District Attorney George Brauchler fills in for Dan with Eva Wilson, Ken Buck, Jeff Brauchler and Chris Rourke

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Krfx hd2 denver khow denver this is 630 k how
denver's talk station and iheart radio station guaranteed human.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
It is not dan capless it is me heidi ganahl
in for an No.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Excuse me.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Sorry, it's actually George Brockler. Filling in for the great one,
Dan Kaplis, as he is in court pummeling someone who
has mistreated a client of his. I wish he would
go into more detail about the stories when he comes back,
but he'll be back at some point. I'll be filling
in today. I'll be in until six o'clock. And then, hey,
good news. I'll be back on Monday. Couple things. I'd

(00:49):
love to hear from you as we have this conversation
over the next two to four hours. 57739. That's what
you type into your phone to text us 57739. Or
you give us a call at 303-713-8255. By the way,
if you text at 57739, it has to start with Dan.
And then I always like it if you follow up
with George sounds really smart and good looking and then

(01:11):
whatever your text is going to be. I love seeing
that kind of stuff right there. Now, Um, I have
not had the opportunity to talk about so much stuff
that's been going on, uh, out there, but I have
some guests lined up that I want to tell you
about after this mid half hour break that we'll take.
And I'm going to say 15 ish with a capital ish. Um,
we're going to have on a former chief deputy district

(01:33):
attorney of mine, Eva Wilson, and she's going to talk
about a really world-class phenomenal legendary prosecutor that we just
laid to rest. yesterday. Then at the bottom of the hour,
we'll come back and we'll have a guy named Ken Buck.
You've maybe never heard of Ken. Ken is a former
congressman from the 4th Congressional District. I'm joking, of course.

(01:54):
He's also the former chairman of the GOP out here
in Colorado. Ken's written a book, and not just a book,
it's his fourth book. I don't even know how anyone
writes a book, but Ken's going to come on to
talk about this thing. I had a real cool role
that he asked me to play last night up in Greeley,
and I was able to do that. And I thought, man,
this is such a good topic. I want to share

(02:15):
it with you, get some conversations going. And then in
the five o'clock hour, I don't know if you know this,
but there's some craziness going on on the campuses here,
even a year after Charlie Kirk's assassination. And there's an
organization out there that's done some polling that's really attention-getting,
and not just from a, I'm a member of this
community and the planet Earth kind of way, but my

(02:35):
son's are in college. I have a senior up at
CSU and a brand new freshman out at a place
called Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Beautiful area. He's
going to join us to have a little bit of
a conversation about this before he has to jump into
some smarty smart class because that is a smarty smart school. Now,
if you're like me, the parts of the Broncos game

(02:57):
that you watched and I had to listen to a
bit coming back from Greeley. I had Dave Logan on
with our sister station 850 K away. And of course,
he does such a good job. But I got to
tell you, man, at some point you feel like if
I turn it off, one, do I unjinx the Broncos?
And two, do I spare myself the profanity in a
car by myself after I've left the Buc-ee's with the

(03:19):
triple XL brisket sandwich? And then you get home and
you turn on the TV and you think, no, these
guys are going to rally. Remember last year we came
from behind, I mean, what, like 12, 14 times? It
just felt like every game was that way. So you're like, okay,
we're going to do it. And then you start watching
the game and you realize, What is happening here? And
then you start listening to the post-game stuff and you

(03:41):
realize we got punked on the first Monday night football game. Punked,
embarrassed on the first Monday night football game. And then
you start listening to the post-game comments. And I've got
a clip right here. Despite how horrible I thought it was,
Coach Sean Payton did find a silver lining to the
Broncos performance. And it is right here. Nope, that was it.

(04:07):
He said nothing positive because the Broncos were awful in
every single aspect of the game. It was hard to watch.
I felt like it was the Chiefs of three or
four years ago, and we were the Broncos of three
or four years ago, and we were just getting crushed.
So I hope the boys can rally and do something
good here with Jacksonville coming into town. Jacksonville, no joke, man.

