March 23, 2025 • 25 mins
Best Of Chris Merrill - Catch Chris live again on 04-06-25 4p-7p!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Chris Merril AM six forty more stimulating talk and on
demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. We are pulling back.
People are saying, no mold, forget about it. In fact,
if you were like me and you grew up poor,
you didn't have lucky charms. You had something that was
the equivalent like fortune totems, or you didn't have cheerios.
(00:30):
You would have oat circles, and you didn't have fruit loops.
You'd have fruit rings something like that. Right, you didn't
have the actual stuff. We had knockoff cereals, and knockoff
cereals were fine.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
It was good. In fact, in some cases you got
so you like them better.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I always hated the knockoff cheerios, but I thought that
the knockoff wheaties.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Were fine, Right, I mean, you just got so that
you got used to it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There are other things that you can buy that are
store bought, that are reasonable duplicates, and stores are getting
better at this than they were when we were younger,
which was so so.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Many millennia ago.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
But Treehouse Foods is one of the country's largest manufacturers
of private brands, they're the ones. So if you see
something that is the equate brand from Walmart that may
have come from Treehouse Foods. If you see the Safeway
brand that may have come from Treehouse Foods. If you
see which is like or excuse me, you see like
the Safeway Albertson's. If you see the Kroger brand from
(01:30):
like Ralph's, may have come from Treehouse Foods.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
They make a bunch of that stuff. However, we are
seeing the whole.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Egg thing going on, with the price of eggs going up,
which certainly is not in any way, shape or form
a money grabbed by the egg manufacturers capitalizing on the
spike and prices due to the bird flu. Coffee prices
are going up, and of course we may start seeing
more prices jumping because of the threats of terraces tariffs.
(01:57):
So here's what you're looking at. Prices on things like cookies, crackers, coffee,
and other things are not only going up everywhere, but
they are also going up for the store brought store
bought brands, the store brand names, right, which we always
think of as being generic. People have decided I'm gonna
go and I don't know who does this I don't
(02:18):
know who it is that is insane enough to do it,
but some people say I will just go without coffee. Friends.
We are in a bad spot. When inflation gets to
the point where people are not having their morning drugs,
that's gonna make things that work a whole lot more difficult.
I don't know if you know any coffee drinkers. Maybe
(02:40):
you're you are a coffee drinker, but if the point
comes where you have to start rationing coffee, things are
gonna get ugly fast. They say that people are stressed. Treehouse,
that's again they make the groceries. Their financial chief says,
(03:01):
we don't have any strong indicators that consumers are going
to be less stressed in the near term, and grocery
retailers are relying on third parties like Treehouse to make
their store brands.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Is from the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Giants like Kroger Albertson's Costco boosting investments in their branded products.
Private labels are growing faster than name brand goods heading
into the pandemic, and then consumers stuck at home with
money to spend, went back to the national brands and
low cost brands.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
We've seen now a resurgence for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Because you have higher grocery prices, retailers are expending their
store brand offerings. Walmart is introducing a premium line of
food called Better Goods along their Great Value brand. So
you've got the Great Value and then you've got Better Goods,
which is supposed to be the step up. But now
people are even saying, we're just going to cut back
on even the low cost stuff. To me, this is
(03:50):
a bad omen. You've got consumer confidence. You may have
seen the report consumer confidence is down. With consumer confidence,
whether they have reason to or not. Maybe it's based
on the news, Maybe it's based on the worries over
the tariffs. Maybe people have lost jobs. But at this
point it doesn't look like we're in a recession. The
(04:12):
fear of recession is so great that people are beginning
to behave as though we are in a recession. We're
priming for it, we're getting ready, we're pregaming. The next
recession is what's happening, and so people are cutting back
on things, even the store brand products, but they're also
cutting back on this from the Wall Street Journal, US
convenience store sales falling over four percent by volume.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
What are they cutting back on?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Derrito's When you stop in at the circle K or
the shell station, there's no there's no big bag of chips.
If you've bought a bag of chips at the gas
stations lately, have you seen the price on that, it's
seven bucks. Seven bucks for a bag of potato chips
is not even the family size bag. I know, I
sound like a grumpy old man. I understand, but I'm
(04:59):
gonna be grumpy. I don't like it. So people are
cutting back and what they're buying. That includes Doritos, that
includes Twinkies. And I think we just saved Twinkies from
the brink of extinction a decade ago. They were all
ready to wrap up. But here's the really scary thing.
