state party. And the state party is separate from the county party. The county party is its own thing, but in order for it to be recognized by the state it has to follow the, the bylaws. And so the state chair, the chair of the state party can actually, you know, eliminate a county official accounting party if they're not following the, the rules and regulations. And right now the way it's set up is that ORP counties and county central committees is what they're called. And the ORP as a state as a whole are not allowed to participate in Republican primaries. So they can't take a side on a primary. Okay. [00:33:01] Speaker B: Wait, they're not Allowed to. [00:33:03] Speaker A: It's against the rules. Wow. [00:33:07] Speaker B: Okay. You guys might be, you might be more screwed up than us. [00:33:12] Speaker A: We are worse than you. We're the worst in the country. Right? We're the worst. So I'm like, one of the things I campaigned on was we have power. If we can't, if we can't have elect or vote to say we want to get behind this guy in the primary. So let's say we have a really bad Republican legislature in our district, okay? And the county get together and say, this guy sucks. He's voting, he's voting Chinese communism. We want him out because we do. We've seen this happen. We primaried a guy, David Brocksmith, and it cost him a quarter million to keep his seat. It cost us 18,000 to take his quarter million. I mean, we kicked his ass all over. We beat his knees and was fat. But here's the thing. I'll tell you, there's an election thing about that race, if you remember. I'll tell you, it's crazy, but this guy is so bad. But the party can't participate in it. And so if, if someone's going to be a horrible legislator but brings in a lot of money from China, let's say, right? And so the other, he's the biggest donor. For example, as a sitting legislative caucus member, he's the single largest donor because his money comes through a Chinese billionaire and out of San Francisco, by the way. But, but all that money flows through him and then he gets, you know, all this stuff. So we all know that it's all there. We have all the receipts. Everybody's seen the receipts. We've exposed the. Out of it. And so now the ORP has to be neutral on this. And so what power does the ORP have if. If it, if it has to be neutral when there's a bad Republican? Like, this is crazy to me. So it just creates this, like this. There's no separation. You have to, you have to go along with whoever's running and whoever has the money wins. You can't come in as the ORP and say, yeah, this dude has a lot of money, but this is the candidate we're backing. Crazy, right? So I think that the county should be able to decide if they're going to back somebody and vote on it and make that determination. So. And then be able to put it out, put out wide. That would actually give the ORP some relevance and some power. But that's not what the ORP seeks. The RP is not seeking power so they don't take action to get any power. They actually have their own bylaws like that, for example, that keep them from ever having any power. [00:35:31] Speaker B: Well, we were talking about this on our spaces today. You know, some local county parties, it's all about what your bylaws say. So you guys elect delegates at the local county party level that then represent the local county voice on the state party. So how many delegates? We call them state committee men, state committee woman, and then our chair gets a vote. So there's three from each county. What, what do you, so they're delegates. How many do you guys get for each county? [00:35:58] Speaker A: It varies on, depending on the size of the county. And so our big counties have 7, 8, 9, 12 delegates and are, and that includes the chair, the vice chair, and the, you know, secretaries can sometimes be a delegate if the county bylaws decide. So if they have a lot of members or if they can have a lot of members. Most of our counties are three person counties because they're small. We have three or four big counties in Oregon. All of them are smaller than the biggest county in Washington. And so I'd like that everyone gets three delegates because it keeps it even, it's an even voice. Instead of these, these, the, the urban counties have more say than the, than the rural counties. To me that is, that is an unfair. I like the way Washington state does that. Smart. [00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and I think changing bylaws is really key because. Yeah, you're right. I mean, what is the power of both the state party and the local parties? I mean, you guys know your state representatives, your, you know, senators, you should have say. Or what about local races? What about school boards or you know, the nonpartisan races or the, and, and yet on any of them you can't weigh in. [00:37:13] Speaker A: You can weigh in on, the party can weigh in on non partisan races, but it can't weigh in on a Republican primary. [00:37:20] Speaker B: Wow. [00:37:20] Speaker A: So, and the other crazy thing is is that the outgoing chairman, Justin Huang raised negative money for the last two years. He resigned because he sucked, but he raised zero money. Money comes through the party, through Congress, because that's the congressional rules, but they raised zero money on top of that. So the ORP had nothing. [00:37:44] Speaker B: My. So how many do you. And do you think a majority of your county parties are pretty effective? [00:37:52] Speaker A: They're effective at the grassroots level. Yeah, but they can't. But they can't. There's something happens when the delegates go into a room together and work with the national committee men. And I think they get Stars in their eyes or something. But. But something weird happens and they usually tend to go for the most incompetent person. [00:38:14] Speaker B: My goodness. Wow. And hence what led to the last couple of weeks in your party, in your state, Right? [00:38:22] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. What happened? And the outgoing guy is sadly late stage alcoholic. He's dysfunctional. And it was, it was hard to watch. [00:38:34] Speaker B: And now you're watch. Yeah. And that's what happens. [00:38:37] Speaker A: There's no confidence who's gonna donate. I asked people this too when I was campaigning on that, on that trail. I said, who, who's gonna. How many. How many people want to invest money in a failing company? Like, no, no, you don't do. We've done that before. But that's not, that's not what you seek to do. This company's going like this and they're like, I'm going to give you money so that you can keep going like this. It has to be on the up. There has to be. You know, and there's cases where you come in on a sales company, which I did before COVID but I took full control and turned it around. It was a very different thing. So you don't invest in a sunken ship. And that's where the ORP is. How are they going to raise money? And that's the other piece of power. Money is part of power in politics. But you gotta, you gotta raise it in order to get power. And you can't raise it if you're ineffective with what you have. You can always be effective with what they have. Effective leaders can throw pebbles in a battleship until one of them blows up. And if that's all they got is pebbles, when people see that their dudes out there throwing pebbles all by himself, you know, I'm gonna get behind that guy, you know, and so that's been kind of my story. That's how that's all it is. I'm not, I'm not throwing pedals to get people's attention. I'm throwing pedals because that's all I got. So you just throw. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Well, you got. We got to effect change somehow. And we're called to stay here. You know, I live right here, 30 minutes away from the Idaho border. So it was, you know, right in my face how different the policies in Idaho were from Oregon. And my, my dad lives over on the Oregon slope, right on the border of Idaho too. So he lives in Oregon, but same thing. Could go three minutes into Idaho and see the different policies, especially during COVID you know, we could go out, go eat we didn't have to have a mask on. You know, if you're standing up and then only when you sit down, could you take it down or whatever. [00:40:35] Speaker A: You just. It's only when you're not eating. