Pumpkins, Trump Tariffs, and Pillowcase Loot: Halloween Havoc

In this lively, unfiltered episode of BKP Politics on Voice of Rural America, BKP dives into quick-hit news bites: Rite Aid's shocking shutdown after 60 years, marking their 110th store closure in a grim retail tally nearing 950 nationwide. He teases an unmissable "Georgia Hour" at 10 a.m., promising bombshells worth sticking around for, before pondering the modern epidemic of peanut allergies in kids. "When I was a kid, we never heard of this stuff," he muses, questioning what's fueling the surge—complete with nostalgic flashbacks to rare, old-school peanut mishaps.

The conversation swerves into Halloween territory, blending fond memories with sharp critique. BKP evokes '70s-era trick-or-treating: suffocating plastic masks you couldn't see or breathe through, raiding parents' closets for costumes (scarfing up Mom's makeup for fake wounds), and hauling candy hauls in oversized pillowcases instead of those gimmicky jack-o'-lantern buckets. But gone are the days of DIY simplicity—now it's a "demonic, evil, satanic holiday" raking in big bucks, with costs spiking 9.1% this year thanks to Trump-proposed tariffs on cheap Chinese imports flooding shelves with everything from costumes to decorations. He rolls a clip from a street interview where a local laments U.S. manufacturing woes, blaming inefficient policies and regulations for why factories fled overseas in the first place (cue NAFTA and China's Most Favored Nation status at the WTO). "You gotta look at why it left," BKP urges, advocating for a balanced view amid the finger-pointing.