Latest / 775 Alive / Ep029: Rural and Urban in CD-4 (Guest: David Flippo)

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Ep029: Rural and Urban in CD-4 (Guest: David Flippo) · 775 Alive

• 0:03
  [music] Welcome to the 775 Alive podcast, your rural Nevada headquarters for decoding politics, economics, and general global shenanigans. I'm Crystal Newton, your business strategist, breaking down why Nevada's hustle is stronger than a sagebrush root in a windstorm. Here with my trusty co-host, Scott Gavorsky, PhD historian, here to explain the smart lessons of history, even if we are likely to ignore them. Grab your boots for a wild ride through today's most important news.
• 0:34
  Scott: So, welcome back here to 775 Alive. I had to come back up here to Elko, but Crystal has remained down in Las Vegas where she's joined by another special guest today, David Flippo, who's a candidate for Congressional District 4. Thank you for joining us, David.
• 0:49
  Scott: here.
• 0:49
  Scott: Scott: Yep.
• 0:53
  Scott: there's over 3,000 counties in the United States, and this is one of the most hotly contested counties, and and you're running for a seat that covers a chunk of it, and we're desperately trying to win the Nevada legislature.
• 1:01
  Scott: Flippo: Oh, and you know, right? It's critical to the governor. It's critical to the state. Um especially by 2030. So, we have three more voting cycles to get that majority back into the Republicans hands.
• 1:19
  Scott: Yep. And you're you're a veteran. And you've gone to to fight for this country and our freedoms and now you're fighting for the Nevada legislature. So you're one of the guys.
• 1:24
  Scott: Flippo: Yeah.
• 1:30
  Scott: us in Congress. Well, she she's brought up your your uh military experience. David, why don't you go ahead and give us a little a little background here, who you are.
• 1:39
  Scott: that. Depends on how far back you want to go, actually. Um yeah, so we recently . . .
• 1:45
  Scott: did you play with Tonka trucks?
• 1:45
  Scott: Flippo: I had some Tonka goes back to the Revolutionary War actually. So we've traced it back and we have relatives that fought in the Revolutionary War. There was actually 58 Flippos that died in the Civil War. So uh based on the death records and stuff like that. So we've been a family of of service our entire family history. I was a military brat. I was raised in the military by my father who retired as a colonel and then I joined and continued that service. So I came in in 1985. I got out in 2009. So if you think about what happened during that time between uh you know the first Gulf War, 9/11, all the things that have happened I spent most of my time in the desert. So in 2003, I was tasked to be a a commander for logistics out of Kuwait and cross the border on day one to go into Iraq and capture air bases inside Iraq uh so that we could operate closer to the battlefield. So it was something that we had done differently than in previous wars and we actually fought within from, with inside the country that we hadn't even captured yet. So that was kind of interesting. But we uh I was in Baghdad when we captured Baghdad. So I saw a lot there. I spent spent a lot of tours. My wife and I added it up actually. Of my 24 years, I was gone for about 14 years before. So, deployed almost exclusively into the desert between Qatar and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq and just all over the place there. So, uh, spent a lot of time in the desert. Uh, retired as the maintenance commander in Alaska. I like that background with the snow there.
• 3:27
  Scott: Scott: Well, I here in Elko is nothing like I saw up there when I was there. So, I I sympathize.
• 3:39
  Scott: so when I retired as a maintenance commander up at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska, uh, it was the same year that the oil spill happened in the Gulf of America and, uh, that BP had and they were getting in trouble for not doing maintenance. Uh so they went to the aircraft maintenance field which is what I was a part of and they hired me to manage their to create a preventive maintenance program for the North Slope oil fields in Alaska. So so I ended up doing that for 10 years uh commuting here in Nevada. So every two weeks I'd commute back and forth to Alaska um and you know doing that doing that job up there on the oil field. So, um, and then currently I am a small business owner. I own two small businesses. Um, BP sold their assets up in Alaska. So, we moved down here permanently to a home in Nevada. So, uh, when you look at my background, experience, and the reason I'm running and why I'm running is everything that lined up. You know, it's got to be the right time, the right place, the, you know, the right situation when you when you decide to run for politics. And I've got the national security background. You know, border security is a big player in my my platform. Uh the energy industry and energy independence and having an all-inclusive energy policy within the United States that gets us to where we need to go. And then the small business side because the economy is so important and the disastrous uh economy that Biden left us. Uh we need to recover from that and we need people in Congress that understand all three of those issues.
• 5:05
  Scott: politics? So you had this great career and I mean what I'm always interested in what happens in someone's life where they go I'm going to run for office now.
• 5:09
  Scott: Flippo: So it always been in the back of my head. My bachelor's is in political science and my masters is in public administration. You know then I had my military service and I believe in serving our country and continuing that service is important to me. But I would, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, I wouldn't have got involved if if the three things or you know the things that I have experience with that are going to impact this country and that being national security and my and the importance of border security because I think border security is a national security issue. Uh, the energy independence, my world background, uh, I understand the oil industry. I understand that now we're starting to see gas prices go down because who was elected about eight months ago? Donald Trump. The gas the oil industry has bought in futures. So when you're looking at that well 8 months the gas that we're pumping now was bought about 8, 9 months ago. So that's why we're starting to see and it's just going to take time.
• 6:02
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. obviously that is a rural issue too. Uh but meat prices take longer than that eight month because because what the Biden administration did to the ranchers, the farmers, the rural communities, uh and cutting back on on what they're doing with cattle. That takes a couple years to recover from.