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. So what is the plan now, Ben? I mean, so you. You. You supported this other gal that's now the chair, and what are you doing? [00:40:50] Speaker A: Well, right now, you know, I run a. One of the things, I think strategically that we've. That my. My core group, my core political team has. Has done is take government agencies, right? Because when you take a government agency, you get. You get to control that tax dollar. And so. And so that's what we're doing. We're taking agencies around the state. So right now I'm the CEO of a transportation district in Southern Oregon. So we're. We're. I run the. All the public transportation in Roseburg and in Douglas county, which is. I don't know. Roseburg's got like 80,000 people. It's not huge, but it's. It's. It's a. You know, it's like a 6. $7,067,000,000 biannual budget transportation agency. And when I. When I took. When we took control, it was an opportunity that the. One of our people was the vice chair, and the district was facing insolvency, and, and there were. There was a lot of inept management of the agency. And as a career business owner and CEO, I've experienced it. Run organizations. That's what I do, right? I've done it for 20 years. So I, Michaela Hammerson, who is the vice chair, became chair. The board jumped off like cockroaches because they didn't want to take the blame for running the agency into the ground and blowing millions of dollars in taxpayer funds. And Michaela hung in there. She had the. She had institutional knowledge. She'd been there for about a year, but she was outnumbered, so. So she waited patiently and got to become chair. And then when they all started jumping out, we brought our people and we stuck them in there to take control of the board. The board elected me to be the interim CEO. And as interim CEO, my first day, the district was facing two and a half weeks until it was absolutely bankrupt, not being able to make payments. [00:42:44] Speaker B: The transportation district, a public agency, a. [00:42:48] Speaker A: Government agency, totally bankrupt, two and a half weeks, no payroll. We had two and a half weeks to payroll and money wasn't there. So I worked with ODOT and, And we leveraged ODOT to force the funding and we turned the agency around in the first four months and completely transformed the culture completely. We, we put in our board was wonderful. They put, they're the first agency in the state of Oregon to adopt Trump's executive orders banning dei. And we adopted every single piece of that and have eliminated all DEI from all of our policies and procedures in language and marketing and foreign public relations. It's all gone. And we did some other really bold things as well. But the greatest thing is we save that service, which I believe in. I, I know I'm, some people would say, well, look, I'm from Portland. I wrote TriMet to get the practice, to get the school to, you know, I, I rode public transportation growing up. I needed it and, and my friends needed it. We needed that. So we, we, I, I believe in public transport. I think it's really important. And so the people in Roseburg need it. And it helps improve the economic development of the, of the town because it connects the surrounding towns as well and it gives people more opportunity to lift themselves up out of poverty. I think transportation is incredibly important. And so as, as hardcore as I am, I'm like, we need to have important government agencies. We have to have good roads. Right. [00:44:29] Speaker B: We have to, have to be effective and not losing money and wasting taxpayer dollars because they're not run effectively. That's the difference. [00:44:38] Speaker A: And our entire board is maga. I am maga. We are maga. We are here to show that it works. And even in these small rural towns, Democrats control everything. Yeah, so it's like where their opponents at? They're, they're fighting each other over who said what. Instead of taking government agencies, we're taking government agencies and their guns are ended up. And so it's funny, you know, you just, you just, yeah, get the word, do something real like go take an agency and we'll help you do it. [00:45:05] Speaker B: We'll keep planning commission, run for school board, you know, get on some of the planning teams. You know, there's all sorts of committees and that's what people need to know. Like, you got it. Democrats do this so well and they, they've been strategic. And again, I think that our parties have been intentionally dysfunctional and not doing this part. So, you know, it was controlled opposition so they wouldn't be effective. But we are the wiser now. We know better. Y' all know better. All 131 of you that are listening right now know better. You know, our future, our future. People that are going to be watching this, you all know better. We've Got to get involved. And there's so many water districts, transportation districts, I mean you name them. So my question to you now is how, what does your governor think of you since you wrote out all the policies? [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean the, the, the, the, you know, the most powerful Democrats in Oregon definitely know who I am because I've taken them to federal court, all of them, and so they know me. And, and, and I think that, I think that's great. But I'm, I am, I'm coming after him and I'm not gonna stop. You know, I vowed in my coffee roastery at 3 in the morning that I was gonna find out the people responsible. I did this with God and myself. I said we're gonna find these people responsible and I'm going to take them out and I'm not going to stop. Even if it takes the rest of my life, I'm not going to stop. So I think they don't, I think they're scared of us. I think they're scared of me. I think they're scared of my core team and I think that they should be scared because if they want to hold power, it's going to be us that takes it away from them. And, and, and so they know that we have a, we have a, an initiative petition called End Vote by Mail NVN and on Friday we have, we, our signatures have been accepted for our initial run and on Friday we have, we're going to be hearing from the Attorney General of the state of Oregon on our ballot title and edits that he's made to our language. And we have the, we can either accept it or we can challenge that. And we are assuming we're going to have to challenge it. But, but one of the co chief petitioners is Stephen Jockets and he's been my civil primary civil rights attorney since 2021. He's a genius attorney and, and he's a very good man and he's a fighter. He's got courage just like Michaela Hammerson who's the board chair at the Public Transit and also a co petitioner chief competition or nvbn. I think, I think together we're, we're incredibly terrifying to the Democrats right now in Oregon because they're not going to be able to have two elections in 2026. They're going to have to have one. If they have two elections. I know a lot about election issues and if they're going to have two elections, the one that they do by mail is going to be so different than the one that they do by not mail. It's going to be over for them. [00:48:09] Speaker B: I'm really glad you're getting into this because I knew this was a big issue that you were working on. So. Yeah. Pretty fascinating. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:48:18] Speaker B: You know, about our initiative fiascos here in Washington state and how the AG's office was able to kind of change the ballot language and to confuse the voters in our November general election. We might have talk offline about that, but, yeah, completely happened and it was totally confused our voters. And. And so a couple of, A couple of the initiatives didn't pass because of that. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it's crazy. It's so crazy. Sorry. My son has a friend coming over and they're knocking and stuff and I'm like, dude, you need to get down here. But when they're in fifth grade, it's like. [00:48:57] Speaker B: It'S. It's all part of it. It's all part of it. So. So this is your initiative. You've got the signatures now you're trying to get the language. And this will be in the 2026 election, next year's. [00:49:12] Speaker A: Yes, if we get enough signatures. Now. Here's the response. Now we've done, I've done. We've done a lot of things that have, have garnered legislative response from Democrats in this state. One of them was a lawsuit, Washington County v. Simple in 2022, 2021. That went most. It still actually was still going, but the initial hearings, because what happened was simple. She's a free organ guy. And he calls me up one day because he goes, dude, long story short, he was asking. Well, there's no long story short. He was asking for the test run of the, of the, of the, of the tabulators to take real ballots. They fill them out like maybe 15 or 20. And they, and they, and they send out, they run them through the machines to test the, the. Sorry, a lot of distractions. They run them through the machine to test the, you know, the accuracy of the account. Then they throw the ballots away or whatever and they start counting. He asked for that and he was denied by Washington county to see that data. And then he went to the district attorney of Washington County District said, no, this is your data. This is public data. You can see that data. And so then the g. The DA compelled Washington county to give sifle the data. So Sipple goes down to the elections office. They give him a thumb drive, takes it puts in his computer. Taking forever to transfer over to be like, what the hell's going on? So he looks at it again. More carefully with eight terabytes of data. And what he. What he. What they actually gave him was the entire. Everything for Washington county, second largest county in the state of Oregon. It's right next to Portland, right? Part of it is in Portland. And it was the entire 2020 election. Data for Washington county, all of it, the images, the Casto record, the SQL database codes, everything. Everything. Okay. So he calls me up like, scared shitless, dude. And I was like, you need to give me that thumb drive right now. Give it to me now. No, no, I can't. No, no, I'm scared of that. I know you're scared. Give it to me. I know you're scared. I'm. Give it to me right? Because I'm not scared. And I. I was worried that he would give it back. And out of fear and. And I was like, just give it. So immediately called Jockets. Who's my co petitioner on? Not mine, but we're. All three of us are equal co petitioners in nbbm. And I said, dude, we got to get up. You got to talk to this guy right now and. And give him a sense of peace, because this can't be lost. We have to get this data. So he did. And. And time goes on. We ended up Washington county student. What he. Jocket decided to notify Washington county of their mistake. And he did it after a phone call with his own ethics attorney that Jacus works with. And now he looks back and regrets it, but he did. And the second he did, within hours, Sipple was hit with a lawsuit and served from the state of Oregon back in Washington county on a gag order and to return the data. Okay, so now he's sued by the state. So this is really heavy shit, right? I mean, it really is. Like, if you're sitting here like, dude, I'm just, like, doing research, now I'm getting sued by the state. This is terrifying. So we had a hearing, and in the hearing, we won the argument that we should be allowed to analyze the data. And the judge got in trouble, I'm sure, from her higher ups for that. But we did have a trial, and we were able to break that data down through Dr. Frank's team and through other members of Trump's team. And what we found out was that there's 126 precincts in Washington County. In each and every county. Exactly. 