01-27-25 FULL SHOW - We're Talking About Curriculum, And The Deportations Are On

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
No, it's Mandy Connell.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Andy Connall.

Speaker 4 (00:13):
Nine, am God s guy and any three by Connell
keeping sad things.

Speaker 5 (00:27):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Q a Monday edition of the show.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
I am your host, Mandy Connell here for the next
three hours, joined by my right hand man.

Speaker 5 (00:35):
He's Anthony Rodriguez.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
We call him a Rod, all right, and that is
that is that we got a lot of stuff to
talk about today. I am back from beautiful Portico. I
keep telling people. Everybody at the office is like, how
is Puerto Rico?

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Like? You know what?

Speaker 5 (00:53):
Puerto Rico over delivered?

Speaker 6 (00:55):
It did.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's not that I thought it was going to be
awful by any stretch, but it over deliver. I truly
enjoyed it and looking forward to go going back when
I don't have to work, because that kind of sucked,
but it did not suck as bad as if I'd
been doing the work here when it was minus twelve.
A Rod is here with us. You guys. We sort

(01:17):
of said this on the air the other day and
you probably thought I was kidding. But things have escalated
in the a Rod household. Now in addition to his truck,
which has finally been fixed. Correct, it has finally been fixed.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
Most of it, most of it. Yes, Okay, there's a
couple of little minor things.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeh. Finally the truck has been fixed properly by a
great mechanic. Yes, and we are going to move on
from that. But now he walks in today, When did
this debacle occur in the a Rod household?

Speaker 7 (01:43):
Oh, immediately after I had just spent three four hours
organizing my closet for the first time in a while,
just getting things kind of more in order, getting a
lot of things donated. Then you know, right as and
I mean within minutes of finishing, within minutes of finishing,
our entire closet collapsed. The shelving unit that holds up

(02:08):
all of our folded clothes and the two main racks
where you hang things up. Literally the one spot in
the closet where if that goes, the entire thing goes
completely collapsed. Our entire closet falls to the center of
the room, all to close one big pile.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Everybody in this listening audience of a certain age has
had this exact same experience at some point in their lives.

Speaker 5 (02:34):
It's like a rite of passage, is real.

Speaker 7 (02:36):
It is for our house because we just passed the
four year mark in the house and you know, it's
not an old house, but now it's not a new
house yep, yep. And it was the first thing to
go and it's literally like the worst because we had
it so perfectly.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Recommend like give it some thought, don't just slap everything
back up there, like this is your chance to have
the closet.

Speaker 6 (02:54):
Oh I did.

Speaker 7 (02:55):
I spent about hobout seven minutes looking up and researching
about revamping it into like a really fancy, nice one,
and that's not happening. We're going to definitely put it
back the exact same way it was because I don't
spend I don't feel like spending okay minimum fifteen hundred
dollars for a nice luxury closet because it was really nice.

(03:16):
We're just going to well, I'll say this, We're not
going to fully do the exactly what we have. We
are going to do a couple more of those support
like little minieams support, adding those, so not fully putting
back to it way right, because good lord, we literally
only we literally stared at each other for like three
of the longest minutes, wondering how the hell we even

(03:37):
begin to fix that? Yeah, God, and it first was
like a half hour hour of yeah, just taking all
the clothes out, just to assess the damage.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Uh, somebody else's car battery died this morning. I have
apparently I have an auxiliary battery in my car that's
not working. But I don't even know what the auxiliary
battery is, so I have no idea where I could find.

Speaker 5 (03:56):
It to maybe fix it. So now that you know, Yeah, anyway,
so if anybody knows how to do.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
A smudging ceremony with sage, we're gonna need you to come.
We're just as a matter of fact, we might just
bury a rod in sage and then set it afire.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
Every good luck charm that's yeah possible to have. Yeah anything, Do.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
You have any good luck charms that you carry around
or have or anything like that.

Speaker 8 (04:17):
No.

Speaker 9 (04:17):
As a kid, like I had a rabbit's foot, but
I don't have anything. Five dollar bill that my grandma,
not my grandmother or my aunt, gave me. She was
she is a huge blackchat player.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
She loves Vegas and when I was a flight attendant,
I was going on my first layover to Vegas, and
she said, here's five dollars. Play it on number thirty
four on the roulette wheel for me. So I go
to Vegas.

Speaker 5 (04:39):
I have no idea what I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
I walk up to the roulette table and I have
this five dollar bill in my hand and I'm like,
I would like to bet this, and I don't know
how to do this, and the guy said, hang on.
He spins the ball and it lands on number thirty five,
and I was like, well, this is my lucky five
dollar bill.

Speaker 5 (04:55):
And I realized that that is an.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Absurd superstition because I really never set it out loud
before quite like that.

Speaker 5 (05:02):
Jeez, Louise, Let's do the blog we've got.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
We've got serious stuff about serious things on the blog.
You can find it at mandy'sblog dot com. That's Mandy's
blog dot com. Look for the headline. This is one
twenty seven to twenty five blog. We're talking about curriculum
and the deportations are on. Click on that and here
are the headlines you will find within.

Speaker 6 (05:23):
I think we're listen in office half American Allyships and
Clipment of s. That's can a press plat.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Today on the blog why aren't kids learning? The DEA
is rounding up bad hombres. I don't think those words
mean what you think they mean. Governor. One radio station
is under a serious fire. We've got our Super Bowl teams.
Are you looking at buy or sell? In a hot zip?
Jannack Griswold's accidental governor's race announcement. Remember follow the science.

(05:51):
Watch a curtail gun ownership. Aurora is making it easier
to sweep encampments. This is the freakiest of freak accidents.
About those Columbia in tariffs, sing you boulders, racism in hiring,
arresting an old man because he.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Caused someone anxiety.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Charlie Blackman back with the Rockies. Democrats are destroying Denver's
restaurant community. Democrats just notice egg prices. This is what
the deep state looks like. Did Al Sharpton just kill costco?
JD Van schooled Margaret Brennan hard that one person on
social media. Don't let the haters bug you. Everything in

(06:28):
Colorado is inconvenient and lookie what's coming. Those are the
headlines on the blog Mandy's blog dot com. And if
you go all the way down to the very bottom
of the blog, you'll see an announcement for mister Anthony
Rodriguez and mister Zach Segers. It appears that they are
working on a podcast.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Is that?

Speaker 5 (06:49):
What I'm taking away from this announcement.

Speaker 7 (06:51):
Is a kind of a KOA digital web series, podcast form,
social media, social media, video short form, all cross.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
All platforms night, launching tomorrow.

Speaker 8 (07:03):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yes, so we'll put that link tomorrow on the blog.
We'll give you all that in.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
Prodortion, fantastic culture, nonsense, whatever it is.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Zach and I are going to have a blasty blast.

Speaker 7 (07:14):
We've had quite a bit of fun filling in on
Broncos Country Night and always kind of talking off air
all kinds of nonsense. So we're taking it to the
show form across every platform available to you.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
I don't know if you need to know this, but
my fitness tracker just decreased my age, my fitness age
to fifty three point five years.

Speaker 5 (07:33):
I think it was hearing about all my issues made
you feel, you know, I have that much best.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
I'm here to a you know, I'm good. My clauset
is still intact right now. I'm good. No, we have
a pretty sturdy closet system in there. So there it
was in there when we got the got the house.
And this is why I was like, change it while
you have a chance, because I don't like my closet system,
but it's like, God, it's here. I should probably just
rework it and reconfigure it. But why bother after thirteen

(07:59):
year or however long I've been here anyway, So today
I got a couple of guests, I've got a woman
coming on the show. And you know, I realized when
I talk about education, there are a lot of people
in this listening audience that don't have kids in school.
Maybe you don't even have grandkids in school. But education
is a truly fundamental part of our of our civic society.

(08:25):
And if we are failing in educating kids properly, then
we are failing the next generation to be prepared for
whatever is going to come their way, right, and as
older people, we are going to have to live with
those consequences.

Speaker 5 (08:39):
So it's important that we all get education right.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
And she's written a very interesting article Natalie Wexler surname
she's coming on at one about how curriculums can kind
of make or break student success and the curriculum is
the sort of guidelines for what teachers teach, and there
are very few schools and they do it exist where.

Speaker 5 (09:01):
Teachers are forbidden to go off curriculum.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
So teachers will take the curriculum and then we'll come
up with lesson plans that they think will hit with
their own students. But the underlying curriculum is very, very important,
and curriculum has really fallen apart in the last thirty
to forty years as a lot of untested theories have
been thrown into the marketplace and they failed.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
They've clearly failed.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Removing phonics from instruction for reading is one of the
greatest failures of our educational system.

Speaker 5 (09:31):
Ever, and now we're trying to undo year's worth of damage.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
In this article, she.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Quotes the statistic that students in urban centers where there
tends to be a high concentration of students who come
from the lower socioeconomic stratuses, a lot of those students
get to high.

Speaker 5 (09:50):
School at a third grade reading level.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
How are you supposed to be able to do anything
at a third grade reading level? It's not okay, And
we're just we're doing a really bad job. We're gonna
talk to Natalie at one o'clock about that. I don't
know if you guys saw this over the weekend, but
the DEA is rounding up some bad ombreis real bad

(10:13):
ombreis And at two thirty I should have as a
matter of fact, I got to follow up the city.
You have Stephan's number, don't you do? You have Stephan's number?

Speaker 5 (10:20):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Stephan Tubbs is helping connect me with someone from the
DEA to talk about what happened over the weekend. A
lot of people are being deported right now, and a
lot of criminals are being deported right now. Over the weekend,
we have the first tariff battle of the Trump administration.
This Trump administration anyway. First one Columbia. The President of

(10:45):
Columbia got super salty when two aircraft showed up with
criminal aliens. Now I don't maybe I'm missing it, and
if you see it, please feel free to email it
to me. I'm fine with that, Mandy Connell at iHeartMedia
dot com. If I'm missing the reports were just average
people who are only their only crime is being here illegally,

(11:09):
are being rounded up in the Central Way, then I'm
missing those stories right now. It seems that a lot
of people with criminal histories that are currently involved in
the justice system, those are the people that seem to
be being deported. And I'm guessing a bunch of the
people that the DEA just bust in for trafficking drugs
and humans and all kinds of other stuff. I'm guessing

(11:31):
that they're going to be on the first ships out
of here. But Columbia was like, the President of Columbia
was like, I do not think so, No, we are
not doing And here's the funny part is he was like,
they got here and they were in handcuffs, and he
got the vapors.

Speaker 5 (11:48):
He was like, oh my god, they're in handcuffs.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
How could they treat my book Columbian citizens this way?
But the reality was, I mean, let's be real, and
I'm wildly spec I'm pretty sure I'm right on this.
The President of Columbia did not want these people back.
He was happy to have them away in the United
States of America where they could commit crimes there and

(12:12):
not in Columbia. So he tried to get all tough.
He's like, we're not taking these people back, not in
these conditions.

