Born and raised in Texas, Jeb Bush moved to Florida in 1980. The son and brother of presidents, he himself was governor of the Sunshine State from 1999 to 2007, where he quickly became known as a champion of school choice and fiscal responsibility. In 2016, he had an unsuccessful run for president, and he now resides in Miami-Dade County, happily retired from political life. A self-proclaimed old school conservative with libertarian blood running through his veins. He first talked to Bush in October for a special issue of reason devoted to all things Florida. He told me the reasons he believes more people are moving to Florida than any other state. What he thinks of current Governor Ron DeSantis and leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. His problems, and they are many, with President Joe Biden and what's so special about immigration and America. Governor Jeb Bush, thanks for talking to reason. Honored to be with you, Nick. So let's start with the question of, you know, Florida has become the fastest growing state in the country. What explains Florida's growth as a destination for people wanting to move there and live there and work there? I think Florida works pretty good. It's like whatever problems we have, paled by comparison to other states.  And you come here and the roads, the roads are working. They've got a lot of people on them, but fewer potholes, things work better. And so it's for people that come to visit, they can kind of get the allure of Florida. And then typically what happens is they visit a few times and then they say, all right, I'm making them, I'm making the jump. When did you move there? What year? 1980. 1980. And Florida has at least since the, I mean in the post-war era, but definitely in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and continuing just saw really kind of explosive growth. Texas has also where you grew up. You went to school at University of Texas Austin. I hope that they lose in whatever football games that they have coming up this season. I'm rooting for Ohio State, be that as it may, both Texas and Florida, two states that have become reliably red are now kind of kicking the butt of New York and California. These four states are the four most popular states in the country. Is there something going on where the general kind of political system in Florida and Texas is being revealed as better than the ones that are in place in California and New York? In Miami-Dade County, Rod Liff has two and a half million people.  It has a 1.4% unemployment rate. I mean, effectively, it used to be, Nick, we're old enough to remember full employment was like at 4%. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, people are half the people have two jobs, I guess. I don't know.  The tax code matters obviously for people with more wealth for sure. We don't have income tax. We have smaller governments. The impulse isn't to try to tax your way to prosperity or regulate your way to prosperity. It's not a perfect place for sure. I get nervous about bragging too much because the minute you stop challenging basic assumptions about the role of government is your atrophy sets in. And government kind of just starts filling the seams. And so we've had a great run because we've had a period of limited government and we don't try to micromanage people's lives. And as long as we do that and we stay focused on the important long term things and I would say making sure infrastructure stays up with the growth, making sure our natural systems are protected, which is an important conservative principle in my mind is, you know, you could rape and pillage the swamp lands around South Florida and you would have a hell of a problem going forward. So investing in these long term things, which they don't do in California and New York because they've made, you know, 20, 30 years ago, they made obligations to the unions and obligations in the here and now that creates a government that is far bigger than it is in Texas or in Florida. Tuck a bit more about conservation efforts or the environment in Florida is a big deal because, you know, it's a state that is surrounded by water on, you know, three sides, right? And environmental regulations tend to be looked to scans by conservatives. They're also expensive. How, when you were governor, how did you manage to keep environmental regulations in place that preserve, you know, the ecosystem, you know, the kind of natural infrastructure but also didn't overwhelm the ability to kind of create jobs and build, you know, space for more people to move there? So we had a land purchasing program that identified the pristine areas, the watersheds that were important to protect that otherwise could eventually become developed. And we either did conservation easements or we purchased them. We purchased or did conservation easements. We did $3 billion, probably $4 billion during eight years. Directly appropriations for the legislature and a Florida forever program where we took dock stamp revenues. Basically, the growth of the state was taxed through transfer taxes, you know, when you sell or buy a piece of property. And that money was bonded to buy these properties and it was called Florida forever. And that's a tradition that is bipartisan, but Republicans have been just as aggressive in protecting these long-term things. Because Florida would be a crappy place to live if we develop along the watersheds. And secondly, it would make it really hard to, we don't have dams.  We have 55 inches of rainfall and it all goes out to tide, basically. So protecting these systems is also good to be able to continue to grow, to have water capacity for urban development, for agriculture and for the natural systems. So, you know, conservation, low taxes, low business regulation allows the economy to grow and for people to be able to move there. What about the cultural side? And that may not be the right word, but when you look at the history of Florida, you know, through the 60s, it was part of the Confederacy. It was a segregated state. You know, somehow in the 70s and beyond, it really moved into a modern phase. How, you know, you don't get the sense that Floridians in the 1950s were kind of the hustling entrepreneurs that you see there now. How did the culture change and how important is that to the vitality of a place to live? That's a great question. My gubernatorial hero was Governor Collins. He wasn't a Republican. I don't think there were any Republicans back then in the 1950s. His first, before he got elected, before he got inaugurated, he took a trade mission to Latin America. I mean, like, who does that? Not in the 1950s. And he fought against segregation. Successive governors worked hard on economic development. And the population itself changed. We became, you were totally right. I mean, people down here in Miami, when I came, they were calling it Miami, like a southern town. So the combination of influx of immigrants and influx of other people, of people from other parts of the country, and pretty progressive leadership that says we're not going to be successful unless we, you know, you can be respectful of the past, of the southern heritage for sure. But I think the aspiration, and I certainly felt this way when I was governor, we're not a region. We're a region in ourselves. We're a mega state, and we need to behave like that.  I did it as a matter of habit. And they would say, I'm from Pennsylvania. I said, no, no, you're not. You're from Florida. Like, come on, be proud of the place. And I think that's kind of caught on now. I think people are actually very proud to live here. What's the role of education? The South as a region kind of historically lagged in education for a variety of reasons. Florida, particularly under your guidance, really started setting a path for the state funding, not just education in general, but more choice and things like that. When we're talking roads, we're talking the environment, we're talking tax regulation. What about education? So this is what is not discussed in detail. But call it, say, Chicago or Washington, DC or New York, they spend $25,000 per student.  The average per pupil spending is about $30,000 a year, an average of my state. I was trying to be kind. How much of that is basically to pay for the sins of the past? Pension obligations that were negotiated, health care benefits for retirees. How much of that is actually going to the classroom? Compare that to Florida where people in the past didn't do that. In fact, when I was governor, we eliminated tenure. We moved to an option for a defined contribution plan rather than defined benefit. The pension was effectively well-funded compared to other states. So you can focus on the here and now in education. So our funding, while it's less than the national average, in terms of classroom education, I think is pretty good. And then we didn't just accept the status quo. We graded schools. And if schools were failing, parents would give options. We eliminated social promotion. We created real robust accountability. We put a real focus on early childhood literacy. And we created the most expansive public and private parental choice programs in the country. And that result is parents, like here in Miami-Dade, third or fourth largest school district in the country, 70% of the students' parents decide where their kids go to school. Think of that. I mean, would Los Angeles be better? Would Chicago be better? Would New York be better under that system? Hell, yeah, it would. And so we've seen, particularly in the lower income communities, kids of color or kids with learning disabilities, we're top five in the country based on the nation's report card. There's still a long way to go. And then I would add, Nick, I'm not talking about the US News and World Report kind of input driven rankings of colleges, but the more qualitative rankings, University of Florida is like top two or three public university in the country, in terms of entrance rates, in terms of research, in terms of graduation rates, in terms of, and it's free. It's, I mean, don't get Bernie Sanders upset about this, but we actually have bright future scholarships. So anybody that qualifies for that does not pay tuition. And if you do pay tuition, it's about the lowest tuition in the country, maybe second lowest in the country. So that's a pretty good deal. It's about the best deal a family will ever get from government, irrespective of what state they're eventually going to live in, to be able to get a high quality education. So yeah, all the way through college. Yeah, pre-K, we have universal pre-K. What is your sense of, excuse me, legislation under the current governor, Ron DeSantis, things like the Stop Woke Act, which affect higher education as well as K through 12. And it does not seem to be particularly good for academic freedom as well as freedom of expression. Does that concern you? It concerns me a little bit. I do think that if you're in fourth grade or below, that you shouldn't be accessing