• 6:24
  Scott: Crystal: Yes.
• 6:28
  Scott: in the meat in the meat industry. So, but I have an understanding of all that. I'm a small business owner and the economy is very important to me. Crystal: Yeah. Scott . . .
• 6:38
  Scott: Well, I mean, that's one of the what's one of the things that's interesting to us coming here from the 775 down to Clark County is this Congressional District 4 is unique, right? Because it covers not only about a third of Clark County in Las Vegas, right, in population, but it also encompasses what six other counties, right? Lincoln Nye, Esmeralda Mineral, uh part of Churchill, and part of Lyon too, right? Um, so it's like some of the most remote rural areas of the state and at the same time our most urban area.
• 7:06
  Scott: Flippo: You know, Scott, because you know there the rural is such a big part of my district. When I lived up in Alaska, I owned 2500 acres of gold claims up there. Um, so so I understand the mining industry as well just on top of all the other stuff. And when I was growing up and my dad retired, uh, he bought a farm in Virginia. So we uh so I I grew up waking up at 5 in the morning feeding the cows getting you know chickens all that stuff and then getting on to school you know throwing hay bales up uh back in the day before the big round hay bales, right? So throwing hay bales up but all that kind of stuff and I think that suits me well for the rurals.
• 7:43
  Scott: Scott: Yeah. Well but what I wanted to get to with that is how do you how do you find campaigning between these two diametrically sort of opposed uh positions? Is there different strategies involved? Is there different approaches? Uh does some stuff work in the urbans that don't work in the rurals and vice versa?
• 8:05
  Flippo: Well, the issues are a little bit different, you know, between the rurals and and the urban areas. So . . .
• 8:10
  Flippo: Crystal: A little.
• 8:14
  Flippo: I hope your listeners are are ready to hear this, but they kind of get disheartened, right? Because everything goes to Reno and everything goes to Vegas and and they don't they don't get the love, right? The rurals don't get the love. And they feel like the forgotten ones and so, you know, why do I need to go vote? You know, we're we're all Republicans out here. You know, what's what's the big deal? But what the rurals need to understand is that their turnout is why we have the governor right now. And if we can increase another five or 10% in the rurals on the Republican side, uh and and somehow get rid of this mindset that they don't care about us and why does it matter? We're Republican county anyway. Um well, it matters. It matters if you want to beat Steven Horsford and get rid of some of these others that are in office right now. That's why it matters. And and so that's my message when I go out to the rurals is we need to get the Republican vote out. And if it's just a 5 or 10% gain from the last time, that will be enough to pull us over the top. Um you know, and then then we can overcome some of this urban thing. And then we can have a representative in Congress that understands the military. As you know, Scott, I got Nellis, I got Creech, I got NTTR, I got the National Test and Training Range, I got Hawthorne up there, I got everything military except for Fallon. And so having somebody in Congress that understands the military, appreciates the military, um understands the rural communities, understands and understands business and and and the urban community, right? Um that's what we're going to need in there. We need representatives that will represent rural Nevada. And right now, we haven't had that for 10 years.
• 9:45
  Flippo: Crystal: And I really appreciate you giving us time and and being on this episode. I personally traveled 9 hours to be here. Not specifically for you, although I would, I'd drive 9 hours for you. The reason we're down here is we are an activated voting class and we we go to war every election cycle and there's only so many of us and we're we're very concerned about Clark County which is why I'm down here and Scott's often down here too is because we're we're trying to raise the alarm bells. Hey, the Nevada legislature is too close to supermajority for our comfort. No, we're doing what we can because this is a great state and we'd love for it to remain conservative.
• 10:26
  Flippo: Flippo: And where it but the down ballot for me, you know, as you know, this is not a presidential election. There's not a Senate on the race. So, the top of the ticket will be the federal congressional race in CD4. I'll be at the top of the ticket and then it'll be the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Controller. We have to win the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. If we want to change things, first we need to protect those three seats--the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Controller, but we need the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. And for some reason, that's where it stopped last time and the Democrats took those. We won't fix our election process until we change the Secretary of State.
• 11:03
  Flippo: Crystal: Right.
• 11:08
  Flippo: happening unless we get an Attorney General. So, so those things the Governor needs and then we're going to slowly have to flip the Legislature, right? The Senate and the Assembly.
• 11:13
  Flippo: Crystal: Yeah. You know, we need to pick up seats and we can't do it. We can't just wake up in 2030 uh because that's the redistricting year, right? We really we can't just wake up in 2030 and go, "Oh, we need 10 seats." Well, it's not going to happen. Crystal: And I'm glad you brought up the Secretary of State because I tell a lot of Republicans that is where we really need to focus because if you clean up those voter roles, which the current Secretary of State refuses to do, um that definitely gives you the edge in every district and helps you get that Nevada legislature majority.
• 11:49
  Crystal: So I, you know, I'm glad you brought that up and that you know what that's where the issue is. Flippo: Well, we have three voting cycles to be able to flip the Senate, the Assembly and the Senate, right? So, uh, and and you can't just wake up and do it overnight. It needs to be a slow process. It might take three or four seats this time, three or four seats next time. And we have to have a plan, a plan of attack to make that happen.
• 12:05
  Crystal: Scott: And particularly one right? Um, and it's interesting you bring up Horsford because Horsford's been an interesting example, at least in my view.
• 12:14
  Crystal: Crystal: Who's Horsford?
• 12:21
  Crystal: representative for CD-4, right? Elected in, when, 2012 or 2014, I can't remember.
• 12:21
  Crystal: Flippo: Yeah. And there was a little break there.