While we have some people cutting back on things like
(05:19):
coffee and other places, which is terrifying, sounds like some
people are cutting back on cigarettes. Oh my, So now
you've got people that are not gonna have their cigarettes
or their coffee in the morning. That is uh, it's
gonna get ugly fast, friends, this is gonna be very
apocalyptic in a hurry.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I don't have high hopes. So what can you do?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Could you turn to one of those dollar stores. Nope,
because have you been to a dollar store lately? Nothing
costs a dollar anymore. And now Dollar General says they're
not even making any money and they're shutting up shop.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Dollar General is closing nearly one hundred store The company
says it plans to close ninety six locations by January
of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That's not too many, though, I think Dollar General opens
more than one hundred a day. I'm exaggerating, but not
by much. This is from Whas by the way, I
believe this is in Louisville.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Dollar General CEO says that the number of closings represents
less than one percent of the company's.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Overall store base.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
It also plans to close forty five of Dollar General's
Home to corese stores popshelf.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I think no Dollar General had home to course stores.
Did you know then Bed's through dollars? All right? The
DECI that was quick, Amy, you get credit on that one.
That was very quick.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
The decision came after a view of the store performance
and conditions to determine which stores should be closed or
maybe be rebranded. Now, as of now, it's not known
which locations are set to close. There are more than
thirty of those stores in the Louisville metrics.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
All right, so again I told you that it was
from Louisville. Did he just say rebranded if they're going
to close or rebrand? So you rebrand from a Dollar
General to what a dollar Lieutenant? I don't understand what
the rebrand would be. You go more high end Dollar General.
There's no lower end Dollar I mean, Dollar General is
(07:15):
what it is. It's just cheap, cheap. All the dollar
stores just cheap. Tell you, man, I would think Dollar
General would do really well as people are worried about
inflation and recession. It has in the past. Walmart and
Dollar General stores do well during recessions. They do, they do,
And yet here they are saying they're going to close
some shops.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
We'll find out how it plays out. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
If I am six forty, we're live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Okay, if I am six forty, more stimulating talk, Chris Merrill.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Big questions are coming up about the people being deported,
especially when we find out that we're trying to deport
people who have a legal status in the United States,
including green cards or well respected positions within major universities.
(08:14):
It kind of started with this Machmud Khalil, who was
a guy protesting at Columbia. Many many schools were protesting
during the demonstrations over the warre in Goza, right, most
of the protesters were pro Israeli protesters. And as we know,
(08:37):
when it comes to protesting, you cannot be pro one
side without being anti the other. That's how it works out.
You can't say I love the Dodgers without people knowing
that that means you hate the Yankees. Now, maybe you
do hate the Yankees. But is it possible that you're
(08:59):
just rooting for your team.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Possible. But when it comes to the world of politics.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And especially when it comes to something so significant as
war and war where religion is involved, you have to
be my side or the other side.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
You're either with me or you're against me.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
So Khalil and Khalil was in large part part of
the demonstrations at Columbia. We saw those at UCLA. You
see your Vine, Berkeley, Stanford, Santa Cruz. There's been a
number of California schools. Of course, we're taking part in
these protests. Some of them did feel distinctly anti Semitic.
(09:37):
That doesn't mean everybody there was, but it wasn't like
they were stopping it from being anti Semitic either, So
we know how this played out. However, as much as
we despise that anti semitism is not illegal in the
United States, you're allowed to be anti Semitic, You're allowed
to be racist. You're not allowed to hire base on
racism or anti semitism, but you are allowed to be
(09:59):
an a in America. That hasn't changed in the last
two hundred and fifty years. You can still be a
total a hole in America. The line is when you're
being an a hole and it starts to threaten other
people if there is demonstrable harm being done, although did
(10:21):
this guy, makmuk Khalil, actually demonstrate any harm. He was
a negotiator that was representing the student protesters at Columbia.
He is a permanent US resident. He was arrested March
ninth at his apartment by Customs and Enforcement by ICE.
A cord of the ap agent said they were executing
a State Department order to revoke his student visa.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
His lawyer says, you didn't have a student visa. He's
a green card holder.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
He's a permanent legal US resident. They said, oh, we're
taking that too.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
What this is.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
This is like when you were a kid and the
bully came by and punched you and said give me
your lunch money, and you said, I've got my lunch money,
but please don't take my allowance.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I just got it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And the bully goes, oh, can give me that allowance too.
That's basically what's going on. So the State Department says,
we want a student, we're taking away with the student visa.
The lawyer says he didn't have he's a part US resident. Oh,
we're taking that away too. And why is that? Because
Trump has signed an order, signed an executive order to
cancel and deport the students and all the student visas
(11:32):
of any hamas sympathizers on college campuses.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And the reason it's tough is again, you're allowed to disagree.
Even if your disagreement makes you a total a hole
in the eyes of the majority of people, you are
still allowed to disagree.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
In America.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You may remember after nine to eleven there were a
number of politicians who came out and they said.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Look, one eleven was abhorrent.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It was a terrible chapter in American history, and that said,
you kind of understand why some people hate us, and
they were lambassad They were.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Told, how dare you? You can't say such terrible things
about America.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Don't you know we're in a war against terrorism, and
yet you're still allowed to say that. Even Congress persons
were saying that they don't approve of nine to eleven,
but they kind of understand why other countries, why other
groups hate us.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Now dare you do that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
The real kicker on this case with the Khalil is
that Marco Rubio, formerly known as Little Marco, did a
press conference right after the arrest and he said, this
is not about free speech. This is about people that
don't have a right to be in the United States
to begin with.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
But it sounds like by all accounts he did.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
He had a student visa, then he had a permanent
green card, and now we're just claiming you don't have
a right to be here because we're policing your ideas now.