any discussion of sexual orientation. Unless your parents choose to put you in a school where that's part of the curriculum? Of course. Or if your parent decides that after school, they can talk all they want about that stuff. I'm not sure there'd be like 1% of parents that would talk to a kindergartener about this stuff. I'm taking more of the higher education because you're right that both University of Florida, Florida State, certainly University of Central Florida, which is now, I think, the largest institution in the country, that's where you're hearing people, including faculty, saying like, I can't teach history under this kind of law. I don't know. I mean, look, the governor has a master at virtue signaling, but so is the left. I mean, we're in this virtue signaling food fight. I'm not sure the substance of the bills that have passed have created a dangerous place for speech. I'm not certain that that's the case. But I do think we have to be vigilant about it. It's one thing to say, you can't impose these woke cultural values on everybody, which I think is an issue. It's the other thing to say, well, therefore, we're going to impose our values on everybody. I'm kind of an old school conservative with libertarian blood running through my veins. And I think what we need to find is an environment where we let people have an honest discourse. And if you believe what I believe, you should have the right to discuss it and defend it. And you should allow other people, the people that may disagree with aren't the enemy, they just might be wrong. And have an open dialogue. And I think our universities are pretty good at that compared to other places where we're seeing right now. If you're a Jewish kid going to one of these elite schools, you're in danger. I mean, that is ridiculous what's going on. So both sides have these impulses that I think I'm uncomfortable with. But I would say the left is probably much worse than the right. We talked about Florida being like the destination for places. It has the fifth highest foreign-born population as a percentage of its residents in the country. In 2022, more Americans move from other states to Florida than any other state in terms of net migration. My question is, do immigrants, whether they're from outside the country or within the country, do they bring their values with them? This is what you hear a lot. Venezuelans coming into Florida are going to turn it into Venezuela of the north. New Yorkers, Californians going to Florida are going to bring those governmental systems with them. Do you believe that? Or do you think that's off? I think it's off. It's always been a concern that all these whoever, from wherever they come and they bring their values. But I mean, think about it. If someone's leaving California, and there's quite a few Californians that have moved here from war to Texas and to Arizona. But if they're leaving, they're leaving for a reason. They're probably leaving because they want economic opportunity for themselves and their families. Or they're tired of being taxed to death. So one of the interesting data points in terms of migration is I think 25% of all of the income that has moved from one state to the other has moved to Florida, 25%. So these are high income people that are moving here because if you live in New York City, the next budget shortfall, which is probably next month, the first idea, the second idea, the third idea is tax the rich. Well, there's probably 1% of the taxpayers probably pay 40% of the budget.  And so you've got people migrate for different reasons. The immigrants from other countries, there is no evidence that Hugo Chavez is going to do well in Miami. I promise you that. I mean, obviously the Cubans who moved from Cuba, they love Castro. That's really what they were coming to America for, right? What do you mean? So the point I wanted to make because in Miami-Dade County, which I keep talking about because I live here, 65%, maybe 70% of the people in this county were born outside the country. There is nothing like it in the rest of the country. Los Angeles may come close. And these are patriotic people. There is no woke.  And they're calling cards around here. They believe in freedom. They've left oppressive regimes. They're concerned when they see policies that try to impose a heavy hand of government. It's chaotic. It's diverse. It's fun. And it adds a dynamism that is really remarkable. The principal reason why I moved in 1980, and it's even better now. What do you make, though, of the anti-immigrant sentiments that are definitely on the rise throughout the country? But people like Ron DeSantis.  I think Florida has to claim Donald Trump as a Floridian now. And we'll talk about the Florida man concept in a bit. But what do you make of the anti-immigrant sentiment, which seems to be rising throughout the country, but also in places like Florida where people are streaming in? Where does it come from? And how do you manage it? Well, first, I think there's a legitimate concern about an open border. And whether you are a pro-immigration like I am or a nativist and want to close legal immigration even, great countries, all countries, should have the right to control their border. And this current administration, the previous administration had great rhetoric, didn't do much, did a little bit better. But this administration has been the convergence of bad policy and bad politics. You want to stay away from that intersection. And he manages to sit right in the center of it with his border policy. So there's a lot of anger and frustration for that. I'm not sure that's a xenophobic feeling at all. I think it's a legitimate concern about this wave of people taking advantage of a broken immigration system. These people come, and they claim, they say they have a well-founded fear of persecution. And ultimately, 5% will have a legitimate claim. And they should be allowed in. 95% don't after four years because the courts are all clogged up.  And the likelihood of them showing up for that is slim or not. How would you address that then? And there is that separate issue of legal immigration, which people like Donald Trump has said, when he was president, he wanted to reduce legal immigration. He did. He actually did, yeah. But how do you deal with the border? And then how do you kind of disconnect the two so that people aren't thinking immigration is, by definition, a criminal act almost? You changed the asylum laws to require people to make their claims outside the country. The Trump administration for a while did that. But they may not have had the legal basis to do it by executive order. You need to change the law. That would be one element. Controlling the border using technology and a wall where it's not appropriate across every mile, but it certainly would provide some security there. Use the verify properly. Create a guest worker program where it's easy to come to work legally than it is to come illegally. Create a narrow than people that are coming by family reunification, where the only country in the world that has spouse and minor children like all other countries, but also adult siblings and adult parents. So we've had, since 1965, majority of people coming or coming through that family reunification, a lot of them are not as productive as they could be if you narrowed that and expanded the number of people coming that aren't taking jobs away, but are creating jobs. Use the Canada model. Deal with the dreamers that, through no fault of their owner here, and give them a path. And when you say deal with them, yeah, you mean offer them a way to be here legally. Yeah.  These are like 25-year-old young men and women now. They had no nexus to the country that their parents brought them in. I mean, let's be realistic about it. And then for the 10 to 12 million people that are probably 12, 13 now, million people here illegally, give them a path to residency, not citizenship, which I think would be the fair thing to do. Now, I wrote a book about this. And those were the ideas. And those ideas, I wrote that in 2013. And it still applies because the political class up in DC want to use this both sides, want to use this as a political wedge issue. Yeah. You and your brother were, in many ways, you're kind of like a dying breed of pro-immigration and pro-immigrant Republicans. What has happened to the Republican Party that it has veered so far away from seemingly having anything good to say about immigrants? I don't know. I mean, I think there are a lot of Republicans that are pro-immigrant per se. But look, the reason why people are angry is the systems that we've relied on, the institutions we've relied on, haven't worked. We can't enforce our existing laws as it relates to immigration. People get upset. I think it's legitimate. You have the avalanche of fentanyl coming into our country and the tragedy that that brings. You have, I mean, think of what institution is working the way it should in the 21st century. And so there is a deep resentment that the elites are doing quite well. Like, I'm blessed. I've got a healthy family, an intact family. I'm in business in a way that I can add value. I've got a great life, and a lot of other people do. But there are a ton of people that are one paycheck away from real hardship. And the system hasn't been working for a lot of those folks. And so you try to find scapegoats. And whether you like President Trump or not, I'm not a big fan, he has tapped into that anger better than any politician in the last generation of time. And it explains, I think, and that connection explains his pretty stronghold on the Republican Party right now. Does that hold were you going into 2024? And to keep it kind of in Florida, you have Trump holed up in Mar-a-Lago. You have DeSantis, who in many ways has, he courted Trump. He's very Trump-like in many of his policies, even if he's not doing very well. Is there a future for a Republican Party that is really centered around a kind of Trump personality and agenda, which seems to be, we got to close the borders. We got to exert more control over everyday life, things like that. I think the way you deal with the legitimate resentment that people feel and the anger and the angst that they feel is to fix the things that are broken. And if that happens, I think people, a candidate or a message that is more hopeful and optimistic about the future rather than one that's about grievance and anger could prevail. But right now, that's not the case. So it's hard to see how in 2024 there'll be any kind of sea change on that. But Nick, I mean, think about it. If you compare the United States to other countries, we're the only developed country that could rebuild our demographic pyramid that could be young and dynamic again. We lead the world in all sorts of innovations and technologies. We have a pretty good neighborhood. If we control the border, Mexico is not going to invade us. The Canadians, you know. You got to keep your eye on that one, but generally, yeah. Yeah, we