• 12:28
  Crystal: Scott: Yeah. Because he was he was voted out.
• 12:33
  Flippo: That's right.
• 12:33
  Flippo: Scott: Right. The interesting thing about Horsford is he's really one of the he is the only Democratic representative for a large part of rural areas which is creating an interesting dimension. So we're we're seeing him here recently protesting outside the ICE facility down there in Pahrump and whatnot. But I know for, you know my private business, that places like Tonapah have seen them actually quite a bit working on their rural hospitals and some other issues.
• 13:05
  Flippo: What's your view . . . are the Democrats, do you think, successfully able to move into these rural environments? Because the impression up here is that they're not but then again we're so solidly Republican in the north they don't often try. Flippo: You know I get out to the rurals quite a bit. I've been to Tonopah, Goldfield, Hawthorne, been to Beatty, Pioche. Nobody's seen Horsford. Okay. So . . .
• 13:28
  Scott: Okay, that's interesting.
• 13:28
  Scott: Flippo: You know, I'm asking, to the sheriffs. I'm talking to the deputy sheriffs. Those would be the people that would know if he was out there, right?
• 13:36
  Scott: Scott: Right.
• 13:41
  Scott: there might be some programs that he's trying to help with and try to get his foot in the door with the rurals. You know, but from what I'm hearing is he's absent. Now, sometimes they'll see his staff out there, you know, he'll send his staff out, pretend like and then and then he'll post, you know, Steven Horsford went out to the rurals. Well, it was his staff, but okay, you know, but uh no, you know, for your rural community and stuff like that and if they're tracking Steven Horsford at all, uh he is not representing Nevada, even the even the Democrats in Nevada. He is aligned with the far-left. He's actually aligned with the Marxists. I can say that he actually went to Mamdani's fundraiser a few weeks ago before the election. Uh, you know, and he's not even supporting the no tax on tips and the no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. He's against all that and he wants to raise everybody's taxes and, you know, he voted to keep men in the girls' locker rooms and it's just one thing after another. Uh, I think the worst thing for him uh is that he was one of the 58. So there's 435 congressmen. He was one of the 58 in Congress that could not condemn the Charlie Kirk assassination. You know, that bill was to condemn the assassination, to condemn political violence. He couldn't even do that. And it was to honor Charlie Kirk's family and the first responders of that. And he couldn't even do that, you know. He voted against that, one of 58. That shows you where he's at and who he's getting directions from when he gets on stage with AOC and Bernie Sanders here in Las Vegas. Uh you know, that is that is where he's aligning. That's where he's hanging his hat. And that is not going to resonate with the Democrats of Nevada because he's not supporting lower taxes for them and no taxes for majority of of my district in the urban area, the north Las Vegas and those areas. They're tippers. They're bluecollar, you know. They do. They do overtime. Uh so he's forgotten who he represents and that's a fact.
• 15:34
  Scott: Scott: And that's a . . . you know it's interesting because that's that's something that I have been trying to follow a bit, uh is trying to identify these areas where these urban and rural interests are intersecting and in some ways uh you know Horsford's district and his actions . . . again this this hospital in Tonopah that's been so problematic right and that seems to be a Democratic approach to the rurals just pick this one issue and go with it, ignore the other stuff. But one of the things we've been seeing here recently driving down to Vegas here on the east side of the state is both US-95 over on the west side US-93 on the east side are developing into major north-south traffic corridors, right? Semis. And you know you're in logistics. This isn't the supply chain for Ely, this is the supply chain for Las Vegas. And one of the issues we're having is there seems to be very little interest in Las Vegas who tends to see this well it's just a rural road, we don't care about it, and they seem to be utterly disconnected that's where their food's coming, from that's where their electronics. I mean it's just astounding. How do you convince an urban audience that some of this rural infrastructure that we desperately need is actually benefiting them as well? And it can't just be about a new stadium for Vegas or a new exit ramp or what have you.
• 16:52
  Scott: Flippo: That's right. So, you Right.
• 16:57
  Scott: Flippo: And I think that's a lot of what you're I mean, it's already there. It's coming up through Kingman to Boulder City right now. Uh then it's going to be going, you know, from the Las Vegas area all the way up to what Reno, I think, all the way up to, you know, the interstate connecting up there. It's the uh you know, it's basically an international highway. It's going to go from Mexico all the way to Canada. So um so it's going to connect three countries that what one interstate and the logistics is very important. And you know, when we get into the small business discussion and why prices went up uh the way they did, uh I can tie it to two things. Two things was labor costs went up for the small business owner and the corporations.
• 17:36
  Scott: When labor costs go up, what are our choices? We can raise our prices or we can cut people there. There's not a whole lot more we can do as a small business, right? Um but then the gas prices went up at the same time. So you had labor costs and gas prices going up. And when, if you're a rural rancher, you know, how many times out there do you do you plow your field and you fertilize your field and then you bring in the crops? You know, that's a lot of, lot of fuel costs, right? So all those fuel costs have been up for the last four years because Biden and his war on energy, war on oil. So obviously that affects the price of grains, the price of what you're growing out there or the cattle uh because of because of those logistic costs, the the cost of gas. So when your labor costs go up and your gas costs go up, uh what do you expect? We're going to have a huge inflation. And so . . .
• 18:20
  Scott: Crystal: Scott, this will, this will make you laugh. I yesterday I was at a doctor's appointment here in Las Vegas and they asked me where I was from and I was said I told the town I was like it's about 3 hours north of Reno and they were like I didn't know there were towns north of Reno.
