02-19-25 FULL SHOW - Weather Wednesday, Plus Johnston Gaslights Restaurant Owners

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 on KOA, m god.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Study, can annoys, raynal keeping sad thing, Welcome, Welcome, consent,
Welcome to Wednesday, my friends, where for the next three hours,
I hopefully will keep you entertained.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Some of you I will annoy endlessly, and then you
will send me text messages about it because you don't
have anything else going on in your life. I'm joining me,
Mandy Connall in this endeavor will be Anthony Rodriguez, but
just call him me ro.

Speaker 5 (00:50):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Yeah. I still have regular, very respectful requests for people
to stop the airhorn, and now I just ignore them
because it's not going I'm sorry, Yeah, no.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
It's.

Speaker 5 (01:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
There's a guy who must listen to KOA Sports or
Broncos Country tonight when he's out of cell phone zone
or something because he sends all these text messages and
then they don't show up until noon the next day.
I'm like, what are we talking about, dude? But oh
my send a lot of text messages. He's probably disappointed
because they never respond on the show whenever he sends them.

Speaker 6 (01:25):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
By the way, I don't know if you guys just
heard in the newscast they are looking for a new
name for the women's soccer team here, and I just
cast my ballot for Denver Elevate FC. I think that's
a name. No, Denver Elevate is a cool name. That
is a cool name for a women's soccer team.

Speaker 5 (01:46):
I like it.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
I like it a lot. But you have the opportunity.
You can go ahead and vote as well, as long
as you vote for Denver Elevate FC. And here's the thing.
I don't really like soccer, so I you know, I
guess I have dog in the fight. I just think
from a marketing perspective, I can see a logo that
would be really cool, you know, really cool. I just

(02:09):
think it's a I just think it's a good name,
a really good name. Anyway, we've got a lot of
stuff on our plate today, we have. I just added
another guest right before the show. Did you send him
a zoom link?

Speaker 6 (02:19):
K Rod, Maybe I'll figure out check it out.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
You have an email, so, uh, let's talk about the
blog real quick though. Let's do that mandy'sblog dot com.
That's mandy'sblog dot com Look for the headline under latest
posts that says two nineteen twenty five blog Weather Wednesday
plus Johnston gaslights restaurant owners. Click on that and here
are the headlines you'll find with it. Tick tech toe if.

Speaker 7 (02:47):
Anyone's office half of American all the ships and clipmas
and say that's a press.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Plats today on the blog. Fox thirty one's Dave Frasier
will tell us when this cold will break. Johnston tells
restaurant owners to feel the vibrancy. Free speech really is
under attack. Senator Juck S. Lewis is out time to
reform the Public Utilities Commission Advanced Colorado is trying to

(03:12):
protect your guest stove. Colorado DEM's big union giveaway passes
the Senate. A gun bill that punishes criminals passes the
House Judiciary Committee. Democrats kill delivery tax repeal. The King's
superstrike is over. Want to feel better? Turn off your
internet on your phone? How about an offline evening? Why
some people remember their dreams? You can beat bad jeans

(03:35):
with good choices. Southwest cuts corporate jobs. Trump blames Ukraine
for Russia's invasion, but he got the receipts right. Fish
coming to fulsome field gen Z doesn't care about the
climate much. I laughed hard at this one. Shared The
Broncos trade for Deebo Samuel is a gender bending mohammed. Next,
an asteroid may hit the US. In twenty thirty two,

(03:57):
Todd Helton goes to spring training, now an elk eating
a carrot. This seems mean don't be afraid to fly.
Those are the headlines. Yeah, there's a lot of them
on the blog batmandysblog dot com. Check it out for yourself.
Whoo jeez, Louise a ride, I see yet another edition

(04:18):
of a to z? How many times? How often is
this thing coming out?

Speaker 6 (04:22):
Is a digital short of the long episode.

Speaker 7 (04:26):
Okay, gives you a taste one of the many things,
one of the many players and now competitive contender. Dare
I say, Denver Broncos, should they trade for Deebo Samuel
forty nine ers star wide receiver or star Joker player
as Sean Payton may need here in this offense.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
So we discussed that and so much more well. He
did say that he wanted a veteran wide receiver.

Speaker 7 (04:49):
He also says that he likes the group, essentially that
it's not you know down if people think it is
and it's really good.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Well, you know what, and here's the thing, another season
for Bo, the game slows down a little bit more.
That up creates more opportunities for your wide receivers and
et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 7 (05:05):
So do you how many people at the Super Bowl
told me, get bow and that offense some weapons, lick
literally everybody. Yeah, get him some weapons, just very cut
and dry. Get him some guys that can change the game.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah, I mean, do it, you know. But then okay,
well you can go and listen a snippet right there.
The A to Z podcast that A Rod and Zach
do It is available on the absolutely free iHeartRadio platform.
I'm assuming you've pushed it to other platforms as well.

Speaker 6 (05:31):
Yeah, believe anywhere you.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
Can consume podcast, you can consume the A to Z
podcast with A Rod and Zach. So there you go,
you guys. I I am just gonna say my job
is to consume content, news content at a very high level.
Like there are people who say, oh, I is watch

(05:53):
the news, but you're not necessarily consuming different content. A
lot of people will put Fox News on or put
see on, and well, all I do is watch the news. Know,
all you do is watch one aspect of the news,
and to be perfectly frank, it's the best job ever
most of the time. But there is so much stuff
happening with such speed right now that I am mentally

(06:15):
exhausted from it, and I'm working really hard to try
and pick and choose, you know, kind of kind of
do my best to focus on what I think is
going to be the biggest issue or the biggest deal.
But I feel like stuff is There's no way I
can get everything on the blog today is long and
it has a ton of stuff on it. But just
for our own sanity, and I mean ours listeners, yours line,

(06:39):
all of us together as part of the Mandy Connell family,
I've got to lean into some stuff that isn't political
right now. But if you ever think that there is
something that one hundred percent I need to be talking about,
please email me. Mandy Connell that I heart media because
I have never in all of my I've been doing
this job. I had my own show for twenty years now.

(07:02):
In April, it will be twenty years since two thousand
and five. I got my first show in I think
August of two thousand and five. Yeah, maybe ish, I don't.
I wish. This is how good I am At anniversaries.
I get my own talk show and I don't even
make a note of the date. I don't know in
any case, in my twenty years of doing this job,

(07:24):
consuming news and content and politics and everything else, at
this level, I have never seen things happening, and not
just in the United States, all over the world. President
Donald Trump's second term is already historically disruptive. And I
don't mean that in a bad way. Okay, I am

(07:46):
all in favor of disruption at this moment in time,
because what we're doing previously clearly is not solving the
problem clearly. So I'm all for, you know, doing some
of the different agree with everything that President Trump has done.
I don't understand why he is going after trans adults.

(08:09):
It is one thing, in my mind to say we
should protect children from permanent physical harm, but it's quite
another to say to an adult, you can't have plastic surgery.
That's essentially what you're saying. You can't take these hormones,
even though millions of people take hormones basically off label

(08:31):
just to feel better every day. I don't understand that
It's one of the things that I just I have
nothing for. I don't get it. But some of the
other stuff that he's doing, sending jd Vance to a
Munich conference to basically yell at Europe for turning their
back on free speech, what what I mean, we just

(08:52):
don't do that, and then to watch Europe get the
vapors over that speech has just been really illuminating. Get
me wrong, I've often known that politicians in Europe have
no spine whatsoever. For the most part, you're talking about
a spineless, gutless group of people. That is my view
of politicians in Europe. That being said, I love Europe,

(09:17):
the people of Europe love Europe. And right now what's
happening over there, especially in Germany with the AfD Party.
By the way, AfD stands for Alternative for Germany. Yes, alternative,
Alternative for deutsch Land. Alternative for Germany is what the
party stands for. And if you watch the news, you
would think that they were a party of people walking

(09:38):
around goosestepping and begging to bring back the swastika. But
the reality is, do you know what the AfD party
stands for. It stands for resecuring their borders, it's ending
mass migration of middle aged Muslim men, one of whom,
the day before JD Vance gave that speech, ran and
murdered a bunch of people. I mean, you guys, it's like,

(10:05):
but the most stunning thing of all out of all
of this, To get back to my original train of thought,
which I already left at the station, watching the news
media do what they've done over the past few weeks now,
it's one thing to be caught flat footed by the
speed with which things are happening, and I understand that
that's basically what I'm saying here. So much going on

(10:26):
it's almost becoming impossible to take it all in. But
watching the media do the things that they've been doing
in trying to portray and paint all of these things
that are happening right now as instantaneously the worst thing
ever because they're happening under Donald Trump. They're putting themselves
in this very strange situation where they're saying on their networks,

(10:50):
donald Trump is firing all of these people willy nilly,
when in reality most of us are like, wait a minute,
we spent how much money to where to do what?
As Doge continues, to do its work and publicize the
outrageous ways our tax dollars are being spent and the
news media and I have this Margaret Brandon cut from

(11:12):
this weekend with Secretary of State Mark Rubio Man. He's
turning out already to be an amazing secretary of State,
just really really good. I want to play wait, wait,
hang on, I got a little spot run. I want
to play this for you because it's it's a it's

(11:33):
a really telling exchange from their longer interview, and it
has to do with free speech.

Speaker 8 (11:40):
And he had the Security conference. Vice President Vance gave
a speech and he told us allies that the threat
he worries about the most is not Russia, it is
not China. He called it the threat from within, and
he lectured about what he described as censorship, mainly focusing
though on including more views from the right. He also

(12:00):
met with the leader of a far right party known
as the AfD, which as you know, is under investigation
and monitoring by German intelligence because of extremism. What did
all of this accomplish other than irritating our allies.

Speaker 9 (12:19):
Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free
speech and by someone giving their opinion.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
We are, after all, democracies.

Speaker 9 (12:25):
The Music Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of democracies,
in which one of the things that we cherish in
value is the ability to speak feely and provide your opinions.
And so I think if anyone's angry about his work,
they don't have to agree with him, but to be
angry about it, I think actually makes this point. I
thought it was actually a pretty historic speech. Whether you
agree with him or not, I think the valid points
he's making to Europe is we are concerned that the

(12:47):
true values that we share, the values that bind us
together with Europe, are things like free speech and democracy
and our shared history in winning two World Wars and
defeating Soviet communism and the like. These are the values
that we shared in common, and in that call what
we fought against, things like censorship and oppression and so forth.
And when you see backsliding and you raise that, that's

(13:08):
a very valid concern. We can't tell him how to
run their countries. He's simply expressed in a speech his
view of it, which a lot of people frankly share.
And I thought he said a lot of things in
that speech that needed to be said, and honestly, I
don't know why anybody would be upset about it. People
are all you know, you don't have to agree on
someone's speech. I happen to agree with a lot of
what he said, But you don't have to agree with

(13:28):
someone's speech to at least appreciate the fact they have
a right to say it, and then you should listen
to it and see whether those criticisms are valid. I
assure you the United States has come under withering criticism
on many occasions from many leaders in Europe, and we
don't go around throwing temper tantrums about it.