86% of Democrats turned out in 2020. Exactly. In each and every town. [00:53:11] Speaker B: In each and every county or each. [00:53:14] Speaker A: Each and every precinct. Okay, 126 in each and every one. Okay. And in each and every precinct, 82% of Republicans turned out. 82. So you got 86. 82 each in the east precinct. There's no way that happened. [00:53:31] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, that's not statistically possible. [00:53:35] Speaker A: Yes. And this is 2021. So go back in your mind to 2021. What was the demo? What was the Biden administration saying? They were calling people. Election tonight. They were calling people. They were saying that the tabulators are not connected to the Internet. Well, you know, we found out. We found out through the code that every single tabulator not only was not connected to the Internet, it had. It. It put out its own WI FI network. So each tabular has a WI FI network. So you can. You could drive up in the parking lot and tap into whichever tabulator you want, and you can put in code to change the dots on a square on a circle, like on a boat, change it. Change the image. And we even provided the HTML code to be able to do that. It's like HTML and a couple other very simple, like four or five pages of code, and you could just insert it right in at any time. We showed that import on the record, and the state attorney general agreed. But here's what they did that was so genius. They flipped it around on us and they said, your Honor, you see. You see how dangerous it is for. For the general public to have this data? [00:54:41] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:54:42] Speaker A: And there was a lot. There was a lot of issues with the contracts, the private contracts that the government had signed with the tabulator companies. Non disclosures, all this stuff. But there's nothing in there. Because we saw it. There's nothing in there that's proprietary. It is basic, basic, basic stuff. [00:55:04] Speaker B: My. [00:55:04] Speaker A: There's nothing proprietary. So if anybody says there's protection, again, no, there's not. [00:55:09] Speaker B: And you're working with people in Washington state on this that are. You guys are comparing notes with people that are working with election integrity, right? [00:55:17] Speaker A: No, we're not. We. We almost had a deal, but it broke. It broke apart. So there's nobody in Washington state doing this, okay? We need it. [00:55:25] Speaker B: We need to. [00:55:26] Speaker A: You don't even need to. You can file an issue petition, and you don't even have to go get a certain number. So you can just start right now. Right? But we. But we had that, but we lost it. There's nobody that we know in Washington state that's willing to be a petitioner for this. So we. Our hope was to have Washington, Oregon, and California all do it together. And we started this before knowing that Trump was. Trump was going to do an executive order. Right. I knew he would, and we pitched it there, but, you know, but now the executive order is coming. This could be our only chance to codify this in the state constitution. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Are you working with anybody, like, just Election Integrity around your findings of the tabulators? Because do we have the same machines? Clear choice is. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Yeah, we use Clear Choice. We use like three or four, but you guys do too. It just depends. [00:56:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So that's because I. I mean, this is the data. [00:56:20] Speaker A: The centralization of the data is critical, but we don't have that. All of our Election Integrity teams are. Are in their own little silos. It's. It's, it's bizarre. It needs to be centralized. You can do it, right. On NVVM's website. All that data is the public on NVVM's website. That's it. Period. It needs to be. [00:56:36] Speaker B: Well, I've got some people I know that I'll try to connect you with them and if you're not already connected and see what we can do that. They've been diving deep into this for, you know, four years and trying to figure this out, so. Wow. And. And again, unfortunately, that's frustrating. It sounds like, again, the party is getting. Or some people in the party. I don't want to say the whole party, because I believe we're changing it. [00:56:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:00] Speaker B: Sounds like there's some people in the party that are getting in the way of this collaboration. And why wouldn't we want to share notes? [00:57:06] Speaker A: They were the. The old guard in. In the ORP leading up to me running everything else. Absolutely refused to endorse NBN. They wanted nothing to do with it. They fought against it. They went. They even said that it's the number one thing in their bylaws is the invoke by mail. And they. And they would not participate in it, and they would not support it or endorse it. And they also attacked it online, which was even stupider, because I just repost that. I'm like, you damn fools, if you're gonna say this, I'm gonna repost that. Like, you don't think I'm gonna expose that, how corrupt you are and stupid you are? Because they are. They're stupid. I mean, I hate to say it. It's stupidity. And, And a lot of it is because it's the social media person who's like, I don't like Ben. And so he. He. I'm gonna. I'm Gonna. I'm gonna tell him this is a bad idea. Okay, I'm gonna repost that. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Yep. That was the narrative they were trying. I remember that was right before Iran. They were telling all the Republicans that were running again, don't run on election integrity, don't run on Covid. And I'm just like, you're kidding, right? Like, you're kidding. This is coming from the leadership of the Republican, you know, different caucuses. And so, I mean, it is very telling, isn't it? [00:58:20] Speaker A: It's very telling. It's very telling. And it's obvious. It's obvious they need to be thrown out. Trump won on all those issues and on open borders, so we can win on the same thing. In fact, I'll tell you this right now, we probably did win on that. I bet you Trump won Oregon, and I bet you Trump might have even won Washington. And I'll tell you this, too. If you think that our elections are legit and you want indisputable proof that they're not, okay? So these are the people who are questioning the election integrity thing altogether. If you think they're legit and you want indisputable proof that they're not, all you have to do is you go to nbbm.com and then you click the FAQ link and you look at the facts that we have out there. And the number one thing is the legislation, okay? We have a full timeline of vote by mail legislation going back into the late 70s, early 80s in Oregon, okay. Because we're the pioneers in the state of vote by mail. We also have all the information, including the debates, that Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly in the legislature did not want vote by mail because of how easy it would be to cheat. Okay? That was. The argument on both sides was bipartisan against vote by mail in the. In the 80s, okay? And in the. And even up until the 90s. But the legislation itself is so crazy, there's no explanation for it other than to make it all things go easy to cheat. Number one, in Oregon, with vote by mail, as ballots are returned three, four weeks ahead of election day, they're allowed to start counting ballots. Okay? Number one, that's. [01:00:04] Speaker B: Do they call it something different? Because, you know, they. They in Washington, they call it scanning, but they're not counting. [01:00:11] Speaker A: They're scanning, but they're not counting. We scan them, but we don't count them. It's very fine hair. Yeah. So they start counting effing ballots four weeks ahead of election day, and they're tracking like, oh, my God's gonna win his race. Okay, this is bad. We can't, we can't have in the, in the, as a, as a, as a lawmaker, because then everything he says is gonna be front page news. We can't have that. Okay? So now we need to make sure that we get enough, we get enough votes. I'm gonna take you through how it's done. Now we got to make sure we get enough, folks. Thank God we've been a sanctuary state since the mid-80s because we have 500, 600,000 illegal aliens registered to vote since we started auto registering them through the DMV and through OHA and everything else. And because of that, it's kind of like, what are they going to say? Back when I did drugs and drank too much, I would like steal a pound of mushrooms from my drug dealer. What you going