Speaker 5 (12:19):
It's appalling.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
And Donald Trump I believe from the golf course, somebody
was like, hey, mister Chubb, what do you think about
the President of Columbia not taking those people back? And
Donald Trump was like, tariff twenty five percent on everything
coming out of Columbia. That's how I feel. And they
were all like, oh no. But then, after what seemed

(12:44):
like an endless amount of thirty seven minutes, the President
of Columbia softened his stance. Yes, he softened it. And
not only not only did he somehow manage to accept
those people. As a matter of fact, he said, presidential
planes so they could fly in comfort back to their homeland,

(13:07):
these innocent people. And it's an innocent people.

Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah, yeah, Mandy.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
The other night TV showed Colombian deportees claiming inhumane treatment
by US, arriving with handcuffs on, claiming we've treated them
like dogs. Why didn't our news tell us if these
Colombians were criminals? I mean, really, is that a rhetorical
question you're asking me, because when you go this is
one of my big frustrations with the news media overall,
when they're covering any kind of immigrant crime. Right, immigrant

(13:42):
crime is people who have come to the country and
either they've come here legally or they've come here illegally,
but then they commit a crime, an immigrant crime, though
it could be the very same crime that a native
born person commits, seems worse because we've allowed them to
come into our country here, take advantage of everything. The
American dream is all right here, just go after it,

(14:03):
and they chosen a kindit of crimes. So it feels
to me more egregious. But it's my understanding that all
of these people weren't justice involved. So why wouldn't the
news media say that. I mean, come on, really, I'm
sure you're asking a rhetorical question. I'm sure, Mandy. What's

(14:23):
hysterical about the Columbia thing is how the legacy media
is reporting it.

Speaker 5 (14:27):
They led the story with the fact that Trump's evil tariffs.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Might impact the price of coffee, and horrors, the price
of roses just before Valentine's Day.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
Oh god, not roses before Valentine's Day.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Oh no, you guys, we are just operating on a
new level. Things are just happening left and right. But
you're you're good news to that person. Coffee will not
go up. Trump says he's still pursuing terrorists we'll see
what actually happens there. All he did was explain exactly

(15:00):
what American foreign policy is from this point forward, with
that one exchange with the leader of Colombia where he
caved in thirty seven minutes. Thirty seven minutes, that's how
long it took him to go, huh yeah, I'm not
gonna win this, am I. Nope, Okay, let's just do this.
Just go rip off the band aid, take my medicine. Jeez,

(15:24):
Louise Mandy. I've got a neighbor from Colombia. He's a
US citizen and a big Trump fan. I actually went
to school with a lot of people who were children
of Colombian immigrants, and they were all very conservative, almost
more so than the Cubans. So yeah, Colombians can definitely
be very very conservative. Not all you can't paint with

(15:46):
the giant broadbrush, but anecdotally, How about that, Mandy, Columbia
came back with a twenty five percent tariff on products
from the USA. Why don't you just go check the
trade deficit and get back to me, because honestly, what
marketplaces are like, oh boy, yeah, Columbia, that's gonna put
a dent.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
That's that's where trade deficit creates a problem.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Mandy. When these Colombians fly on the presidential plane, I
wonder if they'll be in handcuffs or if they will
be allowed to roam freely. That from Alexa, of course
they'll be allowed to roam freely. Come on, come on anyway, uh, Mandy.
I love Columbia, try to protect its borders and people,
but we.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
Aren't allowed to. Yep, that's right, that's right anyway.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
So that is going on, and hopefully at two thirty,
I'm gonna have somebody from the DEA to talk about
all of the trendy Iragua gang members they arrested in
this in this uh sting, It wasn't a sting.

Speaker 6 (16:45):
What is it like?

Speaker 3 (16:46):
They swatted in and took all these gang members who
happen to be at a an exclusive nightclub party that
was planned by the gang members. I have to ask
when you when the DEA picks up this intelligence, they're
they're all going to be in one place. As we'll
go in and wrap it up right now, they're all
going to be there anyway. To the texter who said,

(17:10):
where's Grant, Grant works on Ka Sports.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
And Broncos country tonight.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Sometimes when other producers are off, we do a little
bit of a producer shuffle, so I don't have Grant
as often, and certainly not every day.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
A Rod is my everyday guy, and I'm nice and rested.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
You bet.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
You know other.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Mandy, It's called Trump negotiating exactly right. And that's why
when everybody was freaking out about the tariffs thing, I
was like, you know, I don't even think Trump thinks
they're a good idea. I just think he views them
as leverage and he's realized how powerful that leverage is, right,
and he's going to use it.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
That's for sure, I would Mandy.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
On the Adams County ice raid, the sixty six hundred
block of Federal is called Berkeley, an unincorporated part of
Adams County. The businesses still run a Denver ZIP code,
so they show up that way on Google. It's a
mile north of the Denver City and County line.

Speaker 5 (18:07):
Point is they may have.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Chosen that location because it's unincorporated and just outside Denver,
even though it's a Denver address. I don't know if
they put that much thought into it. And I'm assuming
you're talking about the gangsters, not the cops. Oh no,
maybe you're talking about the cops now.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
I wonder if it was. I think it's got to be, like, dude,
they're all in one place.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Have you ever seen those those fake kind of sting
operations where they send criminals like, you've won tickets to
the super Bowl, you just gotta come down and get them,
and they show up and they're.

Speaker 5 (18:43):
Like, yeah, you're under arrest.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
I mean, if you're on the lamb, how long do
you go before you stop falling for stuff like that?
You know, you've been on a lamb for like thirty
years and you get this, You've won super Bowl tickets?

Speaker 7 (18:54):
But did I?

Speaker 10 (18:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
I mean, it's been thirty years. Wants the Statute of
Limitations on that? I don't know, but I really want
the super Bowl tickets.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
You know what you do?

Speaker 5 (19:05):
You pay a rube to go in there for you.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (19:10):
I don't know where you'd find a rube.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
I just I just thought, really text her with with
with all respect, you have not been listening to the program.
If you're asking me if I still have Susan. Susan
retired Okay a year ago at least. I think this
person was stuck somewhere for some time last three years. Yeah,
that's maybe maybe they were pre or you know, if

(19:34):
you are in we're in a coma. Welcome back, yep,
welcome back. Have We are happy to have you, regardless
of where you went and how you came back. Text her,
you just keep doing you, Mandy, Why are people still
trying to play fa fo with Trump? You're asking the
wrong person because I knew he was gonna do this, uh,
this this thing the whole time. Anyway, let's take a

(19:57):
quick time out when we get back, a rod quick question.
Is Colorado a sanctuary state?

Speaker 5 (20:03):
I don't think it's officially right, but there's.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Laws on the books that prevent law enforcement from working
with ice. I would say yes. The governor is now saying, no, fascinating.
We're gonna hear this little spin when we get back.
Just wait, it's a it's a doozy.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
You gotta pump the brakes here. I still don't understand
what that means.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Oh, barreling on Tuesday. I don't remember what.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
Oh no, yeah, you're right. You just said for a month.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah okay, yeah, I just changed it to a different day,
and I don't know why. I used to always say,
we're barreling through Tuesday, and then somebody pointed it out
and I was like, well, on Tuesday we barrel.

Speaker 5 (20:34):
What's the mean?

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Like you're you're in a rolling barrel, Like you're barreling
literally literally, that's where you're barreling towards something comes from
as you're in a rolling barrel, like down a hill,
they're over Niagara Falls. Like there's insane people used to do.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
I assumed it was deeper than that. No, no, because
you're so shallow. It's not even funny.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
You know there there really are. Like I just had
an article that I had to laugh out loud at
when it was somebody said, gen Z is just finding
out what drinking the kool Aid came from, and they're horrified.
Are you kidding me? I lived through that, and I
watched the documentary and the dramatization for television, The Guyana Tragedy,

(21:17):
the Jim Jones Story.

Speaker 5 (21:20):
Do you know that story again?

Speaker 7 (21:23):
Assuming literally, I'm just thinking, you know, you're just drinking
the kolid like you're not.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
No, No, let me just give you the little thumbnail.
Here's the sixty second of the Guyana story. Jim Jones
was a cult number. He started a cult. He started
to get in trouble here in the United States, so
he moved to Guyana, where he created a compound for
his followers. And then one day he was about to
get raided by the cops, and he had trained them
to drink kool aid to if all of a sudden

(21:52):
they all had to kill themselves. Well, the day came,
they laced the kool aid with cyanide, and drinking the
kool aid is just being in line the next lemming
to take the poison and kill yourself for something stupid.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
That's dark.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
It is dark.

Speaker 5 (22:04):
I figured it was something like that, like you essentially.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Something people died, Yeah, in a massic children people poison
their children.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
Was horrible.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, a congressman was shot and murdered on an airstrip.

Speaker 5 (22:16):
I mean it was like, how long ago?

Speaker 3 (22:18):
God, what year was this? I was a kid. The
Guyana tragedy, The Jim Jones story. There's a great movie
with Oh God, what's his name? He played him so
perfectly too. There's a real oh oh what's his name?
Helped me out. Texters five six six nine oh, who
played Jim Jones in the Jim Jones.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
Story seeing in the book and the Okay it was
in the.

Speaker 6 (22:42):
Eight.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, that's that's because I was a child still when
it happened.

Speaker 7 (22:47):
I'm anna venture to guess at half of the people
once they learned that story probably wouldn't say that anymore.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
Was that's sad, that's dark, I know, but that's what
I'm saying, like some of these things are just they're they're.

Speaker 7 (22:57):
So ridiculous in my mind. That saying is you you
blindly follow no matter what happens. If you drink the
kool aid, you drink it.

Speaker 5 (23:05):
You need to watch Guyana Tragedy's at Jim Jones story.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Okay, it's a movie. Yeah, it's a movie and it
stars Powers Booth got it. So that was, you know,
driving me crazy for a second. This is not I
didn't even how do we even get it? Blin Well,
I'm sorry, squirrel. Anyway, I had to know.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
I've heard you say barreling every week. I had to
finally know.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
It was Flavor eight. Don't throw the kool Aid man
under the bus. Okay, I don't know what it were,
but it was. It was it was poison with cyanide.
So they all died. Anyway, Let's go to something a
little less depressing. I am just going to give a
moment of kudos for the political prowess of our governor.
And when when I tell you I, I may disagree

(23:46):
with the governor and a lot of things, but never ever,
ever mistake that for me disrespecting the level of political
acumen that Jared Police continues to display as he gears
up for his run for presidents. No, it wasn't Stacy Keach,
but he looks like Stacy's Stacy Keach.

Speaker 5 (24:02):
It was Powers Bootster text her, madam.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
So I admire Governor Jared Polis because he has vision,
right he has he knows where he's going. He's going
to run for president, so everything he's doing is through
that lens. And the tide has turned on illegal immigration.
If you look at polling data, Americans are fed up

(24:27):
with a legal immigration. Even immigrants are fed up with
a legal immigration.

Speaker 5 (24:32):
So he realizes that the.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Public perception, in the public feelings about.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
It have shifted.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Therefore he must shift as well. So not only did
Governor Jared Polis say with a straight face that Colorado
is not a sanctuary state, he was asked this is
from KR thirteen in the Springs. The we ask police

(25:01):
about a letter from members of Congress asking for clarification
about his stance on immigration and cooperating with federal government,
and police said, we have full and strong cooperation on
all criminal matters.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
What's important to recognize.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Is that your local police are your local sheriff's department.