• 18:35
  Scott: Scott: Yeah. Yeah. No, we get . . .
• 18:43
  Scott: Yeah. It's it's somewhat astounding sometimes. I ran into that when I was working with the Census and talked about going up to the the Duck Valley Reservation on the Idaho-Nevada border and and you know my my colleagues in Vegas were shocked that you could go 90 miles north of Elko and still be within the state of Nevada, right? So it's astounding. Um, but it is it is I think an interesting question that I'm not sure any . . . certainly I don't have an answer to it. But that that question how you convince an urban audience who in many ways thinks the rurals are dying right, um they're old people they're not having kids so in another 10-15 years they're not going to need schools they're not going to need this other stuff um but some of the information coming out of the USDA's Rural America at a Glance is starting to indicate particularly since you know COVID that we're seeing sort of a re-immigration into the rurals, right? Do you see that down where in your area in CD-4?
• 19:35
  Scott: Flippo: Yeah. Well, a lot of this is the the Democrat playbook, right? They they want to pull people into the cities because they can control the cities, right? People that live out in the rurals don't want to be controlled. So, you know, that that's my spin on it. Uh and and that's one of the things I think you're seeing maybe a growth in the rurals is because people are tired of the city living and tired of the the controls and all that kind of stuff. And it's very funny what you say because the Democrats would refer us all to come into the cities and then they forget that, oh shoot, that's where our food comes from.
• 20:03
  Scott: Crystal: I'm always so interested. They're so big on diversity,
• 20:09
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Yeah.
• 20:09
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Crystal: And I'm like that, you're spot on. Rural people, we like being out in the middle of nowhere and living in small communities. It's a different dynamic. It's a different way of thinking and living. And I think that's worth preserving. I'm pro diversity, but the diversity of culture, you have to I really believe you have to maintain rural communities because just in case everything goes wrong, the rurals know how to do everything.
• 20:34
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: of what you're seeing right now is a lot of people are are uh having that backup plan, let's say, you know, because, you know, we don't know if things are going to go bad here and luckily President Trump is in office right now, so I think we have a little relief on that.
• 20:44
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Crystal: But automating cities, what could go wrong, David?
• 20:49
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Flippo: There's a lot of talk, you know, the 15-minute cities and all that kind of stuff and bring everybody in, but they seem to forget like, wait a minute, who's going to grow the food? Who's going to raise the cattle? You know, who who's going to do all that work? And . . .
• 21:00
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Crystal: Well, the simplest things can take down that system. Look at the pandemic. If everyone's in a city and it's in lockdown, and we saw what happened in China, they had drones coming by that said, "Resist your human desire to want to be free." You're like, "What is happening?" Flippo: You know what's what's interesting? And you know, I was on the crisis action team when I was in the military and uh up in Alaska and stuff and and most cities to include Las Vegas. Um if they get cut off from logistics, you know, Alaska is one of those areas where there's basically one way, you know, there's one road and then there's the seapport and then there's the air. That's how they get things in, right? One big earthquake destroys the airport, destroys the port, and destroys their one road into Alaska. And so there's there's a big issue with that because a city can only survive for about three or four days before it runs out of food.
• 21:45
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Crystal: Yeah.
• 21:52
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: have continuous logistics coming in, continuous resupply, if there's a three, 3 day to 4 day delay in any logistics, uh you start seeing run on toilet paper. Remember that?
• 21:58
  but they want everyone to be the same. Flippo: Crystal: Yeah.
• 22:04
  Scott: Oh yeah. Although that was an interesting example. Because one of the things that that was going on with that, which was funny and a lot of people finally figured out is the problem was you could easily get toilet paper if you were buying the commercial-sized boxes like they use for offices. And one of the things that happened with that is, you know, they're they're labeled not for individual resale, right? And people are spending eight hours a day at an office. So, if they're not there at the office, that's where a third of the toilet paper they might consume in a day is is located and you couldn't transfer it over um to this to this other supply chain, right? It's a fascinating example of how complicated this is.
• 22:43
  Scott: Crystal: Logistics are fragile.
• 22:49
  Scott: very fragile. If we can run out of things like toilet paper, uh you know, well, food, water, all that kind of stuff is in the same boat, right? Uh it's it's kind of it's a crisis there. So, um, logistics are very important and that's why the Interstate 11 that you were talking about, Scott, uh, that's so critical. Uh, you know, connecting Canada to the US to Mexico, all that corridor, uh, is going to be is going to be critical and it's actually going to enhance not just the urban area of of my district in Las Vegas, but all the way up the corridor, uh, you're going to see some growth, especially, and you probably want to get into the topic of BLM release, um, you know, as we start the BLM release and do it smartly, right? Uh and that's what's really critical is that we do it wisely and uh and along that corridor uh you're I think you're going to see more towns pop up. You're gonna see, you know, uh things happening within the the distance between Las Vegas and Reno.
• 23:42
  Scott: Crystal: Mhm. And we start this new lithium industry and obviously the price of gold is through the roof right now and lithium is sunk. But in defense of rurals, you can't have mining industries without our communities and it's it's a big deal. But of course, the big controversy with all the mining is the environmental stuff. So, I was really excited to hear you have experienced environmental cleanup and a lot of people have the wrong idea about what can possibly go wrong with these mines, how it could be fixed if it does go wrong. And I love that you have that experience. That's actually a very niche market.