got a huge border with them. Maybe they'll, but they're one-tenth our size. And they've got the Atlantic in Pacific. I mean, Europe is confronted with all sorts of historical and current challenges that make us look really peaceful. China's demography is a disaster. Their economy is a disaster. The debt loads they have are very similar to ours. But we could renew ourselves. But it requires fixing some really important things. And I would hope that the conservative side of politics would be the ones that offer those up because the other guys are going to offer, you know, more whatever, green new deals and infrastructure business where you mandate. If you're, you know, you have to have a left-handed Albanian in your cabinet or your board of directors or all this weird stuff that the progressive love to impose on people, it's not going to look good. If we get back in the game, I'm, you know, I'm excited for my grandchildren. Right now, I worry about it. What do you think the Republican Party, you know, a decade ago or 20 years ago, it did seem to be leaning, when it looked to the future, it seemed to be leaning libertarian. I'm saying, you know, government should be doing a few essential things and doing them well. That got derailed, you know, by wars. It got derailed by administrative bloat and a lot of other things. But now when you look at the Republican Party, it's rare to see anybody have, nobody has a libertarian bone in the body. They're not talking about spending. They're not talking about reducing the size and scope of government. Is a, you know, does the Republican Party need to go libertarian in order to kind of win the future? Look, I'm out of politics. I guess I'm so old school that I think believing in freedom and limited government and entrepreneurial capitalism, rather than picking winners and losers and doing it through government is the path forward. I've always believed that I haven't changed my mind. I don't know, but maybe the indicator is the subscription base of reason. Is it up or down? Yeah, well, we're reaching more people, you know, so maybe that's good, but. Well, keep it up because you gotta keep working it because it doesn't look like it's having much effect in DC right now. You're absolutely right. Conservatives, you know, when Jim Jordan trying to buy votes, literally to buy votes to become the speaker says, well, I'll guarantee you, we'll get rid of the salt.  That's the state and local income, or the state and local tax deduction, which was the one great thing. Yeah, so it was a cap on it with the. Yeah, that was great. That was the best thing I've ever seen. Exactly. And you know, it was, why should people in Florida pay for the burdensome nature of the government in New Jersey or New York? And so he was willing to buy that, buy a handful of votes, I guess, apparently I've read that in the midst of his negotiations. Well, a conservative would never do that. Like, so these are, this is a different version. These are populists maybe, not conservatives. They're certainly not libertarian.  What is so bad? But it's certainly not like. What is so bad? It's up in a cold sled saying the deficit's too high. Yeah, what is so bad about the Democratic Party under Joe Biden at this point? Proposing what, a $6 trillion spending plan for money and with money we didn't, don't have and only getting two trillion or something, you know? These are big numbers. Is using the regulatory state to carry out his agenda. I have a business that we're involved in that helps, that refurbishes transformers. Well, there's now a new law, a new rule that's going through the process that would basically eliminate the supply chain of transformers, which is kind of important if you wanna electrify the transportation system and harden the grid and expand. When you think of all the GPUs that are necessary for data processing and this all requires transformers and it's a policy that deals with using materials that we can't, we don't make to be part of the transformer manufacturing process that will have less carbon emissions. So it's this multitude of agendas that are imposed that make it harder and harder for the United States to compete. That troubles me. Did you ever think, I mean, as you were rising through the ranks and whatnot that after the 2000 that you would be seeing the rise of anti-free trade people on the Democratic side and the Republican side and people being anti-immigrant again. In 2000, I didn't see it though. I didn't see it when I was governor either. Now, this has happened maybe in increments not discernible to the naked eye. It's kind of happened over time, like all things do. I mean, that's, we're living, we're not in a linear world. We're in a cyclical world and the cycle right now is people are very comfortable with advocating government solutions to everything. Now, another reason why I love Florida is the contagion hasn't spread to other places. I mean, we're AAA-bond rated and we don't have an income tax. We under governor Scott, I think they reduced the state debt by 70%. I mean, there was no debt issued in the eight years that Rick Scott was governor. What other state did that in a high growth situation? I certainly didn't, Charlie Chris didn't do it. I don't know if governor DeSantis has, but there is a way to show that you can, you know, pursue limited government ideas and balance the budget, create reserves, deal with eight, you know, hurricanes all the time, don't have a bloated government and help people and put the people that are most vulnerable in the front of the line. That philosophy still exists here. You, one of the ways, or one of the things that's kind of unique about Florida is the special tax districts, which have become, you know, kind of a big thing, you know, between fights between Disney and DeSantis and whatnot. Could you explain quickly what those are and are you in favor of maintaining them? Because how many are there in Florida? I mean, there are hundreds. There's a ton of them. Some of them are very limited in their scope, water districts and others. They're regional in some cases. They, some of them have taxing powers and, you know, the proper thing to do is hold them to account, sunset them, review them. In the case of the Reedy Creek, it is pretty unique. In fact, it's the only one of its kind, which is, in effect, the quasi-county government. And it was pretty smart to do in whatever, 1960, because there were two counties where the Disney's property existed and this was a way to assure that the quality that Disney had in terms of governance, infrastructure could be maintained. And frankly, the infrastructure inside Reedy Creek is world-class. I mean, it's not, I'm not kidding, like best infrastructure in the United States. So there was a reason for doing it. I remember when I was governor, we had 68 chalices, silver chalices that were part of the SS Florida, you know, group of silverware for hosting people, I guess. And the 68th was Reedy Creek. It was kind of part of who we were. I don't know, I'm uncomfortable with changing that. I think it's important to have accountability around it. And the governor's task, or the board that he's replaced the Disney executives, I guess, are supposed to be doing that. As long as it's not punitive, I mean. But it was, right? I mean, he explicitly said he was going after Disney because they crossed him on a couple of laws or initiative. It, yes, it was punitive in terms of rhetoric for sure. Is it punitive in terms of the operations of Disney and Central Florida? I don't know. I'm not sure, but I hope it isn't because 80,000 employees and billions of dollars of investment, it's a principal reason why we don't have an income tax in our state. I mean, 32 million people last time I checked go to the Disney properties. It's an economic driver of success for a ton of other people, not just the employees of Disney. So I think you need to be respectful of that. And if the young ends out in Southern California or woke, okay, fine.  The fact that he didn't created this kind of vulnerability for Disney. And I think that this passage of the law was more than appropriate, but you go beyond the rhetorical slapping Disney in the face where you're actually hurting the enterprise. You're hurting Florida. And I don't know. I don't think, I think the rule on that, it's not clear whether that's happened or not. Would you talk a little bit about Excel in Ed, which you're the head of. Why, you know, this is a group that really pushes, you know, kind of personalized backpack funding, a variety of school reforms that really give parents and students more control over how they get educated or how they educate themselves. What motivated you to focus on education and education choice? I think, I mean, I've been interested in educational choice and education since gosh, we founded Pluridians for Educational Choice in 1990. Tom Feeney, who became the Speaker of the House in Florida and myself and Billy Nese was a person in Fort Myers. We created this and the first event we did was a barbecue with Polly Williams, who was the sponsor of the legislation in Wisconsin. I go that far back. Yeah, yeah. And I just think. Local councilwoman who had been a member of the Black Panther Party and whatnot, a real, you know, mover and shaker in school choice. She sponsored the bill and Tommy Thompson supported it and passed it into law and kind of yearn for those days where, at least on the one thing that a conservative and a liberal would agree on, they would pause and actually act on it and that's what they did. So I just think, you know, in a world where you want more parental engagement and you want them to be informed consumers of the most important service that their family will ever have, which is a quality education, they're going to be a better arbiter of what's right for their kids and a better judge of what the best school is. And Florida was, you know, basically, parents were locked out. And so apart from advocating, I got a chance to act on that. And successive governors and legislatures have followed up after that. So one of the lessons in policy world is success is never final, reform's never complete. Governor DeSantis gets great credit with the legislature passing a full-blown, I'm not kidding, education savings account and hundreds of thousands of students today, but literally at, you know, then years from now it could be over a million students will be going to the school that their parents choose. Miami-Dade right now got 60% of students are going to a school, public or private that their parents choose. And Miami-Dade's school system is considered the best urban school district in the country. There's not a surprise for me that if you empower parents, you're going to get a diversity of offerings. And if you have accountability around that and parents understand where their kids stand, you're going to get a great result. And, you know, for the elite families, everything's going to be fine. You know, because they're the first teachers of their