Speaker 5 (25:20):
They are not arms of the federal government.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
We don't want them being commandeered to instead of going
after crime, enforce federal immigration statutes. Now, notice how he
makes very careful steps to imply that coming into the
country illegally is not a crime.

Speaker 5 (25:40):
They need to go after real crime anyway.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
When they pressed about how sheriff's offices cooperate with ICE,
police said, Denver and Voulder Counties work with ICE all
the time. We encourage every county.

Speaker 5 (25:55):
To work with ICE.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
If there's a criminal that they want to pick up,
you need to work with them to help schedule that
and that usually means you give a release window and
if they want them, they come get them. So KRDO
went to the Denver Shares's Department to ask how they
cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and this is what the
Denver Shares's Department has to say the Denver Sharfes's Department

(26:20):
does not honor detainer requests from ICE which are not
criminal warrants issued by a judge pursue it to the
Public Safety Enforcement Priorities Act. When DSD receives a request
for notification from ICE, the individual and custody is advised
of the rights upon.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
Receipt and prior to release.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
DSD fax's ICE notification of release. When the individual enters
into the release process, it is the responsibility of ICE
to arrive at DSD prior to release and take the
individual into custody. You know what I got it can
just feel the collaboration just feels so good. Frick oh,

(26:59):
they're like BF Can you just feel the love and
the helpfulness, I mean, just the helpfulness anyway. Jarrett Polis
also went on to say that Colorado is not a
sanctuary state, which is pretty ridiculous because we've passed laws

(27:22):
at the state level with penalties for law enforcement agencies
that ask for someone's immigration status and then work with
ICE to remove them from the country. I mean, to me,
that's much easier than putting them through the justice system.
And really it would be a really big dissuader for

(27:42):
people who had come into the country as immigrants to
break the law, don't you think now, don't get me wrong.
You don't deport someone and you have to prove them guilty.
You can just go around arresting people for nothing. I
realized how that sounded as it came out of my mouth.
It's not what I'm saying here anyway, Mandy I used
to work for the state over twenty years ago. We

(28:04):
were told we can no longer call the PD when
we had an illegal We couldn't hold their fake documents.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Needless to say, we were chapped.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Mandy. I thought Dan Denver was a sanctuary city, but
the state of Colorado wasn't. The State of Colorado passed
laws that dictate how local law enforcement can interact with ICE,
which is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. And now Jared pull us
because this is the political acumen part I have to
give them credit for. He also has said that he

(28:34):
welcomes an increased number of FBI agents and immigration agents
working in Colorado. He said during a stop in Colorado spring,
so we are excited by any federal help that can
make Colorado safer. Both ICE and the FBI have a
very small presence in our state. So if there's a
way to increase their capability, if you're going to send

(28:55):
more folks to go after criminals and working in conjunction
with Colorado lawlaw enforcement, that could be a part of
making Colorado safer. I mean, you got to hand it
to him. He may be full of crap, but he
makes you enjoy the crap sandwich.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
That he's handing you.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Stunning display. Once again, Patrick Mahomes does what Patrick Mahomes does,
and we have our Super Bowls set. I was disappointed
that the Redskins didn't win, or the Commanders whatever they
are now.

Speaker 5 (29:28):
Yeah, you know, multiple turnovers will do that to you. Yeah,
they killed themselves.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
But that was the first time that that kid has
looked like a rookie.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Yeah, first time. The Eagles are a powerhouse.

Speaker 7 (29:43):
Years ago.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
And here's my conflict.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Some of my favorite people are Philadelphia Eagle fans, but
the other Philadelphia Eagle fans are really annoying, and I
don't want to cheer for the Chiefs because they're a
divisional rival.

Speaker 5 (29:58):
So he was out, No, you watch the Super Bowl. No,
I'm saying you can root for the Eagles. That's fine. No,
I really no, I know I'm not rooting for the Eagles. No, No,
that would mean then you're ruining for the chick.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
It means I'm Switzerland in the Super Bowl. I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna watch the game, I'm gonna enjoy the commercials,
I'm gonna eat some wings, and then at the end
of it, I'll be like that. Hopefully that was a
good game.

Speaker 7 (30:20):
From a football perspective, it would be cool to see
Jalen Hurts kind of redeem himself from two years ago
a heartbreaker Barkley the Amazing.

Speaker 5 (30:29):
Giant Slayers as well to rob the Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
And here's the thing. This is what separates good football
teams from great football teams. The great football teams always
find a way to win. Oh yeah, and in this
this season for the Chiefs, how many games have they
been like, not doing great, and all of a sudden.

Speaker 7 (30:50):
They come out on top, or the games were one
score if you fit them, they are terrible.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Yes exactly, but yet they won the games.

Speaker 7 (30:58):
And here they are saying, yesterday, you look at Tom Brady,
look at Peyton Manning, the greats that even in down
years in their time for the overall squad, the quarterback
elevates at all, correct. I mean those some of those
rosters over the years of the greats, Like it's up
and down, right, But what makes the quarterback great is

(31:19):
being able to elevate no matter what the rest of
the roster looks like.

Speaker 5 (31:21):
I mean, Casey defense is really good. Okay, well, you
got also got to have.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I mean the problem with having a really great quarterback.
And this was my frustration being a Dolphins fan for many, many,
many years when Don Shula was coaching Dan Marino, and
for so many years, Dan Marino could do almost everything,
but you know what he couldn't do.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
He couldn't do it all without a running game.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Right, You've got to have some somewhats of a running
game that works in order to open up your passing
game in the first place. So all of these great quarterbacks,
and it's got to be frustrating for Tom Brady to
realize that he's only going to be the goat for
like ten minutes because here comes Patrick Mahomes. I mean,
it's it's already hard to argue, yeah, that if he
continues without getting injured, there's no reason why he will

(32:02):
not statistically be a better player than Tom Brady will Well.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
That being said, He'll still have one last because as
of right now.

Speaker 7 (32:08):
I'm picking the Eagles, which, by the way, I am
As of right now, the Eagles are a powerhouse.

Speaker 5 (32:12):
Is playing so good.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
I see, after what I just said about the all
season long, all season long, when the Chiefs look like
they were going to get beat, something happens and they
end up winning.

Speaker 5 (32:23):
I just could not see myself betting against that.

Speaker 7 (32:25):
Even well, right now, Chiefs are a one and a
half point favorite. But one guy the freight train, even
with how good that Chiefs defense is playing, Saquon Barkley
is on a mission, which, by the way, Saquon Jalen,
Pat Mahomes, all these guys will hear from him on
our digital coverage with yours truly going to.

Speaker 5 (32:42):
The super Bowl week, I was going to do his
super Bowl Week first ever. It's going to be fun.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
I don't know any of the people that I used
to know that could get you into some of the
cool parties, because there's great parties the week of the Super.

Speaker 7 (32:52):
Bowl, like great Mandy. Yeah, it is a business trip.
You covered it is a business trip.

Speaker 5 (32:57):
No, but they're all business related.

Speaker 7 (32:59):
It's a business. I'm not even gonna or strict dieting
and I'm not breaking it. Okay, I'm not. We were
just there, you know, I was just there. I'm not
doing Cafe Demon, I'm not doing I'm not doing Brennan's.
I'm not going any of the highbrow, delicious places.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
I can't do it. Got to keep the diet, gotta
get the cruise botty again. You can't do it, Mandy.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
The Chiefs win because of the refs, and I will
only watch so I can see Mahomes cry. Did you
see the pregame where they were making fun of how
you tackle Patrick Mahomes to not get a penalty and
it was literally two guys picking up Kevin Hart and
laying him gently on the ground.

Speaker 10 (33:40):
It was hilarious.

Speaker 7 (33:41):
The Chiefs, you know your damn good team when you
are going to have multiple rules changed because of you.
Number one was the overtime rule Buffalo Bills, which that
happened earlier, and number two will.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
Be the fake slide or a late slide, whatever it is.

Speaker 7 (33:56):
By the way, they're playing the Eagles, who are another
team that's going to create a rule change because that
push push, the brotherly shove.

Speaker 5 (34:03):
Is impossible to stop.

Speaker 6 (34:05):
Yep.

Speaker 7 (34:06):
But also only two plays in that game, in my mind,
were really driven by the reps, and the entire game
was not two plays.

Speaker 5 (34:12):
So miss me with that. Okay, Chiefs are damn good
and well.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Actually I think both of these teams, I actually think
I personally think that the Chiefs Bills game were the
two best teams in the NFL right now. But we
have to have somebody from the NFC and the conversation
they are the best team in the NFC right now.
So at least we have two good teams, and in
theory it will be a good game. We've had some
good Super Bowls of late, though, so it's gonna have
to be a good game. Okay, let's do this. On

(34:37):
the other side of this break, we're talking about curriculums
in school, how important it is and how shoddy some
of the work on that has been done as of late.
We'll do that next.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
accident and injury lawyers.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
No, it's Mandy CONNELLA.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Got to this guy the nicety.

Speaker 6 (35:07):
Because there Bendyconnoke.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Sad Babe, well for well for Welcome to the second
hour of the show. And if you've listened to the
program for any length of time, you know we talk
about education a lot on this program. We spend an
enormous amount of money and in many cases we are
not getting good results.

Speaker 5 (35:28):
And my next guest, Natalie Wexler.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Is an education writer and author of The Knowledge Gap,
The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System and How
to Fix It.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
Natalie, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 10 (35:41):
Thanks Vandy, thanks for having me.

Speaker 5 (35:43):
Well, let's talk a little bit.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
I saw you in an article on education next dot
org and the article is titled want Better Teaching, Get
Better Curricula, And I was just sharing with you off
the air. As a mom involved in my daughter's school,
especially when she was in elementary and middle school, parents
know sort of instinctively that they've got to have a

(36:07):
good curriculum, but they have no idea how to judge
whether a curriculum that their kids are getting in their
school system is good. So your article caught my eye
for that reason, and I want to kind of start
at the beginning. What is the curriculum of a school?
Explain what that is in the first place, we'll start there.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (36:30):
Yeah, I mean that's kind of a slippery concept in
their different definitions, but it basically refers to the instructional
materials that teachers are.

Speaker 10 (36:40):
Expected to use and ideally training and how to use them.

Speaker 8 (36:46):
So it's a combination of the content and the questions
that teachers might ask to guide students to understanding that content. Ideally,
it's coherent across grade levels, so that when kids get
to fifth grade they have acquired the knowledge assumed by
the curriculum at that point in prior years, like.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
They should be reading at a certain level, performing math
at a certain level, things along those lines.

Speaker 8 (37:13):
Yes, basically, although those levels when you come to reading
are not always accurate.

Speaker 10 (37:19):
There's really no such thing as a.

Speaker 8 (37:21):
Fixed grade level because whether you can understand a text
depends a lot on the topic and the individual reader's
knowledge of that topic, and that's not taken into account
by those grade level measures.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Well, let me ask you a question about curriculums overall,
because as I and granted I was a child, so
I didn't pay attention to such things, but it feels
like to me that we all kind of learned the
same things, and we learned it kind of in the
same way. Has there been an explosion in options for
a curriculum? Are there are just more choices than there
have been before? Am I wrong and misremembering?

Speaker 6 (37:56):
Well?