• 24:21
  Scott: we'll talk lithium for a minute. You know, we have a huge resource there, but you know, when you look at all the cars, you know, the government, the Biden administration wanted to go everything electric. you know, is there enough lithium in the world to to trans to transfer all the cars into into lithium batteries or whatever? Um, but lithium is is tough to mine. I mean, it takes a lot of water and what don't we have here in Nevada? We don't have a lot of water.
• 24:46
  Crystal: Oh, that's great. Thanks.
• 24:46
  Crystal: Flippo: So that's a challenge but all the uh all the other mining that's going out throughout the states, uh, the state here in Nevada, um, it's all important, you know, and it's so much of that is in my district. I mean, covers two basins. I go all the way up to Round Mountain, Round Mountain, gold mine up there. Um, I go up to just south of Yerington. I've got like like Scott said, I have some Lyon County. Uh, and then I go all the way over to the California border over by Dyer and all that stuff. So, it's a big district and it has a lot. It's not just it's not just urban. You know, Congressional District 1 and Congressional District 3, uh majority of that is all urban. You know, it's all the south side of Las Vegas, right? Cut into. two And uh but you know, I have that challenge. You're exactly right. I have a big chunk of urban, probably bigger than what Reno is for Congressman Amodei, and then he has a lot of rural and then I have a lot of rural. So, uh it's a big challenge and getting out there and listening to the issues. Um, you know, you touched on that a little bit earlier, Scott, but you know, the issues I hear out in the rurals, uh, you know, health care, access to health care, uh, right, the road system, you know, the dangerous road. Well, some of that's going to get fixed with the I-11 coming through, but I've had conversations with the Lieutenant Governor and talking about, you know, having these passing lanes are important, like every five miles, you know, have strategic passing lanes because how many deaths how many how many deaths do we see out there because you just get tired of sitting behind that truck for, you know, 20 miles and not being able to pass. So then they do a dangerous pass and something happens, right? Um, so those are things that are being looked at and uh, you know, the I-11 is going to fix a lot of that, but it's not going to fix it on the 93. It's not going to fix it on a lot of the other rural roads out there. Um, so we need to have strategic passing lanes that uh, that people know are out there.
• 26:35
  Crystal: mean that's one of the things that's interested uh me because you you I think you do have a problem um, um, with these with these urban environments. You don't understand how fragile supply chains are. My my thing right now is just watching over the last two or three years 93 emerging as a major semi-truck route, right? It's not it's not one truck you're worried about. The real problem is you have five or six that are, you know, strung out along the road and there's just no possibility to pass um at time. Um but I want to I I actually want to touch on another aspect of this which might actually get back to something else you mentioned earlier on national security. Um, I was actually up in Anchorage and Anchorage is a nightmare town from an emergency planning perspective because there's literally one road in and one road out.
• 27:17
  Crystal: Flippo: That's right.
• 27:22
  Crystal: there's nothing else. Right. You can't run if there's an earthquake. Wrong. Right. Well, and but one of the things that happened is I remember when the Occupy movement back around 2010 or so started occupying ports in in um Portland and Seattle and shutting the ports down. It was really an interesting dimension. and I'm teaching at the university up there. Um, and you know, we had a couple weeks because of that shutdown, you you couldn't get fresh lettuce, you couldn't get fresh tomatoes cuz they weren't coming out of the the ports in in Portland and Seattle. And I actually had among my students some of the members of the Occupy Anchorage movement who found themselves, you know, these students that are 19, 20 years old having to go on the radio because people are just so upset and they're trying to say, "No, we we you know, we we support Occupy, but not not shutting down the ports because we're the ones that's going to suffer." Like my question is what happens when infrastructure is threatened by various types of civil unrest, right? Because this is this is something I think we're starting to see in some of the ICE riots where it's not just they're protesting policies. These protests are sort of growing to the point that they they might threaten sections of infrastructure, whether that be public safety infrastructure, whether that be road infrastructure, you know, the growing anger of roads being blocked off from protest. I mean, what's your what's your sort of take on that dimension?
• 28:43
  Crystal: Flippo: Absolutely. So, you too. you know, well, it's one of the first things you take out about from your enemy, right? You take out their logistics, right? You take out their logistics uh capability. And so whether it's these protesters or whoever, if they can figure out, it wouldn't take much to figure out like what are the key routes, what are the key roads, if we can shut that down for a week, maybe we'll get their attention. And this is why you need consequences, right? And this is why we need somebody like President Trump who's not afraid to use his resources that he has available to him. And the courts are seeing that every day. He's got another another court case coming in his favor. Um because you can't you can't just shut down. You can't you can't stand in the middle of the highway. That is interfering with international commerce, right? Interstate commerce. There's laws against that. So the problem is you have to have the courage to enforce that law.
• 29:30
  Crystal: Crystal: Yeah.
• 29:35
  Crystal: previous administration didn't have that courage. Trump's not going to allow it because as soon as you don't have consequences and as soon as you don't take out the the threat and you can call it an enemy threat or you can call it a a protest, it doesn't matter. The you know we go into combat, we take out the enemy's ability to do logistics and that shuts them down. And that's what these protesters are trying to do. They want to, you know, they can sit there and and get in somebody's face all day long, but what really gets their attention is the the logistics resupply. Uh, and if they can shut that down if they can keep people from going to work, you know, that gets them on the news, right? Um, there has to be consequences. It has to be there has to be resting for interfering with interstate commerce. Crystal: Yeah, we're in a tough spot culturally because I think the American people are so well off. They've never really experienced the things that you've probably seen in war zones. Like the idea of a food distribution turning into a violent thing. I mean, when people are hungry and they're panicked and they're scared, um, I don't think a lot of people have really interfaced with the with human beings in a mob at that primitive level. It and it's unfortunate. We all want to believe the best in people, but when things get scarce, things get violent and we're just, you know, people like conservatives are so mean and draconian. I'm like, we are trying to keep you from sliding into the worst form of humanity.