kids, they tutor their kids, they pay for, you know, they pay for tutors, they do all this stuff to protect their kids and help them learn. But what about the 90% of families that don't have that luxury? You better make sure your schools are vibrant, are focused on the future, make sure kids can read by third grade, access to algebra in the middle schools, have career orientation where appropriate in high school and have just high expectations because kids are smarter than we give them credit for. So Excel and Ed takes these ideas, takes them on the road. We were, the Florida literacy efforts were emulated in Mississippi, and Mississippi's had the greatest gains in early education based on the nation's report card. It was 50th out of 50, and it went, it's now, it's the only state in the pandemic era that is actually seeing significant gains. Why? Because they had high expectations for kids, mostly minority kids, mostly low income kids. They trained teachers on the science of reading, not the bogus other approach the majority of teachers were taught. And they ended social promotion in third grade. And it can work. I mean, and now the so-called Mississippi miracle, it's really not a miracle, it's hard work by teachers that are trained appropriately where resources are given to let them soar. Do you think there's a contradiction among conservative education reformers where on the one hand there's an emphasis on choice, which at various points people, liberals or people on the left talked about it, but that's kind of faded. They're very locked into a kind of centralized status quo, old model. But conservatives who say on the one hand they wanna give parents more and more choice, but then people like Ron DeSantis who say, okay, but certain books, certain curricula, certain things are off the table. Is that a contradiction that needs to be kind of explored and blown up? Yeah, but show me the books that were banned, so-called ban, the books in question were removed from elementary school to age-appropriate places. Is that appropriate? Yeah, I think it is. Look, there's so much misinformation these days. And people, they aggregate their news in ways that validates their beliefs. They're not learning anything, they're just getting their views validated. I think I heard you talk about that on Megan Kelly or someplace. Travels away. It's, you know, something that confirms your beliefs, right, a programmer show that confirms what you already know. Yeah, there is definitely confirmation bias in all the information we get. And I know the people, Manny Diaz is a commissioner of education. I've talked to him about this and the amount of heat that has been generated. I mean, look, Governor DeSantis, he's been a really effective governor and I think he's done a fine job, but he's controversial as all get out by design.  Governor Ron, if you look at actually what the, you know, what's happened and the implementation of it, it's a little bit different.  And Florida is a better place because he's been an aggressive governor. What do you think about his, you know, shipping or sending migrants to, you know, places like New York City or Martha's Vineyard and stuff like that? Well, that's a virtue signaling, very creative one. It seems to have gotten the attention of people and now you have big city mayors that are saying the Biden administration has got to get its act together and forcing the border. Had that not had had Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis and maybe other governors not done this, they probably wouldn't have gotten that attention.  If I was in their circumstance, I would do the exact same thing. That doesn't make it right. We have broken immigration law that's not enforced and these families, I have sympathy for them for sure. But the Biden administration should get its act together and they ought to work with Congress to fix the laws that are broken and they ought to enforce the existing laws in a much better way. And they're negligent on this and a lot of people are suffering. You think about the people that don't make it to the border because they believe that they can get in. Think of the loss of life. Think of the amount of money that the coyotes have gotten, the drug dealers have gotten. You know, this is a disaster. It's a humanitarian disaster and the focus ought to be on the Biden administration their inability to follow the law.  What do you make of the Florida man meme? Look, it's probably not fair, but who cares? It's funny. We should embrace it, you know, like we're striving to have a disproportionate number of candidates for the Darwin award each year and we should be very proud of it. Yeah, you want to run the table. I'll tell you what, I'll take the Florida man, all the people laughing at Florida because of that. I'll take our tax structure. I'll take our environmental policy. I'll take our education system. I'll take our way of life and I'll be okay. Just a quick follow-up on that, you know, it's interesting. So Florida is now the third most popular state. You know, the top four are California, Texas, Florida and New York. New York, California and Texas all have strong kind of identities that people know, California was the dream. New York is New York City and the Hurley Burley and all of that. Texas, where I sadly, I passed two years in Huntsville, Texas so that I don't talk about too much. But- You were in Huntsville? I was living outside the prison. So yeah. Okay. I was like, wow. But Texas is its own country, its own region. It has its, you know, does Florida have an identity or a culture that can, you know, galvanize the nation or can it become the next big thing in kind of American identity? I think it can, but it's a great question, Nick, because my brother, when he got elected, I went to his inauguration and same size crowd as my inauguration in 1998. Not everything is bigger in Texas but there were no American flags. There were all Texas flags, hundreds of them all around. You know, fast forward to my inauguration, there were like, there wasn't even a Florida flag on top of the state capitol. There were American flags though all over the place but we don't have a, I think we have an emerging identity but it's not clear. It's more, Florida is a group of regions in many ways and South Florida is very different than the Panhandle. It would be helpful to have a sense of shared identity for the state. I've always advocated that. I don't think we've reached our full potential there. And by the way, I kind of like that for our own country. What is the shared identity that we have in our country now? We're tribal and we're broken ourselves up in all these disparate parts. I mean, Florida does mirror the United States in that way in some fashions but it's a more positive. Very much so, yeah. Positive place. People are proud to live in Jacksonville, proud to live in Tampa but they're not necessarily, that doesn't always translate to proud to live in Florida. Going back to the concept of a shared identity for America in our history, we've had various ones including, we were the Puritans and the Pilgrims, we were the Westward explorers, we were a nation of immigrants was certainly a huge one that I think about a lot. All of my grandparents were immigrants from Europe that ended sometime around the end of the Cold War, it seems.  Yeah, I mean, I think this will sound like a cliche and that's sad that it does but I would say the shared identity should be that it doesn't matter where you start in life it doesn't matter where you were born. It doesn't, what matters is that you have a chance to rise up and that your hard work will be rewarded and that you'll be part of the exceptionalism of our country where people irrespective of where they start in life have a chance to succeed and that's being challenged like never before and a lot of people don't believe that that's the case anymore and so they resort to more government or they resort to collective action rather than pursuing their dreams as they see fit. I think America at its best is crazy, chaotic, two steps forward, one step back. It's not planned out. The great businesses, the great ideas that will emerge in the post pandemic era, I'm really excited about history's repletive examples of this and at a time when we really need that sense of shared identity, I think it's eroded to the point where it may be of all the things that trouble me, that's that and the fiscal deficit are the two things that trouble me the most. All right, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much for talking to reason, Governor Jeb Bush. Thanks Nick.


The National Broadcasting Company at its affiliated stations present the Pacific story around this greatest sea where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This is the documentary account of the situation in the Pacific, of the men in events which are today influencing world affairs for generations to come. They represent an earliest stage of the white man's scrambled for power in the Pacific. The white man's blackest page in the Pacific. A thousand and more of us pollinations here in the Marquesas. Today, there are about 2,500 of us left. They were a magnificent people. In the beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen. I saw not a single instance of natural deformity among them. The men in almost every instance were six feet tall, and nearly every one of them might have been a sculptor's model. Under the white man, 98% of the Marquesans have died. It was not entirely our fault. It was not. Entirely. The Spaniards were in the Marquesas nearly 200 years before us, and they butchered many of the Marquesas. Just a minute. Who is speaking of what we did in this island? I was speaking of the Spaniards. And you were speaking of me? I discovered the Marquesas. It was I who named them Vasis-les Marquesas de Mentosa for the Lady of the Spanish Viceroye Peru. Well, that was in 1595. Yes. And what natives we killed, we killed in self-defense. That was Alvaro Mandana, commander of the fleet of Don Garcia Ortada de Mendoza, the Spanish Viceroye Peru. And 180 years after he sailed away, the famous British navigator, Captain Cook, we discovered the island. But the British made no claim to them. That should go into the record. Of course. No one paid any attention to the islands until our Captain Etienne Marchand came and chartered the islands in 1791, and named them the Isles of the Revolution. Ah, but that same year I came on Nukihiva and the seven small islands around it, and named them the Washington Islands for the United States. I beg your pardon? Captain Ingram is the name. You remember me? Oh, yes. Yes, I do remember something about that. But the very next year, our Lieutenant Herjest came here and in 1842 our Admiral de Petitois position of the islands. And in the name of France, I was here before your Admiral de Petitois. You? Ivan Krustenstern is my name. Ivan Krustenstern... Oh, yes. The Russian admiral. Yes. came here in 1804 and surveyed the entire group and made an