Speaker 8 (37:56):
I think there've always been one thing that you can
One generalization you can make about the American education system
is that it's very difficult to generalize because it's very
local and there always have been variations in the curricula
that schools of using what.

Speaker 10 (38:10):
Kids have been learning.

Speaker 8 (38:11):
I would see the big change, certainly since I was
a kid, is that at the elementary level, especially when
it comes to the big things that are dominating the
curriculum are math and reading. And that's always been true
to a certain extent, But because for the last twenty
twenty five years we've put such an emphasis on math
and reading standardized tests, they have come to dominate the

(38:33):
elementary curriculum more than ever, and so social studies science
have kind of been marginalized or e've been in some
cases eliminated to make more time for math, but especially reading,
and a lot of that time spent on reading is
spent practicing skills like finding the main idea of a
text or making inferences the kinds of things you see

(38:54):
on reading tests. The problem is, and the theory is,
it doesn't really matter so much what kids are reading
as long as they're mastering the skills. But those skills,
they don't exist in the abstract. You can't apply a
skill like making an inference unless you have a certain
amount of background knowledge about the text you're reading about
so that you can make.

Speaker 10 (39:13):
Sense of it, at least at a superficial level.

Speaker 8 (39:15):
And so what's happening is kids are getting to higher
grade levels where there is content in the curriculum.

Speaker 10 (39:20):
There's history, there's science, and those.

Speaker 8 (39:23):
Curricula at you know, tenth grade or whatever, assume kids
have already acquired a certain amount of knowledge about the world,
but in many cases they have not. That's especially true
for kids coming from less highly educated families, who have
less of an opportunity to pick up knowledge, academic kinds
of knowledge at home.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
I had this conversation with an educator about ten years ago,
maybe even longer, and this particular person was big on
we're teaching kids how to think critically. But I said,
how can you think critically about something when you don't
have a basic set of knowledge from which to form
an opinion, and he didn't have an answer. Well, you
know what I thought. You're putting the car.

Speaker 8 (39:59):
Before the else, Mandy, You have just put your finger
on a big basic problem in education. Just as with
comprehension skills, critical thinking skills cannot be taught in the abstract.

Speaker 10 (40:11):
And there's lots of evidence to show that the more.

Speaker 8 (40:14):
Knowledge you have about a topic, the better able you
are to think critically about it. And conversely, as you say,
if you don't know anything about a topic, you're not
gonna be able to think critically.

Speaker 10 (40:22):
About it, So you cannot teach that.

Speaker 8 (40:23):
It's in the abstract. It's not a skill like riding
a bike, doesn't matter what bike you're riding. But this
is an assumption that has taken deep root in education
that we can and should be teaching these things in
the abstract and knowledge. Well, kids can always google that,
but it's not always the case. I mean googling something

(40:45):
first of all, imposes a cognitive burden on your mental processes.
But also you might google something and not be able
to understand the answer you find, or you might find
information that's inaccurate and you might not have the background
knowledge to know that it's inaccurate or false.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
So let's talk about what makes the quality curriculum, how
to make those decisions, and as a parent, maybe how
to have a better handle on whether or not a
curriculum that your school is considering.

Speaker 5 (41:10):
Because I've seen these notices.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
I've gotten these notices whenever a curriculum change is coming.
They invite the parents to come in and have a
look at it and see and learn about it. But
I think too many people are like, I have no
idea how to judge that. So how do you know
that a curriculum is good or better or not as
good or whatever that range is.

Speaker 8 (41:33):
Well, I'm going to put math to one side, because
that's not my area of expertise. But let's start with literacy.
If your kid is in an elementary school or sometimes
this is true at middle school, I mean a lot
of schools don't actually have literacy curricula. They're just teaching
the standards, and the standards don't specify any content.

Speaker 10 (41:52):
So the first thing to look for is.

Speaker 8 (41:54):
Does this curriculum actually have focus on content? Is it
the skill of the week and it doesn't. You know,
there's no specification really of what kids are actually reading
to practice the skill or is the content in the foreground,
and does the curriculum spend at least two or three
weeks going deeply into some content.

Speaker 10 (42:12):
It could be literature, but it could also be a
topic in history or science. These are all connected. It's
all part of literacy.

Speaker 8 (42:19):
And then you know, it's really makes sense for there
to be some writing connected to the content of the curriculum.
We often have kids write about completely different topics than
what they're learning about, which is it's a shame because
first of all, kids can't write about topics they don't
know much about, and often we ask them to do that.

Speaker 10 (42:39):
And secondly, we have lots of evidence showing that when
you kids.

Speaker 8 (42:43):
Write about what they're learning in a manageable way, that
really enhances their learning. So that is a pretty simple
and straightforward way to boost the power of a curriculum.
Beyond that, I mean, when we get to social studies, again,
there should be some depth and not like just trying
to cover a zillion.

Speaker 10 (43:01):
Topics a mile wide and an inch deep. So those
are the basics.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
I would say, looking for maybe a higher level of
specificity with instead of saying we're going to learn about
cultures of the world. We're going to learn about Native
American planes, tribes or so you want to see that
kind of specificity.

Speaker 8 (43:20):
Yes, I mean there's some pressures to cover a lot
of stuff. Sometimes state standards put that pressure on schools,
but really they're not going to If you do things
at a superficial level, kids are not going to retain
the vocabulary the information. They need a meaningful context for that,
and you can't cover everything that a kid is going

(43:41):
to need to know in years to come.

Speaker 10 (43:43):
That shouldn't be the objective.

Speaker 8 (43:45):
The objective is to give kids a critical, massive, general
academic knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to read
and understand texts.

Speaker 10 (43:53):
On topics they don't already know about.

Speaker 8 (43:55):
But the only way for them to acquire that general
knowledge in the first place is through knowledge of lots
of specific topics.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
So one of the things you said in the article
that I shared today on the blog about how to
solve the problem, you are very clear to say you
could adopt the most magical curriculum in the world, but
if you don't, this is not an overnight solution, right,
explain a little more of what has to go around
choosing a good curriculum. But what has to happen then

(44:22):
to really improve or impact student achievement in a positive way.

Speaker 8 (44:27):
Yeah, well, choosing a good curriculum is crucial. We have
evidence that a good curriculum really can make a big difference.
A lot of that evidence comes from math, but it's
also true in other areas.

Speaker 10 (44:38):
And curricula are very.

Speaker 8 (44:40):
Dense documents, you know, even educators find it difficult to
wade through them and evaluate them.

Speaker 10 (44:45):
So guidance is important.

Speaker 8 (44:48):
And there is there's an organization that I wrote about
in the article called ED Reports that was set up
to provide reliable guidance, and it did that in its
early years. But literacy experts, and I talked to at
least a dozen of them who told me this, have
said that in recent years it's given high ratings to
some curricula that don't deserve them literacy curricula, and at
least one curriculum that should have gotten high ratings got

(45:10):
low ratings. So I wouldn't recommend that. There's something called
the Knowledge Matters Campaign which has weighted curricula. Well, it's
identified maybe eight, maybe ten curricula now that do a
good job of building the kind of knowledge and this
is on the literacy side that will lead to good

(45:31):
reading comprehension. So I would definitely check out the Knowledge
Matters campaign. And then any curriculum, No curriculum is going
to be perfect. All curricula are going to require teachers
to get some training, hands on training, and how best
to deliver that particular curriculum to their particular students.

Speaker 10 (45:47):
And often there's a lot of.

Speaker 8 (45:49):
Money in this country spent on educator's professional development, but
again a lot of it is in the abstract, Like
how do we teach critical thinking in the abstract? What
we need is curriculum pfessional development grounded in the specifics
of whatever curriculum teachers are using.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
This is all very interesting stuff. It is a little
bit overwhelming, especially if you are in a situation where
your school maybe isn't performing at a very high level.
What is the reality of getting a curriculum changed. I mean,
this seems because, like I said, I've gotten the notices.
Hey you can come. Look this is the math curriculum
we're adopting. And I like to think I'm a pretty

(46:25):
smart person, but I was like, I have no idea,
I don't even know where to start. So hey, how
can pare its sort of become more involved in this.

Speaker 8 (46:35):
Well, it's very complicated and the way curricula are selected
that varies from locality again to locality.

Speaker 10 (46:43):
I mean, we have a very localized education system in
this country.

Speaker 8 (46:47):
Often there will be a committee of teachers who select
a curriculum and then it'll be sort of approved by
the school board, but that's pretty much a rubber stamp.
In some states, especially with math and literacy curricula, the
state puts out a list of approved curricula that districts
can choose from, although they can often get waivers to
use a different curriculum. So there's going to be a

(47:11):
lot of different stuff going on in different districts in
most states. And I think for parents, you know, I
certainly as a parent myself, my kids are adults now,
but I pretty much trusted the school and the teachers
to select the right curriculum. And I'm not casting any
aspersions on teachers or educators at all, but the teachers

(47:33):
don't always get In fact, they usually don't get good
training in how to evaluate a curriculum, so they may
not be in the best position to determine what's a
really good curriculum.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
And what isn't Are there resources connected to the Knowledge
Matters campaign that are available where you could you could
actually reach out and ask questions.

Speaker 5 (47:53):
Is that available through that.

Speaker 8 (47:57):
You could there's a contact form, I'm sure. But there's
a lot of resources on the Knowledge Matters campaign website,
including a lot of specifics about these curricula that they
have identified as being effective knowledge building curricula, and a
lot of information about schools in different places around the
country that are using each of those curricular They've gone

(48:17):
around to visit schools, they've made videos, they've interviewed teachers,
they've interviewed parents and students, so there's a wealth of
information there.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Natalie, how much does it matter who your student population is?
And I asked this because there's been a perception for
a very long time, and I dealt this with this
a lot. When I lived in Louisville, Kentucky, there was
a pervasive feel among leadership that because children were coming
from a poor background, that somehow meant they could not learn.

(48:47):
Therefore expectations were lowered. So how much do you need
to consider the student population that you're dealing with when
looking for a high quality, high goal curriculum?

Speaker 5 (48:57):
You maybe want to make sure you're not going too far.

Speaker 8 (49:00):
I'm guessing, well, I think that's a common assumption that
you know, if kids are coming from and it really
has to do with level of parental education. If they're
not in a position to absorb a lot of information
about the world at home, well we have to go slower.

Speaker 10 (49:16):
That's not really true.

Speaker 8 (49:18):
In fact, the kids who benefit the most from a
knowledge building curriculum are the ones who would otherwise be
deprived of access to that kind of knowledge. A knowledge
building curriculum works for any any demographic group, but the
ones who will benefit the most, and we have data
to support this, are those coming from lower income families,
and they're often hungry for this information.

Speaker 10 (49:40):
They're fascinated by it.

Speaker 8 (49:41):
And what I'm talking about is not like giving kids
medicine that's good for them but tastes terrible. Kids love
to learn about the world. They're incredibly curious, and they're sponges,
and that goes for all kids. So we've been wasting
this golden opportunity to help level the playing field by
giving all kids at a young age access to information

(50:02):
about the world.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
It seems crazy to me that we would be having
a conversation about needing to teach children more.