to do? Call the police? You stole my mushroom? Like, no. Okay, what's an illegal alien? They have no federal rights. What are they going to do? They're going to say that, that, hey, I have evidence. Like, they're sending me ballots. Like, I'm getting. I think I might have voted. I didn't vote, but I, but I, I'm seeing that it was counted or not. Right, but they're, but they're registered to vote. So then they take just enough illegals or dead people because they also passed the law that says that you can't clean the voter rolls in Oregon. It's illegal. You can't do it. And so they have dead people and people have moved away. People haven't voted in 10 years, 20 years. They're registered to vote, of course, but they take the inactive registered voters and they give them a vote because they have their signature. They have all their data because they get it from the dmv and so they can plop it on a ballot or 1,000 ballots or 500, whatever. They need to just keep that. Know where it needs to be to make sure EDEL doesn't go become a legislature. So they're doing all this stuff. Then comes election day, okay? And they're like, oh my God, we can't print enough ballots fast enough. Right. To have the paper trail. So what they did do is they said, we're going to eliminate paper ballots after a year and a half instead of 10 years. So they have a year and a half until they get destroyed instead of 10. It's always been about 10. So a year and a half. So we got to make sure we destroy those faster. And we can't let Anybody look at them. So then come election day, this is crazy. Anybody can bring in ballots, Right. Ballot harvesting is also legislative, legislatively legal in Oregon because of course it's voted by mail. So we have different. We have the post office and, you know, ups and everybody's bringing ballots in. And so we have to make ballot harvesting legal. So what they do is the siu, for example, the largest government union in, in the state. They have university ballot drives, so they, in all the dorms, you can drop your extra ballot inside the bucket at the dorm because they send one back home to where your parents are. They send one to you at the, at the dorm in college. And so they do that. They usually get, they can get anywhere from 60 to 80, 90,000 ballots every single election time. Right? 69,000. We were, we missed a super majority by, I don't know, it was like 10,000 ballots. So that should give you an idea of the scale. You don't need much. So Democrats took a super majority by about that much. So that's all, that's all is needed. So come election day, the SEIU is bringing in ballots. The different various people are, you know, helpful people that stop by the old folks home or whatever they say, bringing in ballots. So they can bring in ballots. Anybody can bring in ballots. Okay, that's what's, that's what's crazy. [01:03:55] Speaker B: Y. [01:03:55] Speaker A: That crazy? [01:03:57] Speaker B: Because here in Washington too. Yep. [01:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that, that's it. Right. Like they have signature machines that like the president uses and people use to literally, you put the JPEG in and it has a pen that goes and signs it. Exactly. So that I can go buy. You can buy one on Amazon for 7,75 bucks. I'm not sure they can do a thousand an hour. It's crazy. So you just load them in and boom. So anyway, come election day, people are dropping the ballots off. Now there's also legislation that Sundays you have 7 days to receive ballots after election day, but they have to be postmarked. Now that's the title of the bill. Now down in the bill, it says they have to be postmarked, but they also don't have to be postmarked because not all ballots did a postmark. Oh. And so postmarked or not, they can be accepted. Not only can be, they're so they have to be accepted seven days. So then even if they can't print enough fake signatures or enough fake ballots to win the race they need to win, then they can go do it that seven days after. So it's. [01:05:07] Speaker B: And then how Long does it take you guys to count your ballots? Because I think we were in a race. I know we were one of the very last states to finally finish counting. I think maybe Alaska was longer than this or, you know, so how long? [01:05:21] Speaker A: Six months. By law. Six months. It has to be finalized. Six months. See, when we were down at the county level, or, sorry, the precinct level, all the ballots we counted by 8pm on election day. [01:05:33] Speaker B: Close, right? Yep. When we used to do them in person at the schools, you know, you did it by precinct. Yep. You had your PCOs involved because that's who helped with those elections. You did it in person. Yep. [01:05:47] Speaker A: Yep. And regular people did the job. Show me your id. Here you are. I see you haven't voted yet. Wonderful. [01:05:54] Speaker B: Yep. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Here's your ballot right here. [01:05:57] Speaker B: I mean, how many people does Oregon have? [01:06:01] Speaker A: How many what? [01:06:01] Speaker B: How many people does Oregon have? [01:06:03] Speaker A: Like 4 million. [01:06:05] Speaker B: So Florida has 11. And they were able. 11 million and they were able to count in person before midnight. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:13] Speaker B: We can't do it after 30 days or however long it took. 21 or 28 or something. [01:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:20] Speaker B: And we have half of that population. It's nuts. It's so insane. It's so insane. [01:06:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. 100%. Our elections are stolen. 100%. There's no doubt about it in my mind. If there was any doubt, we would not have the laws that, the legislative architecture around our elections that we would have. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, we have so many laws. It's so complex. I mean, and they do that on purpose. They make it very complex on purpose. So you can't really understand it or follow along. I mean. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Well, what they. Well, the reality is is that it's not really complex. It's really simple. Go read the law. And you know, and, and, and they do their procedural stuff is all based on that, on that law. And so there's. People are literally there deciding what works and what doesn't work. That's about. We had, we had a guy sneak into Clackamas county, the third largest county state of Oregon, which is southern Portland, South Portland Metro with glasses in it, with a camera in his glasses, hidden camera, and you're not allowed to bring cameras, but he was able to see multiple ballots that were being adjudicated that were Donald Trump votes, but somebody wrote Mickey Mouse on the bottom as a write in as well. And those, all those ballots were being thrown out. So anytime somebody there just wrote a name on the right end, even someone had a Donald Trump vote, those ballots were tossed out. [01:07:43] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. [01:07:46] Speaker A: It's all in video. And they're arguing and arguing and they're like, why would you talk to, obviously the person voted for Donald Trump? Well, no, if you feel, if you, if you write this so anybody can write it. Another thing that's crazy. In Oregon, if you, if you fill out your ballot, this is, this is Secretary of State. This is rules and regulations on, on elections. If you fill out your ballot and you realize you made a mistake, you can open up your secrecy envelope and adjust the vote. Adjust your vote by writing an X through what you did and then circling the correct one and then putting it back in the secrecy envelope and taping it up. So those are acceptable ballots. [01:08:24] Speaker B: That's, that's, that's not ripe for corruption at all. [01:08:29] Speaker A: No. What can go wrong there? I mean, for real, it's insane. You, you, you stack. Hey, I'll pick a ballot for you. Oh, yeah, no problem. Thanks, buddy. Don't worry, man. D. No, they, they count them. I got you. And then, you know, you know, tape it back up. Done. That's the rules, that's the rules from the csa. So all the county clerks have to follow that. [01:08:55] Speaker B: My goodness. What's the, what's the organization called? Where they can, can they follow along with what you guys are doing? [01:09:01] Speaker A: End vbm End B, B M. And. [01:09:06] Speaker B: Is that on X? Is that on, on X? [01:09:09] Speaker A: It's on and it's on. We're only on X. And then, and then we have the. [01:09:14] Speaker B: Website.Com nbbm.com nvbm.com okay, so we can follow along with that. And you guys have got the initiative, you're going through the process. You got to get the signatures. [01:09:27] Speaker A: We're using the Free Oregon infrastructure for this. Okay. So this isn't like, you know, I'm creating brand new infrastructure. We have Free Oregon, right? We, we took over 25 of the 36 counties in Oregon. So we, we have, we have infrastructure across the state. And so we can help like anybody. If someone, if you got two or three good leaders in Washington state that are ready to take this thing on, they can play the political side. They can get up and recruit people in and get them, put them to work. We can set you up with essentially a franchise operation on how to go get the signatures of, how to build it up county to county. And so we already have all that stuff done and there's time's class ticking. But in Washington state. Oh, yeah, you don't, you don't need to go through the process like we do here. You can just get started. [01:10:14] Speaker B: Well, and we