Speaker 8 (13:44):
Well, he was standing in a country where free speech
was weaponized to coentuct a genocide.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
Now that's Margaret Brennan from CBS News. He handles this
question perfectly, so I don't need to respond to that.
Here is a journalist, a journalist whose entire livelihood is
balanced on the First Amendment in the United States of America,

(14:12):
and now she's talking about free speech being weaponized by
the Nazis free speech being the problem? John Kerry saying,
complaining about the First Amendment making it too difficult to
get things done, that pesky free speech, the Democrats are
exactly the same in many situations as the Europeans who

(14:35):
are putting people in jail for reposting a Facebook meme
that upsets someone. I'm gonna let Marco Rubio answer her
accusation about weaponization of free speech to create genocide.

Speaker 8 (14:51):
And he met with the head of a political party
that has far right views and some historic ties to
extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone
of it, and you know that that the censorship.

Speaker 9 (15:09):
Disagree with you specifically about all the right. Now I
have to disagree with you. The free speech was not
used to conduct the genocide. The genocide was conducted by
an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal
because they hated Jews, and they hated minorities, and they
hated those that they had a list of people they hated,
but primarily the Jews.

Speaker 5 (15:27):
There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none.

Speaker 9 (15:30):
There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were
a sole and only party that governed that country. So
that's not an accurate reflection of history. I also think
it's wrong again. I go back to the point of
his speech. The point of his speech was basically that
there is an erosion in free speech and in tolerance
or opposing points of view within Europe, and that's of
concern because that is eroding. It's not an erosion of

(15:51):
your military capabilities, that's not an erosion of your economic standing.
That's an erosion of the actual values that bind us
together in this transit line union that.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
Everybody talks about.

Speaker 9 (16:01):
And I think allies and friends and partners that have
worked together now for eighty years should be able to
speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended,
insulted or upset. And I spoke to foreign ministers from
multiple countries throughout Europe.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Many of them probably didn't like the speech.

Speaker 9 (16:16):
I didn't agree with it, but they were continuing to
engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us.
So again, at the end of the day, I think
that people give all that is a form in which
you're supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not
basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing.
That's not always going to be the case when it's
a collection of democracies.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
Where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak
their minds and forms such as these and then.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
It goes on from there. But this entire thing, everything
that's happening, it's like it's breaking everyone. It's throwing all
the norms out the window, and the people who've been
doing business by the same playbook for decades now. And
I'm looking directly at people like face the nation. If
you push back against Republicans, they capitulate and then you

(17:04):
accuse them of doing the wrong thing anyway. I mean,
that's been the playbook. Right well, it's not working anymore.
They threw the playbook out the window, and it's watching
everybody react and trying to figure out how to respond.
Right now, all we have is lawfare. All it is
is will sue, will sue, will sue, and then they've

(17:25):
got they're trying to figure out a strategy. At the
same time. It's just been a lot and I don't
think it's going to slow down anytime soon. So back
to my earlier question, if there is something you feel
like I'm missing, First off, I hope you understand, but
second off, send me an email Mandy Connell at iHeartMedia
dot com. When we get back. It is time for

(17:46):
whether Wednesday we'll find out from Fox News meteorologist Dave
Fraser when we will be out to the grips of
this Miderdal code. We'll do that next Dave Fraser, Fox
thirty one's chief not cheap meteorologists. We clarify that some
time ago, Dave. You can turn the heat up anytime, buddy.

Speaker 10 (18:05):
Yeah, right, no quid. Yeah, we've been stuck in this
stuff for a little bit. But there is good news.
There's always a sober lining. Today silver lining is at
least the sun down. It feels remarkedly better, even though
we're still only in the teams teams in low twenties.
But you know, having that sun out at our altitude,
I always say makes a huge difference in these winter regimes.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
And there is good news.

Speaker 11 (18:26):
We're going to get out of this starting on Friday
quickly into the forties, fifties Saturday, and then I've got
a string of sixties starting on Sunday into next week.
So yeah, get back out, spread your wings and maybe
get a preview of what we know will be the
next season, even though it's a long way away.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
I'll take it. I will take it. Yeah, we were
out of town this past weekend, and it was eighty
five and perfect amount of humidity and it was lovely.
And then I came back and I was like, no
sun of a biscuit eater. That was a bad idea.
So when we have let me ask you a question
about the past cup of dates where we had just
a system kind of sitting on us for a couple

(19:03):
of days where it was gray and it was just gross.
We don't have a lot of that here in Colorado.
What has to happen for us to have multiple days
of those kind of gray and gloomy skies.

Speaker 10 (19:15):
So this was an arctic air mass. The last time
we talked last week, we had previewed that this was
going to sink into the Midwest, just a chunk of
very cold air spilling down the middle part of the country,
and Denver would be on the western fringe of it.
And once you get a cold air mass like that,
a dense, thick, heavyweighted cold air mass, it's tough to

(19:35):
budget and move it along unless you have a powerful
system coming in from the west, and we just haven't
had that. So you're just kind of being like neutral mode,
if you will. And with the cold temperatures that we
were dealing with. You get that low cloud deck that's
tough to a road in there. You can get the fog,
the mists, the ry mice, which you know gets on

(19:56):
the trees and is pretty look at, but you just
don't have a component to mix the atmosphere to kind
of get the you know, get it to turn over
to maybe an accumulating snow rather than just the misty stuff.
You just kind of you're kind of flat. You're just
kind of hanging and waiting. And that transition is the
next storm coming in.

Speaker 12 (20:15):
It's not powerful, but it.

Speaker 10 (20:17):
Is going to nudge this cold there out. It's going
to be mountain snow starting in the afternoon on Thursday.
We'll get some of that Thursday evening here along the
front range. That will continue into Friday morning, and then
as that storm system lifts east of Denver, it will
take the cold there with it, opening the door to
the big warm up I just mentioned.

Speaker 9 (20:35):
Yay.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Let me just say another ya for that. I am,
I am ready for that. I got a question for you,
and I'm going to ask it in two different ways,
and you might even not know the answer to this, Dave,
And you're okay if you don't this texter said, what
is the best location outside to install a thermometer for accuracy?
But I want to take it one step further because
I know you guys have weather spotters. You know, you

(20:56):
have listeners that have weather stations and things like that.
You guys give out any advice for people if they
want to get a weather station because they're very affordable now,
you know, and my husband loves his like he loves his.
So is there any advice about where to put something
like a thermometer or weather station where you're you know,
around your house. Is there like a standard kind of

(21:17):
advice you give.

Speaker 10 (21:19):
There is, And I actually have on my desktop at
work a diagram for it. I don't have it on
my laptop here at home, but.

Speaker 12 (21:27):
You can google it.

Speaker 6 (21:28):
The National Weather.

Speaker 10 (21:29):
Service has it with pictures and stuff like that. You're
going to want it away from objects. You're going to
want it in an area that you know is kind
of a natural area. It's going to be five feet
off the ground, it's going to be a box that
isn't directly.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
In the sun.

Speaker 10 (21:42):
So if you're looking for something official, there is that
you can google it. You'll see and you know the
directions of what to put it in. There's also information
there for how you measure snow on a whiteboard, how
you have to take it in increments, and you use
a whiteboard, you put it in an area where you
know it may not be impacted by you know, snow
sliding off the roof or something like that. But overall,
home use anywhere in your yard is fine. I actually

(22:05):
have on my deck, I have one of those automated stations.
It's a little sensor stick that is actually I've screwed
it to one of the posts on the deck where
you can't see it. It's not exposed directly into the sunlight.
And then my gauge is right next to my kitchen saying,
so I can see the temperature, what the morning row was,
what the high was. And I do actually have an
official rain gage that is also out the backside, so

(22:26):
I can keep tract the brain and figure out if
we've had enough over the storm to maybe turn the
sprinklers off and save myself a couple of bucks. But
anything you find online these days on Amazon or Googling,
you're right, they're more reasonably priced. They're pretty cool gadgets,
and I just love having one at all, so I
wouldn't courage anybody just get one and don't be terribly

(22:46):
concerned about whether or not you should put it in
place aob.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Well, this is one of those things that I've realized. Okay,
and let me ask you this, Dave, because I know
you're a dad, you're a husband. You know, I've decided
that men get completely when it comes to gift giving. Right,
if you go to buy a gift for a man
at Christmas, it is either whiskey related, football related, or
some gadget that he's never going to use, and as

(23:11):
you give it to him, you know that he's never
going to use it. So I'm trying to come up
with a better list of stuff for Father's Day because
this is truly the perfect opportunity, you know, to the
dude holiday. And I think weather Station is a great
dad gift.

Speaker 10 (23:25):
I agree.

Speaker 6 (23:26):
I totally agree with that.

Speaker 10 (23:28):
I mean I got slippers for Christmas.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
Yeah yeah, I mean, well, you know, David's we're at
the point in our lives now where it's like, if
you want it, I'm sure.

Speaker 12 (23:36):
You just go out and buy it, right, hundred percent
with you, But no, I think any type I think
you're right anything in the electronic world's gadget gimmicky kind
of stuff.

Speaker 10 (23:46):
I think all of us kind of do go in
that direction.

Speaker 13 (23:49):
So if my wife on Father's Day was to give
me an upgraded, more powerful, sophisticated weather station that I
could put out back, it wouldn't annoy her when she
looks out the back windows and it's seeing this big
monstrosity sitting on.

Speaker 10 (24:02):
The corner of the deck or in the middle of
the yard. I'm in. I'm all in on that. I
think it's a weight gift.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Okay, good, perfect, That's all I wanted to know. This
guy just texted in and said, Mandy, I do commercial
building automation temperature controls for a living. We installa temperature
sensors on the north side of the building, ideally slightly
sheltered as well, but the important part is that it's
on the north side of the building.

Speaker 10 (24:26):
Yeah, like I said, there are instructions. I don't have
that diagram in front of me, but if you google it,
it will tell you exactly where to put it and so.
And you know the interesting thing about the sensors too,
When you see a picture of it, it's kind of
it looks like you know, the rooster's box on top
of the farm, you know that kind of it has
flats on it and everything like that, so the air
gets in there, but the sun isn't directly influencing the

(24:47):
sensor for temperature. One of the things we tell people
is sometimes when we're forecasting, we want to remind people
that those sensors are generally about five feet off the ground,
and your densest coldest air can below that. So sometimes
on night when we're talking about there being a frost
or you know, your temperatures could get below freezing, the
official temperature may not go that low, but that difference

(25:10):
in five feet means the coldest air is sinking to
the ground. So there are a lot of stipulations. And listen,
I've said it time and time again, the way we
collect data is not a perfect world, right. I mean,
it's going to change from one neighbor to the next.
When we get snow reports from people who volunteer to
you know, send in their reports. You can get snow

(25:31):
reports from people living in the same community who might
literally be a mile apart, and they're going to be different. Well,
so yeah, you've step to deal with that variation.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
In the way my yard is set up. We are
incredibly prone to drifts. So whereas my neighbor will only have,
you know, a couple of three inches on his driveway,
the foot of my driveway has a foot and a half.
I mean, so we just gave up trying to use
our measurements as anything other than our weird house and
the way it's set up. So Dave Fraser could be

(26:01):
seen on Fox thirty one and they do the most
accurate weather forecast. You can also download their app the
oh I just lost the name of it now Pinpoint
weather app. That's right, it's the one I use every
single day. All right, my friend, I'll talk to you
next week after we out of the deep freeze.