But it's not just him. There was also a doctor
who was detained. Now a highly regarded kidney doctor.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Just after six pm.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Six from ABC.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Seven Saturday, planes carrying more than two hundred Venezuelan prisoners
left the US after the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act,
a law from the late seventeen hundreds that allows the
government to deport non citizens without due process during wartime.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Are we at war with Venezuela? Anybody? Anybody? The answer
is no.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Less than an hour later, a federal judge temporarily blocked
the president from invoking the law and ordered the planes
to turn around, saying any plane containing these folks that
is going to take off or is in the air
needs to be returned to the United States. But the
planes never turned around, and video shows the alleged gang
members being marched into prison in El Salvador yesterday. Critics
(13:53):
argue the administration defied the judge's orders, but the White
House argues the judge has no jurisdiction over the presidence
conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act,
and his core Article two powers to remove foreign alien
terrorist staff.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
All right, So that is key, And I guess I
thought there was more of this. Deported doctor. I want
to talk about this deported doctor or the detained doctor.
I'll do that here in a second. But also, you
just heard the report from ABC saying we didn't like
what the judge had to say. The administration just says, hey,
what jurisdiction do judges have? What can federal judges? They
(14:34):
don't really get to talk about us. They have no
jurisdiction over us. We're the White House for Pete's sake,
which means that we no longer have checks and balances.
We just have separate silos where judges issue rulings in
vacuums that don't apply, and Congress writes laws that don't apply,
and the White House executes laws that they don't even have.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Kay if I am six forty Chris Merrill Live everywhere and.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
The iHeartRadio you're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I am six.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Forty on demand anytime the iHeartRadio app pleasure bring with you.
Thank you so much for hanging out, making us a
part of your day. We appreciate it. YadA, YadA, YadA,
lots of thank yous blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So but here's what you came from. Do you want
to know stuff? I get it.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I mentioned before I'd boned up the audio that we
had a doctor who was detained because she went to
a funeral. Well, it happened to be the funeral of
a Hezbollah leader. Is she a member of Hesbela I No,
by all accounts she is not. However, just being at
the funeral, which attracted tens of thousands of people, was
(15:42):
enough for the current administration to side eye her and
say we don't really like you doing that, so why
don't you not come back again?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
ABC had the story.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Another deportation in recent days is in the spotlight. Protesters
are demanding the return of doctor Russia Alawi, an assistant
professor at Brown University who's a kidney transplant specialist.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Ah kidney transplant at Brown Universe. What is that? Who's that?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
It's not even a real college. There's so much ado
about nothing. My god, we're just deporting Ivy League doctors now.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
She reportedly had a valid visa, but was detained last
week at Boston's Logan Airport after returning from Lebanon. Federal
officials not commenting on why, only saying our CBP officers
adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats. Nicoldy Antonio,
ABC News Washington, all right, thank.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
You very much, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
All right, So we don't really know why we're not
being told a whole lot. It's a little bit like Doge,
where we just say, trust us, everything's going to be
better after you let us do.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Whatever we want.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So you've had judges that say, you can't just declare
that we are in a wartime when there is no war.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
There's no war on Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And so when you start finding Venezuelan gang members and
then sending them to El Salvador using the seventeen ninety
eight law, that doesn't fly, and of course the White
House then in response said speaking of flying, sorry, planes
already in the air, Ali Ali oxen free. And a
(17:21):
judge is not very happy about that. So the judge said,
look back in my courtroom. I want to know what's
going on. And so the the administration showed up back
in court and the judge said what happened? They went,
you don't have any jurisdiction over us. You can't really
tell us what to do. And the judge said, yeah,
here's the thing I can, And he said, what's happening here?
(17:43):
And they said, we're not really gonna We don't really
have to tell you because judges aren't allowed to control
the executive branch's legitimate power. That's our vice president said
that he's a vice president, you're just a judge.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So basically they know the White House claims to have
an UNO reverse card. So what can happen if suddenly
you've got a.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Number of judges that are ruling against a president and
the president says, yeah, I'm not gonna follow that. Yeah
I don't like your order. Yeah you told me not
to do this thing that I want to do, so
I'm gonna do it anyway. And at some point you'd
think the rank and files would stop doing these things.