(04:30):
Trevor Lawrence has ET's neck, and he can see over
just about any line. And that guy's going to be
throwing some bullets. So hopefully we're able to do a
lot better. This isn't a sports show. And I know
Dan says that all the time. I just wanted to
give that disclaimer. The other things that are going on here,
I don't know if you know this. If you don't
watch Channel 9, you probably don't know it. But there's

(04:52):
a guy named Phil Weiser out there. He is the
attorney general of the state of Colorado in his eighth
and final year as AG. He's the Democrat nominee for governor.
He defeated me in the attorney general's race in 2018
in a fair and free election. I always have to
use that disclaimer. And he has filed his, wait for it,
his 83rd lawsuit against the Trump administration. And this 83rd lawsuit,

(05:18):
and I'm going to give him credit for this, by
the way. If you guys go out there onto the
interwebs and you Google Weiser federal lawsuit tracker, there is one.
He's got a web, it's got a link to every
single complaint that's filed. And let's be honest. Phil is
not filing 83 lawsuits. A bunch of other attorneys general

(05:38):
from throughout the country file lawsuits, and Phil says, oh,
I'd like to be part of that Me Too. So
Phil's a Me Too on a bunch of these lawsuits,
including this 83rd one. This 83rd one caught my attention
because the Trump administration has promulgated a rule that says, look,
if you are a taker of benefits... from any level

(06:02):
of government as an immigrant, that could impact your ability
to get and maintain a green card. And the idea
there is there's been a law around since 1882 that
says we don't have to let people in here if
all you're going to do is just suck our social
support system dry. If that's your goal, there are other

(06:23):
places to do it, not here in America. And I
know for some that's shocking, like, oh my God, aren't
we here to just transfer my hard-earned tax money to
people that haven't earned it? No, that's not the way
the country was set up. That rule has been tweaked
here and there throughout the years. And now the Trump
administration and the first Trump administration had started to try
to really define what that term meant. And one thing

(06:46):
led to another and Trump didn't win in 2020. A
guy named Joe Biden did. And Joe Biden comes into
office and he promulgates a bunch of rules in 2022
that limit how much government assistance can be used against
a person to make a decision about whether or not
they stay in America, green card and all that stuff. Well,

(07:07):
guess who's president again, president Trump. So he gets elected
in 24. He's now got a rule that's going to
go live sometime within the next week. If, uh, if
the courts don't intervene and it stands for the very
simple proposition that listen, if you are sucking out taxpayer benefits, um,

(07:28):
That ought to be something we should consider in whether
to keep you here or to provide you a green card.
And Phil Weiser and 20 other states have said, no, no,
we're not going to do that. That's horrible. That's horrible
because we want immigrants here who need and depend upon
us to provide them with their existence. The most interesting

(07:52):
thing about this pleading this complaint that they filed is
they make a concession in here, which is crazy. And
that is they're worried that if this thing becomes a rule,
a lot of immigrants will resist taking public benefits because
they don't want it held against them as they try
to become citizens. Now, one, okay, I'm cool with that.

(08:14):
But two, they quantify the amount of this thing. And
I think it's in an attorney general press release. They
say that nationwide, This could actually cause $ 4 billion of
taxpayer-funded government services and support to go unclaimed if this

(08:35):
hard rule is put in place. And I thought, that
should be our advertisement. $ 4 billion? Are you kidding? That's
how much we're spending on immigrants, on social support stuff?
Maybe there's a time for a conversation for that in
the future, but Actually, I'm OK with that. That's four
billion taxpayer dollars that we could spend on. Let's just
call them Americans and or put it towards the debt

(08:58):
or put it towards some other thing. So anyway, congratulations
to Attorney General soon to be potentially Governor Phil Weiser
on your 83rd lawsuit. Remember, at 100, he gets a
tattoo of Donald Trump on his left cheek. That's just
how it works. I don't I don't make the rules.
I'm just here to report them. Hey, listen, we're going
to cut away for a quick break. Our number, 303-713-8255, 303-713-8255.