Speaker 12 (26:18):
Yeah, we'll be in the sixties.

Speaker 10 (26:19):
So next week on Wednesday, I'll look for a tick
or take parade as we start the show.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
You know what, I will make sure you have that.

Speaker 5 (26:28):
Youtuboe man.

Speaker 6 (26:28):
I'll talk to you later.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
That is Dave Fraser from Fox thirty one. Oh, we
will be right back. I'm kind of loath to go
back because a lot of you don't hear the beginning
of the show, so you don't know how good the
blog is. Today and it is amazing, amazing. At the
top of the hour, we're going to talk about a
letter that was sent to restaurant owners to Mayor Mike Johnston,

(26:53):
and the response basically was everything is not them, everything
is good and you're perfect team that. We'll get into
that in a little bit, but I want to take
just a second to mention an update on a story
that we talked about as it's been going on, and
it has to do with Colorado Democratic Democratic State Senator

(27:14):
now former Colorado Democratic State Senator Sonya Jacques Lewis. She
quit on Tuesday morning. Now, if you're thinking to yourself,
will good. She quit because she was accused of doing
these awful things by aides who felt compelled that they

(27:35):
had to take these pide gigs of mowing lawns and
bartending if they wanted to continue to work in her office.
And she sounds really awful. So yeah, she should have quit. Well,
she should have quit because of that, but she didn't.
That's not why she quit. She quit because in her
response to the Ethics Committee, she included a letter which

(27:58):
purported to be from a former aid in her defense.
The problem of this is that the former aid never wrote.

Speaker 14 (28:09):
The letter.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
Whoopsie, So she still maintains her innocence. She says she
was just being part of a labor dispute, that's all
it was. But now she has resigned. She's going to work,
by the way, at an LGBTQ plus nonprofit. They are
lucky to have her. I'm sure can hardly wait to

(28:33):
see what she makes their workers do super fun. This
is one of those things I don't understand. I flat
out don't, because a bad boss can ruin your entire
business and your entire business culture very quickly, very quickly.
I've worked in one small business before where I watched

(28:55):
it happen in real time, and I was just a kid.
I was a teenager, so there was nothing I could
do about it. But you meet someone immediately and you're like, oh,
this is not a good person. And within like three months,
this manager had literally run the business into the ground.
So now this LGBTQ plus organization has hired a woman
who's been accused of being a horrible boss, who then,

(29:18):
in an ethics investigation, provided a fake letter. You guys,
what is it with Colorado left wing women? We've got
Robin Decida, the wackadoodle broad who not only falsely accused
Aurora City Councilman Daniel Drinsky of horrible sexual abuse accusations
against her child, then when she got caught, to get

(29:41):
out of it, she used a Google image to send
to the judge saying that she had brain cancer and
could not stand trial. And now this woman, in an
ethics investigation provides a fake letter. Did she not think
anyone is going to talk those people? I mean, you

(30:04):
have to wonder in that situation, is she stupid or
does she just assume the rest of us are that stupid?
Either way, not flattering. Well, the people of Logmont, Lafayette
and Eerie. You guys dodged a bullet, absolutely dodged a bullet. Now,
of course, a Democratic vacancy committee. And I'm not picking

(30:27):
on the Democrats for this. She is a Democrat. The
Democrats will choose he replacement. I am, however, picking on
the entire replacement committee process. It is a joke. How
many people in are elected and I'm putting elected in
air quotes. How many people that are supposed to be elected,
we're just appointed by these vacancy committees. On both sides,

(30:47):
it's terrible system. It's awful. There's got to be a
better way to do this. It allows more people to
participate if they want to, not that I think people would.
By the way, I have no faith in the voters
to show up in a you know, special election of
any kind, and I just don't even if they get
mailed the ballots. I have no faith. But at least

(31:08):
the option exists. Right now, we can't participate, you know whatever,
Republicans or Independence, they're locked out of this process. I
wonder what that district is majority wise when it comes
to independence. I'd be curious about that because they have
no representation whatsoever in the vacancy process none. And when

(31:30):
we get to be a majority independent state, we're very close,
very close. I would think that some of these issues
have to be addressed. I would think this one needs
to be addressed now. But good luck to whatever LGBTQ
plus nonprofit just hired this winner, because not only does
she sound like a horrible boss, she lied about it

(31:52):
after she got caught, and that's just that's just not cool,
not cool at all. When we get back, I want
to share part of I wish I've been looking for
the actual letter I haven't been able to find the
whole thing. I'm sure it's on the internet somewhere. I
just haven't had the time this morning to do a
deeper dive and find it. But a bunch of restaurant
owners in downtown Denver wrote a letter to Mayor Mike
Johnston about the situation downtown. These are restaurants that are

(32:17):
hanging on by thread. Their margins are so low, and
basically it was a cry for help, and the tone
deaf response from the Mayor's office is just typical of
what passes for communication in that office. We'll do that next.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
accident and injury lawyers.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Well, no, it's Mandy Connell on kamte.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Andy Connell, sad bingome.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Welcome to the second hour of the show. I'm your host,
Mandy Connins for the next two hours, Anthony Rodriguez we
call him ayrod right here as well. I would like
to thank you guys on the text line who corrected
my pronunciation of Sonia Hawkes Lewis. I just didn't care
enough to actually find out the name because we don't
worry about her anymore, you know, she's not on now anyway.

(33:24):
I want to share this story because I saw it yesterday.
It actually came out for on Friday, Valentine's Day, and
I'm going to share just some of the Denver Gazette
story on it with you. Several Denver restaurants said they're
at a boiling point with the state of downtown. In
a letter to Mayor Mike Johnston and city leaders sent

(33:45):
last week, Dave Query, owner of Jack Spish House and
Oyster Bar, expressed frustrations with the mayor, noting he had
promised on the campaign trail to turn downtown around. Several
other major restaurant tours in downtown Denver on Query's letter,
including owners from Illegal Piece, Cholin Restaurant Concepts, and Union

(34:06):
Station's restaurant operators. You ran your entire campaign platform on
restoring our downtown Denver business districts, Query said in his letter,
it has gotten worse since you took the position of mayor,
even though you received five hundred and fifty million towards
stewarding it in a different direction. The Boulder based chef
behind BRF restaurant groups said downtown's traffic plan and new

(34:29):
bike paths implemented in the last two years have taken
up parking spaces and made it more difficult for customers
to come to their businesses. In addition, food trucks are
taking parking spots and bringing in more competition. Oh you
know what, I just found the letter. It's right next
to the story I'm reading. Told you there's a lot
going on right now. Let me skip over to the letter.

(34:53):
Here he from the paragraph. What it says, even though
you have received five hundred and fifty million towards stewarding
it in a different direction, who are the streets? Who
are the streets for in our town? Who's in charge
of keeping them safe? We've spent our careers building our
restaurant businesses collectively for almost three hundred years, this group
on this email, employing tens of thousands of Denver residents,

(35:16):
including our treasured Latino community, between all of our restaurants,
putting our entire lives into this effort, all the while
contributing tens of millions of dollars in sales and property
taxes over the last twenty thirty forty years. And we
are now watching the tenth District completely fall apart. The
entire downtown traffic plan and bike path cluster implemented over

(35:37):
the last two years is a catastrophic disaster. Your police
officers are frustrated with the legislative changes prohibiting them from
arresting anyone but the very most extreme and dangerous roaming
our streets. But the other ninety nine percent of the
fentanel zombies who are also extremely dangerous, are allowed to
get court summons which they throw in the officer's faces.

(36:00):
Many times was Elijah Caudill arrested before he stabbed four people,
killing two? How many times should it take to put
a mentally ill, homeless, drug addicted danger to the community,
as was the case with mister Caudill in jail before
something like this happens. This is the current vibe and
energy on our downtown streets and our longtime lo Doo

(36:21):
and Larimer guests are now driving to Cherry Creek and
Northfield and Golden for dinner and entertainment places where it's safe,
where they can finde parking, and where the very clear
and present dangers of Lodo and Larimer and cap Hill
don't exist. How far will you let this go? How
many more restaurants and small businesses need to close before
your quota alarm is triggered. Our downtown Denver businesses deserve

(36:46):
more and so much better than this. This is now
our third letter about this situation we find ourselves in
as the first two went unrequited. Between the out of
control minimum wage increases, over the top, property tax high
and the complete loss and seeming care for our valuable
and unique business districts, we are struggling for our lives

(37:07):
to keep those local restaurants alive. The same people who
support community nonprofits like none other, show up when there
are fires, floods, and disasters and fed hundreds of thousands
of first responder meals during the two year chaos of COVID.
We did your local restaurant community. That's what we do.
We would like some response and a conversation to understand

(37:29):
how this changes and how we can participate and help
in the effort to get back to center. And it's
signed by a bunch of heavy hitters, including Troy Guard
right at the top. Man. They kind of buried the
lead on this, The Denver Gazette did very much. So
that's a scorching letter our restaurants that are essentially saying

(37:51):
you know, I'm begging. I'm begging. Now it goes further.
The Boulder chef Query said to the Denver Gazette on
Friday he was pushed to write to officials after going
through his restaurant shift notes, a diary of the restaurant's
daily events. He read his employee's notes of seeing people
who are homeless locking themselves in the bathroom, a man

(38:12):
with a machete hacking at a tree outside and taking
off his pants in public, and someone smoking fentanel in
the trash enclosure. This was all within three days. He said.
It's not a homeless problem, it's an addiction problem. Gosh,
that sounds super familiar, Like I know I have heard

(38:34):
that somewhere Cow. Now it goes on to talk about
the investments. But listen to the response from the Mayor's
office on this. I want to make sure I get
it just right. Let's see here moving, We're going up,
We're moving here. Let's see here it goes the mayor

(38:58):
says this. This is from Jordan Fuja, the spokesperson for
the mayor's office. She said, that's why Mayor Johnston has
helped remove large tent encampments increase police patrols and is
bringing in more than five hundred million dollars in transformative investments.
There's more work to do, and Mayor Johnston will continue

(39:18):
to partner with local businesses, restaurants, and residents to ensure
Downtown is a safe and thriving part of our community.
She added that the city has been investing in increasing
the presence of both police and community safety officers, focusing
on high priority areas such as Loto, Larimer Square, Upper Downtown,
and Capitol Hill, as well as working with partners to