Speaker 5 (50:09):
Stuff in school.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
But because you know, I grew up in the age
where at least once a week at Catholic school, I
had to go home and get the appropriate Encyclopedia Britannica
and write write my paper about something in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
And just the thought that we've somehow stripped knowledge out
of schools is crazy to me. But Natalie, a great
column that you share I shared on my blog today

(50:33):
and great information. And I'll add a link to the
Knowledge Matters campaign website because I just pulled that up
as well. So thank you so much for trying to
break down this incredibly important but also incredibly difficult topic.

Speaker 8 (50:46):
Well, thanks, Nanda, and I just want to note that
I serve on the board of a parent organization for
the Knowledge Matters Campaign, just in the interest of full disclosure.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
That is perfectly fine. Natalie Wexler, thank you so much
for your time today.

Speaker 10 (50:58):
Thank you, Mandy. It was a pleasure, right that.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
Is Natalie Wexler.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
And you know, the reason I bring this stuff up
is is like we've got we've got young people graduating
from high school that can barely read. And if any
any other industry did such a poor job with their
basic mission as some schools and some school districts do

(51:23):
with theirs, we would be suing them out of existence.
And the sad part is is that the schools that
are the most likely and I'm going to use Denver
because it is an urban school district, and urban school
districts have a higher concentration of children living in poverty
and children to Natalie's point that she just said, when

(51:45):
kids don't get knowledge at home, you know where are
they supposed to get it. A lot of people don't
realize how much of our cultural references, our cultural touchstones
come from biblical references. A lot of Shakespearean stories are
based on stories in the Bible. I mean, there's all
of this stuff, and we've lost that as we become

(52:07):
a more secular society. All of these cultural touchstones are
falling by the wayside. And it's hard to keep a
culture when you don't have anything in common anymore. And
all of these things used to bind us, right. Western
culture was a thing that bound us together. And it's

(52:28):
sad to me that kids are not learning stuff that's
really really cool because they're trying to make room for
stuff that's newer and frankly not as good. I mean,
not all new stuff as bad.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
I'm not that person. I'm just saying, Mandy.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
I'm sure you're familiar with the book Cultural Literacy spot
On from forty years ago. Memorization should be emphasized. Math
facts are a good place to start, you know. Rote
memorization it seemed like a terrible idea until it worked.
Worked phonics. Nobody liked doing phonics homework, but it worked.
The notion that somehow a child should absolutely absorb every

(53:10):
second of school with a joy and a song in
their heart and perhaps some laughter is ridiculous. Schools should
be hard on occasion.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Schools should be difficult, school should be challenging.

Speaker 5 (53:25):
Schools should be all of these things.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Instead of trying to figure out ways to make it
more enchanting for the little munchkins, we should be telling
them to sit down and pay attention. That's what we did.
My gosh, By golly, Mandy, I'm a teacher. Students are
being put into grades they don't belong in because of
No Child Left Behind, one of the worst policies.

Speaker 5 (53:46):
It's why teachers are tired.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
Why we have to differentiate a lesson eight different ways
to meet all the varying levels of abilities. It is
impossible an admin that is afraid to hold students back
or give them the support they need.

Speaker 5 (53:59):
Voice text excuse errors.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
There's just a lot of periods a text or you
must have an Android because my android has just started
to insert punctuation when you voice to text, you do
this a rod, I'll be home soon period.

Speaker 4 (54:13):
Do you do?

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Okay? So I do too, and now my phone will
make it I'll be period home soon. Period.

Speaker 5 (54:18):
Why that I'm not getting an appohle not not going
to do it?

Speaker 3 (54:24):
O Mandy. You got to kind of wonder why they
don't just get back to basics. I'm right about your age.
School was not as complicated when we were at kids.
You guys, that is happening right now. All of these
core literacy and core knowledge charter schools are doing exactly that.
They're using those curriculums that gave you a solid foundation.
I have never understood they trying to teach elementary school

(54:48):
students critical thinking when they literally don't know anything. How
can you think think critically about something when you know
nothing about it? I mean, don't get me wrong, I
want people to be able to think critically, but you've
got to teach them things first before they can think critically.

Speaker 5 (55:06):
I've never never understood that.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
And that actually happened when I was in Louisville, so
that was like fourteen years ago. And now we're like, oh, yeah,
we can't teach them to think critically until they know stuff.
Oh really, no kidding. I wonder who thought that. If
you just heard Natalie Wexler talk about having or or
getting help finding a good curriculum, if you are not
paying attention to those emails that your kids school sends,

(55:30):
you really should pay attention. Unfortunately, even parents who send
their kids to charter schools, really solid charter schools that
have a good curriculum.

Speaker 5 (55:40):
Sometimes you just send your kid there and go, Okay,
that's their job.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Now.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
That's sort of how we got into the mess that
we're in now. I have an article on the blog
today about CU Boulder and this is I think it's
pretty scandalous if you ask me, because somebody did a
deep dive on c E. Boulder's hiring practices and if
you want to know what how the university system became

(56:09):
the hot bed.

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Of left wing nonsense that it is.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
You only have to read this article from Wall Street
Journal called how DEI conquered the University of Colorado, and
I want to share this with you. President Trump's executive
order ending in legal discrimination and restoring merit based Opportunity
reaffirms what has been true since the Civil Rights Act

(56:34):
of nineteen sixty four. Discrimination in hiring isn't allowed. The
order will deter universities from violating the law. Its ripple
effects could help reverse a related trend, ideological discrimination, which
has reshaped the very meaning of higher education. At the
University of Colorado Boulder, administrators, department heads, and professors worked

(56:56):
in tandem to advance racial preferences in hiring. Documents acquired
through a public records request revealed in the process, they
recruited faculty who pushed the university's research agenda in a
more ideological direction, often with the.

Speaker 5 (57:11):
Aim of better recruiting minorities.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
In a hiring proposal that the National Association of Scholars acquired,
faculty and staff at the university's program for What Writing
and Rhetoric argued that recruiting a BIPOC professor the acronym
stands for Black, Indigenous, and people of color was vital
to the department's curricular and programmatic goals. Faculty at the

(57:36):
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures proposing to
hire a German studies professor, touted the racial diversity of
the department's preferred candidate and explained how she could revise
courses on fairy tales, folklore, and fantasy to incorporate critical
race studies perspective. Both of these scholars, in many more,

(58:00):
were hired through the university's Faculty Diversity Action Plan, a
special funding program for diversity focused faculty hiring which ran
until twenty twenty three, when it was restructured and renamed.
Created in twenty twenty, the program played a significant role
in dictating whom.

Speaker 5 (58:17):
The university could hire.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
In a twenty twenty two faculty meeting, the Dean of
the College of Arts and Sciences was asked how many
professors were hired through the program since it began. He
estimated that around ninety percent were either hired through the
program or were spousal hires. The Records acquired the Faculty
Diversity Action Plan proposals that resulted in successful hires reveal

(58:43):
the ambition of the diversity, equity and inclusion movement. Through
the program, the university brazenly prompted departments to select faculty
based on race. In many cases, this went hand in
hand with a declared preference for hiring scholar activists. One
version of the application form, which was used in dozens

(59:03):
of the hiring plans as departments, how will this hire
increase the number of underrepresented faculty members in the unit?
Eg us faculty of color, women in disciplines where underrepresented.
The university's framing should have immediately raised legal red flags
long before students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard Titled seven

(59:25):
of the Civil Rights Act in nineteen sixty four banned
race based discrimination, which President Trump's executive order reaffirms. Consultants
often remind universities that they can't base hiring decisions on race, Yet,
competing for the funds to bring in new faculty, academic
departments happily followed administrators, prompting and boasted about their intent

(59:48):
to discriminate. Our commitment should we be successful with this application,
is to hire someone from the bipop community, wrote faculty
and staff at the Journalism Department. Our aim is specifically
to hire a Black, Indigenous or LATINX faculty member, wrote
faculty at the Geography Department.

Speaker 5 (01:00:10):
The program ramrodded.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Its diversity priorities at an impressive scale. Several plans proposed
not only single hires, but the hiring of multiple professors
at once. This cluster higher faculty in staff at the
College of Engineering and Applied Science wrote has the goal
of doubling our underrepresented faculty in the college. Another cluster

(01:00:33):
hire faculty at the Information Science Department noted emphasizes hiring Black, Indigenous, Asian, American, LATINX,
and Pacific Pacific Islander faculty. Faculty at the Department of
Ethnic Studies wrote, we have an urgent and qualified need
for bipoc fem women of color faculty in Africana Studies

(01:00:55):
focus who will contribute to the Social science division thematic
cluster hire in racism and recism inequality. Let's just read
that to you again, because as I was reading that
last little part, you were probably like, what the blank
are they even talking about? So let me just this
is what the faculty at the Department of Ethnic Studies wrote,

(01:01:15):
and I'm going to read it verbatim one more time.
See if you can understand a single thing that these
people are saying. We have an urgent and qualified need
for bipoc them women of color faculty in an Africana
studies focus who will contribute to the social science division
See matic cluster hire in Racism and racial inequality. What

(01:01:37):
does that even mean? I'm smart and I have no idea,
but I'll continue from the Wall Street Journal. The proposals
are remarkable for their candor. It's also absurd that while
referring to the specter of systemic racism, they propose systemic racism.
See you Boulder provides a glimpse of the after effects

(01:01:57):
of such schemes. These sweeping initiatives of social justice bureaucracies
won't be easily dismantled, as they've led to ideological capture
by a recruiting faculty who view their scholarship as an
extension of a political agenda. And it goes on from there.
You get the drift. So what we know from this

(01:02:20):
article and by the way, I also linked on the
blog today at mandy'sblog dot com to a long x
thread that has actual emails from the CU Boulder Basically
saying yeah. I mean, they don't say it, but if
you're white and God forbid male and God forbid straight,

(01:02:41):
you are not getting hired at CU Boulder no matter
who you go. Oh wait, you just cured cancer. Sorry,
we don't watch you unless you're gay. Oh wait, you
just figured out how to send someone to the moon
for thirty bucks. Oh I'm sorry you're a white male.
We don't need you. Oh and it is such blatant,
latent discrimination it would be laughable, except now they've captured

(01:03:03):
this entire university with people who are like minded, who
all believe this clap trap is the way to go.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
Well done, CU Boulder, Well done.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
The Public Trust Institute filed a complaint against Secretary of
State Jenna Griswold, alleging that Griswold quote expended funds on
a gubernatorial campaign and had a website dedicated to a
gubernatorial run, but is not registered a committee or filed
a candidate Abbott affidavit for governor. The domain Jennifer governor

(01:03:37):
was purchased on August eighth. YEP. Sure was hang on
one second, I guess I went to Jennifer governor. There's
nothing there, and it was purchased on August eighth. The
Polaceholder web page went live the next day, copyrighted by
Jennifer Governor, declaring launching soon and asking visitors to submit

(01:04:00):
their email addresses to be the first to get updates.
Ladies and gentlemen. That is called campaigning. It gets better, though, Oh,
it gets better. Nine News reported his existence December twentieth,
and the likelihood that the Secretary of State Jenna Griswold
skirted legal requirements by not reporting the expenditures or filing

(01:04:24):
paperwork for her gubernatorial run. The Public Trust Institute's Complaints
says Jennat.

Speaker 5 (01:04:30):
Griswold announced her candidacy for governor.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
When the website in support of her gubernatorial candidacy.