(09:22):
Our text number, 57739. You can start with, Dan, George,
you sure are witty and good-looking, and I'd love to
text with you, and then put in the substance of
your text. I'll read them during the break, and we'll
come back. And when we come back, Eva Wilson, phenomenal
former prosecutor to talk about a legend that we laid
to rest yesterday. His name is John Howard. Stick around.

(09:44):
George Brockler on the Dan Kaplan Show. George Brockler back
in for Dan Kaplan's on the Dan Kaplan show. Pleased
to bring on the radio right now.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
She.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Is maybe one of the best prosecutors I've ever worked with,
seen even before that, a legend. In fact, last year,
Douglas County put her into the Douglas County Hall of
Fame for her decades of public service. We were sorry
to see her go. No one more sorry than I
was because replacing Eva Wilson is an impossible task. We're

(10:22):
still trying to do that. But she joins us on
the radio right now. Eva, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
Absolutely, George. Thank you for honoring me to come in
and talk with you.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, I wanted to spend this time talking about someone
that you knew really well. And he worked for me
for a time. I mean, about eight years, I guess.
And he was a legend. And we kind of had
the memorial service yesterday. And his name was John Hauer.
He was a chief deputy district attorney in the 18th

(10:52):
Judicial District for, it could have been 200 years, I
don't know, but a long, long time. Tell us about
who he lost.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
Oh my gosh, it was a huge loss. John started
in the DA's office in Arapahoe County in 82, three
years before I did. And he was from Florida. He
had an amazing career as a prosecutor. Prior to that,
he taught history. He was in the Air Force. He
loved this country. He was known to sport a patriotic

(11:24):
tie in the courtroom at practically every opportunity. And as
you probably saw yesterday at the memorial, there were many
people there wearing John's ties.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
I was wearing one.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
He was ill.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (11:34):
And you were wearing one. Yes, including you. Now, John,
he was very special because, number one, he had the
most amazing, booming voice. And he could tell... an impactful
story of how a victim was hurt, how a defendant
had done an awful thing in a way that was captivating,

(11:56):
in a way that was absolutely 100%. It would just
capture you, and it was all the truth. And John
was always on the side of victims. He was always
a prosecutor. He never did any other kind of law.
And through his career, he eventually started the... along with

(12:17):
Richard Block, who also is gone, who died a few
years back. He started the career offender program in Arapahoe County,
which was unique not just to Arapahoe, but to Colorado
and even in the United States. John was so good
in the courtroom. He could take a tough case, and
because of his incredible level of preparation. I mean, he

(12:40):
once estimated that for every hour in trial, he put
in 100 hours of preparation.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (12:45):
He dug into cases like nobody's business because, number one,
he never wanted to see a guilty person go free.
And number two, even more importantly, he never wanted anyone
innocent to face the criminal justice system and to be
put through the ringer unless we absolutely, if they were innocent,
they absolutely needed their case dismissed. And he was, in

(13:07):
the words of Bob Gallagher, he was all about doing
the right thing. Bob Gallagher being the elected DA who
was in office when John was hired. But anyway, the
Career Offender Program was unique and amazing because it targeted
serial offenders. And by serial, I mean people who'd done
it before and on this occasion maybe had committed 2, 3, 4, 6, 8,

(13:28):
10 aggravated robberies, home burglaries. It could be a murder
case that a person was put into that program. The
goal of the program was to protect the public against
this person. And so he sought help. very severe sentences
for those folks. And it wasn't, like I said, because

(13:48):
they committed their first burglary or their first robbery, no
matter how serious, they had to have a history of
doing this because we wanted to make sure this person
was actually a predator, someone that had to be locked up.
And John effectively used the habitual criminal statutes in this
state to make sure that these folks who were the
worst of the worst, who really preyed on the public,

(14:09):
preyed on homeowners, preyed on store employees, bank employees, that
these people would be locked up for a severe long
sentence so that the public would be safe. And he
did that for many years, and those cases were massive.
And he did a marvelous job. And then, of course,
he also did many, many murder cases. And as you

(14:33):
saw yesterday, one of the mothers of a huge case
that he prosecuted, a death penalty case, was there. and
is still so thankful to John and the team, Emily
Warren and Ann Tomczyk, that prosecuted her son's killers. And
they were all there.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
They were all there for you.