(39:40):
reduce shoplifting and theft, and increasing mental health responses for
individuals in crisis. Why did they have to write three
emails to get a response, Well, I'll tell you why,
because the Mayor's office sucks at communication, absolutely sucks at it,
absolutely sucks at it. Instead of saying what I would

(40:01):
have done if I were the Mayor's office, First of all,
I would have immediately written back and said, Okay, let's
have a summit. Let's get as many of these guys.
Here's where we can do it. Here's a place, here's
a time. Can you guys do it at this place
in time? What works for you? Here's a couple different options.
That's the thing number one I would have done, and
then I would have sent out a press statement that says,

(40:22):
the Mayor's office is distressed to hear of the ongoing
struggles that the restaurant community is facing, and we are
actively going to work with them to seek solutions to
bring relief where we can, to assist our downtown businesses
in getting back to normal as we invest more taxpayer

(40:43):
dollars into reviving downtown, because I mean, we just have to.
There's too much infrastructure there to let it go. We
can't let it just spiral into becoming Detroit, you know,
in the nineteen nineties. We can't do that. But man,
I'm going to read this text because I was about
to say this exact same thing, but I'm gonna let

(41:04):
a texture say it for a change. Mandy. I appreciate
the letter from the restaurant tourist, but I wonder how
many of them voted for Johnston. He was the lying
liar who lies, who learned from Polus how to be
the lying liar who lies. So why do they think
anything would change? And they probably also voted for Polus.
I believe the exact same thing to be true. And
this is a whole group of people who are reliably Democrats,

(41:25):
who probably did fundraisers and you know, donated food and
maybe even donated some money to different campaigns, and now
when the inevitable result of voting for Democrats falls directly
on their heads, they realize it sucks.

Speaker 5 (41:42):
Now.

Speaker 6 (41:42):
I also want to.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
Take a little bit of a victory lap here because
I think any of you who have been listening to
the show for a really long time, when they started
talking about jacking up minimum wage to ridiculous levels, it
was people like me who said, you know, this is
gonna kill restaurants. It's absolutely going to destroy the restaurant
community because the margins on restaurants are so thin. People

(42:03):
think you open a restaurant to get rich. No, you
open a restaurant to break even, because that's really all
you're going. They're just not a great way to make
a living. All that being said, there's a lot of
people like me who said this is a really bad idea.
A lot of people have been saying for a long time.
This isn't a housing issue, it's an addiction issue. So

(42:23):
a lot of the things that people have been sitting
here in Okay, it's me. I've been saying it. A
lot of things I've been saying for years have now
completely come home to roost. More bike lanes downtown and
we said, well, what about the parking? What is this
going to do to businesses? Guess what catastrophe is the
word that's used in this letter. By the way, does

(42:45):
anybody actually ride their bicycle in downtown? And if so,
have you noticed an uptick in fellow bicycle riders since
all these bike lanes went in. You know, before they
do anything to build out a road, or ride in
a road or put in a traffic circle, traffic light,
they have to do a traffic study. Do we ever
do traffic studies on mike lanes to find out if
anyone is actually using them? Yeah, Mandy, Just to let

(43:12):
you know, my girlfriend and I went to the Brian
Reagan concert on February first at the Paramount. Normally we
would have spent several hundred dollars between dinner, parking, shopping
before and after the show, but I didn't feel safe
going downtown without my concealed carry weapon. In particular, I
couldn't put my girlfriend at risk without having sufficient means
to protect her against the chaos that's going on down there.

(43:33):
So instead we ate in the suburbs. We had drinks
in the suburbs before and after, and we took lyft
into and out of downtown. We seriously limited the amount
of time we spent downtown to just seeing the show,
arriving thirty minutes before and leaving immediately after. I suspect
they lost out on about three hundred dollars worth of
our additional expenditures that night. And that's because Denver is

(43:55):
a crap hole. Now here's the thing. The mayor's office
is asking for even more money to increase the vibrancy downtown.
But all I see in all of that, And by
the way, I really believe I want downtown Denver to succeed,
even though I hardly ever go there, because a vibrant

(44:16):
urban core is a major part of a vibrant city.
And if we have a bunch of empty buildings, we
have a bunch of empty storefronts, we have a bunch
of empty nonsense. How long before it all starts to
fall into disrepair? I will never forget. So I became
a flight attendant in nineteen ninety one, and one of
my first layovers of any length maybe like sixteen or

(44:40):
eighteen hours, because most layovers are like twelve, thirteen whatever,
and you don't get to spend a lot of time
wherever you are. One of my first longer layovers was
in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and all I knew about Allentown was
the Billy Joel song about the mills closing, you know
what I mean, And it's just it's a great song,
but that's all I knew about Allentown, and it's kind
of a depressing song. So I'm excited because I have

(45:01):
a long layover and oh, we're going to lay on
in downtown Allentown. Great, fantastic, let's do it. We get
to quote downtown Allentown. It's like three city blocks maybe,
and there's a Sheraton Hotel right in the middle of it,
and that's where we were staying. And there was a
drug store kind of near the hotel. There was not

(45:24):
a single store front in the rest of their downtown area.
All of it was empty. There was not a single
other business. It was the most depressing thing I had
ever seen in my life. And I thought to myself, Wow,
how do you get here? Well, now, I feel like, well,
you want to know how to get here, You make

(45:45):
doing business impossibly expensive. You then add in a huge
layer of regulations. Then you do in the real kicker here,
the real kick and the teeth over all this stuff
moving from Denver to Colorado for just a second. Right now,
in the legislature, they are trying to do even more
damage by making it easier for people to unionize and

(46:08):
take away money by force from people who don't want
to be in the union. They're continuing to add on
more regulations to make it even harder to have a business,
and they have no sense of kind of what they
have wrought, and they don't seem to care. I mean,
my gosh, talk about maybe giving you some relief to

(46:30):
this minimum wage situation. All of the people who probably
voted for the higher minimum wage because they thought they
were going to be making more money, who then lost
their job because people are shutting down and moving out
of downtown Denver. You know, my longtime client, Regen Revolution
is a perfect example. For twenty seven years, they were

(46:50):
in downtown Denver twenty seven years, and they were Downtown's healthcare.
But it got so bad they couldnot ensure the safety
of their employees or their patients. Everything around them shut down.
There were no restaurants to go to lunch too. There
was nothing around them anymore. Their building became a ghost town,
which made it feel even more unsafe. So they completely

(47:12):
relocated to Oravada Or They have a much better business
client client. They don't have to worry about people being
accosted walking into their building. It's just a much better
quality of life. That's how you end up with a
downtown that's completely empty.

Speaker 5 (47:27):
Now.

Speaker 4 (47:27):
I'm sure Allentown has bounced back. I'm sure they have
haven't been there since as a matter of fact, because why,
you know, maybe I'll go back for the success story.
I don't know, but recovering from that kind of bottoming
out is a lot harder than recovering from where we
are now. But until the mayor comes out and says, okay, guys,

(47:49):
here's the deal, we heard you. Here's what's going to happen.
We are going to put a full throated effort into
getting enough police officers to not only meet our minimum
authors standard, but we are going to hire one hundred
more officers than that, and then we are going to
flood the streets of Denver with police, and we are
going to arrest people for petty crimes, those quality of

(48:11):
life crimes, because those quality of life crimes are creating
the feeling that downtown is not a safe place to be.
That's thing number one mayor comes out and says that.
And then the mayor comes out and says secondarily, and
by the way, we are no longer going to be
allowing people to wallow in their addiction. Open drug use
will no longer be tolerated, and we will send people

(48:33):
to drug court where they can choose treatment or jail.
And we can do that as many times as we
need to get them to a position where they're ready
to accept treatment. We can do it over and over
and over again, and until he says that, what else
are we going to spend money on? What else matters
more than those two things? Having enough police on the

(48:54):
streets enforcing crime das that will prosecute those crimes instead
of just creating that revolving door of people getting in
and out. People that will actually go to jail for
stuff that they've done over and over and over and
over again. And then all of a sudden, the perception
of downtown changes and what the Mayor's office sent back was, Hey,

(49:15):
who you gonna believe us? Are your own lion eyes?

Speaker 6 (49:20):
Who are you really going.

Speaker 4 (49:21):
To pay attention to the guy's smoking sentinel in your
trash enclosure? Or what the Mayor's office is telling you
about what we've already accomplished. They're taking a victory lap
when these people are literally saying, we are dying, dying,
and the Mayor's like, let me tell you all the
cool stuff we've already done. Forget about all that stuff.

(49:42):
And notice they did not address at all the bike
lane catastrophe parking situation. They didn't talk about any of that, Mady.
Instead of him saying, here's what's going to happen, why
wouldn't he go to them and say, what would you
like to say happen? Well, I got to tell you
they pretty much laid it out very clearly in that letter. So, Mandy,

(50:07):
if they're expecting uber and lyft to get people in
and out of downtown Denver, the average trip around downtown
Denver pays five to six dollars per trip. A driver
would be lucky to get four rides an hour if
they hung around downtown. The net pay is about seventy
percent of that after fuel and expenses. You know, if
there's conventions in town, there are people in downtown. It's
just not remotely what it used to be when I

(50:29):
first moved here, when it actually felt vibrant and it
felt you know, fun, and there were things to go
do and see and businesses open and you know, stores
to look at. Hi, Mandy, I'm a state employee. Compliments
of Governor pe Cowing, oh Governor peek cow its comes

(50:50):
what compliments of Governor Pollis oh co wins comes is
as an optional joining union now that their foot's in
the door and switch with this new proposed legislation. Of course,
of course, Mandy, you've talked about Dayton, Ohio. Downtown dateon Ohio.
The last time I was there last summer felt better

(51:10):
than downtown Denver. It's a nice town. It's like a
small city, but it's Milwaukee like in size. But Dayton
is actually a nice town, really nice little city. Hello.
My sister and dad and I were in Los Angeles
last year when minimum wage went up to twenty five
dollars for fast food workers. For three combo meals, the

(51:33):
price was forty eight dollars on average, I mean, what
do you expect people to do? Are the airlines still
having their cruise of boid downtown? I'm sure American Airlines
is there's with the flight attendant that that you know
was murdered. Allentown is a great place for skydiving. No,

(51:55):
I preferred to be inside the plane, thank you, Mandy.
Multiple lanes and bus lanes, but don't care, don't dare
drive your vehicle downtown. Democrat policies are killing Denver.