have an initiative. Let's go. Washington has been putting out initiatives the last couple years, so we've been building that infrastructure as well, you know, in our counties and stuff. And, and they've been very successful. It's just getting the right language on the ballot. You know, that, that fight is, is pretty frustrating. So. [01:10:34] Speaker A: So, yeah, it is very frustrating. We're gonna, we're in the same boat right now. But, you know, Democrats brought a bill called a measure, measure 114, and it was this long, drawn out de facto gun ban. This was for 20, 22. Seriously, de facto got to permit to buy a gun. If you get the permit, you have to be trained by law enforcement agent. And so. But we're defunding all the police, so no one's going to be able to give you the permit. It's. It's incredible. Like, don't we have a permit called the second amendment to purchase not to carry, you know, concealed, but to actually own a shotgun at your house? [01:11:10] Speaker B: Okay, you're making me cry right now because just guess what just got passed through our legislature. [01:11:15] Speaker A: Same here. We just had measure 114 revamped again for the third time because they lost in court twice. They just had it done again and they. It just passed. It's a de facto gun ban in Oregon. Here's what I say to a de facto gun band. Sorry. [01:11:31] Speaker B: Oh, it's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. And we have the organizations, by the way, that are getting the funds from the taxpayers, from the legislature, the alliance for Responsible. Oh, I'm gonna forget. I'll send it to you. And they are the ones that are filling the coffers of these same Democrats that are voting for this stuff. Yep. Yeah, it's those organizations. And they're the ones. You know how I, we started to figure that out is we started, you know, kind of paying attention on who was testifying in these bill hearings for these bad unconstitutional bills. And it's like, oh, who. Who's this organization, huh? Yeah, you know, so they're kind of. There's. They're. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Working night. [01:12:18] Speaker B: So what's the, what's the status of your free Oregon? You said you got 25 out of 36 counties. [01:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So free Oregon doesn't exist anymore. We shut it down because it's sort of, it's time sort of just, you know, it's need. Its need was it passed 4 out of 5 of our donors. Over $500 left the state of Oregon. So, you know that they were all doctors and nurses. They they were the ones and teachers also. But most of them left the state. [01:12:55] Speaker B: During COVID because of the. [01:12:57] Speaker A: No, the lawsuits take years. The lawsuits we filed in early 2021 are. Some are still going today, but we stopped the math mandate. We sued Best Buy, we sued Goodwill. Multiple lawsuits. Corporate, big corporate. Because that was our strategy. Like let's do the corporations for, for violating first Amendment rights and medical rights. And so we did these lawsuits like 14th amendment. We did ADA, we won on ADA, we lost on 14. And then the next time we sued, they just settled out of court. Then pulled the BAS mandates from their stores nationwide because they just don't want to face it. And so, you know, I got thrown out of a Best Buy. My wife and I did Christmas of 2022. It's really funny. I walk in there, my wife's always like, oh my God, just wear it. [01:13:43] Speaker B: She probably stopped going with you to places I would imagine. [01:13:47] Speaker A: She's tough, man. She stuff. She's stuck it up. She doesn't like attention or conflict. I happen to like both. But, but so I kind of drug her along. But, but we're walking through and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. We walking into. If that's by like, I think this is maybe Chris. Maybe it's, you know, it's Christmas 2021. Sorry. And blue haired girl who's like, I don't know, 17. Sir, sir, you need to wear a mask. And I was like. And I just, I just laughed and, and kept on going, chuckled. And she chased me through the store and, and, and was like, where you gotta wear your mask? You got. I'm gonna call the police. And I was like, I turned around, put my finger like this far from her nose and I was like, listen, you go do whatever you think you need to do, but I ain't wearing a mask, okay. And. And she just scurries around. Next thing I know we got a, you know, 50 inch TV. We got, you know, we're doing the Best Buy thing and, and it's on this, next thing I know, I'm getting tapped on the shoulder by fd. And I was like, oh man, for real? I was like, for real, dude. And we, we were talking or whatever and they, they did, they threw us out. He's like, I'm not going to arrest you. But he's like, because it's bullshit. And we talked him outside for quite a while, but we sued him and we took him to federal court because I was like, let's go. And then we had another case. And we lost that case because that was our 14th mimic case. But we had another guy in a Best Buy who had a medical release to wear a mask, and we sued them on ADA and we won. And so that was the game changer. And it was really cool. It was really cool to be able to affect that kind of change. [01:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, it sounds like you guys have been super effective. So what do you think is the future of the party in Oregon and. And maybe in these, you know, west coast, the behind the blue curtain states? I mean, you know, I, I'm. I'm still here. You're still in Oregon. I feel called to fight. I know it's a calling. I think there's a lot of us. I know a lot of people are leaving and they're. They're distraught and they're discouraged because these bad laws keep passing. But I just. I really do believe that we are. We are. If we're not at the precipice, we're close, and I do have hope. But what's the state, you know, to affect change in Oregon? I mean, what do you see moving forward? [01:16:07] Speaker A: Well, I think. I think, you know, from. I think. I think the political side and the party side are very separate things. It's a whole nother ball game. Right. And I think Connie Welchel, who's the. Who's the new chair of the Oregon gop, I think she's. She is going to be at. She's at a crossroads where she doesn't necessarily want to be the chair. I actually believe she doesn't want to be the chair. We had a conversation today where I said, well, God wants you to be the chair, so. Because, you know, so there's that, and I think there's. I think there needs to be some faith in that. She's at a crossroads where she's going to decide the future of the, of the Oregon gop. This is really big for her. It's big for everybody. She has. She can either go the right direction or she can go the safe direction for her. And we're not always. Like, me in 2020, when God called me to be. To go into politics, I laughed. I literally. I was going to blow my head off, but instead I just laughed because. Because it was so funny to me like that. Like. You're kidding me, right? But I think she has a real opportunity to turn the state around. And I endorsed her in Willamette Week to be the chair. When I, when they quoted me about the, when the article was released on this guy, And I said, no, I, I endorse Connie because I think she's the one. She doesn't want it. That's a great sign. [01:17:33] Speaker B: Yes. [01:17:34] Speaker A: She works hard. She's the NBN director for Deschutes county for NBN. I've worked with her. I know her. She's solid. She's a good person. She's. She's ready for this. Even if she doesn't believe it, I think she's ready. And it's just now it's gonna be about growth. I think politics grows you. I've grown more in the last five years than in the last 20 combined. Yep. [01:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:59] Speaker A: You know what I'm talking about. You're like, oh, you know, I don't know if I can take another step. But you do. And that's growth. And I screw up. I say things that are really stupid sometimes, probably a lot of times, but I, you know, and I do, you know what I mean? Like, you just have to grow. And sometimes I'm weak where I should have been strong. And so I think Connie is about to embark, this is my bet. She's about to embark on that adventure of growth. And if she does, and if she does that, she has my absolute 1% support in every ammo in my. And in my ammo can to protect her and clear the way for her to be successful. And I think that if that doesn't happen, then the ORP is going to be. Continue to be irrelevant and make all the wrong moves going into 2026. And there's going to be potentially an entirely new apparatus on the political side because the, the without dirty voter rolls and without citizen citizenship verification, the cheat with vote by mail is going to be mortally wounded. It's not over because they can still see seven days later who didn't vote. But if all those ballots that come in after seven days, if all those ballots that show up within the first three to four weeks after ballot being ballots being mail can get audited, then we might be able to see it. And I already know because Pam Bondi said and Trump said an executive order said that Doge will be the auditor of our elections. And so Democrats are going to have to be careful. They're going to have to choose in 2026 whether they go to prison or whether they lose power. That's what's going to happen. That's the choice that Democrats face. So for me, I'm not going to work inside the party. I don't, I don't want to either. And I will lead a party, but I won't. I won't. I'm not effective as