• 30:50
  Crystal: Flippo: You know, we are fortunate and we are unfortunate at the same time. We're fortunate that we live in this country and that we haven't had uh these disasters and and you know, if you look at almost every other country out there, they've been attacked. They've been taken over. They they've become a new country. They've they've changed their names. I mean, can you imagine living in a world where one day the next is you don't know whether your country is going to exist anymore, right? So, we're fortunate. So, we're fortunate. Absolutely. So we're fortunate that we haven't had that, but we're unfortunate in that we haven't had that because then we get complacent and then we don't understand what real situations are.
• 31:27
  Crystal: Crystal: Yeah. So and it's interesting like just if you take food for example um if you are starving, you don't have the mental energy to hate your fellow citizen. All you're thinking about is getting your next your next meal. And everyone's needs are met and they're using their extra time to to tear each other down. I'm like it things could be a lot worse. They just they could they
• 31:51
  Flippo: Well I use you know just like the fortunate and the unfortunate almost you know for the same for the same reason. I used to make humanity and inhumane humane and inhumane in the same way. You know there's one side that says it's inhumane to shut the border down. We got to let these people through. But then you got to ask yourself, is it really humane to accept the consequences of that journey and all those women getting raped along the way and all the crimes and all all the stuff that happens? How how humane is that? So, one side sees something as humane and the other side sees it as inhumane and it's the same situation.
• 32:21
  Flippo: Crystal: Yeah.
• 32:28
  Scott: Well, you know, this is this is quite interesting, but I I want to be fair to our colleagues in the other part of your district, right?
• 32:33
  Scott: Flippo: Sure.
• 32:38
  Scott: What what are they talking about that's their big concern here for this upcoming election?
• 32:38
  Scott: Flippo: Yeah. So, their big, their biggest concerns are the economy, right? Bringing prices down. You know, the problem is once prices goes up, it really hard to bring them down again. Uh so, there's going to be I think there's going to be a level of maintaining a current level right now, which is kind of what we're seeing. um you know, prices go up and they don't necessarily come down again. But I think you're going to see it just like you did with eggs. Obviously, you're seeing it with gas because that's affected by the oil industry and the cost of cost of oil. Um and we're going to see the meat prices come down, but I think meat prices are going to take another year to recover from the damage that Biden did to the meat industry. So, um, so we'll start seeing those things come down, but if at the same time labor costs go up and other things, then it might, you know, there might be an issue there. One of the things that we had happen here in Nevada is in the last legislature session, uh, the Democrats voted to increase the tax on gas, right? So, we're not seeing the we're not seeing the $2 and half dollar gas that some states are having right now, right? So, you know . . .
• 33:41
  Scott: Scott: I think that was only for Clark County, though.
• 33:45
  Scott: Flippo: Right.
• 33:50
  Scott: was across the state.
• 33:50
  Scott: Crystal: One county.
• 34:01
  Scott: No, no, no, no. This is Well, no. This is actually an important issue because or for a couple reasons. one, at the basic level, it shows how much Vegas sways where you have the legislature basically trying to back up a county commission to raise the gas taxes and and you know, that was an issue that took took days of discussion in the legislature, right? Um but I think it illustrates something else too that goes into this is you know the these singular explanations for stuff, right? That if it's if it's the gas prices, if we just lower gas prices, everything will work. or if we lower this inflation or if we force higher minimum wages to drive up the wage level, it's going to solve all these other issues. Um, but you always have this stuff there um that's being complicated, right, by by political decision making. I mean, you know, how do you how do you address that problem? Because we we're dealing with this in the rurals. The 2023 legislature, for instance, tried to push the prevailing wage on a lot of of projects that would have it would have basically made it impossible for rural counties to afford to do any type of public building structure, right? We just couldn't afford the labor to do it, right? I mean, firehouses, police stations.
• 35:12
  Scott: Flippo: That's right. So, I think we would all be in agreement that every state is a little bit different on their economy. So, uh for the So, I'm not sure the federal government should be involved in the minimum wage. maybe should be at the state level or even lower, right?
• 35:21
  Scott: Scott: Okay.
• 35:26
  Scott: based on your economy. So, if you know, let's just take Alabama, you know, uh if you paid somebody in Alabama the same wage that somebody's getting in California, it would destroy Alabama's economy, right? But maybe you need that wage in California. So, the federal minimum wage, if they're going to have one, it needs to be at the, you know, the state with the the lowest economic, you know, growth and and need, right? But it can't be California's rate. But what you hear is you hear these cities, the you know the people that are demanding higher wages like from New York and Chicago and California. Well, talk to your state about that. It's not a federal issue because if if you make California minimum wage to apply in Iowa or Alabama, you're going to destroy economies, state economies overnight, right? Um, I can't I'm you know, I have a a retail store with one of my businesses and I can't even get a high school kid to come in for less than 17 bucks an hour. And I'm I'm like, "Okay, you're living at home, you know, I can't separate. I can't I can't say you're high school and you're married with kids. I'm not allowed to do that." Uh, but they won't even walk in the door unless you're going to give them 17 bucks an hour, you know, and you're just going, "How? So, I'm gonna have to raise my prices or I'm going to have to automate my, you know, services or I'm going to go to AI or I'm gonna find another solution, which is what companies are doing right now.