Speaker 5 (52:05):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
By the way, Democrats also just ban more gas stations.
Do you know who's celebrating the most, not environmentalists, the
people who already own gas stations downtown. The price of
that thing just went up five million dollars. Anyway, remember
downtown Saint Pete in the nineties is was trash. Look

(52:26):
at it now. Things can turn around fast. But they
have to turn around fast with the right leadership addressing
the right problems. That's the issue. They're not addressing the
right problems. You've got to go right at crime, you've
got to go right at safety. You've got to put
a cop everywhere until the perception matches the reality and

(52:48):
the reality is better. And then you got to you
gotta recognize we have we have a massive drug addiction
problem in downtown Denver. It's not a people. The people
that are homeless down there are homeless because they're drug addicts,
not because they don't have a home. Because they're drug addicts.
That's why they're homeless. They've got the cart before the horse,
and it's never gonna work. Okay, when we get back,

(53:11):
I got a lot of good comments on this, Mandy.
You should see if Hancock will come back on and
talk to you about this. Where is Mayor Mike Hancock?
Where ay Rod? Do you still have his number? Did
you ever have his number? I might see if we
I mean I might have his number. I don't know, Limba.
I'd love to talk to mayor former Mayor Hancock, not
not so he could dunk on Mayor Mike Johnson.

Speaker 6 (53:32):
I'll have his teams.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Yeah I don't either, and they're not his team anymore.
But you haven't heard hide nor hair from him. I'd
love to have the former mayor back on the show.
But I think it's just poor form to ask a
politician to dump on the person who's taken their job.
I just I don't know, it just seems tacky to me,
and if you're from the South, you know, if it's tacky,
I'm not doing it. A lot of people sent text
messages on the Common Spirit Health text line earlier in

(53:55):
the show, which you can always do at five six
to six, and I know asking me what I think
about Trump's comments about Ukraine, and I said at the
beginning of the show, watching everything that the Trump administration
is doing, so much of it, I love. I mean,
there's no other way to put it. It's not even
like like I love it. And for people concerned that

(54:19):
it's going too fast or the speed is too much,
or or you guys, I fully believe at this moment.
And I would have never said this before the election,
because what's happening right now is so inconceivable to me
that things are happening this fast. But I truly am
starting to believe it now. One of the things that
Trump one point oh learned that Trump two point oh

(54:42):
is now, you know, sort of using, is that government
moves very very very slowly when it comes to doing
anything to rein itself in and in order to affect
real change. And I've said before, not all the stuff
he's doing now is going to end up being found. Okay,

(55:03):
he's going to lose some court cases. It's going to happen.
But that being said, I think he learned trying to
do it the old fashioned way, slow methodical. It doesn't work.
You give DC a chance to get entrenched against something
and it will never change. And when you're talking about
cutting spending, the way that the government is going after
spending right now. And I have a video on the

(55:24):
blog today of Donald Trump standing and giving a list
of the most absurd things that American taxpayers are paying
for around the world. We wouldn't have that right now
if it weren't for the speed with which he's doing things.
But that being said, there's a few things I don't like.
And yesterday he blamed Ukraine for the war with Russia,

(55:49):
arguing that President Zelenski should have never started it. He said,
that's the quote, should have never started it. Now, the
President did make some points. He said when he heard
that the Ukrainians were mad they weren't in the peace
talks that he said this, Oh, well we weren't invited. Well,

(56:16):
you've been there for three years. You should have ended
it three years. You should have never started it. You
could have made a deal. I could have made a
deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all
of the land, and no people would have been killed,
and no city would have to been demolished, and not
one dome would have to be knocked down. But they
chose not to do it that way. Now, of course,
it sounds like he is already seating well Crimea. I

(56:38):
mean Crimea was seated by Obama years ago, not directly Obama,
but you know what I mean, we didn't do anything
when Russia took Crimea. But where will the new borders be?
Will they just revert back to the old borders. But
Russia gets to keep Crimea. Maybe, But to say that
Ukraine started it. The only thing I can imagine that

(57:00):
the President was thinking in this situation is that he's
trying to get a deal done, and as he does,
he blows smoke up the skirt of whoever he's negotiating with,
and in this case is Vladimir Putin. Now I'm guessing
he assumes that Zolensky is just going to take whatever
deal they come up with. But Zolensky and the Ukrainians

(57:20):
have to be brought into the conversation. I personally think
that any more negotiations without Ukraine would be a waste
of time and ridiculous. It's like, it's like the situation
in Israel. We've got Cutter and Saudi Arabia and another
and Israel, but Hamas doesn't have a presence in the negotiations.

(57:40):
I'm like, wait a minute, what are we even doing here?
I don't understand that. But to say that Ukraine started
this war is just ridiculous. Now, you could argue that
by trying to become a member of NATO, they provoked
a response from Russia, but that doesn't mean that they
wanted to be evaded when they were looking for protection

(58:01):
from exactly this kind of Russian aggression. That's a huge stretch,
and I think this is ridiculous. That being said, are
you ready to end this war? Because I am the
only reason we're still fighting is because we're paying for it.
I mean, that's the reality. Europe isn't paying for it,
Europe isn't doing anything. We're ostensibly taking the war to

(58:24):
Russia so it won't be taken to other NATO allies.
It sounds great, but ultimately, how's that going. By the way,
the other thing Pete Hegseth, the new Secretary of Defense,
also went to Europe and put them on notice that
they are on the hook for their own defense. They
don't spend at high enough levels. They need to get

(58:45):
their space. He's said five percent of GDP. We currently
spend three point five percent of our GDP on defense,
but that's only because our GDP is so big. I
think we spend plenty on defense. It's just our GDP
as much larger, almost nothing. Germany, which has gone all
in on this green energy idiocy that is going to
bankrupt their country, they're also not paying for their defense

(59:08):
at all. So on the one hand, I think it's
stupid to blame Ukraine for the war in Russia. That's
like blaming Israel for what Hamas did. I feel the
exact same way, incredibly stupid. So but at the same time,
if we're the only reason they're still fighting, that we
deserve to be in the middle of the negotiations, and

(59:29):
if Europe is upset about that, well then why didn't
they do anything in the last three years? Where have
they been Where have the high level talks been happening
in Europe. I'm one of those people. I am sick
to death at being the world's policeman. I'll tell you, guys, man,
the invasion of Iraq broke me of that. We were

(59:51):
sold to a bill of goods about Iraq that were
absolutely not accurate. They weren't totally wrong, I should say
that differently. They weren't totally wrong, but they definitely were
totally right. And that action, you know, on top of
the other failed military interventions that we've dabbled in since
World War Two. I don't want to do that anymore.
Let other people sort that out, figure it out. I

(01:00:14):
don't care. Reinforce our borders, reinforce our military, put everybody
else on notice that if they mess with us. You
know what is the old saying, You mess with the bull,
you get the horns. Best offense is a good defense,
all that stuff. That's what I want to do. But
I'm tired of sending our money to fix problems in Ukraine.

(01:00:38):
No offense to Ukraine. I've got nothing against Ukrainians, nothing
at all. But I'm just very, very tired and the
notion that somehow engaging in conversations and negotiations is bad.
How else are we supposed to end a war and

(01:00:58):
it's just grinding on you guys. Nobody's making any real progress,
nobody's making any big moves. It's just this stalemate line
that barely moves back and forth as more people continue
to die. It just it makes absolutely no sense. I
know that we're always going to have war because there
are always going to be people who seek to use
violence to get control and maintain control. That's just human nature,

(01:01:24):
and it's one of the most basic forms of human nature.
So we're never going to eradicate that. But my goodness,
at what point can you not look at the situation
and say, what are you even doing here? You know,
I employ certain tools when I get in my own
head too much and I start overthinking something, and sometimes
when I find myself I'm starting to go down like

(01:01:45):
a catastrophizing path where I'm you know, taking myself like,
oh this is horrible, this is gonna even and you
start to do that cycle. Sometimes I'll stop and I'll
say out loud, what are you even talking about? Woman
to myself, And that's honestly, it's like, what are you
even doing? What are you doing Russia? What are you
doing in Ukraine? What are you doing right now? Ukraine

(01:02:06):
is saying we want pre twenty fourteen borders. Well, you
should have defended harder in twenty fourteen. Sorry about your luck.
Same to the Palestinians and the Arabs who want pre
nineteen sixty seven borders for Israel shouldn't have attacked, then
should you? Sorry about your luck? But second up, Buttercup,
this is what we've got and this is what's happening.

(01:02:28):
Damn right. Zelensky started the war. Putin said no NATO
bordering his country. That was the deal, and Zelensky thumbed
his nose at Putin, except Zolensky tried to get into
NATO because of the threat of Russian aggression. That is
a chicken and egg situation. And I'm not sure that
anyone clearly knows exactly how much chicken and exactly how

(01:02:50):
much egg came first. I've read as much as I can.
And for people who don't understand why Ukraine being in
NATO would be a agressive, imagine if Mexico sign a
defense and trade deal with Russia and China. Is that
a game changer for US? I bet it is. That's

(01:03:12):
kind of how it is for Russia. Not in any
way excusing an invasion. I just think that was Putin's ego.
They said, does the Ukraine policy apply to Israel? How
much have we paid for Israel since nineteen forty eight?
So I looked it up and so far one moment. Please,
I need to get back to that draft folder, which

(01:03:33):
is where I put this so I could see it
very quickly. Bear with me, since since let's just go
here we go. Since nineteen forty eight, we've provided Israel
one hundred and fifty eight billion dollars in military eight
since nineteen forty eight, how much have we supplied Ukraine?

Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
As of.

Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
September thirtieth, of twenty twenty four, the US Ukraine response
funding totals nearly one hundred and eighty three billion dollars,
with one hundred and thirty one point one billion obligated
and eighty six point seven billion dispersed. That from a
Ukraine oversight.

Speaker 6 (01:04:14):
AD.

Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
So we're already well beyond and a vast majority, you guys,
of the quote fore and aid we give Israel is
basically just getting cycled back to our defense industry in
the form of defense spending. So we're supplementing the defense
industry by giving other countries money to then buy our
products from US. A little bit different, A little bit different, Mandy.

(01:04:38):
Our government negotiated for Ukraine to give up their nuclear arsenals.
Shouldn't we now aid in their defense? Pootin wouldn't have
invaded had they been armed, right, I actually agree with this.
I know that sounds crazy because I'm sitting here saying,
you know, I don't want to do this anymore, but
I think that ship has sailed in the sense that

(01:04:59):
we can't go back, and it can't go back and
change it, and there's nothing happening in terms of ending
this war until Donald Trump got into office. I mean,
did you guys, did we miss the news about the
high level talks in the last three years? That to
me seems like a big red flag that no one
is even talking about ending the war. So yeah, I

(01:05:20):
think we need to help them by figuring out a
way to stop getting their people sent it, you know,
to the front lines to be in a meat grinder.
I don't know if we can get them back to
the twenty fourteen borders where Russia's Crimea and everything else
is as it was before. I think that's the best
possible outcome and then if I'm Ukraine, I'm gonna be like,

(01:05:40):
I'm gonna figure out how to have my own nuclear weapons.
I'm gonna make sure I can protect myself. I don't
eat NATO, I don't need anybody else, and then we
can deal with that when you know, when the time comes, Mandy,
the three Baltic states were part of the USSR border. Russia,
I have large Russia minorities and are in NATO. Are
they trying to start a war with Putin?

Speaker 5 (01:05:58):
Nah? No, they're not.