Speaker 5 (14:50):
Yes, they were all there. Yeah, Emily and Ann, just
an amazing guy, amazing man.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
The thing you talked about, and we're talking with Eva
Wilson about Chief Deputy District Attorney John Hauer, who we
had a memorial service for yesterday at Fort Logan because
he's a veteran too. I mean, the dude served in uniform,
loved the country. You talked about doing the right thing.
John came to me, and I think this is before
you came to the office. I think you were out
in Jeffco at the time. But John came to me

(15:17):
with a case of, I think he was a 17-year-old
African-American male at the time who had gotten caught up
in an aggravated robbery and some other stuff many, many
years before. And he came to me and said, in
that John Hauer voice, that kind of, George, you know
what I'm talking about?

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
And he came to me and said, I think we
should look at this guy. He's applied for a pardon.
And I actually think we should probably advocate for the
pardon on his behalf. And we went through this long process.
It turned into a huge story, including Anastasia Bolton from
Nine News did, a guy named Wayne Thomas. And ultimately,
years later, we were able to secure, with his efforts, obviously,

(15:55):
a pardon. And it just resonated with me when you
said he was just all about doing the right thing.
Justice was a spectrum, but he was able to hit
all parts of that spectrum. Like he totally got what
right and wrong was.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
He totally did. And as you saw, I mean, some
of his best friends were former public defenders, former defense attorneys,
current defense attorneys were at the funeral yesterday. Judges, probation officers,
court reporters, everyone respected John. John did not sell a
bill of goods. John told the truth. He believed in

(16:31):
doing the right thing, and he believed in justice. And
he was uniformly respected. I never met anyone who did
not respect and think the world of John Hauer, which
in our business as a prosecutor, that's saying a whole lot.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Not just that, but even more in the modern era.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
I trusted him, and Eva, just like I trusted you.
You want to surround yourself in this job with people
who come into your office and say things. And you
don't have to question the veracity or completeness of the
thoughts around it. You're just like, okay, I get it.
And he was one of those guys. If he said,
this is it, then I'd be like, okay, well, then
now what? How do we get to fix that? Or

(17:13):
how do we get to that outcome? And he was
a completely authentic guy too. And by the way, you
had mentioned this, a wizard with the words. And you
remember he wrote something that got published and became a
pretty famous thing, a poem. I don't know how to
describe it. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 5 (17:30):
I absolutely do. It was the drive. It was about
John Elway. And I wish I could tell you which
game you'd know.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
I should know.

Speaker 5 (17:38):
But he wrote a poem about the drive where Elway
took the field, took us down the field, scored a
touchdown in a huge game. And he actually was asked
to read it at the old Mile High Stadium at
a Bronco game. And he was very proud of that.
But he wrote lots of poems about people in the
office and He wrote some great stuff. He was masterful

(18:01):
with the word. He really was.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
He was one of a kind. And you can't say
that enough about good people in our lives. And I
think that in some ways it's very Shakespearean. I don't
know if you remember this from Hamlet, but he was
a man, take him for all and all. I shall
not see his like again. I feel that way about you.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
I agree.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
And the wonderful thing, too, about him is, He was
put into a position where he was able to train
our new prosecutors for many years. And when I came
back to the office with John Kellner, when he took office,
I was digging into files, looking for things in the computer.
And what do I find? John Howard's voir dire, his

(18:44):
jury selection from huge cases. He wrote like how-to manuals
for prosecutors.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Eva?