• 36:44
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. You can't I mean, just put those wrenches in those engines. It has to be driven by capitalism.
• 36:49
  Scott: Flippo: And yeah, I'm not even sure that's right. And I'm not even sure the state should be setting that wage because, you know, a rural community like Tonopah versus Las Vegas, well, that's a different wage.
• 36:59
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah.
• 37:04
  Scott: it's got to be down to the low, you know, because people choose to live in rurals for for whatever reason, you know, the the quality of life, the the openness and all those things. Uh, and they accept maybe a lower wage or they accept that the cost of living is going to be different than in Las Vegas, right? Um, but you can't you can't say for the state of Nevada that a wage in Las Vegas should be the same as a wage in Pioche or Goldfield, right? Crystal: I would even say it's not it doesn't work at all. It's just the places that have implemented. Give them some time.
• 37:31
  Scott: Flippo: Yes.
• 37:36
  Scott: it's it's it's intractable. You've lost all the flex in your engineering of your economy.
• 37:41
  Flippo: Yeah. But you know, for the longest time, Democrats have been fighting for this $15 an hour wage. And uh and overnight we went from about $7 to $15 almost overnight. Uh and what they did to do that because they couldn't pass it in Congress. They used COVID as the catalyst and they put they put unemployment they put the unemployment rate at 600 bucks a week. Well, anybody out there that has simple math skills knows that 600 bucks a week is 15 bucks an hour. So, if you set unemployment at 15 bucks an hour, you're not going to hire anybody, right? Unless you at least give them 15 because they're going to just stay unemployed, right?
• 38:14
  Flippo: Crystal: And really, I don't know why they don't just call the price fix thing. I mean, setting a minimum wage.
• 38:18
  Flippo: Flippo: And I think everybody listening right now, they know that that actually happened. And when when that happened, all of a sudden, we had this wage inflation. And as a retail store owner, my labor costs double. Yeah. Almost overnight. I have no other choice but to raise my prices on my product.
• 38:31
  Flippo: Crystal: I'm outraged. Scott, are you?
• 38:36
  Flippo: Scott: Well, I'm outraged. Although I'm sort of guy. And the thing that gets me is I think David's you're absolutely correct in this in the fact that one of the things we're starting to see and I would argue as a historian this is something that's been developing since the early 20th century is this increasing centralization of um political decision-making which is really hard to do when you have a constitutional structure that's set up based on federalism where the the states are these independent laboratories as the common phrase goes that are supposed to have the freedom to look at these different approaches. Yeah, go ahead.
• 39:13
  Flippo: Scott: No, no, no. That was my rant. Go ahead.
• 39:19
  Flippo: have had this conversation. I'm a small government guy, right? If you go back to the Constitution, the the government is formed to protect people, to protect lands, properties, right? Uh transportation, and treaties, right? Those four things are in the Constitution. Everything else outside of that belongs to the states, right? So whether it's education or whether it's any of these other programs or social programs or or minimum wages or anything like that, if it doesn't impact protecting people, protecting lands, transportation, and treaties, uh which is what the federal government is supposed to focus on, uh it's supposed to belong to the state. And we've gone so far, it's going to take a thousand years to get us back to what the original Constitution uh mandated. But uh but we've gone way out of bounds on what the federal government provides, which goes back to Trump's point is if we got back to the basics of government, we wouldn't need the high taxes that we have. We could almost maybe eliminate the taxes and and come up with other ways like tariffs, you know, to fund the government. Um if it's not one of those four tenants Yeah. why aren't the states doing it? So yeah.
• 40:17
  Flippo: Scott: Well, it's a big issue and you know, one you're definitely going to have to deal with here. Um, so any final thoughts uh here before we wrap up?
• 40:28
  Flippo: Flippo: No. I mean, well, did we talk we got to wrap up, tell me that, you know, there's so many issues in the rurals that, uh, you know, this BLM release. So, I've talked to Ryan Zinke. Uh, last time I was in DC, I was at a C-PAC meeting there and I talked to Ryan Zinke about the BLM release. He actually took it out of the Big Beautiful Bill and you may know that. Uh, and I asked him about that. Um he says . . .
• 40:47
  Flippo: Crystal: Is this conversion of federal BLM lands to . . .
• 40:53
  Flippo: Flippo: To state. Absolutely the release of the BLM land and you know we can't and he he said the way it was written just wasn't right yet. He's not opposed to it but he wants to really refine it and make it so that we do it wisely and that the states do it wisely and and as we release it it doesn't again that could be another program that just destroys an economy. you know, uh, with the states that have a big majority of BLM, whether it's the ranchers or or anybody out there, if you just released it all, um, it could be a big problem. So, you have to do it wisely and and and Congressman Zinke is in agreement that really at the lowest level possible, almost at the commissioner level, right? Not even at the state level. It needs when when we do these releases, it's got to be done in a smart way as to not disrupt the economy of that community.
• 41:38
  Flippo: Crystal: I mean, first right to previous lease holder type of deal.
• 41:45
  Flippo: Flippo: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Flippo: lot about it up here. We're in Congressional District 2 and Mark Amodei originally put that language in as part of his, you know, the the Homeland Security budget was buried in this sort of, you know, what a lot of people saw as sort of middle of the night stuff. It just happened the meeting went late. But if I remember correctly . . . Crystal: Do they do anything in the daytime, Scott?
• 42:11
  Flippo: Horsford, Susie Lee, and Dina Titus, who are three Democratic representatives, all voted against, including that very strongly, even though Clark County was slated to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the initial BLM releases.