But I think a lot of the rank and files
that are enforcing some of these laws kind of like it,
(18:31):
and I think that the people who don't like it
are being weeded out. So you're ending up with a
very loyal enforcement group at CBP, at ICE, at the FBI,
at the CIA, at all the executive branches. You're ending
up was loyalists, because if you're not loyal, you're being
(18:51):
identified and you're being given a scarlet tea, and or
you may just be saying this is not from any longer.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I can't do this. I'm gonna head into the private sector.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I'm gonna try to find a job with my local
police department or my sheriff's department, or or you're if
you're in a specialized division within one of those enforcement
alphabet soup agencies. You may be saying, I can go
make money doing this elsewhere. I have a friend of
mine that was she was an accountant. She was a
(19:22):
forensic accountant with the CIA. Excuse me, with the FBI.
My apologies, she's a forensic accountant with the FBI. And
I was like, that's the coolest job. She's like, yeah,
I got a badge, I carry a gun, but all
I do is I just run numbers all day. And
I said that's so cool, and she goes it is
I can make more money in the private sector, and
eventually is well, she did so, I'm gonna go make
more money working for one of these big corporations.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
She did so.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
At some point, people are moving on, They're weeding themselves out.
So what can the judges do if the president just
ignores them effectively nothing? They can hold an agency in contempt.
So you've got a district judge that holds the White
House in contempt, and then what.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
What if they don't want to be held in contempt? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Nothing, They don't take control away, they don't do anything,
and the president can always parton himself anyway, So there
is nothing. The Marshal Service enforces the federal court orders.
Do you know who the Martial Service works for, the
Department of Justice?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You know who?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
The Department of Justice is under the executive branch. All
of the orders trickle down from the White House. So
if you have a rogue president, I'm not saying this
is the case, but if you have a rogue president,
there's pretty much nothing you can do to stop them
other than politically.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
But is anybody politically going to stop this president? I
don't see that happening either.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
If you have if you have a powerful president who's
decided to ignore his own responsibilities, so the office, there's
no stopping that person, and that's when you end up
with what they call a constitutional crisis. I AM six
forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Chris Merrill I AM six forty more stimulating talk and
on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Pleasure being with you. Do you remember it was a
few years back that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
President Trump first term was paying tribute to the code
talkers at a White House events.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
And I just want to thank you because you have
very very special people. You were here long before any
of us were here. Although we have a representative in
Congress who they say was here a long time ago.
They call her Pocahontas. But you know what, I like
you because you are special. You are special people. You
(21:59):
are really incredible people. And I have from the heart,
from the absolute heart, we appreciate what you've done, how
you've done it, the bravery that you displayed, and the
love that you have for your country.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, really from the heart. Not like that, Elizabeth Warren. Okay.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So we paid tribute to the code talkers, especially because
of what they contributed in both World Wars. Chalk Taw
soldiers in World War One, Comanche troops at Utah Beach,
the Navajo code talkers, of course, who you've heard so
much about it iwo Jima. They were speaking in a
(22:42):
language that the other troops couldn't they couldn't crack very
difficult to uh, very difficult to crack the language, and
especially because the code talkers started changing up their own language,
which is brilliant. So Utah Beach, you had comanches that
there weren't words in Comanchee for bombers.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
There wasn't a word.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
There's a reason to have that word. So they came
up with it. They called them pregnant airplanes. They didn't
have a word for turtle for tank, excuse me, so
they started calling those turtles. And so they would say,
you know, turtles are inbound. And even if the even
if the enemy could decipher some of what was saying,
would they be able to understand that turtles meant tanks.
(23:27):
May have come up with that one may have may
have been able to figure out pregnant airplanes, may have
figured out when they called uh Adolf Hitler possa taboo,
that that meant crazy white man could be.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
They could have, but they didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And we thank in large part the code talkers for
the work that they did in those wars that ultimately
flemixed our enemies and helped lead to victories in both
World War One and World War Two. At least we
used to thank them because if you go now to
military websites that used to pay tribute to the the
Native American code talkers, the ones that you heard Trump
(24:03):
praising while he bagged on Elizabeth Warren from the bottom
of his heart for loving the country so much. They've
been removed from many of the websites. Several broken URLs
on those websites are now labeled d e I. The
(24:23):
Defense Department's URLs amended with the letters d EI, suggesting
that those websites have been removed following the executive order
ending federal Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Asked about the
missing pages, Pentagon Press secretary replying in a statement that
Pete Hegsith has said DEI is dead at.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
The Defense Department.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department
with the directive removing DEI from all platforms. In the
rare cases that content is removed that is out of
the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components Accordingly,
they did not address the code talkers being removed. They
(25:05):
did not address whether the code talkers are considered DEI figures.
Although code talkers were part of a diversity push within
the Department of Defense. They were part of a recruitment
that sought to seek soldiers of different backgrounds. So maybe
maybe code talkers, and I suppose, for that matter, the
(25:27):
Tuskegee Airmen are the original deis and we've been able
to put a stop to that and certainly put a
stop to learning about diversity in American history. Take a
check on NEWSFI AM six forty Chris Merrill Live Everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Chris Merril AM six forty more stimulating talk and on
demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. We are pulling back.