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Thank you so much for this phone call. I appreciate.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
It.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
George Brocker back with you. Here's 630 KHOW filling in
for Daniel J. Kaplis. My apologies to listeners and also
to the great Eva Wilson. I could, honest to God,
this is how the sausage gets made. I could not
see Shani sauce through the glass because of the reflection
of the window, which I've now closed the blinds. I
blame myself. He's waving his arms frantically like, you are

(19:21):
running out of time. I'm just jabbering away like, we'll
be here for the rest of my life. So I
apologize for that. But RIP and Godspeed, John Hauer, a
wonderful man and a great public servant, and he will
be missed. Another great public servant coming on to the
radio right now. His name is Ken Buck. You know
him as the former congressman from the 4th Congressional District.

(19:42):
That's my congressman. But also the former elected DA from
Weld County for God, I don't know, two or three times. Ken,
are you there?

Speaker 4 (19:50):
I am here, yes.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
How many times were you elected up there?

Speaker 4 (19:55):
I was elected three and served the first two years
of my third term and then was elected to Congress.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
By the way, do you ever regret making that transition?
Do you ever look back and say, maybe I should
have just done the DA thing? It's an awesome job.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
It is an awesome job. It's the best job I've had.
And I'll tell you the truth, if I hadn't been
term limited, I don't know that I would have looked elsewhere.
But the term limits, I looked elsewhere, had a great
time in D.C. as far as you can anyway. But, yeah,
it is a super job. It has a great impact
on the community.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Last night you had asked me to be part of
something I thought that was pretty cool, and I was
honored to do it, and that was to kind of
lead through a discussion of a book, Your Fourth Life.
I don't know how anyone writes a book, but your
fourth book called Wake Up America, The Rise of Socialism
is the Death of Freedom. I think that's out today everywhere.

(20:48):
Is that true?

Speaker 4 (20:50):
That is correct.

Speaker 6 (20:50):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
And we had a great conversation up there with a
bunch of folks from the Greeley area out there at
the library. I thought it was really cool. And I thought,
you know what, I want to have you on the
radio since I've got Dan's airtime here to talk a
little bit about it. why did you do this? Like,
you don't have to write books, man. You're successful doing
your own thing. Why did you say, I need to
write a fourth book, and why this topic?

Speaker 4 (21:13):
I think socialism is a huge threat, George, and I
don't say that to promote a book. It is just,
it's unbelievable to me. As a Reagan Republican, Ronald Reagan
was the first presidential candidate I voted for in 1980.
I was a senior in college, and I just can't
believe that the country has lost sight of what socialism

(21:36):
is all about and what it will do to this
country if we keep moving in this direction.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
You break down the book, and I really appreciated this,
into some really big chunks that seem as relevant today
as they ever have been. In fact, the timing of
this thing, given what has taken place with the Malakirose
election or nomination in Denver and the stuff out with
Mamdani in New York, the timing is great. But you
begin by talking about, look, here's the problem with what

(22:02):
has happened. And you discuss it in terms of Congress
has largely drafted very general laws that then the administrative
state steps in and runs amok with.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Absolutely. So, you know, Congress can't get into the details
and oftentimes doesn't want to, for political reasons, get into
the details. And so they draft these laws and then
the executive branch comes in and writes regulations and And
oftentimes regulations don't further the intent of the law. And finally,

(22:33):
the Supreme Court recently has ruled on overturning a case
called Chevron that the Congress, if it isn't specific, that
the executive branch just doesn't get to come in and
fill that void.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
You, I wish we had time to go through every
section of the book because there's something in there, two
cool things about every section. One, I learned something about
not only the history of the law, but how it
got to be abused to the place where government's playing
a large role in our lives. But the other is
you build in local Colorado examples of this throughout. But
I want to ask you about one I asked you

(23:11):
about last night, and that is Highway to Hell was
the name of one of the sections of this book.
And it was a discussion of infrastructure. And how the
federal government has figured out a way to make it
impossible to complete a project for under a jillion dollars
and the local response to it up there in Weld County.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
Yeah, Weld County is very blessed. We don't have a
sales tax, a county sales tax here in Weld County.
We have a surplus in our system. We don't have
any debt. And so the I-25 in northern Colorado was
jammed full of trucks coming down from Wyoming because they
were coming across on I-80 and then coming south on 25.