extensive study of the island. Yes, yes, so you did. We committed no outrages against the natives. I remember now. You did arrive here before our Admiral de Pitoire. And so did I almost 30 years before. And I raised the flag on Nuka Hiva and flamed the islands for the United States. Huh? Oh, to be sure, you are Captain Porter of the US Navy, no? Yes. My name is Porter. When Captain Porter came to the Marquesas in 1813, the United States was at war with Britain. In his flagship, the frigate ethics, he attacked British shipping in the Atlantic, captured a number of vessels and a good many prisoners. Then, in need of repairs and supplies, he rounded Cape Horn into the Pacific and headed for the Marquesas. That's of course for Nuka Hiva, Lieutenant. Yes, sir. From the information we have, we should be able to moor the entire Foskiller and the entire eBay. Yes, sir. I just wanted to pay me respects, Captain Sir, and to place me vast knowledge of these islands at your disposal, sir. Mm-hmm. And what is the temper of the people? Only their charm a lot, really. Probably the most handsome people in the South Seas they are, strong and powerful. But are they friendly? Oh, very auspitable, matter of fact, very trusting. Some of them cannibals, you know, that eat each other. Oh, they've never eaten me. Even though some do say that they're blood thirsty. There's only one thing, Captain Sir. Yes? Yes, there's trouble between the tribes. Serious trouble? Oh, yes, sir, the Tyrewee tribe. That's the one that's right here around Tyrewee Bay. They don't get on well with the Appet tribe on the other side of the ridge at all. There's dozens of tribes here in these islands. So while these people are very friendly... Captain Porter proceeded cautiously. First, working through Wilson, he sent a party ashore to make friends of the Marquesas. It's possible we may be here for some time. Then he engaged the help of the Marquesas in the construction of a fort. And around this established a camp. He brought ashore goats and cattle and pigs. But Sly Wilson became the close advisor of Captain Porter. There'll never be peace in these islands here, Captain Porter, until the differences between the tribes are settled. Now, as I see it, if I may be permitted an observation, sir, as I see it, there are too many chiefs on these islands. How many are there? Oh, I presume to guess, sir, but... Oh, many tribes I don't know more. But I do know this, sir. There are more than 100,000 natives in these islands. Maybe as many as 160,000. Now, take those Appets on the other side of the ridge there. They've got a chief that's poison. Trouble maker he is. Now, if you wish to ask me advice, I'd say that we ought to join the tribe. Now, we'd try the other rounders and go after them, Appets. Very soon the friction between the two tribes burst into flames, and Captain Porter took the side of the Tiois. The hoppers were put down. The news of the fighting swept through the islands. Other tribes became involved. The fighting raged over the mountains and through the beautiful valleys. When it was done, 31 tribes swore allegiance to the United States, and Captain Porter hoisted the American flag over the port of Nukaheba and named the island Madison Island after the President of the United States. Quiet settled over the islands, and Captain Porter went about repairing your ship and replenishing your supplies. With his task done and his men rested, Captain Porter called his officers together in his cabin. It's time to resume operations against the British. You three officers whom I've named will remain here. You will have under your command 20 men. I'm leaving in your charge the three captured vessels in six prisoners of war. Any questions? Lieutenant? None, sir. Very well. You'll get underway at dawn. The Caucasians came down to the shore and watched the vessels one by one put out to sea. The American officers and men stood among them, but Wilson was not there. Wilson was back in the hills. The white captain in his scoundrel rode to the robs of your island. They outraged your women. They brought you disease. They took your breadfruit and bananas and coconut, your plantains and your yams, and they raised that flag over your island. They've gone to bring more shiploads of men here and make your slaves down with the Americans.  The fort fell. The American flag was fall down. Most of the Americans were killed. One lieutenant and a few of the men managed to reach one of the captive ships in the harbor. Lieutenant Gamble and a few American survivors escaped to sea in the captive vessel. They reached Hawaii, but there they were captured by the British, who, meantime, had also captured Captain Porter in his flagship, The Ethics. The United States never recognized Porter's annexation of the Marquesas. The islands became the backwash of the European scum of the South Sea. Dilip Tanks and Fugitive Criminals, missionaries, whalers and beachcombers came to the island of Powaka and the Valley of Bataille. They came to the island of Hebaor across the channel. They came to Nuka Heba and Fasa Heba. They commandeered the best locations along the beautiful sandy beaches and in the hills overlooking the shore. You see my place. Ha, ha, ha! Got the ginocchus cavilda face for me. Coconut and the breadfruit and the banana trees and the lime trees. Ha, ha, that's what I want. Yeah, but have you got any winches like mine? I am here to make money first.  Ha, ha, hang at a time. Ramshackle trading posts sprang up along the beautiful semi-circle of the bay. Bungalows were built in the shadow of the massive rocks. A church and a refectory was built at the edge of the rich verdure, which covered the valleys and extended up into the steep mountains. And while the roistering white men laughed and brawled and dragged Polynesians into the grog shop and sought their women in the settlements and in the valleys and in the hills, the tolling of the church bells became a familiar sound. The white man's disease, like the shearing flame, swept through our islands.  Look at the outriggers coming in. More of our people from far to heave are coming here to escape the sickness. But they are bringing the sickness with them. We must stop them from coming here. We must stop them. We cannot stop them. And even if we could, they are our brothers. Weiling gifts brought tuberculosis. My people had never known any such disease. They cared for the sick white man, and they got it. And never having had such a disease, it spread through them and cut them down without mercy. Other ships brought sickless and smallpox. And many other strange diseases. And the bell tolls day after day. But the boiling of the white men for control of my people did not stop. Ah! Tell it by a third. He okayed, went to your atman for help. Ray. And he gave it gladly. Did he not? Yes. He gave it because he had something in the back of his head. He sent an armed forces shore into the valley of Aitahu and established a garrison. He raised the French flag. But when the Marquesans realized the meaning of all this, trouble followed. For the French officer Captain Halley. The French then pursued their conquest with more vigor. The fighting spread to the other island, Chinooka Heva, to Heva-Oa, to Patu Heva. The Marquesans fought fiercely with every means they had. Even cannibalism. By one, the island was subdued by the French. Yes. All but Heva-Oa. Bloody Heva-Oa. Island to fall to you, Frank. But to the credit of France, it must be said that we brought law and order to the Marquesas. We set up an administrative office in Atuono on Heva-Oa. And there is still a settlement there today. But after all that, there was really little reason for us to stay in the islands. By the time of the American Civil War, the Marquesas had virtually been abandoned by the French. The whale is no longer put in at the sunny lagoon. Few traders called. Beachcombers, who had reveled in its plenty, now shuddered at its loneliness and pleaded with shipmasters to take them away. Where the thousands had walked, now there were few or not. The island of Motane was empty and silent and desolate. But the Huku was empty. What are these here? These. These burial caves. You're mean. People are buried in these caves? Yes. Many. How many? Nobody know now. But many. More people desolate. I see. At the close of the American Civil War, an American with ideas came to the island. Captain Hart. This is the most promising island, as I see it. Heva-Oa. Bloody Heva-Oa. Second largest island in the group. There's corporate here, but hardly enough to justify regular steamship calls. It ought to depend on tram steamers or trading schooners. But that plateau up there, that's something else. Cotton. Should be able to grow cotton without trying there. Some cotton grow wild here on Heva-Oa. And help but grow on this island. But up on that plateau, I'll cultivate it. You want to work for me? You know? No. No work. Plenty eat here. Yeah, that's the trouble. Bread, fruit, and bananas, and coconuts, and mangoes for the pickin'. How many of you want to work for me? Not of me, Hart. Now what? All the work. So Captain Hart sailed back to the United States and returned with a shipload of Chinese from California. He put in this cotton crop, and while they grew under the supervision of his overseer, he went abroad and returned with still more Chinese. But the Chinese were not satisfied. We cannot prosper making money for the Americans. We are foolish to work in his cotton fields when there is so much to trade here. Yes, much copper, and sugarcane, and wild cotton. Later, stop working for the Americans and work for our saviors, Clark. Here you come now. Ah, I have a surprise for you, a wonderful luxury. Tonight, when your work is done, I'll give it to you. The American gave them opium to try to keep the Chinese working in his fields. But one by one, the Chinese left anyway. Those that did not leave the islands became traitors. Then to induce those of my people who were left to work for him, the Americans gave them opium, and they sickened and died. Captain Hart went further abroad, sailed around the Horn up into the Atlantic, returned with Martinique Negro. They failed. Then he turned to the west. Anomites from Indochina were being brought into the South Seas for labor. He brought in anomites. The work broke them down, and they died. The cotton fields on a high plateau where the soil was rich and the water plentiful, the cotton fields grew up with undergrowth. The jungle closed in, choked the cotton to death, and reclaimed the land as if no white man had ever scratched it. And Captain Hart sailed away and never came back. A few of my people who were left became users of the drugs, and few white men permitted it to be used. Control of opium is a difficult thing. When we came back to the islands, we discovered it's use. We came back in the 80s. The history of the Marcavus is of late years much confused by the cunning and going of the French. At least twice they have seized these islands, and at least once they have