People are saying, no mold, forget about it. In fact,
if you were like me and you grew up poor,
you didn't have lucky charms. You had something that was
the equivalent like fortune totems, or you didn't have cheerios.
(00:30):
You would have oat circles, and you didn't have fruit loops.
You'd have fruit rings something like that. Right, you didn't
have the actual stuff. We had knockoff cereals, and knockoff
cereals were fine.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
It was good. In fact, in some cases you got
so you like them better.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I always hated the knockoff cheerios, but I thought that
the knockoff wheaties.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Were fine, Right, I mean, you just got so that
you got used to it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
There are other things that you can buy that are
store bought, that are reasonable duplicates, and stores are getting
better at this than they were when we were younger,
which was so so.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Many millennia ago.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
But Treehouse Foods is one of the country's largest manufacturers
of private brands, they're the ones. So if you see
something that is the equate brand from Walmart that may
have come from Treehouse Foods. If you see the Safeway
brand that may have come from Treehouse Foods. If you
see which is like or excuse me, you see like
the Safeway Albertson's. If you see the Kroger brand from
(01:30):
like Ralph's, may have come from Treehouse Foods.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
They make a bunch of that stuff. However, we are
seeing the whole.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Egg thing going on, with the price of eggs going up,
which certainly is not in any way, shape or form
a money grabbed by the egg manufacturers capitalizing on the
spike and prices due to the bird flu. Coffee prices
are going up, and of course we may start seeing
more prices jumping because of the threats of terraces tariffs.
(01:57):
So here's what you're looking at. Prices on things like cookies, crackers, coffee,
and other things are not only going up everywhere, but
they are also going up for the store brought store
bought brands, the store brand names, right, which we always
think of as being generic. People have decided I'm gonna
go and I don't know who does this I don't
(02:18):
know who it is that is insane enough to do it,
but some people say I will just go without coffee. Friends.
We are in a bad spot. When inflation gets to
the point where people are not having their morning drugs,
that's gonna make things that work a whole lot more difficult.
I don't know if you know any coffee drinkers. Maybe
(02:40):
you're you are a coffee drinker, but if the point
comes where you have to start rationing coffee, things are
gonna get ugly fast. They say that people are stressed. Treehouse,
that's again they make the groceries. Their financial chief says,
(03:01):
we don't have any strong indicators that consumers are going
to be less stressed in the near term, and grocery
retailers are relying on third parties like Treehouse to make
their store brands.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Is from the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Giants like Kroger Albertson's Costco boosting investments in their branded products.
Private labels are growing faster than name brand goods heading
into the pandemic, and then consumers stuck at home with
money to spend, went back to the national brands and
low cost brands.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
We've seen now a resurgence for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Because you have higher grocery prices, retailers are expending their
store brand offerings. Walmart is introducing a premium line of
food called Better Goods along their Great Value brand. So
you've got the Great Value and then you've got Better Goods,
which is supposed to be the step up. But now
people are even saying, we're just going to cut back
on even the low cost stuff. To me, this is
(03:50):
a bad omen. You've got consumer confidence. You may have
seen the report consumer confidence is down. With consumer confidence,
whether they have reason to or not. Maybe it's based
on the news, Maybe it's based on the worries over
the tariffs. Maybe people have lost jobs. But at this
point it doesn't look like we're in a recession. The
(04:12):
fear of recession is so great that people are beginning
to behave as though we are in a recession. We're
priming for it, we're getting ready, we're pregaming. The next
recession is what's happening, and so people are cutting back
on things, even the store brand products, but they're also
cutting back on this from the Wall Street Journal, US
convenience store sales falling over four percent by volume.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
What are they cutting back on?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Derrito's When you stop in at the circle K or
the shell station, there's no there's no big bag of chips.
If you've bought a bag of chips at the gas
stations lately, have you seen the price on that, it's
seven bucks. Seven bucks for a bag of potato chips
is not even the family size bag. I know, I
sound like a grumpy old man. I understand, but I'm
(04:59):
gonna be grumpy. I don't like it. So people are
cutting back and what they're buying. That includes Doritos, that
includes Twinkies. And I think we just saved Twinkies from
the brink of extinction a decade ago. They were all
ready to wrap up. But here's the really scary thing.
While we have some people cutting back on things like
(05:19):
coffee and other places, which is terrifying, sounds like some
people are cutting back on cigarettes. Oh my, So now
you've got people that are not gonna have their cigarettes
or their coffee in the morning. That is uh, it's
gonna get ugly fast, friends, this is gonna be very
apocalyptic in a hurry.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I don't have high hopes. So what can you do?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Could you turn to one of those dollar stores. Nope,
because have you been to a dollar store lately? Nothing
costs a dollar anymore. And now Dollar General says they're
not even making any money and they're shutting up shop.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Dollar General is closing nearly one hundred store The company
says it plans to close ninety six locations by January
of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
That's not too many, though, I think Dollar General opens
more than one hundred a day. I'm exaggerating, but not
by much. This is from Whas by the way, I
believe this is in Louisville.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Dollar General CEO says that the number of closings represents
less than one percent of the company's.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Overall store base.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
It also plans to close forty five of Dollar General's
Home to corese stores popshelf.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I think no Dollar General had home to course stores.