(23:52):
And so what happened was that Weld County said, well,
we're going to relieve some of this congestion by building
the Weld County Parkway. They converted a two-lane road to
a four-lane road. And they did it about the same
time that the state of Colorado, using federal funds, decided
to expand I-25 from two lanes to three lanes in
north to south. And I-25 is still under construction. This

(24:15):
is more than 20 years later. And the Well County
Parkway was finished in about three years. They didn't do
an environmental impact study. They didn't do, they didn't pay
Davis-Bacon wage laws. There's all kinds of ways to reduce
costs if you don't have to worry about the mandates
that come along with federal funding.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
I think your quote was the environmental impact Impact study
was Weld County said, well, if an animal is dumb
enough to run across two lanes of traffic, it'll probably
be dumb enough to run across four. So that was it.
Now we know. You also talk about another big ticket item,
and that's energy. Talk a little bit about what the
federal government has done to mess that up.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
Well, the federal government, again, Congress passes a law that
says we want clean air. We want clean water. And
then when the left gets in control of the executive branch,
they take that very broad statement and they start putting
in regulations that have nothing to do with human health.
but impact everyday lives. And so they've decided that, you know,

(25:18):
with the waters of the U.S. regulations that were attempted
to be passed in the Obama administration and again in
the Biden administration, they took everyday, you know, water, not
navigable water, which is the definition in the Clean Water Act,
but they took everyday water, ditches and... Like potholes with

(25:40):
water in them.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
You know, anything with water in it.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
Right. And so, you know, they again, they use these
laws as a sledgehammer against folks and they do it
in with our energy. They do it with all kinds
of issues. And hopefully the Supreme Court case means something
in the future.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
There is another section, again, that's, I think, really telling
and informative to me because I didn't know about it.
And it was the section on misinformation and journalism and
the GDI. What is all that?

Speaker 4 (26:15):
You know, it was interesting, George, when I asked the
question last night, hardly a single hand.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Went up in the room. That's right.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Nobody knew. Yeah, very few people know about it. But
what happened was in the Obama administration, the intelligence agencies
were concerned about Russia getting involved in our social media
and starting to plant. bad ideas in our social media,
ideas that would benefit Russia and undermine the unity in

(26:42):
this country. And so they started a group in the
State Department to monitor this disinformation that was coming from
Russia and China. The Biden administration took that and decided
we're going to start funding these foreign organizations that rate
news organizations and rate them according to what this very

(27:04):
left-leaning organization thinks is credible or not credible. And so
they started rating and then sending to advertisers, the groups
that actually place ads for General Motors and Exxon and
all these other companies. And they said, you know, these
right wing or conservative news outlets are not credible and

(27:26):
you should not advertise with them. But these left wing
Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, they're very
credible and you should advertise with them. And what happened
was we started defunding or the Biden administration started defunding
conservative talk radio, conservative television, conservative media. print media. And

(27:48):
the result has been really devastating. A lot of news
organizations have gone out of business as a result.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's fascinating that all this takes place under Biden. I've
never heard of it before. I read your book, Wake
Up America, The Rise of Socialism is the Death of Freedom.
Would you be able to stick with us, Ken? I
know you are on a whirlwind blitz tour here, getting
the word out about the book. Do you have time
to hang around for a little bit?

Speaker 4 (28:15):
I do. If I fall asleep, just yell at me
a little bit, George, and I'll wake up.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
We're going to come back and talk with Congressman, former
district attorney and author extraordinaire Ken Buck. When we come back,
stick around our text line, by the way, 57739. Just
put in there Dan and then say George's El Guapo
and then the substance of your text. And then, of course,
the phone line 303-713-8255. George Brockler filling in for Dan
Kaplis on the Dan Kaplis show. George Brockler filling in

(28:48):
for Dan Kaplan right now back on the line with us.
He is a former district attorney, a former congressman, current author,
former football player for a school called Princeton. Raise your
hand if you knew Princeton had a football team. His
name is Ken Buck. He is the author of Wake
Up America. The rise of socialism is the death of freedom.