deserted them. That was Robert Louis Stevenson. When he visited the Marcavus in 1888, he walked among the Pepe's. The Pepe's are found everywhere. These are stone platforms with the Marcavus built their houses. They are from 20 to 30 feet square, and they stand from 2 to 6 feet high. Robert Louis Stevenson also saw the Marais, the bigger stone platforms where one stood the houses of the priests. And he saw the great platforms that were the public meeting places, the amphitheaters of the Marcavus. The Marais, like the thousands of Pepe's are empty. On the time of Robert Louis Stevenson, the French have remained in the Marquesas. Yes, and when the war came and France fell to the 90s, we in the Marquesas denounced the Dixie government and joined the fighting French of General de Gaulle. When France fell, many of you French here and in the other islands of French Ocean were really for the Dixie government. Did we not declare for the fighting French government in London only after most of the French civilians here and in the society islands and in Tahiti voted for continuing to fight on the side of Great Britain? By this time, the Marquesans were officially part of French Oceana and were governed from the headquarters at Pepiti in Tahiti. Then most of you French who still were for Vici were shipped away to French Indochina. The fighting French government then sent Katie-Admiral Georges-Pirée Dachanlou to the Pacific Island. By this time, the Japanese had occupied most of French Indochina and were looking eastward toward French Oceana. If they should gain possession of these islands, they would gain a strategic victory. Look here at this chart. Admiral Dachanlou pointed out the strategic importance of the island. Here you see in these islands, we virtually cut off Samoa from approach from the east. Also, we lie directly across sea transport lanes from Panama and the west coast of the United States to Australia and New Zealand. Look at this, Vici. And here you see, should the Panama Canal be damaged, we flunk all sea transport using the strait of Magellan to Australia and New Zealand. Dachanlou organized the resistance on the islands and the Japanese, angered at this presumptuousness since the islands were largely defenseless, issued a warning. The activities of the Fugitive Fire from France was also known as Admiral Dachanlou are not lost upon us. And we say to him, Japan will not hesitate for a moment to resort to force to step on him and all the golems in the Pacific. Dachanlou stood fast. And from this time on, the islands of French Oceanus swung into the orbit of the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Warships and transport, cargo carriers and tankers, vessels of all kinds put into the bays of the islands of the Marquesas in the years of the war. The descendants of the 100,000 or more Polynesians who once lived on Nukihiva, Hivaoa, Fonto Hiva and all the other islands of the Marquesas came down to the beaches to see them. But these were no longer all pure Polynesians. Now they were intermixed with Chinese and Indians, Anomites and Negroes. And some of the oldest among them could remember when those other ships had come, bringing white men and trouble. They never reached our islands during the war. But the islands were nevertheless strategically important. We had had for some years a wireless station at Atuona on Hivaoa. We had had a subsidiary station at Taiouai on Nukihiva. With these, we get in close communication with our headquarters at Peipei in Tahiti. And also we had always communication with the outside world by schooners and steamers, which called every few weeks. With enormous problems of reconstruction and rehabilitation at home, France is facing severe tests in her possessions across the seas. At one and the same time, she is struggling to get on her feet and to convert her empire into a solid political unit. Imperialism, imperialism! The fighting in Indochina echoes across the Pacific to the people of the Marquesas who regard it with indifference. What meaning can it have to us? The preamble of the new constitution of France says, France forms with the peoples overseas a union founded on the equality of rights and duties without distinction of race or religion.  To us, it makes no difference. Today, the old ones sit on the beautiful, melancholy beaches and look far out across the peaceful sea. Where once the outrigger canoes rode the waves manned by stout and eager Marquesans, now there is only emptiness. The lovely hills and valleys are so long. Such life as the islands know is about the village of Ataona at the mouth of the most beautiful valley on Hiva Orr, overlooking the Bay of Trades. Here the Marquesans move aimlessly among the few bungalows in the administrative office of the French or sit on their stone pay-pays in the shade of their fat shoes. They think they hear voices, perhaps the voices of their people ringing through the valleys and from the cliffs and mountaintops or the voices of white men. It was I who named these islands and what natives we killed, we killed in self-defense. I named these islands Washington Island. I surveyed the islands and made an extensive study of them. I named this island Madison Island in the name of the United States. The war captain in a scoundrel's robb of your island. Scoundrel with the Americans, kill him. To the credit of France, we brought Lord Ordo to the Marquesas and we set up offices at Ataona. And sometimes they think they hear a bell ringing, but this they know cannot be for years and years have passed since that bell rang. And like the people who's passing at Marques forever disappeared from these beautiful islands. A broadcasting company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific basin by Andrew C. Love. The music was scored and conducted by Henry Russell. Your narrator was Dave Ormont. Service men and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the armed forces radio service. This by Arnold Marquess and produced this evening by Andrew Love came to you from Hollywood's Radio City and is heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Is NBC the national broadcasting company?


Hi I'm Daniel Coombs and the January's What's Neat starts right now. This is What's Neat for January 2017. I'm your host Ken Patterson and this month we've got a packed show. First our friend Michael Gross stops by and shares with us some of the hoops that he needs to jump through to create beautiful models out of his hotel room while he's on the road acting. For tool tips this month we build a track cleaner that's functional, it works, it's bullet proof and I tell you what it's nice looking, you're going to be proud to own the tool that we come up with this month on What's Neat. For airbrushing this month I show you some upgrades that I've made to my spray booth and my air supply system that helps facilitate airbrushing at a moment's notice. For scenery tips this month I show you a very easy way to refresh your scenery instantly, remove the dust, using a household product that you may already have on hand in your home. For indoor model photography this month I do an atherin photo shoot inside with lights and a blue backdrop which really illustrates that you don't have to go outside to get great model railroad photography shots. Jeff Meyer stops by and shows us a beautiful tangent freight car that he's recently weathered and finished and then at the end of the show I show you a little bit about what into creating the tsunami 2 steam video that I made for soundtracks, some of the props that I needed to build and I got to tell you what everything didn't go completely smooth, so this month I've included a few bloopers at the end of the show kind of just to see how that goes over and that's pretty much the line up for this January 2017 What's Neat. A few tips on What's Neat, I like to clean my garden railroad track using this drywall pole sander which is a great tool because it's got the flexible end on it, I put a green pad on the end for cleaning the track and push it right along, things great for reaching and extending it to get inside of tunnels on the garden railroad layout or it's really great for swinging and cleaning around the trestle or the deck, it's just a great way to clean track. So I was sitting here thinking the other day, why can't we build something like this to use on our HO scale, N scale or O scale layouts on the inside, something that would be functional, something that would work and maybe a tool that would actually look really nice and you'd be proud to own. So let's do this, let's go inside the shop and let's think this through and see if we can create a track cleaner that's perfect for use on an indoor HO scale layout that's got all the versatility that this pole sander has got on my garden railroad layout. So let's see how this turns out. One of the best kept secrets in Microengineering's catalog are these abrasive track cleaning pads. My favorite two sizes are the two and a half by two inch and the one inch by six inch cleaning pads, you can find these at your local hobby shop. These are nothing new as we have been using abrasive track cleaning erasers for over thirty five plus years and they work really well without scarring the top of the rail. They are easily cleaned with soap and water ready for more use. We will use these abrasive track cleaning pads as the basis for our track cleaning tool experiment. I will use oak for the foundation of the track cleaning tool. It's dense and very solid. I got these used oak floorboard planks from my neighbor's house as it was torn down this past summer.  I cut the oak boards on a table saw making a block that measured one and a quarter by two and a half inches with about three quarters of an inch thick. I rounded the sharp edges of the wood block using a ten inch disc sander. This went quick and will give our tool smooth lines. I further finished the sanded wood by hand using one hundred and fifty grit sandpaper. Measuring from each corner I located the center of the block and marked this with an X. I then drew a one half inch square with a pencil centered on the block of wood. Using a drill press I drilled a one half inch hole through the exact center of the block of wood. I cut the corners of our pencil drawn square with hand files. This will ensure a perfect one half inch square hole in our block of wood which is very important for this project. Since I wanted our tool to look nice I stained it with red oak stain and let this dry overnight. I put a coat of polyurethane on the block of wood to give it some shine. Actually I applied five coats of polyurethane over a period of a few days to really make this tool pop. I cut the track cleaning pad to fit our block of wood using a razor saw. I drilled two holes through the track cleaner and the wood block using a five sixty fourth inch diameter drill bit. I then pulled a few one half inch wood screws from my scrap drawer and screwed these into the track cleaning pad and the wood. I tightened the screws so they would be embedded into the track pad about a sixteenth of an inch ensuring smooth clearance over turnouts and wood hand laid railroad crossings.  