Did you know then Bed's through dollars? All right? The
DECI that was quick, Amy, you get credit on that one.
That was very quick.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
The decision came after a view of the store performance
and conditions to determine which stores should be closed or
maybe be rebranded. Now, as of now, it's not known
which locations are set to close. There are more than
thirty of those stores in the Louisville metrics.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
All right, so again I told you that it was
from Louisville. Did he just say rebranded if they're going
to close or rebrand? So you rebrand from a Dollar
General to what a dollar Lieutenant? I don't understand what
the rebrand would be. You go more high end Dollar General.
There's no lower end Dollar I mean, Dollar General is
(07:15):
what it is. It's just cheap, cheap. All the dollar
stores just cheap. Tell you, man, I would think Dollar
General would do really well as people are worried about
inflation and recession. It has in the past. Walmart and
Dollar General stores do well during recessions. They do, they do,
And yet here they are saying they're going to close
some shops.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
We'll find out how it plays out. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
If I am six forty, we're live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Okay, if I am six forty, more stimulating talk, Chris Merrill.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Big questions are coming up about the people being deported,
especially when we find out that we're trying to deport
people who have a legal status in the United States,
including green cards or well respected positions within major universities.
(08:14):
It kind of started with this Machmud Khalil, who was
a guy protesting at Columbia. Many many schools were protesting
during the demonstrations over the warre in Goza, right, most
of the protesters were pro Israeli protesters. And as we know,
(08:37):
when it comes to protesting, you cannot be pro one
side without being anti the other. That's how it works out.
You can't say I love the Dodgers without people knowing
that that means you hate the Yankees. Now, maybe you
do hate the Yankees. But is it possible that you're
(08:59):
just rooting for your team.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Possible. But when it comes to the world of politics.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And especially when it comes to something so significant as
war and war where religion is involved, you have to
be my side or the other side.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
You're either with me or you're against me.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
So Khalil and Khalil was in large part part of
the demonstrations at Columbia. We saw those at UCLA. You
see your Vine, Berkeley, Stanford, Santa Cruz. There's been a
number of California schools. Of course, we're taking part in
these protests. Some of them did feel distinctly anti Semitic.
(09:37):
That doesn't mean everybody there was, but it wasn't like
they were stopping it from being anti Semitic either, So
we know how this played out. However, as much as
we despise that anti semitism is not illegal in the
United States, you're allowed to be anti Semitic, You're allowed
to be racist. You're not allowed to hire base on
racism or anti semitism, but you are allowed to be
(09:59):
an a in America. That hasn't changed in the last
two hundred and fifty years. You can still be a
total a hole in America. The line is when you're
being an a hole and it starts to threaten other
people if there is demonstrable harm being done, although did
(10:21):
this guy, makmuk Khalil, actually demonstrate any harm. He was
a negotiator that was representing the student protesters at Columbia.
He is a permanent US resident. He was arrested March
ninth at his apartment by Customs and Enforcement by ICE.
A cord of the ap agent said they were executing
a State Department order to revoke his student visa.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
His lawyer says, you didn't have a student visa. He's
a green card holder.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
He's a permanent legal US resident. They said, oh, we're
taking that too.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
What this is.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
This is like when you were a kid and the
bully came by and punched you and said give me
your lunch money, and you said, I've got my lunch money,
but please don't take my allowance.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I just got it.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
And the bully goes, oh, can give me that allowance too.
That's basically what's going on. So the State Department says,
we want a student, we're taking away with the student visa.
The lawyer says he didn't have he's a part US resident. Oh,
we're taking that away too. And why is that? Because
Trump has signed an order, signed an executive order to
cancel and deport the students and all the student visas
(11:32):
of any hamas sympathizers on college campuses.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And the reason it's tough is again, you're allowed to disagree.
Even if your disagreement makes you a total a hole
in the eyes of the majority of people, you are
still allowed to disagree.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
In America.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You may remember after nine to eleven there were a
number of politicians who came out and they said.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Look, one eleven was abhorrent.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It was a terrible chapter in American history, and that said,
you kind of understand why some people hate us, and
they were lambassad They were.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Told, how dare you? You can't say such terrible things
about America.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Don't you know we're in a war against terrorism, and
yet you're still allowed to say that. Even Congress persons
were saying that they don't approve of nine to eleven,
but they kind of understand why other countries, why other
groups hate us.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Now dare you do that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
The real kicker on this case with the Khalil is
that Marco Rubio, formerly known as Little Marco, did a
press conference right after the arrest and he said, this
is not about free speech. This is about people that
don't have a right to be in the United States
to begin with.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
But it sounds like by all accounts he did.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
He had a student visa, then he had a permanent
green card, and now we're just claiming you don't have
a right to be here because we're policing your ideas now.