a. As an employee. I'm effective as a leader. So on the outside, I'm going to try to make sure that as many strong leaders are elected in 2026 as I possibly can. I might run for something, but I'm not sure. I just don't know. There's a lot of. Some people are saying I should run for Congress or run for Senate because it's federal and I might have a lot more support there. You know, I. I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do. I might stay low and. And. And, you know, I don't know. I don't think, honestly, that Oregon has. With our party apparatus, with our orp. I don't believe we have the character and organs of. Hold the blessing of being a free state. I just don't believe we do. We don't have that character yet. And. And I hope that Connie is. Is the start in that direction. But if you don't have the character to hold the blessing, you're not going to hold it. [01:20:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:56] Speaker A: It's all about character. [01:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what I was gonna say, too, because, you know, it's awesome that you've got this gal that's, you know, didn't want to be chair. Right. Like you said, a lot of times it's the people that don't want to run that need to run that are the right people to run because they're doing it. They. They're doing it for the right reasons. They're not trying to advance their political career. They have their personal agenda. Right. So that's awesome. You also need, I believe, very strong people that are those delegates that help. You know, I know as a county chair, like, I had a board that. That demanded, like, I needed to be bold and strong and crazy. Much more strong than I was comfortable. Much more bold than I was comfortable. But I did it because I had such a strong board that was like, mj, this is. We're voting. We're in unison. You know, you're the spokesperson. And. And so that does make you stronger. And it's so much, you know, it's helpful. Right. So I think from the county level, how often do you guys meet as the delegates from the different counties, as the state. We call it a state committee. [01:22:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Community. Same thing. We meet usually once a month. There's a, you know, it's a big meeting. You vote on stuff and, you know. Yeah, usually it's about once a month. So that's county. They'll meet. I think they meet like they have a bunch of good meetings. They have two or three. They do. They do different things. But. But yeah, the official meetings, usually on the central committee meeting, is usually on Saturday. Once a month. [01:22:26] Speaker B: For the. For the whole state? [01:22:28] Speaker A: No, for the county. [01:22:30] Speaker B: Okay. Only annually. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Or by really. I don't know. Don't quote me. [01:22:37] Speaker B: Wow. Well, again, I think structurally, I mean, those are the things that weaken the voice of. Of the grassroots effort. [01:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:22:45] Speaker B: So three or four times a year. Yeah. [01:22:51] Speaker A: Okay. They might be quarterly, online. I can't remember. Don't quote me. [01:22:54] Speaker B: Okay. [01:22:55] Speaker A: Someone's going to be like, adel, you're wrong. Totally. I've been wrong. I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I meant I'm wrong. Hello, Wrong. Sorry. [01:23:02] Speaker B: But I think that would, you know, if hopefully you guys do meet at least quarterly. So you. So that gives the delegates the opportunity to really support her, to be strong and courageous and. And take those hard lines that are very uncomfortable. And you have a lot of people in power, as you well know, that don't want you to rock the boat like that. Right. They want you to just go along with the flow and. [01:23:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:26] Speaker B: Keep them empowered. [01:23:28] Speaker A: We've infiltrated the Democrat Party by voting like Democrats. And we're going to split this all around on them. We promise. [01:23:36] Speaker B: You're hilarious. I think you need to do a comedian show on some of this stuff, too. I think it'd be great, man. [01:23:44] Speaker A: You don't laugh about how terrible this shit is. I don't know. There's got to be some joy. [01:23:49] Speaker B: It's insane. You know, I thought Biden was insane. I really did. I thought the stuff that I'm like, you can't make this up. How blatantly crazy it is. And then I watch our legislature and our Democrat, you know, almost super majority and the stuff they're putting forward, the unconstitutional bills, the gun bill, the anti parents. I'm just like, oh, my gosh. [01:24:12] Speaker A: Did you know? Today I got stories for you. Okay. So today it was announced that the town of Corvallis, where Oregon State is. It's a small town. [01:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah, my brother went there. I know Corvallis well. [01:24:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a small town. Well, their city council just unanimously declared Corvallis, the town of Corvallis as a. As a. As a sanctuary town for trans people. And you know what else? They're all facing huge budget deficits because the state and Tina Kotak Radio refuses to say, like, no, we're gonna let biological males compete in girl sports and we're gonna lose all this, all this federal funding with all this DI stuff. And that includes my transportation district. So all the rural transportation districts are going to get h. Because we're not going to get any money from the, from the state. So now, city of Portland, multima county, all the big. They're all facing, like billion dollar shortfalls because. And they're not going to just be like, yeah, let's let the boys into the girls locker room. It like, it's bizarre. [01:25:13] Speaker B: Yep. We. They debated it on the house floor the other day for like the third time. And, and that's. Those were the arguments. I mean, they were debating whether or not they should allow boys in the girls locker room in the bathrooms. And it's just like, how can you not defend this? And the Democrats voted against every single one of those amendments. [01:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know what they're going to do? They're going to attack the hell out of you and me. And that's what they're doing. And so we just had a transportation package come out with nine new taxes just to fund transportation. And as a, as a leader of a transportation district, I've told every legislature to say no on the transportation bill. No new taxes. 50% increase in gas tax. [01:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:57] Speaker A: 400% increase in payroll tax. [01:26:01] Speaker B: We are trying to compete. We're pretty close. I mean, we're. It's parallel. It's almost like they're cut from the same cloth or something. Like there's this, you know. [01:26:11] Speaker A: Common denominator at work here. And I can't put my finger on it. [01:26:15] Speaker B: I know. That's why we better. We shouldn't work together because, you know, it's too similar. Right. It wouldn't make sense to work together. [01:26:22] Speaker A: You got to make sure that Oregonians and Washingtonians never talk and share notes. They'll find out it's the same thing. [01:26:31] Speaker B: It is. Absolutely. [01:26:32] Speaker A: For sure. [01:26:33] Speaker B: It's insanity. Oh, my gosh, Ben. What else. What else do you want to tell the listeners today? [01:26:40] Speaker A: I got another funny thing. Okay. This happened the other day. Guy goes nuts on Northwest. I don't know if you know Portland, but it's like 23rd. Northwest. 23rd Ave. It's like super. It used to be super nice. It's just. Just about right next to the Pearl district, which is like super nice. Right. High end urban living, great restaurants, shops, all that stuff. 23rd's like that. Great restaurants, great shops, all that. It's a Wonderful place for, for, you know, affluent people to have a good time. Well, on 23rd the other day, this dude goes crazy. He's got like a fat or something in one hand and a knife that's like a Crocodile Dundee knife in the other. And he's running around screaming at people while they're eating lunch and like jabbing their knife at him and stuff and just kind of going up and down the street, just, you know, acting like he's gonna stab people, running full speed and then acting like he's gonna try to snap. People run out of the way, going crazy. Well, eventually people call the police. Police comes out port of the police and they, they have this like, I don't know, eight hour standoff with the guy. And you know what the police do at the end? They leave. [01:27:38] Speaker B: What? [01:27:40] Speaker A: They leave. They just go, hey, you know what? You're good now, right? Oh, yeah, I'm good. Okay. Keep your knife. Keep your little, you know, baseball bat thing. And, and, and you've de. Escalated yourself. Congratulations. This is a wonderful, wonderful police work here. And left him there. And then today they're actually down there filming them and he's still walking around hanging out downtown. Nobody moved him and he still has his weapons. So it's, it's, it's absolute. Like, you can't, like you can't make this up. And they have the guy, the spokesman from the forum police, who clearly is not a, you know, when you talk to a police officer, okay, even when they're off duty and like, my uncle's a police officer. My cousin, when I'm with my uncle, like, you know, he's a police officer. He, he's a police officer. Like everything he does is like, I'm a