This will act as a strong handle and a pivot point for our track cleaner. If I cut the square hole correct the breaker bar should fit perfect into the block of wood completing our new tool and just like that it's done. Upon testing it it worked smooth and had a strong well balanced feel to it. It made reaching hard spots easy like the inside of my BLMA 200 foot long brass bridge. It made cleaning the track between the buildings on my warf scene easy without having to move the structures and with no damage to any of the details. It worked great when cleaning the rail on my delicate wood trestle bridges. I cleaned the track without any damage to my hand laid wood railroad crossings. I also tested it between trains in my switch yard where space is tight. It worked good here too. Using an extended length 25 inch breaker bar handle I found I could clean the main line behind my river without having to stand on a stool. Experimenting with various breaker bars from various different manufacturers I noticed some had a higher pivot point than others. This high pivot point from the rails caused wood head to tip and it didn't work very well at all. The solution to this was to make a longer track cleaning head using the microengineering 6 inch by 1 inch track pad. Attach this to a 6 inch long piece of oak and now you've got a perfect structure that works good with the higher extended heads. Being satisfied with the first breaker bar tool that we made, the track cleaner, and it's just beautiful, what a great tool. I ended up making more because I went to Harbor Freight and I found additional models of breaker bars, this 25 inch one which is really my favorite to use on the layout because this one will reach completely through the 200 foot long BLMA bridge and it feels right, it just feels balanced and you don't have to push down on it because it's got enough weight. A breaker bar like this runs about $19 at Harbor Freight and of course our track cleaner whatever the cost is for that so you're in this one for about 25 bucks. These other units aren't finished yet, I haven't put the abrasive bottom on them but they're both inexpensive models from Harbor Freight. I think one of them is an 18 inch and the other one is a 17 inch and one of these is three-eighths just to try a smaller diameter than the half inch to see how it would work. Both of them, I don't know how they work yet, I haven't actually used them on the layout and the one that seems the most versatile and functional is the first one that we made for the video. This is a 15 inch Husky from the Home Depot so this one will set you back $19. These two were $9 a piece so really you could build this track cleaner for under when you figure the track cleaner cost for microengineering you're probably going to be in this at $15 complete. What a nice gift to actually make for somebody and give to somebody because this is something they can really use. So this was a great experiment trying to copy the drywall sanding pole out on the garden railroad and creating a very nice functional tool for the inside layout. HO scale, N scale, it doesn't matter, O scale you can use this for anything. It's versatile, it's cheap, it works and I think that's a pretty good tip on this what's neat tool tips for the month. Hey Ken, what are you doing? I'll tell you what, Dirk. I moved my spray booth motor from my painting system outside and I built this cabinet for it which I just now put a roof on to keep the rain off of it and what I've done here is I've moved my 500 cubic feet per minute blower that was attached to the back of the spray booth.  By moving the motor outside it no longer blows air out so if I've got a hole in the pipe it's not blowing fumes into the room it's now sucking the air out and plus because it's outside it makes it a lot quieter on the inside when you're trying to talk, watch TV while you're painting or having a conversation with somebody in the room. So I really like it being moved out here, it's weather proof, I can get to the motor to oil it, everything works but let's go inside and let me show you some improvements that I've also made to my air brushing capabilities on the inside. Now for years I've used this old compressor that I picked up at the Home Depot I want to say 25 years ago and I've used it for my air brushing and my painting. The problem with the unit I've always had was it's so loud that when I work at night down here on projects it wakes up the family so you've got to make sure you've got a full tank of air and usually I can go through this tank pretty quickly because it's not that large of a tank. Well recently one of my neighbors had moved out of the neighborhood and during an estate sale that they were having on the property one of the sons asked me if I'd be as so kind as to share a little love with their father's compressor that he used in his shop. This is a machine that was built from parts and the tank has got a date on it, I think this is an old welding tank that would hold gases and it's got a date on it of 1943 so this is just right after or during the World War II era of this country so how interesting is it that they had the foresight to weld the tank with a base here to hold a compressor motor that they pulled out of a junkyard they rebuilt the inside cylinders out of a solid block of aluminum so it's got brand new inner workings lines and a nice good motor I don't know how many gallons this tank is I want to guess it is probably 45 to 50 gallons and I've discovered that I can paint all night long with this device and it's added greatly to the hours that I can work around the clock I added a few clock gauges to it which gives me air pressure in the line, tank pressure and I've added another clock gauge that I have in the spray booth so I can have airbrush pressure they're easy to see, you don't even need glasses or optics to see these gauges also something else to consider for your shop which I have found to be very handy is I've added this 50 foot pull out hose so I can reach all corners of my layout now with an airbrush without having to unroll hoses on the floor and have them rolled back up and where do you store those this just stores right into some spot and then rolls right back up so this is really a handy thing for you to think about for your shop is just this hose reel in itself it's made airbrushing again on all corners of the layout much easier for me another thing that I want to talk about in addition to this is this dryer that I picked up from Harbor Freight this is a very inexpensive commercial duty looking dryer and what it does is it takes the moisture out of that comes from inside the compressor there's always moisture trapped and it dries it out so that you don't get your airbrush spitting water on your model another thing I want to talk about is in order to get rid of the water out of the compressor I've got this black hose here and it's got garden hose disconnect connectors on it so that I can quickly connect it to the bottom of the compressor run the hose along and outside the door with it connected I open up the valve and then I'm able to blow the air out of the compressor getting the moisture out without making a rusty mess in the room I scrub the unit clean, clean with a toothbrush and then I painted various parts of it the motor, the wheel I put a nice filter on it from the auto parts store which allows clean air to suck into the unit then I literally wax the entire unit with car wax just to make it shine and look good in the shop add to that the really nice background that I found some plating this tread plating at the Home Depot just to brighten it up in the rear also I put some LED lights underneath the Kimswick diorama just to light up the compressor area to make it easy to see it's more like I've preserved an antique compressor and I'm so proud of it it's just very beautiful it's nice to hear it operate and it's extremely functional for the shop when it comes to airbrushing and working with our models also I put a piece of carpet underneath the machine and a piece of plywood as a base so that it doesn't vibrate, it doesn't have any sound it kind of absorbs the room sound when it's running I want to say I've got about $450 in the install on this but it's well worth it here let me let you hear it run the compressor loads up you hear the valves release the air is going into the tank and this compressor will do it's set for 100 pounds and you know when we're airbrushing we're only using about 25 or 30 pounds depending on what it is you're spraying the only last thing is the air booth itself I've got an 8 foot hose on it now so that I can pull it out roll it anywhere in the room that I need to if I'm airbrushing a project up to 8 feet and without the motor here and it's running right now it's a lot quieter I really like the quietness of this the way it's set up the inside of the spray booth is pretty much the same as the last video that we've made in that I've got it set up here where I put down a piece of copper plating on the bottom to protect the wood that's new I used to use aluminum foil for that and I put a charcoal filter in it the only disadvantage that I have found so far into moving the spray booth motor outside is that my 500 cubic feet per minute of air flow has been reduced a little bit but smoke and paint fumes still evacuate the room so it's not enough where I've got to really go out and replace the motor so that's just a few suggestions on improvements that you could make to your spray booth area it's quiet, it's convenient and it's set up so that you can just light up the airbrush immediately upon meeting it and not have to have any downtime or setup time so that's an argument of shop tools for what's neat this week it drives me crazy to think about it but I'm working down here in my studio all the time and it's laid out efficiently where I know how to build models I know where all the supplies are but you're modeling and you're acting and you're on the road all the time how do you go about modeling? you're right I envy you the fact that you have a place to work and you know just what that workspace is going to be and where the tools are on the road I like to take miniature tools and I'd pick a job for myself something that's not going to be too difficult something to be accomplished in a hotel room so like a building or a structure? a lot of times I'll take I'll tell you one of the things I like doing is I do I work on the under body detail of a freight car for example I can bring my phosphor bronze wire my some brass shapes things like that a little glue the tiny drills and things like that start to lay out under body you know it sounds so hard to follow is this something where we can go on the road with you sometime and actually watch you modeling your room? I think that could be arranged you know what that's it this isn't going to be a what's neat field