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
But they were in NATO from the very beginning. Well, no,
I guess Poland came in after the Wall film. I'm
just doing some math here. That's a really good point, Texter,
A really good point. Good good point, Mandy. What if
Elon Musk is finding out in twenty twenty five is
true and that the government has fraudulently spent billions and

(01:06:21):
billions and billions of dollars, could the American people sue
the government for reparations? Okay, I understand why you might
feel that way, but you have to also understand that ultimately,
we the people have the right to vote, and we
have systematically voted in these clowns over and over and

(01:06:43):
over again from both parties, and never held them accountable
for spending out of control. I mean, at some point,
do you think, at some point we probably should have said,
you know what, if you guys can't get the budget
under control, we're going to fire all of you. But
that's not how it works. We have representative government, and
unfortun we've allowed our representatives to get us into this situation.

(01:07:04):
So you could say that the American people have been
complicit in our demise. We every single dumbass thing that
we are spending money on, we elected the people that
continue to allow that happening. Not anymore, not anymore, So
you do sound crazy, Mandy. Also, Ukrainian aid supplements our

(01:07:26):
defense industry as well. Who's bombs and bullets and tanks
do you think they're buying? I didn't say that, I'd
never said that wasn't true. But why are we just
are we just are we just sending people to be killed?
So our defense industry has a good bottom line. That's disgusting.
I mean, it's altogether possible, but it's disgusting. And that,

(01:07:47):
my friends, is what we're doing with DOGE. That's why
people elected Donald Trump and it's kind of complical that
the Democrats really don't understand that at all and are
taking the position that somehow they're protect democracy when really
they're just protecting the bureaucracy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock,
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
No, it's Mandy Connell and Donna Ka nine one FMA, God.

Speaker 3 (01:08:21):
Say the Nicetyrevny Connell keeping sad thing.

Speaker 4 (01:08:30):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the third hour of the show.
I'm your host for the next fifty six minutes or so,
Mandy Connell. That's hey, Rod, We're going to take you
right through this hour. So we did a lot of
political stuff on the show, but I saw a couple
of stories today that I think are incredibly important because
we are facing an epidemic in this country of loneliness,
of depression, of people feeling disconnected from other people. And

(01:08:54):
I am becoming more and more convinced that our smartphones
are a net negative or mental health Now they're in
net positive. If you want to do your banking while
you're standing and waiting for a bus, or you want
to watch pornography at any moment in time, or you
want to find out who that actress who was in
that movie with that guy was great? But are they

(01:09:16):
good for us? Overall? We already know that teens who
are the first generation to be ones to grow up
fully digital with a smartphone are the most miserable generation
of teens we've ever had, so listen to this study.
New research reveals a surprisingly simple way to improve mental
health and focus turn off your phone's Internet. A month

(01:09:40):
long study found that blocking mobile internet access for just
two weeks led to measurable improvements in well being, mental health,
and attention comparable to the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy
and reductions in age related cognitive decline. Research from multiple

(01:10:00):
universities across the US and Canada worked with four hundred
and sixty seven iPhone users, average age thirty two to
test how removing constant internet access would affect their daily lives.
Instead of asking people to give up their phones completely,
the study took a more practical approach. Participants installed an
app that blocked mobile Internet while still allowing calls and texts.

(01:10:23):
This way, phones remained useful for basic communication, but lost
their ability to provide endless scrolling social media and constant
online access. So they took a smartphone and they turned
it into a flip phone. The average smartphone user now
spends nearly five hours each day on their device. More
than half of Americans say they use them too much.

(01:10:45):
So how did this turn out? After two weeks without
mobile internet, participants showed clear improvements in multiple areas. They
reported feeling happier and more satisfied with their lives, and
their mental health improved, an effect size that was greater
than what is typically seen with antidepressant medications in clinical trials.

(01:11:09):
They also performed better on attention tests, showing improvements comparable
to reversing ten years of age related cognitive to decline.
And then they go on to talk about how they
tested participants to find out about their retention, their attention
spans and other things. And they found out that taking

(01:11:30):
away mobile internet access actually increased our retention spans. I mean,
this is pretty amazing because this is just two weeks
without having internet access on your phone. Now, I found
another story that I think goes hand in hand with
this one. In London. There are young people and I

(01:11:50):
mean you know, twenties thirties that area, who were paying
twelve bucks to go hang out at an event that
promises a two hour digital detox night. More than one
hundred and fifty young adults age mostly between twenty and
thirty five met at this event. They dropped their mobile
phone into a deposit box, and then they went for

(01:12:14):
a two hour night where they did things like playboard games.

Speaker 6 (01:12:18):
Some did some.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
Jewelry making, some did some sewing, some just sat and
chatted with friends without the constant interruption of their phones. Now,
you guys, if I could figure out a place to
charge twelve people, to charge people twelve bucks to do this,
I'm already be doing it because I think that we
all recognize we spend too much time on our phones.

(01:12:40):
We recognize that our phones are preventing us from having
meaningful relationships with other people. We recognized that phone usage.
You know what I hate more than phone usage, and
they kind of go hand in hand. I hate the
fact that everybody wears earphones or earbuds all the time
now all the time, so like it used to be
when you were riding a subway or you're riding a

(01:13:03):
bus in a different city I'm not talking about here.
You know, you may strike up a conversation with someone
on the train and that could actually turn into a
friendship or at least an interesting conversation where you meet
someone you didn't know before. And I think it's part
of the reason that our society has gotten so incivil
because we don't have those sort of regular, random, you know,

(01:13:26):
communications that happen when you're filling up gas and you
mentioned the person filling up gas on the other side
of the pump, like dang, these prices are high, and
they're like dang, they are high. And then you have
that little just a minute, you know, just a little exchange,
that that little human connection. You're not going to be
best friends, but you've had a human experience and we're

(01:13:46):
not having those as much. So the word of a question,
is this something that you would sign up for? I'm
just curious? Uh oh. I used my smartphone to listen
to Mandy Cardill iHeart they always free app. That's a
great use, But couldn't you just turn it off for
a couple of hours. What I'd love to see I

(01:14:09):
would love to see a high school. Maybe I'll talk
to my daughter's high school about this. I'd love to
see if we could just do an experiment with kids
with teenagers where say, look, for two weeks, we're just
gonna put this app on your phone that prevents you
from getting your internet access and see what happens. Because
this generation, this group of young people, they're miserable, they're unhappy,

(01:14:30):
they're lonely. They all feel like they don't have any friends,
and they have this perception that everybody else has all
of these friends and it's making them miserable. But because
everybody else is doing the exact same thing, it's really
hard to turn it off. It's really hard to say, yeah,
I'm not going to do this, especially when you feel

(01:14:50):
like that's all you have going for you. I've been
trying to get my daughter to do more of like
the inviting and the you know, like planning, because somebody
in the group has be the planner, right, somebody has
to be the one to call and say, who wants
to go see this movie? Is that U a rod?
We call you the cruise director of the group. Everybody,
every group needs a cruise director.

Speaker 7 (01:15:09):
Right, someone take the mantle from time to time.

Speaker 6 (01:15:12):
Though, well, once you.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
Establish yourself as a good cruise director, nobody, nobody else
is gonna do it. Chuck is our cruise director. I
am not the cruise director. Chuck is one hundred percent
of the cruise director of everything, and he's really good
at it, so he can keep doing that. So I
don't know. I just think, you know, we're all lonely,
We're all we're not meeting real people in real spaces,

(01:15:34):
and I think social media has just created far more problems.
The only thing I find like Facebook good for is uh,
finding old old friends that I'd lost touch with. And
I'm gonna be perfectly honest. And I don't know if
you guys do this too, does anybody else do this?
I look at people on Facebook all the time, not

(01:15:55):
because I want to reconnect with them, but I just
want to see how they turned out. I don't even
send a friend request. Oh look they seem to be
doing well. Oh look he lost his hair, Oh look
she has eight kids. I just want to see how
you turned out. I don't want to have an actual
relationship with you. Ew Mandy, we spent two weeks on

(01:16:16):
horseback and camping in the Wyoming back country no cell service.
Talk about wait a minute, oh that just that updated
no cell service and it's great. Oh only a few people, Mandy,
can you find an address without your cell phone. Uh, Nope,

(01:16:41):
I could if I had a map. Now, remember, back
at olden times, children, we had to go to a
place on the Internet called map Quest, and you would
put in the address where you were.

Speaker 15 (01:16:50):
And you would put in the address where you wanted
to go, and then the quest would begin. And if
it was a fa drive, you would have been out many,
many pages of instructions and they'd have little symbols on them,
and then you would have that piece of paper in
your car with you as you drove on the many.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
Pages of map Quest. It was the olden times back
in the nineties. My god, that is the olden times now.

Speaker 6 (01:17:14):
Oh God.

Speaker 4 (01:17:15):
On the blog today, I got a bunch of stuff
nothing funnier than the uh post on X that I saw.
And it's a picture of a very very very very
very very old woman holding what appears to be a
Social Security check and it says meet May. She just
turned three hundred and twenty nine years old. She watched
her husband throw tea off ships in Boston Harbor, lost

(01:17:37):
her son in the Civil War, and survived the Titanic
after nearly drowning. She's been through a lot. Elon Musk
just stopped her social Security checks? How could Elon Musk
do this? Obviously being sarcastic, but focusing in on a
story that was publicized by DOGE about all these people
that are ancient that are still on the Social Security

(01:17:59):
roles now come to find out there's actually a programming
reason for this and they're not actually getting checks. But
these kind of stories coming out of DOJ are catching
fire because people recognize that our money has been squandered
and wasted and we're just sick of it, absolutely sick
of it. And if you're ready for all of this

(01:18:22):
to be over, there's a three point one percent chance
that an asteroid will hit the Earth in twenty thirty two.
So if you are ready to just be like, you
know what, this thing this earth is not working out,
good news, you're gonna be able to just you know,
last I heard it is like one point something, So
it's going on three point one percent chance. This is

(01:18:43):
the highest chance, by the way finest christ.

Speaker 6 (01:18:45):
Assessment read correctly.

Speaker 7 (01:18:46):
It wouldn't be like an end of world meteor, though,
it'd be like essentially the equivalent of like a nuclear bomb,
like some portion of the world would be bye bye.

Speaker 6 (01:18:55):
But I don't think it would entirely.

Speaker 4 (01:18:57):
I mean, if we could direct it to certain areas
in the world. You know what if it lands in
the ocean.

Speaker 6 (01:19:04):
So like the highest bidder gets to steer it.

Speaker 4 (01:19:06):
That's like a theme of a James Bond movie, don't
you think?

Speaker 6 (01:19:09):
Or go watch don't look up the movie's.

Speaker 4 (01:19:12):
Villain, the master villain who buys access to get the
asteroid go wherever it.

Speaker 5 (01:19:16):
Wants to go.

Speaker 7 (01:19:17):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, I just put doctor Evil on the
case and it'll be fine.

Speaker 11 (01:19:21):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:19:21):
Fine.