But it's not just him. There was also a doctor
who was detained. Now a highly regarded kidney doctor.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Just after six pm.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Six from ABC.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Seven Saturday, planes carrying more than two hundred Venezuelan prisoners
left the US after the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act,
a law from the late seventeen hundreds that allows the
government to deport non citizens without due process during wartime.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Are we at war with Venezuela? Anybody? Anybody? The answer
is no.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Less than an hour later, a federal judge temporarily blocked
the president from invoking the law and ordered the planes
to turn around, saying any plane containing these folks that
is going to take off or is in the air
needs to be returned to the United States. But the
planes never turned around, and video shows the alleged gang
members being marched into prison in El Salvador yesterday. Critics
(13:53):
argue the administration defied the judge's orders, but the White
House argues the judge has no jurisdiction over the presidence
conduct of foreign affairs, his authorities under the Alien Enemies Act,
and his core Article two powers to remove foreign alien
terrorist staff.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
All right, So that is key, And I guess I
thought there was more of this. Deported doctor. I want
to talk about this deported doctor or the detained doctor.
I'll do that here in a second. But also, you
just heard the report from ABC saying we didn't like
what the judge had to say. The administration just says, hey,
what jurisdiction do judges have? What can federal judges? They
(14:34):
don't really get to talk about us. They have no
jurisdiction over us. We're the White House for Pete's sake,
which means that we no longer have checks and balances.
We just have separate silos where judges issue rulings in
vacuums that don't apply, and Congress writes laws that don't apply,
and the White House executes laws that they don't even have.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Kay if I am six forty Chris Merrill Live everywhere and.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
The iHeartRadio you're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
I am six.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Forty on demand anytime the iHeartRadio app pleasure bring with you.
Thank you so much for hanging out, making us a
part of your day. We appreciate it. YadA, YadA, YadA,
lots of thank yous blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So but here's what you came from. Do you want
to know stuff? I get it.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I mentioned before I'd boned up the audio that we
had a doctor who was detained because she went to
a funeral. Well, it happened to be the funeral of
a Hezbollah leader. Is she a member of Hesbela I No,
by all accounts she is not. However, just being at
the funeral, which attracted tens of thousands of people, was
(15:42):
enough for the current administration to side eye her and
say we don't really like you doing that, so why
don't you not come back again?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
ABC had the story.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Another deportation in recent days is in the spotlight. Protesters
are demanding the return of doctor Russia Alawi, an assistant
professor at Brown University who's a kidney transplant specialist.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Ah kidney transplant at Brown Universe. What is that? Who's that?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
It's not even a real college. There's so much ado
about nothing. My god, we're just deporting Ivy League doctors now.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
She reportedly had a valid visa, but was detained last
week at Boston's Logan Airport after returning from Lebanon. Federal
officials not commenting on why, only saying our CBP officers
adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats. Nicoldy Antonio,
ABC News Washington, all right, thank.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
You very much, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
All right, So we don't really know why we're not
being told a whole lot. It's a little bit like Doge,
where we just say, trust us, everything's going to be
better after you let us do.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Whatever we want.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So you've had judges that say, you can't just declare
that we are in a wartime when there is no war.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
There's no war on Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And so when you start finding Venezuelan gang members and
then sending them to El Salvador using the seventeen ninety
eight law, that doesn't fly, and of course the White
House then in response said speaking of flying, sorry, planes
already in the air, Ali Ali oxen free. And a
(17:21):
judge is not very happy about that. So the judge said,
look back in my courtroom. I want to know what's
going on. And so the the administration showed up back
in court and the judge said what happened? They went,
you don't have any jurisdiction over us. You can't really
tell us what to do. And the judge said, yeah,
here's the thing I can, And he said, what's happening here?
(17:43):
And they said, we're not really gonna We don't really
have to tell you because judges aren't allowed to control
the executive branch's legitimate power. That's our vice president said
that he's a vice president, you're just a judge.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So basically they know the White House claims to have
an UNO reverse card. So what can happen if suddenly
you've got a.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Number of judges that are ruling against a president and
the president says, yeah, I'm not gonna follow that. Yeah
I don't like your order. Yeah you told me not
to do this thing that I want to do, so
I'm gonna do it anyway. And at some point you'd
think the rank and files would stop doing these things.