Speaker 5 (01:04:36):
Became available to the public.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
By collecting the email addresses of supporters, she was actively
engaging in campaign activities.

Speaker 5 (01:04:44):
Whoops, But wait, there's more.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
As Jimmy Seckenberger says in his recent column about this,
Griswold's trustee campaign's sidekick is long than her brother, Chris Griswold.
When nine News asked him about the side Chris initially
denied it. Oh, definitely not a domain I set up.
But just wait there's more. Marshall Zelger signed up for

(01:05:10):
alerts and he got an automated reply from wait for it,
wait for it, Chris Griswold's email address. So weird, So weird.
Chris only came clean after being confronted with the obvious
evidence and promising to quote research his own actions, insisting

(01:05:34):
he just bought the domain to keep others from snatching
it up and that Jenna hasn't decided anything. Nope, nothing
going on here, nothing to see, nothing to see. But
it's just another example of the stunning incompetence of our
current secretary of State. And I actually think the reason

(01:05:57):
that Kyle Clark outed her on this is he has
worked already to ensure that she is not the Democratic
candidate and that she will not make it out of
the primary. And in this I am one hundred percent
aligned with Kyle Clark.

Speaker 5 (01:06:15):
Although I think she's an incredibly beatable Democrat. Maybe I
should change that. My fear is, though, is that she'd.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Somehow win, like you know, going, oh, she's totally beatable,
and then we get her nominated and then all of
a sudden, oh my god, she's the governor. Can you
imagine how.

Speaker 5 (01:06:28):
Much stuff she would screw up.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
How much stuff she's screwed up in the Secretary of
State's office. I mean, it's kind of crazy, absolutely crazy, Manday,
I would understand Jenna's issue if she were blonde. Maybe
she is a natural blonde, I don't know, or maybe
blondes aren't stupid.

Speaker 5 (01:06:48):
Either of those things could be true.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
Mandy, her and Jared are are twinsies with a website,
Police for President. I am pretty sure that Jared Polis
has had that website for God only knows how long. Really,
that's the website he has. But here's the problem is
that Jenna paid for it with campaign funds.

Speaker 5 (01:07:09):
And you can't do that now.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
She had just bought Jennifer Colorado or whatever it is,
And like I own probably twenty or thirty different art
URLs that I just grab for stuff that I might
want to have in the future. Whenever I think of
something like a business idea or the first thing I
do is go grab the url if it's available. I mean,
it's smart, you got to do that, but you pay

(01:07:32):
for it out of your own pocket. Lol. It's the
Griswolds Election, a new movie about the Griswolds yep and
that would be one that I would not pay to see,
just throwing that out there. When we get back, Oh boy,
do I have a lot of stuff to do here,
so much stuff to do here. I got to talk

(01:07:53):
about this British guy who got arrested for posting something
on social media. Uh huh, it's true.

Speaker 5 (01:07:59):
That's next.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
No, it's Mandy Connell, Mandy Ton on ka.

Speaker 7 (01:08:13):
N FM.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
God say the Nicety, the prey, Bendyconnell keeping the sad thing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the third hour of the show.
I'm your host, Mandy Connell for another fifty six minutes
until we turn the station over to KOA Sports. And
you know, just when we think everything has gone berserk
here in the United States, here comes the UK to
make it even berserker. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:08:50):
I have a video today on the blog.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
And for some reason now and I think it's an
iHeart media trying not to violate any any copyright laws anything.
I get that like that. If you go to the
blog every day, you'll notice things. Sometimes things will appear,
sometimes they won't. It's all I hurt media trying to
avoid putting anything copyrighted without permission on their blog site.

(01:09:12):
And I appreciate that because I don't want to get
I don't want to steal somebody's stuff. I mean, I
linked this stuff all the time, but you don't want
to like steal somebody stuff. But that being said, you
have to click through to see it. There's a video
of this older gentleman i'd say anywhere between. You can't
see him that well, but i'd say over sixty maybe
probably over seventy. And they're putting him under arrest. And

(01:09:35):
I thought about playing it on the air, but the
audio is not good and everybody has a British accent,
so that I just feel would make it really challenging
to play on the radio. But they're arresting this man
in this video for posting something on social media. And
you're thinking, well, he must have been a death threat,

(01:09:57):
must have been something horrific. He must have said he
was gonna come stab somebody's eyeballs out, or shoot up
at school.

Speaker 5 (01:10:03):
Or do something equally horrible.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
No, he's being arrested in the UK because his social
media post gave someone anxiety, made them anxious and therefore
he must be stopped. And this is just one of
the latest examples coming out of the UK when it
comes to the language police. And every time I see

(01:10:30):
stuff like this, First of all, I'm grateful that I
leave in the United States of America because we do
not have the same draconian standards when it comes to
limits on speech that they have in the United Kingdom.
But then I think to myself, when are they going
to get it together? When are they going to call someone?
Or can you imagine, Like I just I think the
nine to one one call probably went something like this
like bringing, Oh, actually, wait, how does it sound in

(01:10:53):
the UK?

Speaker 7 (01:10:53):
Is it right?

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
Right?

Speaker 7 (01:10:56):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
And somebody, hey, nine on one or whatever the number
is here and they're like, oh, my neighbor, he's elderly.
Oh is he hut?

Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
Does he need help?

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
No, he posted something on his Facebook and it's caused
me anxiety. Oh no, did he threaten to murder you?

Speaker 6 (01:11:13):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
No, no, he just said he didn't like this soccer team,
and I do, And I now I'm anxious.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
Please do something about this now.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
What should happen at that point is toughen up by
a cup life stuff, get a helmet, goodbye kick, But
instead they're trotting out arresting an old man because of
what he posted on social media. What world is that?

Speaker 5 (01:11:37):
That's not a world I want to live in. And
that was the world that we were headed towards.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Until the sound defeat of Democrats in this.

Speaker 5 (01:11:44):
Last election cycle. I saw an article over.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
The weekend, or maybe I had it on the blog
last week, I don't recall, but he essentially said, look,
you know what, you know who's not fighting the end
of diversity, equity and inclusion the Democrats because they know
that it become insufferable that people absolutely hated it, that
they created an entire mafia of scolds who couldn't wait

(01:12:09):
to tell us that we had said the wrong thing. Ooh,
that's a microaggression. Never understood that, to me, a microaggression
was someone else took a completely innocent comment and turned.

Speaker 5 (01:12:22):
It into an insult. That for me is a microaggression.
And I don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
I you know, one of the great things about getting
older is you just stop having any craps to give,
right You just you just don't care anymore. And now
I understand the old man who stand on their lawn
and you'll get off my lung because they don't care. Yeah, nothing,
no cares left to give. And I when I see this,
I just it makes me sad. It makes me terribly,

(01:12:50):
terribly sad to see this kind of nonsense happening in
what is supposed to be a free society.

Speaker 5 (01:12:58):
And we were definitely headed in that direction.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
The Ministry of Truth, whatever it is, the boards deciding
to tell people.

Speaker 5 (01:13:06):
I don't know if we ever talked about. I think
it was gorm gorm garm.

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
I can't remember what the what the acronym was now,
but it was a government sponsored organization that decided whether
or not advertisers should should advertise with different platforms based
on what they thought to be inflammatory or not. And
oddly enough, it was all conservative platforms that they were saying,

(01:13:33):
don't advertise on. Well that's gone. Now we've seen the
order from Donald Trump about diversity, equity inclusion. I just
just got a text message, by the way, from someone
who said, let me find this.

Speaker 5 (01:13:50):
There is a someone said my significant other, I see
I don't know that's the wrong text.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
It basically said that see you in fear of what
the president was going to do with their precious diversity
equity inclusion programs. They renamed the program, and I'm waiting
to find out what they renamed it too, because then
we can all do Freedom of Information Act requests and
find out exactly what went into renaming that. Mandy, as

(01:14:24):
far as Jenna Griswold goes, just endorse her, you know what,
that's a really good idea. I would like to endorse. Well,
you know what, though, I got to hold that back
because we all know my endorsement is the kiss of death, right,
So maybe there's a Democrat that's actually worse than her
in the primary, and I don't want to have to
endorse after I endorse, So I'll just hold my fire

(01:14:45):
on that endorsement for Janet Griswold. We shall see, Mandy.
I've called family there pelp Banter Law in the UK.
I've called family there and they know nothing about this.
Sounds like one of those rules that you probably don't
know exists until you find yourself getting arrested for a

(01:15:06):
Facebook post.

Speaker 5 (01:15:08):
I mean that would that would be to me? I mean,
why would you know? You know what I'm saying, Mandy.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
I've seen other videos from Great Britain with various situations
They reminded me of Monty Python sketches exactly exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
So, yeah, we do not want to be like the UK.
We don't want to move in that direction.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
We don't want to give the power to someone else
to decide what is acceptable, because unless I'm the committee,
I am not happy with that at all at all. Guys,
I'm looking at a at a graph right now on
it just popped up on X But I find this

(01:15:51):
fascinating global antidepressant users per one thousand people. Korea has
just thirteen people per thousand people on antidepressants. Do you
know how many of the United States, as you want
to take a wild guests a rod, how many per
thousand always doing something else? Okay, Texters, take a guess

(01:16:15):
how many per thousand people in the United States of
America are on antidepressants?

Speaker 5 (01:16:23):
How many do you think?

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
Knowing that in Korea, which is the lowest number on
this graft that I'm looking at, that's thirteen per thousand.

Speaker 5 (01:16:31):
What do we think the US is, Mandy, do.

Speaker 3 (01:16:33):
You think Jenner Griswold is capable of ropodope? No more
capable of it, just a plain old dopodope, No rope there,
just the dope. I'm looking at a chart about antidepressant
use globally. They start out in Korea. Thirteen people out

(01:16:53):
of a thousand in Korea are on antidepressants.

Speaker 5 (01:16:57):
How many in the United States?

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
A lot of you are are way I mean for
the person who said, let me see here, one thousand
and one, No, not everyone is on antidepressants ninety nine
also wrong, It's more like one hundred and ten out
of one thousand. Next Iceland at one oh six, and

(01:17:22):
then it drops down. But what's funny is the use
of antidepressants is all in the sort of you know, Belgium, Finland, UK, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Iceland,
and the United States. Those are your biggies right there.
And I think it's because our entire healthcare system is

(01:17:44):
geared towards pharmacology, right, it's geared towards can we medicate
you or cut you? Have you ever been to see
a doctor about a problem, and once they realize that,
they either if you're going to see like an orthopedist,
if they can't cut you, they don't care, like sorry,
gotta go. Not all I had an orthopedis like that.
I got a new orthopedis who's not like that, But

(01:18:05):
they don't have any other answers. They don't have another
way to handle this stuff, like go outside, get some exercise,
stop dwelling on the negative in your life, find a
little gratitude for what is good in your life, get
around other human beings, do something communal, get enough sleep.

(01:18:27):
Don't drink alcohol. I mean, if you tried any of those,
any of them, no, just go right to the antidepressant.
When my daughter was born, she was.

Speaker 5 (01:18:37):
In in severe fetal distress. We weren't sure she was
gonna make it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:43):
She was in the niqueue for twelve days, and they
tried to give me antidepressants and I was like, but
I'm not that kind of depressed. I'm stressed, I'm anxious.
My kid's in the nicqueue. I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 5 (01:18:55):
That's not like a serotonin issue.