Speaker 4 (01:19:22):
And by the way, you guys, if you are a fishead,
and by fish head, I mean a fan of the
jam band fish with a pH fish fish.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):
They're coming back to the area, but they're not coming
back to Dick's Sporting Goods Stadium, where they've been for
many years over Fourth of July weekend. They're gonna be
at fulsome field. Somehow, I feel like this is a
better fit for them. I've seen fish. You ever seen fish?

Speaker 6 (01:19:49):
You know the answer that question?

Speaker 4 (01:19:50):
I mean I just thought i'd ask.

Speaker 14 (01:19:52):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:19:52):
I mean, you do work in radio. I've seen fish
like I don't even know, thirty years ago, I saw fish.
Ass No, I'm not a jam band person this point.

Speaker 6 (01:20:00):
In my life.

Speaker 4 (01:20:00):
I just, honestly, I get bored. I'm like, okay, how
I've seen the grateful dead before, you know, before they
started dying, and jam bands are just I'm not that person.
I'm not a jam band person, and I'm okay with it.
It's it's not something I'm upset about. Been there, done
that in the hippie skirt. It's all good.

Speaker 13 (01:20:19):
I don't.

Speaker 7 (01:20:20):
I just you know, maybe in one hundred years the
grateful undead when they bring them back from the dead,
you know.

Speaker 4 (01:20:24):
What, I keep waiting for them to put that in
the spear. I mean, honestly, why aren't they doing that?
Are why aren't they replicating so grateful dead? Maybe because
they don't want dead heads in the sphere. Do you
have any idea how long I'm gould take to get
all that Patrulli out of the sphere. They would have
like send out all the old air in with new air.
Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you, ay, Rod,

(01:20:45):
So I forgot. It was Valentine's Day weekend. On this
cruise that we just went on. There were so many
groups of obviously single, middle aged women that had gone
on this cruise on Valentine's Day, and every single one
of those groups stunk like Patulie so bad it was
like a walking stereotype. It was all I kept waiting

(01:21:08):
was for them to pull a cat out of her bag,
and then I would have been like, of course, of
course when we get back, the Trump administration is rolling
back something when it comes to plavor tobacco that the
Biden administration did that I always thought was super patronizing.
We're going to talk to an expert about what that
is and what I mean after this, I'm actually talking
about an AI representation of Jerry Garcia at the Sphere,

(01:21:33):
not just dead in company right, like I get it,
But I'm talking about like they did with you too.
You too wasn't there, but yet they were there. The
Sphere is a magical place. So I sit corrected, ladies
and germs. But as I also mentioned in the last segment,
I am no longer a jam band fan at this
point in my life. How was I going to know that?
I'm not going to pay attention to that.

Speaker 5 (01:21:54):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:21:54):
My next guest, totally unrelated to the Sphere, jam Bands
or the Grateful Dead, is I wanted to talk about
something that happened, and in the flurry of activity, this
one slid right past me and I didn't even see it.
On day two of the Trump administration, the FDA withdrew
its proposed menthol cigarette ban, citing enforcement concerns and potential
unintended consequences. And enjoining me now to talk about it

(01:22:17):
is Brian Knuckles, a Youngian psychotherapist turned journalist and policy
writer and a Young Voices contributor. He just wrote an
op ed about this decision. And Brian, first of all,
welcome to the show. And second of all, you're actually
arguing that this is a victory for harm reduction by
not banning menthol cigarettes. Explain that to me.

Speaker 10 (01:22:39):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:22:40):
Mandy, first of all, a big fan of the show.

Speaker 16 (01:22:42):
I'm so excited to be here, and absolutely I want
to talk about, yeah, how bureaucratic top down bands often
lead to unintended consequences. If you want to reduce harm,
getting the FDA and golf is probably the worst thing
you could do. And this Trump's reversal of this band

(01:23:03):
is a huge win for harm reduction, public health, and
agency for people as well.

Speaker 4 (01:23:07):
I thought this ban when the Biden administration was talking
about banning specifically menthol cigarettes, Like everybody knows that there
is a stereotype exists, and it exists for a reason
that African Americans seem to smoke menthol cigarettes at a
higher rate than white people. And you know what, every
black person, this is anecdotal. Every black person I know

(01:23:29):
has always smoked Newports if they were smoking. So in
my world, there was some truth to that. And when
I found out Biden was just going to ban menthol cigarettes,
I thought, how patronizing to black people to essentially say,
you're making this bad choice, we don't like it, so
we're going to take away what you do like and
hope that you stop. Wasn't that wasn't that kind of

(01:23:51):
the end game that they were going for.

Speaker 16 (01:23:54):
Absolutely, I mean you speak about it being anadoldal with
this was a stated a directive from the Biden administration
that we can protect we know better than the black community.
They can have the cigarettes because they'll die. This was
stated in the FBA's policy briefs. So you're absolutely right,
and I do agree there. You know, I explored from

(01:24:15):
a kind of pragmatic lens and the piece, but I
mentioned that at the end, I mean from a liberty
nanny state perspective, these bands are pretty offensive and to
particularly target black people, I agree, it's very patronizing.

Speaker 4 (01:24:31):
So when you talk about harm reduction when it comes
to smoking, we recently went through this with Zin and
you had the Denver City Council trying to ban flavored
vaping because they're like, oh, the children or whatever. But
the reality is is that those non tobacco methods of
getting nicotine are used by a lot of people to
quit smoking. How is menthol or mental cigarettes? How would

(01:24:54):
that be used in harm reduction if anyway?

Speaker 6 (01:24:58):
Well, how I like to think about it is there's.

Speaker 16 (01:25:01):
Kind of two dimensions to harm reduction. One is we
accept human nature.

Speaker 10 (01:25:06):
People like to smoke.

Speaker 16 (01:25:07):
Whether you find it gross or you don't like it,
or you wish your parents didn't smoke, people will smoke.
It's part of accepting human nature. People over the world smoke.
So there's that aspect of it, and so just kind
of accepting that at framing and no matter what Michael
Bloomberg or Joe Biden says, people are probably going to smoke,

(01:25:28):
and that's the way it is.

Speaker 4 (01:25:30):
So that's one dimension.

Speaker 16 (01:25:31):
And then there's also choice based strategies to mental health
and recognizing with innovations. If we get the venture capitalists
and the money behind things, we will innovate.

Speaker 6 (01:25:42):
And if you trust trust.

Speaker 16 (01:25:45):
The free enterprise method, people don't like to die, you know,
so people will probably people will choose over time healthier solutions.

Speaker 6 (01:25:53):
And so yeah, the metanthol my connection to.

Speaker 16 (01:25:59):
Menthol was just one, people like menthol, so banning it befo,
We're just going to get it ellestively.

Speaker 7 (01:26:05):
And two.

Speaker 16 (01:26:08):
The mechanism of mental the coolness, yes of it. It's yeah,
something interesting that we can maybe learn from for safe
for alternatives, I got.

Speaker 4 (01:26:18):
To think that. And to your point that there are
always going to be people who are going to smoke,
I would say, at this point in our society right
think about it. We all know smoking is bad for us.
We all know smoking causes lung cancer and emphasema. We
know it causes COPD, We know that it smells, it
makes you look old, it ages your skin. And yet
even though we've raised taxes to where cigarettes last time

(01:26:40):
I looked, we're like nine to fifty in Colorado, we
still have a percentage of the population that is still smoking.
So what in the world are you going to do
that is going to make that population stop. They're either
going to get sick or they're going to get broke, right,
and that's why they're going to stop smoking. Tho are
the only two reasons. So to as if somehow more

(01:27:01):
government intervention is going to get those hardcore I call
them lifers right, their lifers, they're lifetime smokers. It's not
going to work. It has to come from within them,
and they're going to work around the government. I do
want to talk to you about how these menthal bands
could potentially create a black market. Tell me about that.

Speaker 10 (01:27:19):
Well, there's a.

Speaker 16 (01:27:20):
Lot of evidence that this happened. So this national ban
isn't coming out of nowhere. It's been tried in California
and Massachusetts, and the evidence is clear people did not
stop smoking month als cigarette. So the illicit markets emerged,
you know, like they often do when you ban something

(01:27:41):
that people like, impicit markets emerged and use. Actually, ironically,
in Massachusetts, the stated intention, like you mentioned earlier, was
to prevent black people from smoking mental slightly very slightly
less than one percent and overall or use of unfollows.

(01:28:01):
But among black women and kick there there's like a
forty percent increase and they're still trying to figure that
one out.

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
Well, I think that becomes a status symbol. It's kind
of like people who for years and years and now
it's not as much a big deal because Cuba's opened
up a little bit. But man, I lived in Southwest
Florida and there were men who had boxes of Cuban
cigars that I mean, they walked around with these things
under their arm like they were like a trophy, and
there was a trophy aspect to it, because then it

(01:28:28):
becomes contraband, right, So now you've made it cool. You've
made it like rebellious to have a pack of Newports,
which is so ridiculous. But I always think of Eric Garner,
and I don't know if you remember Eric Garner in
New York City, but Eric Garner was selling, as they
call him in New York loosies because cigarette taxes in
New York are so oppressive. I think cigarettes there are

(01:28:49):
like twelve to fifty a pack. So it created this
black market where people would stand and sell loose cigarettes.
And it ended up with him being taken to the
ground and by police and a choke cold in him
dyeing and so that's the kind of unintended consequences that
you're talking about. And I think that anytime you tell
grown ass adults who should be able to make their
own choices, that we're not going to let you have something,

(01:29:12):
it just makes it more popular than it did before.

Speaker 6 (01:29:17):
Yeah, it's a.

Speaker 16 (01:29:17):
Great it's a very incisive point you make, Ndia about
the Eric partner. I actually hadn't put that together, but
great point. A death another death that we can attribute
to the state. Absolutely, I have to admit that when
if the state tells me how to do something, I
am very myself very likely to start doing it. I
think the red Rules amongst us will find that appealing.

Speaker 4 (01:29:40):
Well, you know, I hope everybody stops smoking. I'm a
former smoker, so you know, I always hope that people
decide to spend their money on something more worthwhile, like
anything else. But ultimately, as a libertarian, small libertarian, I'm
gonna I'm gonna fight for your right to continue to smoke.
I really am. I hate it. I hate the habit,
but people should be a to make their own decisions.

(01:30:01):
Brian Knuckles is my guest. Thank you so much for
making time for me today.

Speaker 16 (01:30:04):
Brian absolutely Mandy, it's a pleasure in good buck.

Speaker 6 (01:30:08):
I'll see you soon, all.

Speaker 4 (01:30:09):
Right, man, Thank you? And uh interesting that one, like
I said, slid by me. I didn't even notice that
Trump did that because there's just been so much, so so,
so much. By the way, don't forget. On the blog
today as well, you got a little snippet of the
A to Z podcast to the Broncos trade for Deebo

(01:30:30):
Samuel who would they trade? By the way, Rod, who
are you looking at trading?