(29:10):
Thanks for sticking with us.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
George, just one quick point. Name the first college football game.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
I just want to say Army-Navy, but I don't think
that's true.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
No, Princeton-Rutgers.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Whoa, and Rutgers got embarrassed the first week of the
season this year. That's hard to imagine, but that seems
like if it were to be played today, it's a
bunch of super nerds. You know what I mean? Probably
all better football players than I am, but like, you know,
super nerds. trying to outthink each other on the field.
I don't know. They couldn't have done worse than the
Broncos last night. Ken, let me ask you, because there's

(29:48):
a couple of the things I wanted to get to,
and then I wanted to get to the prescription. I
want to talk to my son in the five o'clock hour.
He's at Cal Poly. He's a freshman. about what's going
on on campuses and stuff like that. I haven't seen
him since we dropped him off. You have a section
on education. You have two, one on K through 12,
and you have another one on higher education. And we
talked about this. Can you talk a bit about what

(30:10):
happened with funding for higher education? Because it's so much
more different than when you and I went to school.
There were a lot of millions of different options, but
also requirements to get funding. And now there seems like
there's nothing.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
Yeah, well, at the time, at one point in time,
you and I are so much different in age, George.
I'm way, way older than you. Hold on, I'm 35.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
How old are you?

Speaker 4 (30:36):
42.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
When I was in school, there was a– banks underwrote
or gave loans for students and guaranteed loans. You may
never see the bank. You don't have to go into
the bank. They were loans that were guaranteed by the
federal government and issued by banks. And there was a
banking process that, you know, students and others had to

(31:07):
go through. You had to apply for a loan. There
was also a pressure that when you got a degree,
it had to have some sort of return so that
you could pay off your student loan. And so now
what happens, you fast forward to 2009. And the Obama
administration said, well, you know, this profit is really ugly.
We shouldn't have profit in our society. That's bad. So

(31:28):
we're going to take the profit from these student loans
and we're going to use this to pay off Obamacare.
And of course, after that, Biden comes along as president
and says, we're going to excuse student loan debt. And
so it became a political football rather than a way
to help students get through their college education.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
But then on top of that, We get through this
period of time now where the federal government is the
guarantor of all things. And then Joe Biden shows up.
And I think we talked about this last night, too,
when he says, hey, I'm willing to forgive all this debt.
I was adamantly opposed until I explored the idea of
could they make it retroactive? Because like a fool, I
actually paid off my college debt.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
Yeah, well, that was not foolish. It is it is
the type of person you are, an honorable and principled person. But. Now,
with a huge amount of student debt, the economy is
not creating the jobs at the rate that we're putting
out college graduates. And so there is a problem. But

(32:30):
that's a problem that needs to be solved another way,
not just giving people, you know, the first loan, probably
first loan they take out, excusing it and not making
sure they understand the the implications of borrowing money.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
We're talking with Ken Buck, author, congressman, all those other
things I said before. Wake up, America. The rise of
socialism is the death of freedom. You also don't just
diagnose an issue and say, hey, here are all the problems.
You do a good job of that, but you also
have some prescriptions on how things might be made better
in this book. Give us a few of them. I

(33:07):
know you can't cover all of them.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
Yeah, so the most important one in my mind is
that we have DOGE made permanent. DOGE was an attempt,
and it was an attempt that was short-lived, but it
was an attempt to try to turn the spending curve
and make sure that we examine every spending program that
there is in the federal government. For example, the Department

(33:31):
of Defense has failed their own audit for over 30 years.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Holy smokes.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
They have failed an audit, and there's no consequence in Congress.
We own 46,000 empty buildings around the world, former embassies,
former consulates, and we are paying for the heating. We're
paying for the landscaping. We own 46,000 buildings. And we
do nothing about it. And again, Congress can't micromanage the