trip but we're going to go hang out with Michael Gross at his hotel and model with him so let's see what there is to doing something like that I just bring the essentials to doing something that will fit neatly into like an atherin blue box not much bigger than that I bring the models themselves and sometimes instead of having to bring a foam cradle or something I'll use the packaging of the model itself how about glues? do you have to go through airports with glues? that's all packed inside the check on luggage and just the minimum tools needed to do a very specific job and usually in this case it will be detailing work obviously I'm not going to bring paints and the compressor no that would be Bellman would you bring up a compressor to room 708 please Home Depot Rebel yeah right so you know it's the minimum and I turn the desk every hotel has a desk and it's got outlets and things like that and I just get the light arranged the way I want to set everything up move everything else off the desk all the unnecessaries like the telephone and stuff like that and set up the modeling when I'm on the road for any length of time I will occasionally turn my hotel room desk into a temporary workshop in this case I brought along several models with the intention to modify the underframe and the brake piping I installed some stirrup steps and if they do not exist some coupler cut bars and things like that and these are the few tools I brought along to help with this as you can see I'm also replacing air hoses with rubber hoses getting rid of the plastic which break easily I've got a selection of coupler cut bars and eye bolts for that a selection of stirrup steps in a small box something of every design to fit various cars and the usual tools some wire cutters and long nose pliers I use phosphor bronze wire which bends very easily without breaking seems to hold its shape and it's a nice compromise between steel and brass I've got a few knives a screwdriver here that has many extra tips so I don't have to bring seven screwdrivers and the usual set of tweezers I've got some drills the pin vice wet and dry sandpaper files and most of it fits into a box about the size of an athron blue box the kits themselves in this case I brought four four on the road the compartment in my carry on luggage so there you have it I usually plop down one of the white hotel hand towels so I can find any little pieces I need to should I drop something and of course I suppose I should say that the only additional tools I use are the ever important Optivizer which you see here and some selections of glues adhesives which are not shown in this picture but that's pretty much it I can get most of it on a small desk in the hotel and with some decent lighting I can turn my little hotel room into a portable on the road modelers workshop I take an old US post office priority mailbox pack it with as many as four freight car kits and there's still room in the box for detail parts not bolt washer castings grab irons that sort of thing I close up the box pack it into this carry on duffel bag and I'm ready for my flight you know it's amazing to me what a hassle it is and how much you really do have to think about everything so that you can't finish a product modeling the way you do is this something in the future I guess maybe we'll see some of your finished models maybe you'll show them on what's neat I could do that there are various stages I do what I can when I'm on the road and when I take some time off I try to finish them at home like you do when I've got all the stuff in the right place I'd love to bring them by sometime we look forward to hearing and seeing what you've got coming in the future good to be with you back to run eight a construction tip on what's neat I've got this module here that's a good ten years old and the trees on it they were made I want to say a good seven years ago and they started to look a little grey and dusty and naturally what you would do is you would vacuum it and take a small brush and artist brush and try to get a little bit of the dust out but I'm ready to shoot video on this diorama and I need it to look fresh right now so just like you're getting ready for an open house what do you do well my solution that works very well is you take Aquanet hairspray and you simply spray the trees a good, thorough soaking on the diorama and what happens is the dust literally looks like it just disappears as the hairspray dries the ground foam and the trees look fresh all over again now these are sagebrush trees with polyfiber on them and then ground foam sprinkled on top of that and another thing that you can do is take the same ground foams that you used when you made the tree and as before the hairspray dries and it looks like this on tops of the trees and it'll give a fresh coating just a fresh look, not too heavy very light and it'll give a distinctive fresh look as the hairspray dries and it wouldn't hurt as after you've put that on to go ahead and put a little bit more spray on it just to glue it into place and that makes the scenery look fresh all over again very quickly so I can shoot video or you could actually have an open house so that's this modeling tip on what's neat it's a beautiful day Jeff Meyer and I see you're out here doing some more photography tell us what are you shooting on this gorgeous afternoon Jeff it's a tangent 2 bay air slide General American 4180 I'm trying to capture the same shot the exact same number of the car and the model it's a Davelebach photograph from the tangent scale website I'm trying to capture the exact same image so far it looks like it might be turning out pretty good now a tangent makes some beautiful fray cars absolutely now this looks fantastic good luck on your afternoon shooting Jeff thanks for sharing that really nice model with us on what's neat this photography segment of what's neat I'm doing an indoor photo shoot today not outside in the real sunlight out in the wind with bugs and insects but more of a controlled environment inside I'm using the ather and switch yard diorama that we built earlier in one episode of the show and I've got some beautiful bicentennial units set up and my instructions are to shoot a vertical cover photograph where I'd leave plenty of room on the sides for bleed and plenty of room on the bottom and the top of the photographs for them to put their words now I'm using a backdrop simply made of foam it's 8 feet by 4 feet it's painted blue and then I just took a spray can and sprayed just a little bit of white clouds just to make a background subliminal more than anything else I'm lighting the scene inside with total lights and I've got two lights here that are a thousand watts a piece that I use for my key lights and then I'm using this rear light for fill back here which works really well to light up the sky and all the background buildings and I'm using a total of three lights total I've got one more key light here which I had to move out of the way because of the camera position for this video all three lights together give me even shadows on the scene let me show you what the photograph looks like here's the photograph that I did for them you've got plenty of sky for the words plenty of ballast area down below to put words and there's plenty of side bleed for each side of the locomotives so that they can use this in their brochure so this is just a quick sample of how to do an indoor photo shoot get a very clean professional looking cover shot and you don't have to go outside for great model railroad photographs so that's this segment of what's neat photography for the new tsunami 2 steam decoder that has just come out today I am filming the video for soundtracks and I've got my hill test set up here so you can get an inside look at how I'm actually making the soundtracks video this hill is a 3% grade that goes up and back down over a length of 16 feet and I've got it set up here in the middle of the room to demonstrate the steam locomotives dynamic digital exhaust it's a magnificent chuff system that senses the load and increases the chuff and decreases the chuff as it goes up and down hills even to the point of coasting back down the hill so I've got a steam locomotive set up here to do the filming with for the video clips that I need to make but the video clips are going to be kind of broken up and here I can just little process from start to finish without any breaking of clips so let's do this I'm going to start up the headlight on the locomotive you'll hear the dynamo start spinning and I am ready to move forward so let this do this automatically to the screws at the end of the diorama and you can hear clearly the breaking sound as the train stops so that's this quick little demo tell you what I'm doing right now is I'm putting just a little more extra effort into the soundtracks sound video because now that I've found out what the steam engine can do the hard part is over so now I really want to set up a really cool scene to exemplify simple things like stopping the train and using the brakes I can do it on the indoor layout but I set up a scene out here that I think will look absolutely dramatic and fit the air up pretty alright and it didn't take all that long and set up I've got DCC out here and I've got the locomot out here hardwired instead of using radio this time so I have absolute response but all I have to do is I'm just going to make a few more clips here maybe a segue for the show but certainly a stopping clip, a starting clip using the multiple types of brakes that these decoders have got so I kind of wanted to share the scene with you because once it's gone, it's gone but I've got every building off the shelf out here right now and I kind of like how it looks it's just one of those cool scenes you only get to look at one time that's kind of cool well here's one I didn't see coming one of the lines, one of the instructional lines or paragraphs the video says that I've got to have an ash pit with a steam locomotive of course the rails in the air and the ashes dumping out of the locomotive so I've quickly built the scene to do a quick ash pit shoot I simply took a few pieces of track I've got my cooling facility I've got black ballast but the reason I'm recording this is I can't even believe what I'm doing here the best ash that I have found is straight from the cigarette ash tray it's the right color and it looks absolutely just right sprinkled in and rubbed in with your finger it looks like ash so out of the necessity of need I'm sure somebody's discovered this or tried that before but if you're making an ash pit use cigarette or cigar boats it appears it works really well so there's a quick tip that's just come out of this photo shoot setup music music discuss the new tsunami 2 these are whoa hey dude where are you at hey mick videotaping oh is that a spider can I get the whole tower in here track or dirty track we're done oh no seriously this is chef auto and this is the what's neat take 2 hey auto this is what's neat this