police officer. They're, you know, their head on a swivel. They're like, you know, even in the living room, their head's on a swivel. And so this guy's like talking and he sounds like so super feminine and like, doesn't look like a police officer. And he's like talking about like, how great, how huge of a success it was because the man was able to de escalate himself. And this was a huge victory for the police. So that's why the police were called down from arresting the person. And no one got hurt. And they felt like if they moved in for an arrest that might have ended in the criminal's, you know, injury or worse because he was, he was, he was so upset, sad because he didn't want to get arrested. I'm like this was. [01:29:16] Speaker B: Can you imagine if you parented like that? [01:29:20] Speaker A: My kids would own me. They would own me. [01:29:25] Speaker B: Well, that was, I mean, that was the, the thing. I mean, you know, when you run the speed limit, the police, you know, puts the sirens on, he pulls you over, he calmly gets out of the car, he doesn't yell or anything, and he writes you a ticket. That's painful. There's consequences. When you put your hand on a burner, you know, it burns D. You learn. [01:29:47] Speaker A: But when I go 90 to 100, I'm looking for cut. I mean, and then it gets you in there. Like you have faster going. Yeah, a little bit kind of. [01:29:57] Speaker B: We have, we have similar. We have a. Spokane has a compassion resolution or a composition compassion something in the city of Spokane. So it's kind of similar, right? Like they stopped, you know, having consequences and it's a mess. I mean, we've got down, you know, downtown, like businesses are leaving left and right, you know, and, or, or not. And not coming in. And they wonder why. It's not compassion. And we have, you know, great charities like UGM Union Gospel Mission says this is not compassion. This is, this is assisting people and staying in their, you know, a terrible situation, dysfunction, crappy lifestyle. This is not compassion. [01:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not compassion at all. So like I said, you know, drinking and stuff, I, I've been cleaning, so for like 15 years, right? And I go to this place. [01:30:55] Speaker B: Congratulations. [01:30:55] Speaker A: And in that place, the first thing you do, the first thing they do, they grab you by the back of the head and they go, look at yourself, look at yourself. And I'm like, oh. Then it's, it's that, it's that guy. If they would have done this and if she would have done that, if my employer wasn't such a, you know what, Like, I'd have been great, okay? And, and they're like. And then finally you look at it and go, oh my God, it is. Oh my God, it's been me all along. I'll be. Goddamn, it's been me. I'll be the one doing it to myself and in the process, process hurting everyone around me. And I had no idea. I couldn't see it. And when you, when we take that approach as a society where we take the criminal and we. It's. It even says it in, in, in writing. It's like the safecracker, the guy who, who breaks into safes and steals people's hard earned money or wealth, who believes the world has wronged him. It's, it's the craziest thing in the world. But when you have people, when you have criminals and they've decided that, you know, the criminals are really the victims of just hard life, and if you're this color, then you've had a hard life. If you're. That. If you're this gender, hard life. And you know, let me tell you something. Let me, Let me just say this real quick. If you're a human being, you've had a hard life because life is hard. It's hard for everybody. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're a billionaire. You have. There's things in your life that are very difficult to overcome. Everybody has to overcome very hard things. No matter what it is, whether it's this or that or this or that, we have to overcome it, and it's designed for us to overcome it. Because I believe there is a force in this universe that knows the beginning and the end, the before and the after and the why and the how. And that force any one of us can tap into from any place, anywhere, and ask it what we do next. And ask it what it wants us to know. To ask it. What lie am I believing today? What lie am I believing today? About myself, about my situation, about my wife, about my spouse, about my friend? What lie am I bleeding? And that force will tell you and, and you just follow it. That's it. I don't care if you're an atheist. Atheists follow that same force. They don't know it, they won't admit it, but they do. A lot of them. I admit there are a lot of concerned atheists that are like, I'm an atheist. Okay. Do you ever follow your gut? Yeah. Well, I believe you do, too. You're listening to something. It's telling you something. It speaks to you through your gut. And so when we deny that and medicate it and push it down and, and do everything we can to avoid that, that's when we fall. And so we have to have, as a party, as a, as a city, as a town, as a county, as a state, state, as a country, right? As an individual, we. We have as a family, we have to be able to say, what is it telling us? And, and, and how do we take responsibility? What is it that we did to get us into this mess? Right? What did we do? Right? We blame. We blame around a lot. But what. What did I do? Well, you know what I did for 20 years? I minded my own business and I minded my own family, and I Didn't care about your business or your family. I just cared about mine. And when that came down, it was because I only cared about mine. That we had a government that would be able to take that away from us. And so now I don't just care about mine. I care about your family. I care about your business. Because I learned. I learned because the force told me, if I don't do this. So when you're too busy to go knock on a door, when you're too busy to sign a petition, when you're too busy to run for school board or you're too busy to become a PCP and real and elect new leaders, delegates to the state party, then you're saying that your is more important than our don't. If you help solve our, your will get solved, okay? It will go away. [01:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I, I, so I agree with you and I've, I've thought this for a long time. We got to stop pushing, pointing the fingers at, you know, other people. Like when I was on the state board of education, we were pointing a lot of finger pointing at like teachers. I'm like, no, no, we need to point it back at the policy makers, you know, because that's where it's at. And it's the legislatures and the peoples and the agencies. Right? Same thing. Like we're creating these victim mentalities with these, you know, like raising these classes of people above other people. Like they can't do anything wrong. And it's not, it's, it's hurtful whenever you, you victimize it, whenever you're a victim, it's a hurtful place to be whenever, you know, whether, whenever you pass the blame. If y' all don't know this, this was a hard lesson for me too about 10 years ago. Whenever you try to blame other people, you are giving away your power, you are giving away your heart. And so when, when you are creating these, you know, whether because of your skin color or whether because, you know, you think you're a different gender, you know, and you should have a special, like, no, no, that's not helpful. That's not going to help you. It's not going to make you happier. It's not going to because you're special and you're a boy. And now you get to go in the girls locker room and change. No, those, those girls don't want that. They shouldn't have to have that. I mean, that's what, you know, makes me mad is we have legislators that don't do that. Right? The Legislators that are voting on these things that are affirming and in passing these laws, they don't. They don't make those. They don't have those rules. They don't play by those same rules. Even in our state. No, I mean even so much overnight. Our ospi, Office of the Superintendent, Public instruction, our superintendent, he is demanding that the schools align with Paul policy, including overnight activities that, you know a transgender and stay in the same room. Should. Could you know as, as a girl? Like, no. [01:36:59] Speaker A: I've talked to parents. I've talked to parents who've had transgender biological males at camps overnight and that their daughters have been assaulted. And it's, It's. I'm telling you, it's crazy. This is Oregon. And this is. This is the Oregon law that they are. You declare you're a female. As a male, you're a female. That's it. Period in the story. That's it. There's no question that this is destruction, okay? This is the destruction of society. Now listen, I'm just going to tell you this right now. I'm very libertarian, okay? If you want to live as a different gender, I support you 100 in that. I, I want you to live your best life. I want everyone to live their best life. Only they know what their best life is. But consider. Consider it. Your, Your liberty ends where another's begin. And we have two people of society, two kinds of people in society that we must protect at all times. That is children and women, period. Because they're the, they're the ones who are the victims of assault. And it's, it's not race. It's not anything else. It's women and children must have protected safe spaces. 