• 42:24
  Flippo: Flippo: Well, you know, as you know, the cost of living here in in Clark County and Las Vegas area, we've run out of expansion land, right? It's hard to expand. So you're seeing these communities that you know like like Pahrump starting to grow and Mesquite starting to grow and even Tonopah up there you know uh because everything in between those is BLM. So um you know so it does affect everything. Um another thing I wanted to talk about on the rural side uh on top of the healthcare that we kind of mentioned is is water right. So you know I've been I ran for Congress last time. I came really close. Um, and that's why I'm continuing to run now because I made contacts and I made um kind of agreements with certain congressmen. Right. So, my last race, I was in Colorado with Congressman Boebert uh and Don Jr., she was doing an event there. And the entire three days I was there, it was raining cats and dogs in Colorado. And she got up on stage and she was talking about the water issues they have in Colorado, right? And so, I had a laugh. So, I'm in the green room after the speech and talking with her and Don Jr. And I said, ' Lauren, what's your water issue? Because it hadn't stopped raining since I got here. And this is the idiocracy, right? She said, 'We have too much water. Okay, now anybody that knows anything, Denver actually pulls their water off the Colorado River. Right.
• 43:41
  Flippo: Crystal: How dare you say that to a Nevadan? How dare you?
• 43:46
  Flippo: Flippo: But but this is this is the problem right? 101 years this year. Um, and it was written with the percentages that each state gets. Well, there was what, six people that lived here 100 years, you know, so our percentage is a little bit lower. But my point is is that she has too much water. So I said, "Well, how's that a problem?" And she goes, "Well, they won't let me build reservoirs." They being the environmentalists, right? And I said, Lauren, if we could build reservoirs, you guys could pull less water off the Colorado. And what would that do downstream? It it's a no-brainer. Right.
• 44:15
  Flippo: Scott: Right.
• 44:21
  Flippo: "Exactly, Dave." And so I talked to Paul Gosar down in Arizona who has also endorsed me and Lauren has endorsed me too. And they want to work with me and create a Colorado River caucus at congressional level because what what happens what happens right now is each state is worried about their little percentage. Right? And so they're all they're worried about is protecting their percentage and they're not looking at the big picture of the Colorado. Right. And so we need to we need some at the federal level to look at that. Look at this 101 year old law and say look what kind of changes need to be made. We need to work with everybody. We need to get the smart people in the room. Uh let's get the universities involved. Let let them let the engineers of all the universities along Colorado try to solve this water issue. Right? What a great idea. It's 101 years in the making. Uh but until you get people together like Boebert and myself and Gosar down in Arizona, uh who's going to make it happen? Right. Crystal: No, I'm so glad you brought it up. I have two water companies and I have one patent for desalination and I've been focused on restoring the Colorado River and I've been working on it for six years. And I tell people all the time, this is not a resource issue. It's a political issue. And a lot of people think I'm a little crazy when I say that, but it is. It's a lack of will on the political side to make it work. And I'm just It frustrates me so much because it's like everyone's like, "Oh, water issues, water issues. We don't have enough water." I'm like, "We do though." How we . . . how do we utilize it? You know, ways ways to solve this problem.
• 45:51
  Flippo: Yeah. Yeah. Uh and so for all those reasons that we just talked about for the last half an hour, an hour, that's why I'm running, right? Uh I'm a common sense approach. Uh you know, I'm rational and you know, I just want to solve problems. It's what I did my entire career was solve problems with maintenance or whether it's a combat situation or or whatever. Um there's problems to be solved and right now nobody's sitting at the tables to solve them.
• 46:09
  Flippo: Crystal: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your time. This has been an awesome episode. Scott?
• 46:18
  Flippo: Scott: Yeah. And do you want to go ahead and uh your website and social media stuff and how they can get contact with you if they're wanting to learn more about.
• 46:28
  Flippo: Flippo: Absolutely. Thank you for that. number four N-V. So flippo4nv.com uh they can go on there they can they can donate obviously obviously it's going to take about three and a half four million to beat Horsford. We already know that we're doing the numbers. We think we can overcome the vote. He's aligning with the far left. You know if you want to get rid of Steven Horsford out of your district you're out there in the rurals and you're tired of Stephen Horsford's 10 years of of doing nothing. Donate to my campaign because that's how we're going to get rid of horse and uh so flippo4nv.com. There's also ways to volunteer. I've got I've got a Tonopah rep. I've got a Lincoln County rep. Um you know Scott, I think you know I've been endorsed by Esmeralda. I've been endorsed by Churchill County. I've been endorsed by Nye County. I've been endorsed by Washoe County. So I got the counties that are starting to line up, get behind my campaign. They hear my message. They hear like what we just talked about today. Um, and these are all problems that need to be solved and Horsford is not solving any of them. So, anything you can do, whether it's $10, $20, uh, flippo4nv.com. Uh, it's going to get us over the top. And the rurals are going to be the key to this election. Not just at the federal level, but at the state level. We have to win Secretary of State. We have to win attorney general. And we got to keep the governor, lieutenant governor, and the controller in office.
• 47:48
  Flippo: Crystal: All right. I'm pumped up.
• 47:53
  Flippo: being with us, David. We'll get that up on our social media when we drop this. If you have a question for Crystal and I, or there's something we can do maybe to put you in more direct contact with David, you can reach out to us at info@775alive.com. And drop us a line. Until then, I'm Scott Gavorsky.
• 48:09
  Flippo: Crystal: I'm Crystal Newton.
• 48:20
  Flippo: [music]