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):
And they literally made me accept the prescription for the antidepressants,
and I was like, okay, And they sat in my
cabinet for a really long time and then I got
rid of them. It was just it was sort of absurd. So,
you know, we definitely lean too hard on pharmacology or

(01:19:21):
very quick to go in that direction. By the way,
I'm not anti medication. I know people who struggle with
severe mental illness medication is a game changer for them.
But not everybody needs medication. I think we need I
believe we need a better screening process before we put
people on antidepressants because quite frankly, especially young people.

Speaker 5 (01:19:43):
We don't know what this is going to do to
their brains long term. We have no idea, no clue.
So be judicious.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
If you need need them, make sure that you need
need them, and if you're having a bad time, figure
out other ways first, and then try saying like I'm
not anti medication, but what I am is anti the
way we do medication in this country. Guys, there's so
much stuff on the blog today, but I have to
squeeze this story in right now. This is the worst

(01:20:15):
freakiest freak accident of all time, and this is such
a heartbreaking story. There was an indoor track meet at
the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and there was an
athlete that was participating in the hammer toss. The hammer

(01:20:38):
toss cleared the barriers, it went awry, and it struck
and killed the father of one of the athletes.

Speaker 5 (01:20:47):
I don't know if it was that athlete.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
They haven't released one a lot of information, but it
was the father of one of the athletes who's a
student at Vista Ridge High School in the Springs. I mean,
can you imagine this poor kid, the poor family. What
a devastating freak turn of events. And if this kind
of stuff doesn't make you go home and tell everybody

(01:21:11):
you love them just in case, then I don't know
what will When we get back my friend and your
Stephen Tubbs. He's no longer radio host, Stephen Tubbs. He
is now spokesperson for the DEA. We're going to talk
about this big, big bust that happened over the weekend.
Things are happening at the DEA. We'll do that next.
Keep it on KOA. Stephen Tubbs, a spokes what's your

(01:21:35):
official title with the DEA now, Stephen.

Speaker 6 (01:21:37):
Tubbs, I think it's something like, you know, p on
p on with a.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
Microphone, though, because you are in the communications.

Speaker 3 (01:21:47):
Area for the DEA, I gotta ask you in that
role and you're you to your forward facing world kind
of thing. Now, do you just go on these bus
do you get to like tag along? Do they let
you or you like their little on these bus.

Speaker 6 (01:22:02):
I'm the guy in the back with the kevlar vest
that doesn't fit quite properly. But in all seriousness, Mandy,
I do just want to say, and I know you
and I have been friends for so long, and you
know how I feel behind the scenes, and I'll tell
you on the air. I just I could not be
more blessed to work for this agency that is enforcing

(01:22:24):
the drug laws of this country. And yesterday was such
an important significant day, not only for DEA and are
you know, as the cliche kind of go as our
federal and local partners, but you know this to me
yesterday and you know, arresting nearly fifty people and turns
out that you know, forty forty one of them are

(01:22:46):
are here in this country illegally. That's not our purview.
We're here to enforce the drug laws. But I really
I think in our special agent in charge who you've
talked with, Jonathan Poland you know he's told a lot
of media outlets today it's like, in a way, Denver
and the metro area was able to wake up this morning,
as corny as it may sound, just a little bit safer.

(01:23:07):
These people at that nightclub, makeshift nightclub, because it wasn't
someplace that you know, you and Chuck would go on
a Saturday night. Let me tell you, this place was
full of bad people, a lot of bad people.

Speaker 5 (01:23:19):
And let me ask you this question.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
This is the first thing that popped into my mind
because one of the things that Special Agent and Charge
Jonathan Poland said to the media was this is the
culmination of a very long investigation. And I have to know,
did you guys get the word that they were having
this like pseudo exclusive nightclub for all these gang members
that were like, yay, they're all going to be in

(01:23:43):
one place. We don't even have to go round them up,
because that's what I would have done.

Speaker 6 (01:23:47):
Listen this, and I want to make this perfectly clear too,
especially say those that did not vote for Donald Trump,
house that they're going to a lot of the media
in this town will will make this spin. Mandy that well,
this is only because Trump took office on January twentieth.
I can tell you this investigation leading up to yesterday

(01:24:08):
morning's action started last August. Joe Biden was the president.
This happened yesterday morning. Donald Trump is the president. Yeah,
and if you're ready for the SoundBite of the day.
The DEA is not red, the DEA is not blue.
We are fighting for the red, white and blue. And
it's about time we and our other federal partners, our

(01:24:30):
local the local law enforcement. You know, I think I
can safely say, as a longtime citizen of this state,
as a former employee of your radio station, you know,
we all want to be safer. There's nothing wrong with that,
and that shouldn't be political.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
It should not be political at all. But you know,
there's been so much activity going on that and it's
not over yet. I mean, are there other similar, hope,
high profile things that are going to be happening in
the next little bit, Again, not because Trump is present, event,
but because things come to a conclusion, right, I mean,
you spend time gathering evidence in building a case, and

(01:25:05):
then it's time to make arrests.

Speaker 6 (01:25:08):
I would say that what happened yesterday is not the end, obviously,
you know, investigatively, I can't say what may be ahead,
but it's not the end. And I will tell you
I don't know if I fully answered your question about
having everybody in one place. You know, this investigation happened
over the course of months. But these parties have been
going on in the metro area. It's not somebody's sigment

(01:25:30):
of their imagination. The TDA parties were going on. These
these these Venezuelan gang members are in the Denver metro area.
And this was a party, Mandy. This did not start
until four am yesterday at what we're calling a makeshift
nightclub and the the the membership, if you will, those

(01:25:51):
in attendance at this location on Federal in Adams County.
You know, these were either PDA gang member or their
friends and associates. They were advertising this on social media.
Yesterday was not the only time that this has gone
on through you know a lot of investigative work that
literally took a portion of two years last year and

(01:26:16):
into this year. You know, it culminated with some excellent,
excellent work.

Speaker 3 (01:26:21):
But it made it easy because all these jackasses were
in the same room.

Speaker 6 (01:26:27):
You're not going to hear me deny that, my friends.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
That's why I kept asking the question. I just wanted
the non denial denial anyway. You know, Stefan, I am
excited because my big issue and you know, you sat
in this chair for a long time and we were observers.

Speaker 5 (01:26:43):
For a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
One of my big issues with legalization of weed in
Colorado was the perception that exists for me and others
that there hasn't been enough to go after the black
market for weed. Is there any connection here? Are they
just like harder drugs or are they in every kind
of business when it comes to drugs.

Speaker 6 (01:27:03):
I would say they're in every type of business. Mandy,
you know yesterday, yesterday, you know, just on site, you know,
these were not I'm gonna obviously, I'm gonna be honest
with you. These were not enormous amounts of drugs that
were seized yesterday. These were you know, you have a
club full of fifty people, You've got about the equivalent
of maybe, you know, fifty fifty people's worth of ulicit

(01:27:26):
drugs for maybe usage there. But we seized cocaine, crack cocaine,
paint cocaine, which is also the street slang is two
sy There were weapons that were seized.

Speaker 4 (01:27:39):
And.

Speaker 6 (01:27:42):
A fair amount of cash as well. And I just
want to just real quick paint a picture for you
of what it was like. And I'm just gonna say it.
I don't think I'll get in trouble for it, because
this is what it was like. If you have a
room full of cockroaches and the lights are turned on,
what happened, okay? And that is basically I am not

(01:28:02):
equating anyone taken into custody yesterday with an insect. What
I'm saying is when that entry is breached, people are
throwing drugs and guns, because what would you do if
that is on your person?

Speaker 8 (01:28:17):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:28:17):
And so no one yesterday was taken into custody on
drug charges because simply you couldn't prosecute that. And that
is why our partners at ICE and e RO or
EERO they were involved. You know, there was I don't
know if you saw the video, but there was a
bus that was, you know, eventually taken out. This was
being all conducted. It was eight degrees out there yesterday morning.

(01:28:40):
And I will say this and this is fact. It's
not me boosting the DEA. I was very proud of
the fact that all of the partners there were blankets, scarves,
knit caps and gloves that were available. There were ladies
that will let's just say some of the ladies who
were taken into custody yesterday and we're inside this makeshift

(01:29:01):
club we're not exactly dressed for the weather, got it,
and and they were they were you know, bundled up,
and you know it was just it was a very professional,
uh action that went on yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
All Right, my friend, I know you got to go
because it's a busy day and you guys need to
take that victory lap and let everybody know what's going on.

Speaker 5 (01:29:21):
And I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:22):
Stephan Tubbs, the sposperson and professional professional peon for the
DA and the Rocky Mountain reday to your friend. All right,
I have a good one, Stephan. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:29:33):
I mean, that's that's some good stuff right there.

Speaker 3 (01:29:36):
It is funny that everybody assumes these all of a sudden,
like just five days ago. The DEA is like, you
know what, we're going to just go rest and people
because Trump.

Speaker 5 (01:29:45):
It's not quite how these things work.

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):
I mean, come on, you've all watched enough procedural cop
TV to know they got to build a case. You
can't just willing really arrest people anyway. Mandy, if the
TV gangs have been in destigated for about a year,
than why the denial from Aurora and Denver cover up.
You have to understand, this is the Department or the
Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA is a federal agency.

Speaker 6 (01:30:10):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):
I don't know what kind of conversations they have about
ongoing investigations with local law enforcement. But local law enforcement,
we've already established earlier in the show not super good
at coordinating with ICE, for one. I don't know why
that would be any different, you know, Mandy, I tried

(01:30:31):
to tell my friends that Lean left. The deportation is
good for all of us, makes us a better country.
I got a lot of pushback. Great to hear Stefan
say the investigation was going on for months.

Speaker 5 (01:30:42):
Let me just say this.

Speaker 3 (01:30:43):
I said this last week. I'm going to stick with
this until I see differently. I don't think the Trump
administration is interested in rolling into East High School and
rounding up a bunch of kids whose parents are here illegally.

Speaker 5 (01:30:57):
I don't think that's what they're after.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
I think they are aggressively putting all the criminals that
came over, with the non criminals who really did just
come here for a better life that didn't involve a
life of crime. They came here, and Trump is aggressively
going after those people. Now, what happens when he gets
every single one of those people out of the country.
Do you really think we're gonna in four years gonna

(01:31:20):
succeed in that, you know, we're gonna have all of
the illegal criminals out of the country. I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:31:28):
I do not know.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
Stephan Tubbs works for the DEA now, says this Texter. Yes,
he left his show on KNUS and he has now
been the spokesperson for the DEA Rocky Mountain region and
he absolutely loves it. We had coffee not too long ago,
and he just is happy as a pig and poop,
feeling like he's making a difference working for that agency

(01:31:50):
and he's doing really well there. So I wonder if
Kyle Clarke will have Stephan on a show to no.
I don't know, we shall see. I do want to
throw this out though, speaking of the radios that Stephan
used to work for, the lawsuit against kN US, Randy
Corporn and Salem Media is going to move forward. The

(01:32:13):
lawsuit was filed by Dominion Voting Systems. He alleged that
they were defamed by Randy Corporn. In an interview with
Joe Oltman where Joe Oltman claimed that he was on
an Antifa call and a guy named Eric who said
this and said, don't worry about it.