But I think a lot of the rank and files
that are enforcing some of these laws kind of like it,
(18:31):
and I think that the people who don't like it
are being weeded out. So you're ending up with a
very loyal enforcement group at CBP, at ICE, at the FBI,
at the CIA, at all the executive branches. You're ending
up was loyalists, because if you're not loyal, you're being
(18:51):
identified and you're being given a scarlet tea, and or
you may just be saying this is not from any longer.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I can't do this. I'm gonna head into the private sector.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I'm gonna try to find a job with my local
police department or my sheriff's department, or or you're if
you're in a specialized division within one of those enforcement
alphabet soup agencies. You may be saying, I can go
make money doing this elsewhere. I have a friend of
mine that was she was an accountant. She was a
(19:22):
forensic accountant with the CIA. Excuse me, with the FBI.
My apologies, she's a forensic accountant with the FBI. And
I was like, that's the coolest job. She's like, yeah,
I got a badge, I carry a gun, but all
I do is I just run numbers all day. And
I said that's so cool, and she goes it is
I can make more money in the private sector, and
eventually is well, she did so, I'm gonna go make
more money working for one of these big corporations.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
She did so.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
At some point, people are moving on, They're weeding themselves out.
So what can the judges do if the president just
ignores them effectively nothing? They can hold an agency in contempt.
So you've got a district judge that holds the White
House in contempt, and then what.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
What if they don't want to be held in contempt? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Nothing, They don't take control away, they don't do anything,
and the president can always parton himself anyway, So there
is nothing. The Marshal Service enforces the federal court orders.
Do you know who the Martial Service works for, the
Department of Justice?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You know who?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
The Department of Justice is under the executive branch. All
of the orders trickle down from the White House. So
if you have a rogue president, I'm not saying this
is the case, but if you have a rogue president,
there's pretty much nothing you can do to stop them
other than politically.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
But is anybody politically going to stop this president? I
don't see that happening either.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
If you have if you have a powerful president who's
decided to ignore his own responsibilities, so the office, there's
no stopping that person, and that's when you end up
with what they call a constitutional crisis. I AM six
forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Chris Merrill I AM six forty more stimulating talk and
on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Pleasure being with you. Do you remember it was a
few years back that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
President Trump first term was paying tribute to the code
talkers at a White House events.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
And I just want to thank you because you have
very very special people. You were here long before any
of us were here. Although we have a representative in
Congress who they say was here a long time ago.
They call her Pocahontas. But you know what, I like
you because you are special. You are special people. You
(21:59):
are really incredible people. And I have from the heart,
from the absolute heart, we appreciate what you've done, how
you've done it, the bravery that you displayed, and the
love that you have for your country.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, really from the heart. Not like that, Elizabeth Warren. Okay.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So we paid tribute to the code talkers, especially because
of what they contributed in both World Wars. Chalk Taw
soldiers in World War One, Comanche troops at Utah Beach,
the Navajo code talkers, of course, who you've heard so
much about it iwo Jima. They were speaking in a
(22:42):
language that the other troops couldn't they couldn't crack very
difficult to uh, very difficult to crack the language, and
especially because the code talkers started changing up their own language,
which is brilliant. So Utah Beach, you had comanches that
there weren't words in Comanchee for bombers.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
There wasn't a word.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
There's a reason to have that word. So they came
up with it. They called them pregnant airplanes. They didn't
have a word for turtle for tank, excuse me, so
they started calling those turtles. And so they would say,
you know, turtles are inbound. And even if the even
if the enemy could decipher some of what was saying,
would they be able to understand that turtles meant tanks.
(23:27):
May have come up with that one may have may
have been able to figure out pregnant airplanes, may have
figured out when they called uh Adolf Hitler possa taboo,
that that meant crazy white man could be.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
They could have, but they didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And we thank in large part the code talkers for
the work that they did in those wars that ultimately
flemixed our enemies and helped lead to victories in both
World War One and World War Two. At least we
used to thank them because if you go now to
military websites that used to pay tribute to the the
Native American code talkers, the ones that you heard Trump
(24:03):
praising while he bagged on Elizabeth Warren from the bottom
of his heart for loving the country so much. They've
been removed from many of the websites. Several broken URLs
on those websites are now labeled d e I. The
(24:23):
Defense Department's URLs amended with the letters d EI, suggesting
that those websites have been removed following the executive order
ending federal Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Asked about the
missing pages, Pentagon Press secretary replying in a statement that
Pete Hegsith has said DEI is dead at.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
The Defense Department.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the department
with the directive removing DEI from all platforms. In the
rare cases that content is removed that is out of
the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components Accordingly,
they did not address the code talkers being removed. They
(25:05):
did not address whether the code talkers are considered DEI figures.
Although code talkers were part of a diversity push within
the Department of Defense. They were part of a recruitment
that sought to seek soldiers of different backgrounds. So maybe
maybe code talkers, and I suppose, for that matter, the
(25:27):
Tuskegee Airmen are the original deis and we've been able
to put a stop to that and certainly put a
stop to learning about diversity in American history. Take a
check on NEWSFI AM six forty Chris Merrill Live Everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six on demand
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