Speaker 5 (01:30:35):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:30:35):
No, no players? Draft cat Okay, yeah, yep, yep, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:30:41):
I don't feel like we have as many glaring needs
as we've had in prior drafts. Right now we have needs,
but not glaring needs. We've had.

Speaker 7 (01:30:49):
Running back and tied end are massive. They need that,
they need inside linebacker help. Is that bon just saying
running back please would be an awesome acquisition, shouldn't, especially
for Shawn's offense?

Speaker 6 (01:31:01):
And then what you can do with the tight end? Yep,
you need them. Offensive weapons insert here please, we need those?

Speaker 4 (01:31:07):
We need those. Also on the blog today, I got
a couple of stories. There's actually a bill working it through,
working its way through the Colorado legislature right now. That
would actually punish criminals for stealing guns. What this is
the kind of law I can absolutely get behind. I

(01:31:32):
think the penalties for stealing a firearms should be severe.
I think the penalties for committing a crime with a
stolen firearms should be prison time minimum, prison time period.
Florida Institute of Law many years ago, it was the
three strikes you're outlaw, and when you got caught with
a gun and you were committing a crime with a

(01:31:53):
gun three times, you went to prison for life. I
mean you, that's three strikes and you're out. It was
pretty effective at the time. I need to look up
and see what's happened there with that law. But this bill,
and it is a bipartisan gun bill, not to be
confused with the other trash bill that the Senate just
passed out. The legislature is looking to make it a felony,

(01:32:18):
excuse me, no, a class six felony to steal a gun.
Right now, the penalty for gun theft is based on
the value of the guns stolen, which is stupid, really stupid.
But here's the bit that I want to share with you.
Republican Representative Ryan Armagost said, guns when they're stolen are

(01:32:40):
not used for putting food on the table. They're used
in violent crime. They're used typically by people that can't
buy a firearm legally. And the vast majority of crimes
committed in Colorado in the ninety percent of those gun crimes,
those guns used are acquired illegally. And I want you
to think about that stat for a second. Ninety percent

(01:33:02):
of the crimes committed with a gun are committed with
a gun acquired illegally. What if, just what if hear
me out, What if the Colorado legislature actually decided to
pass more laws targeting the people who are stealing the
guns and committing ninety percent of the gun crimes with
the guns instead of Now this new this bill that

(01:33:27):
just came out of the Senate is so bad. Now
we're going to create a gun registry, and if this
legislature deems you of the right sort of category, you're
going to be allowed to buy one of these weapons.
But otherwise, no, So you better hope you check the
right boxes. I mean, you better hope you're not Jewish. Now,
I'm just kidding. That was a throwback to the Holocaust,

(01:33:49):
But hey, that's how it all started, right, disarm the
people we don't like, disarm the people that we don't
agree with. That'll do it. My conversation about the crackdown
on free speech by the left right now in this country.
Earlier in the show. You can always listen to the podcast.
It'll be up right after the show on the free
iHeartMedia platform. By the way, with the new iHeart Media app,

(01:34:14):
you can actually make my show a preset at the
top of your app. And that way, you just open
up the app and you hit me. I mean, no,
actually hit me. I mean you could try to hit me,
but I catlike reflexes. You just hit a button and
then boom, there comes the show. You don't even It's
like idiot proof. So idiot proof. But at the beginning

(01:34:35):
of the show, I talked about the attack on free speech,
the attack on free speech the attack on gun rights.
Gun rights and free speech fall into the same category
in that they give power to the week. Free speech
laws don't protect the people in charge. They're already in charge.
They already have the power. Free speech allows the week

(01:34:57):
to protect themselves verbally. The second allows the week to
protect themselves physically. Is it really not that hard to
understand and both of those things are now under attack
from the left. What is happening to the Democratic Party?
What are they doing? What is the end game there?
You know, on the one side, you have dogs. You

(01:35:19):
have the Republican Party that are trying to make everything
incredibly transparent. I mean they're putting everything online. What Dog
is finding, you can find it on their Twitter feed,
you can do it all. You can just see exactly
what they're doing. And on the other side, we have
people who are arguing that we shouldn't be looking at
how our money is being spent, We shouldn't be investigating

(01:35:41):
how the tax dollars should just being burned alive in Washington, DC.
I don't That's not a position i'd want to be in,
and I don't understand why that seems to be the
position that they're pursuing. Who's playing of the Day with
me today?

Speaker 5 (01:35:53):
Hey?

Speaker 6 (01:35:54):
Rod, red words? He's got on the way red words.

Speaker 4 (01:35:58):
That's hilarious because that's how when you type his name.

Speaker 6 (01:36:01):
Yeah, red words.

Speaker 4 (01:36:03):
Anyway, Okay, tomorrow on the show. I can't believe tomorrow's
already Thursday. God, I love a short work week. Anyway,
Tomorrow on the show, we have oh Wow, this is
gonna be a good one. I don't know if you
guys know this, but the Labor secretary nomination that Donald
Trump nominated her hearing was was it today or yesterday?

(01:36:28):
I can't remember. This woman's horrible. She's horrible. I don't
think she's going to make it through. I don't think
the Republicans are going to vote for her. She does
not like right to work. And tomorrow we're going to
talk to Mark Mix with the National Right to Work Committee,
Rand Paul has filed a bill that would make a
National Right to Work Act. It would simply say unions

(01:36:51):
can't take your money if you don't want them to,
and you have a right to work, and you don't
have to be a member of any association in order
to do so. I mean, as they say, I don't
want to be a member of any association that would
have me. Ryan Edwards right, red words words. That is
how it looks when you email you red words.

Speaker 14 (01:37:11):
Yeah, I know, And I changed my Twitter handle to
that one. It's redwords radio.

Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
Nice.

Speaker 6 (01:37:16):
Yeah, yeah, got you.

Speaker 14 (01:37:18):
Well, I actually wanted Ryan that was radio, but dopid
Twitter as a limit on them. I know.

Speaker 4 (01:37:24):
That's that's inconvenient. Although I did manage to get at
Mandy Connell, like back in two thousand and nine.

Speaker 14 (01:37:30):
The person that up at Ryan Edwards blocked me. What yeah,
that person at right, And.

Speaker 6 (01:37:35):
It wasn't anything I did.

Speaker 4 (01:37:36):
It's just people email or yeah, I can see that.

Speaker 14 (01:37:39):
Why that person and they just got to say so.
They blocked me as if I did something wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:37:44):
But oh, there's a Irish folk singer named Mandy Connell.
Let's just say she doesn't share my politics and on
multiple occasions my listeners have reached out to her and
gotten a less than charitable answer back. So if you
see it, Irish fokes singer, not me.

Speaker 6 (01:38:02):
Let's say what what Now?

Speaker 4 (01:38:03):
It's time for the most exciting segment on the radio
of It's.

Speaker 6 (01:38:06):
Guy of the day was extra spicy.

Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
That was really good. You're in fine voice today, all right?
What is our dad joke of the day? Please?

Speaker 6 (01:38:18):
What do we want raising car noises? When do we
want them?

Speaker 4 (01:38:25):
That's a good one. I can't wait to tell my
grandson's that one. That's a good one. What's our word
of the day please?

Speaker 7 (01:38:29):
It's an adjective adjective pelagic, P E L A G
I C pagic.

Speaker 4 (01:38:37):
Isn't this like a medical term pelagic like logic, like
you're in a coma or something. You're non responsive, that's
my guess.

Speaker 6 (01:38:46):
No, I'm stuck about or something.

Speaker 17 (01:38:48):
It's pe though, that's the problem. P E l ah
g I C sounds gross. It does dove or relating
to the cs and oceans. Well that's not said all
just sounds gross. I'm just gonna say it's related to
the sea. There it is instead of plagic.

Speaker 6 (01:39:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
The Renegades podcast series, released in twenty twenty one, features
former President Barack Obama in conversation with which musician I
don't know, but he probably got an iHeartRadio Award for it.

Speaker 6 (01:39:18):
Would it be like Bruce Springsteen or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:39:20):
No, it's gonna be one of the it's going to
be an urban artist. Oh okay, it was Bruce Springsteen.
Oh yes, I did listen.

Speaker 6 (01:39:30):
I've never listened to it. It was just the first
day that popped in my head. Like I can see.

Speaker 4 (01:39:33):
Guy was born in the USA. Is a big lib
So there you go that. Yeah, all right, what's our category?

Speaker 6 (01:39:39):
I like this one?

Speaker 7 (01:39:40):
A little rockers so two word alliteration rock groops or
solo artists.

Speaker 4 (01:39:46):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:39:47):
In nineteen eighty seven, this trio that font for the
right to party.

Speaker 4 (01:39:51):
Jilling the Beastie Boys, Damn.

Speaker 7 (01:39:54):
This band's hits include ever Long and times like Brian
Who Foo Fighters? Correct after a long vacation. These eightieses
correg He led a rock and family on such hits
as thank you who was the Brady Bunch?

Speaker 5 (01:40:12):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:40:13):
Thank you for letting me be myself again? I don't
know this one?

Speaker 4 (01:40:20):
You you cannot do this.

Speaker 6 (01:40:22):
I'm sure I will to the family.

Speaker 4 (01:40:27):
Wonder why one one?

Speaker 7 (01:40:28):
This powerhouse vocalist was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety five. They are blues
influenced American rock singer and songwriter.

Speaker 6 (01:40:37):
JJ. Is your hint? JJ? Blues rock?

Speaker 5 (01:40:47):
JJ?

Speaker 4 (01:40:48):
Why do I not know this?

Speaker 6 (01:40:48):
This is killing me? What's the scorgan one?

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
One?

Speaker 6 (01:40:51):
JJ?

Speaker 5 (01:40:52):
What is?

Speaker 6 (01:40:53):
Who is Janice? Job?

Speaker 11 (01:40:55):
Job?

Speaker 6 (01:40:56):
Which means a type ranker. Let's go to.

Speaker 4 (01:41:00):
Five.

Speaker 7 (01:41:01):
Yeah, succulents, suculents, cavera or true type of this succulent
is pretty and medicinal.

Speaker 4 (01:41:11):
Correct. My alo plant is out of control. It's starting
to look like that monster from the movie. It just
grew a lot, and I gotta busted up. I got
four little plants in one one pot this summer. It's
all getting busted.

Speaker 6 (01:41:25):
Up there you go.

Speaker 4 (01:41:26):
It was tiny when I got it, and now it's massive.

Speaker 14 (01:41:28):
We have I already know what the plant is because
my wife, Oh my god, my wife takes care of
these kinds of things. But we have this plant that
he's overgrown into like parts of the living room and
and she's like, oh, I gotta really take care of
I'm like, I know, because it owns half the living room.

Speaker 6 (01:41:42):
Now. Yeah, we got it was so tiny and cute.

Speaker 4 (01:41:44):
Now it's everywhere, much like this show and KO Sports.
We'll be back tomorrow.

Speaker 9 (01:41:49):
Keep it on k