Speaker 5 (01:32:33):
Trump's never going to win.

Speaker 3 (01:32:34):
And they conspired to rig the election in favor of
Joe Biden, and he did so with a rudimentary Google search,
sort of private investigating by Oltman, but he presented it
as fact, and Randy Corporin did not particularly push back
against it. Randy was a very strong believer in the

(01:32:54):
stolen election line, and he amplified it quite a bit,
and in doing so he has put himself and Salem
Media and K and US in a really, really untenable
situation because Dominion has already won multiple lawsuits that have
been settled, and there's a really good chance that this

(01:33:16):
is going to be a huge problem for Salem Media
and K and US. And this, this, this particular example,
is why sometimes you guys get mad at me for
not going all in on something. But every year I
ART Media makes us watch training every year where we

(01:33:36):
talk about defamation, we talk about what's allowed.

Speaker 5 (01:33:39):
We've talked about you.

Speaker 3 (01:33:40):
Know what you can say, you can absolutely give your opinion,
but when you start presenting it as fact, incontrovertible fact,
there's the problem. And that is what Dominion is alleging
that Randy Corporin did on K and US. Now, I
gotta tell you, if if they win at the level
they have already won, I don't see how Salem Media

(01:34:02):
survives it.

Speaker 5 (01:34:03):
They're not a big media player.

Speaker 3 (01:34:05):
They have an outsize impact in conservative radio, but other
than that, they don't have a whole lot of impact nationwide.
They're a smaller radio company, a smaller broadcasting company, and
they've chosen to work with.

Speaker 5 (01:34:23):
Oh gosh, his name just went right out of my head.

Speaker 3 (01:34:25):
I had him on the show after two thousand Mules,
but I asked him, see, here's a good example. So
I have Danesh Jasusa on the show after I watched
two thousand Mules and I said, Wow, that was really compelling.
But when are you going to release the underlying information
that you used to come to all of these conclusions
that all of these people were cheating and dropping in

(01:34:46):
more ballots. And he was like, oh, six weeks. It's
all coming out in six weeks.

Speaker 5 (01:34:50):
And I'm like, Okay, when that comes out and the
internet has a chance to judge.

Speaker 3 (01:34:57):
What's in all of this data, then we can decide
whether or not, you know, you should put your faith
in that movie. Six weeks came and went, two months
came and went, three months came, and six months came
and went.

Speaker 5 (01:35:11):
And I sent a few emails to.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
Dannese Jesuza's people asking if the.

Speaker 5 (01:35:16):
Information was going to be released, and it became apparent
to me it never was.

Speaker 3 (01:35:19):
And at that point I came on this show and
I said, I no longer believe Daneshjesuza. You know, he's
done some good work in the past, but now I
just think he's a grifter. He really, I mean, he
is just how can I capitalize on this? And Salem
Media has teamed up with him on several projects, and
I just think it was all a really bad choice,

(01:35:42):
A really really bad choice, especially in the in the
moment that we're having right now where people are saying
enough is enough.

Speaker 5 (01:35:50):
You can't just go and say whatever you want to say.
You really can't.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
Mandy. I wish you would have had time to talk
about Jdvans crushing Margaret Brennan on CBS. I clapped and
cheered after it was over. That interview was so good,
And I have no beef with Margaret Brennan, right, I
really don't.

Speaker 5 (01:36:11):
I think she does a pretty good job.

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
I do believe pretty firmly that she leans to the left,
but I think she does a pretty good job.

Speaker 5 (01:36:19):
And he was having none of it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:23):
The longest short and I have some of this video
on the blog day, but you can go and Google
and find the whole interview. The long and short of
what she was trying to get him to do was
they have now put a stop on immigration from Afghanistan
until they can make sure people are properly vetted during
the well, I'll just let Jade Vance tell you the
rest of the story, but she was basically saying, what

(01:36:44):
about all these Afghanis in the pipeline? And Jade Vance
was like, I care about the American people. That's who
I'm supposed to be helping. And if we're not vetting
these people properly and they're coming over and planning terrorist
attacks which actually happened during the campaign, we have and
he just he is so good, he is so good

(01:37:07):
at explaining these positions that he is. As far as
I'm concerned, right now, there is no other Republican candidate
in twenty twenty eight other than JD. Van's at this
moment in time. But boy, a lot could happen in
the next four years.

Speaker 6 (01:37:20):
A lot.

Speaker 3 (01:37:21):
Oh look what the cat dragged in. It's half of
the A to Z podcast. We have a over there
in Anthony Rodriguez, we have z over here in Zach
Seegers Cover it all Baby. Their podcast launch is tomorrow.
What do we expect from the first episode.

Speaker 7 (01:37:38):
Well, super bowls now set. There's some hatred going on
towards the Kansas City Chiefs. Things that we can learn,
but also maybe we need tow down the hatred because
you got appreciate greatness. Even though I'm in the one
percent apparently about appreciating greatness, I.

Speaker 5 (01:37:51):
Don't hate it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:52):
I'm just uninvested in either side winning. That's the best
way to put it. I'm uninvested now, I'll be perfectly
Franklin super Bowl Sunday. I might flip a coin just
to have somebody to share with, But I I have
no emotional like if my if I if my coin
flip team loses, I'll be like, hey, you know, if
I can ask one thing of you, don't let the
que convince you to root for the Chiefs because of

(01:38:14):
t Sizzle.

Speaker 5 (01:38:14):
That's all I ask.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
No, that's all I ask what we are going to do.
Is this the third Taylor Swift Bull that we're going into?

Speaker 5 (01:38:21):
Second? Second?

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:38:22):
Second, okay, Oh they were dating three years ago, okay,
and they love each other. Do you think Jason Kelsey
is bummed right now that he's not getting to Jesus
again because he retired.

Speaker 7 (01:38:35):
Because you would probably want, yeahs to beat his brother, So.

Speaker 5 (01:38:40):
Probably on that third probably. I think he's also doing
prettydang well for himself now he's got his own ESPN
Lake show.

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):
Know, I get you, I get where you're like, he's
not a whole thing now, but but when you are
a competitor at that level, yeah, nothing.

Speaker 5 (01:38:51):
Is better than that, I think because Travis is going
to lure that over his head for the rest of
their life. Well he should.

Speaker 7 (01:38:57):
I think both of their senters are banged up, So
is it too way for him to, you know, put
on the pads and I mean maybe one game.

Speaker 3 (01:39:03):
I mean, we'll see. He's lost a lot of week though,
he's not as beefy as he used to be. But
now it's time for the most exciting segment on the
radio of its kind and of the day.

Speaker 5 (01:39:15):
Very good Zach, all right, what is our dad joke.

Speaker 7 (01:39:18):
Today, please anthony, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new
injury into my dad Joe Hall of fame.

Speaker 5 (01:39:24):
I'm looking forward to it. I've never heard this one,
which is always a plus.

Speaker 7 (01:39:28):
Why do you only hear stories of vampires in Europe
but never Africa? The vampires are killed by holy water
and they bless the rains down in Africa.

Speaker 5 (01:39:38):
Oh God, that was a long walk right there.

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
What is our word as a day pro?

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
I love it?

Speaker 5 (01:39:46):
Verb verb edify e b I f y.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
Means doesn't it means to satisfy something to you for
your own personal knowledge.

Speaker 5 (01:39:57):
Think what Mandy said, but nothing like what Mandy said.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Let say to stall something maybe for your own edification
means for your own personal service, like your own personal business.

Speaker 7 (01:40:07):
Okay, you're getting closer to edit by someone is to
teach them in a way that improves their mind or character.

Speaker 6 (01:40:13):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:40:14):
Because I always ask a question for my own edification.
I just want to know the answer to this. Today's
trivia question is so easy. Okay, everybody's going to get it.
What is the internet slang acronym am.

Speaker 5 (01:40:24):
A mean ask me anything?

Speaker 3 (01:40:28):
Told you it was easy?

Speaker 6 (01:40:29):
All right?

Speaker 5 (01:40:29):
Here we go what is our Jeopardy category? They didn't
survive the film. Oh god, yeah, I like this one.
Red shirt guy Bubbo is going to be a shrimp
and post captain.

Speaker 3 (01:40:39):
Oh dang it, yes, correct form of a question, Zachary.

Speaker 5 (01:40:43):
That is your one path for the next time you
lose a point, mister man.

Speaker 7 (01:40:47):
Having learned his lesson four goes for the head of
this guy an endgame.

Speaker 5 (01:40:52):
Zach Oh, I just said, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:40:54):
I'm gonna repeat up to where I said, because it's
the point is to mention having learned his lesson thor
goes from ahead of this guy in endgame.

Speaker 5 (01:41:02):
That's where we're right. What what is Marvel Infinity War
Avengers Infinity War.

Speaker 3 (01:41:06):
No, that's wrong, wrong, And I know the guy with
the rings of I don't know. The answer is always
the title this one, it's not. No, it's the guy
who had the rings and get time.

Speaker 5 (01:41:17):
But somehow that's not his last scene. But I don't know,
guy know, I can't fano. I knew the guy, but
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
Know his name.

Speaker 7 (01:41:28):
The love story and eventual passing of Ellie Fredrickson is
detailed beautifully in this two thousand and nine animated film.

Speaker 5 (01:41:37):
Makes Me cry.

Speaker 3 (01:41:37):
At least Fredrickson makes me cry every time animated film
zach Uh, what is up?

Speaker 6 (01:41:43):
Correct?

Speaker 3 (01:41:44):
Oh, Mandy?

Speaker 5 (01:41:46):
That first five minutes is brutal of that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):
I'm doing terrible on this.

Speaker 5 (01:41:49):
Go ahead.

Speaker 7 (01:41:50):
In this nineteen eighty seven film, Sean Connery as lawman
Jimmy Malone dies.

Speaker 5 (01:41:55):
What is the Untouchable?

Speaker 3 (01:41:56):
Correct?

Speaker 4 (01:41:58):
Here?

Speaker 3 (01:41:58):
One to one?

Speaker 6 (01:41:59):
All right?

Speaker 7 (01:42:00):
Han gets blown up in this Japan set two thousand
and six installment of The Fast and the Furious?

Speaker 5 (01:42:05):
Or does he? What is nach zach?

Speaker 3 (01:42:08):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:42:08):
What is a Fast and Furious Tokyo drift?

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
That is not nothing on that one?

Speaker 5 (01:42:13):
Hey, I love that movie. I've never seen one of
those movies, not a one, not a one.

Speaker 3 (01:42:19):
All right, kids, Tomorrow it's going to be a barnburner.
My friend and yours, Leland Conway coming in to talk
about these gun bills being considered at the Capitol. We
are also do we know about Attorney General Phil Wise,
who we're trying to make that happen right now? Efforting, efforting,
And we also have someone else who I cannot remember
right at this minute. That would be Kelly Cawfield from

(01:42:40):
the Common Sense Institute the Free He's coming on twelve thirty,
Kelly Cuffield is going to come on to talk about
their latest Free Enterprise report from the Common Sense Institute.
Super boring but awesome show, Keep it right here. Ka
Wa Sports coming up next