100 and. And they must have sports. This is terrible. I mean, what, what. The, the, the, the, the, the achievements are being stolen. And it's, it's chauvin. I mean, if you, if you say, well, I'm a man, I decided I'm a girl now. I'm a girl. I'm gonna go take your trap trophy away. Like, that's so, that's so chauvinist. There is nothing feminist about this. I've tried to become a feminist myself. I've been kicked out every single time. They always tell me there's no way I could be a. I'm a man. I cannot be a. I'm like, come on, help me out here. [01:38:38] Speaker B: We need that. We need that. And we. I, I went to school on a golf scholarship, you know, and because I didn't have to compete against the boys. I went to University of Iowa on a golf. We won the Big Ten. I would have never gotten any of those opportunities. You know, I got to play nationally as a junior. I mean, all of that can be. It's being stripped away from girls right now in our states because of these laws, and for what? [01:39:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, totally. Yes. This stuff is all nuts. But, you know, whatever it might be today or tomorrow, like today, yesterday was the poor criminal waving his knife at people while they're eating lunch outside. You know, he's the victim here, and he's been able to calm down. His tantrum was over, so we let it go, even though it cost us, you know, $75,000 in. In city resources to go have a conversation with the guy. But we let him go ahead and keep his knife and run around because what a success. Like, whatever it might be, a boy in a girl's sport, a boy in a girl's locker room, whatever it might be. Crazy, crazy stuff. It's about destructionism. It all comes down to love and hate. Okay? Who hates who? I don't hate Democrats. I don't hate people who voted for Biden. My mom, my dad, my siblings, they all voted for. I don't hate them. I love them, okay? I don't care who they voted for. I love them. The. The. They hate me. They wouldn't talk to me for two years. They wouldn't see my kids. They would see their grandkids for two years. That. That's hate. That's hate and fear. I don't have that. When. When you have the other thing is this destruction and creationism, we have the. We have these yin and yang. We have this black and white. We have the light and the dark. And. And. And. And this is destructionist. And we were. Our side is creationist. And Democrats and Republicans. It doesn't matter, okay? I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. It doesn't matter. You can be a Democrat your whole life and right now become a Republican. And if you did, you would be the same Democrat today as you were in 1992, okay? It's the same thing. The parties have switched. The anti globalist, nationalist, populist party of the. Of the 90s was the Democrat Party. Today it's the Republican Party. It's light, it's dark. It's creation versus destruction. And. And it's. It's. It's. We have to see it larger than the party affiliation. Don't let the propaganda get to you because it comes from both sides. Don't let it get to you. Take the red pill, put it in your mouth, swallow it down, and see the truth and. And go with others that see that truth and help bring others into that truth. To take that pill, you have to take that pill. That's. That's. That's. That's all. That's all we can do is wake up. That's why I say with the vote by mail. If you want to know indisputable evidence that our elections are completely fraudulent, look at the legislation. You have to see the facts of the matter. The legislation itself is purely designed to be able to cheat it without having evidence that. That's it. It's all there. Super simple. That's all the evidence you need. So wake up. Everyone knows that a boy can beat a girl at a sport. Even a shitty dude who can't win anything on his own can beat the best girl. Like, we all know that. Okay? We all know that. So it's like, come on, just take the pill. Just take the pill. Hang out with us who take vote. This isn't about anything else. There's authoritarian and libertarian wings in every party. The Democrats have an authoritarian wing. They have a libertarian wing. I know a lot of libertarian Democrats. They're good people. They might put more money toward the library than I would, but libraries are good, okay? They help people. [01:42:18] Speaker B: I love our libraries. Just keep the porn out. I'm great with it. [01:42:22] Speaker A: The roads in Oregon were always better than the roads in Arizona. You know, like great roads here, you know, thank Democrats. Take a Democrat when you're on a nice road. Unfortunately, now in Portland, our roads are crap because all the money is going to the NGOs and not even. [01:42:38] Speaker B: Yep. [01:42:38] Speaker A: Nope. [01:42:39] Speaker B: Back into the legislator's pockets and. Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, and the Chinese are also buying up all the farms in Oregon too, because I know that's happening around my dad. [01:42:48] Speaker A: So largest private landowner in Oregon is Ching Chong Chow, whatever his name is. I'm literally. That's how it's spelled. Ching Chong Chow. I'm sure it's pronounced differently, but I don't care. And if you're offended, I still don't care. I call him Ching Chong Chow, but he's the largest private landowner in the state of Oregon. And guess what kind of land he owns. Timber. [01:43:08] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, A lot of people. [01:43:12] Speaker A: Communist. [01:43:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like I said, it's happening right around where I grew up. And we've been looking into it because a lot of these people are, you know, passing Away or moving on, selling their estates. And we're seeing these companies buy them up, and it's like, oh, boy, Joy. You know, it's real. Well, Ben, how do people follow you and keep in touch with what you're doing? [01:43:33] Speaker A: Yeah, go to. I'm just Ben Adel, B E N edtl, Ben et al. On X. X is where to follow me. I've got, you know, a bunch of people on Instagram, but I don't really use it. I should start using it more. But they made me mad. They hurt my feelings. They deplatformed me when I told the truth about how many voters were taken off the rolls in the last four years in Multnomah County, Washington County. Pike was. County was like 4, 6, 8 in four years. So more people die by one time every day. Yeah, yeah. We had to take. Because we were. We sue them. We got to be lucky. So I'm like, oh, this is. You've only taken four off the voter rolls in four years. Like, more people die by lunchtime every day in Portland. So I, I just, I. I felt like this is really bad, but it was Dan Rayfield who participated in getting me deplatformed because he quoted the the USA Today fact check and got Meta to shut my platform off now. [01:44:30] Speaker B: And who is that? Because I don't know, context. [01:44:33] Speaker A: Oh, he's our new attorney General in the state of Oregon. [01:44:38] Speaker B: So he got you deplatformed. [01:44:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Now he's the attorney general to use. [01:44:42] Speaker B: The USA Today fact checked because, of. [01:44:44] Speaker A: Course, I don't tell the truth about how many. We got the data from the county. That was the. They submitted to court on the record in discovery. [01:44:55] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It's absurd. It's absurd. Ben, thank you for everything you're doing and thank you to your family for the sacrifice and your wife for hanging in there and, you know. Right. Yes. She must be a complete saint. But, you know, obviously you are making a huge difference and we. We just hope you keep going. We hope you keep going and we hope that you. You just. We gotta collaborate like, hello, you know, we're in the exact same situation. We might just compare notes. [01:45:25] Speaker A: Yeah, compare notes. Collaborate. Let's come together. Let's share notes. Let's. Let's. Let's make this world a smaller place. That's all we can do. [01:45:32] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure our AGs and our governors talk. I'm pretty sure they coordinate stuff. [01:45:38] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure they do, too. They're all members of the west coast state pack, so we gotta make sure that, you know, they're talking. [01:45:45] Speaker B: That's right. We got it. We got it. We got to do this. We're going to do this. We are going to turn our beautiful states around. Oregon is a beautiful state. I grew up on the eastern side of it for 15 years, and then I've been up here. Washington is a beautiful state. We're not giving up. I mean, this is the Northwest, the Pacific Northwest. We love it. We're going to take our states back. And I do believe that getting involved in the Republican Party is the way to do it because you need numbers. And, and yes, you might go and you might be really frustrated because it's dysfunctional. Yep. It's intentional. It's, it's. Yes, it's been. But they need you. That's why they need you. They need people to get involved. Become a pco, a PCP in Oregon. Get involved in your party and. Yeah, let's change things. Right? [01:46:35] Speaker A: Go to nbbm.com and sign up NBM. Been out.com as well. But nbbm.com and vanettle on. On X. Let's come together. Find me that petitioner, man. I need that. I need the petitioner in Washington state. We will blow this up. We gotta have. Okay, that. There's. There's time. We. We'll hit the summertime. We'll blow it up. We can get it on both stakes ballots. Trump will come in. Yeah, they'll see. He'll see. [01:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's make that happen for sure. Ben, thanks so much for being with us today. Blessings. Yep. Appreciate you. Take care. [01:47:10] Speaker A: You too.