(33:59):
executive branch, but Congress can say, you're not getting more
money until you start selling these buildings, until you start
looking at some of these programs and cutting the waste.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
I got a couple other questions, not book related, and
we have just enough time for them. Somebody texted in
and asked this question, and it's important. Were you at
Princeton at the same time as Brooke Shields? Good question.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
No, she is younger than me. She was there five
or seven years later. Do you remember Superman, Dean Cain?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I think he played football, too.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
Yeah, he played football. He was a safety. But they
dated each other when they were at Princeton. So you
had Superman and Superwoman.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Unbelievable. There was a chance you could have been a
part of that. I don't know in what capacity. The
Riddler or something. I don't know. But another question, and
this is coming in from the text as well. People
are like, we loved Ken as a congressman. Why did
he leave early?

Speaker 4 (34:57):
Yeah, I left early because I felt like I wanted
to get involved in that whole election cycle. And I
wasn't going to be able to do it from Congress.
There's just too many restrictions on what congressmen can do.
And so I left and did my best to make
sure that we got the right people elected.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
You know, I think that's the other thing, though, is
that other Congress people find a way to do it,
but they're less principled. And they find a way to
beat the system. And you, I think, decided I can't
beat the system legitimately and give this my all. And
I appreciate that. As you sit here at the front
edge of pushing this book out, and by the way,
I wish when you had asked me to do this,
there had been an audio book version available on Audible.

(35:36):
I'm an Audible guy. And you said, oh, there is one.
But it doesn't come out until today, which is also awesome.
Do you have your eyes set on another topic that
you want to tackle after this? Or do you just
take a big breath after this and say, man, this
was a big task. I'm going to take a knee
for a moment.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
George, I wrote my first book, Drain the Swamp, and
I promised myself I would never write another book. And
then I wrote my second book and then third book
and now fourth book. And I am promising myself today
as we talk on the radio, I will never write
another book. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, I hope when you do write that fifth book
after you've lied to yourself again that you will come
back on and we can talk about it here.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
I look forward to it.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Thank you, George.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Congressman Ken Buck, Wake Up America, The Rise of Socialism
is the Death of Freedom. I read it, man. It's
an easy read, and it's an informative read. It's available
on Amazon for sure, and also the Audible Part 2. Look,
when we come back, a kid named Jeff College, what's
gone wrong, what's gone right? George Brockler for Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 4 (36:41):
Dan Kaplis.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
It's me, Steve Reams. Bald as a cue ball. I'm kidding.
Steve Reams, of course, good buddy, sheriff up there in
Weld County. My name's George Brockler. I'm filling in for
Dan Kaplis until six o'clock. He is out doing some
justice in the courtroom. You know that my last guest,
we talked about his book and about some of the
things going on with higher education. And then there's a

(37:06):
poll that came out that I want to talk about
in this hour. And I thought, man, if I only
knew somebody who had any experience at all with current
higher education, and I thought, wait, I know somebody. He
used to live under my roof. His name is Jeff.
He's on the line with us now. Son, how are you?

Speaker 3 (37:26):
I'm good.

Speaker 6 (37:26):
How are you?

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Good. Thank you for making time. I know you're on
your way to class. What's this upcoming class?

Speaker 3 (37:32):
I'm going to African American Studies.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Now, that's a class that you have a bunch to
choose from, and that's one of the ones they... offer
you to take like you have to take a certain
kind of class out of a certain genre or something
isn't that.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Right yeah it's the general education stuff you have to
take a kind of like racial history class they require
that yeah i mean i wouldn't call it like dei
or anything even though that has a class here but
uh it's just like more history Well, look.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
You're going to one of the top institutions out there
in the country. It's called California Polytechnic Institute out at
San Luis Obispo. Everybody knows it as Cal Poly Slow.
You've been there now for how long? When did I
drop you off?

Speaker 3 (38:17):
About a month.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Oh, I can't. Dude, it's been way too long, man.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
It's been more than three days.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Walking by your empty room makes me weepy a little bit.
How's your experience been so far?

Speaker 3 (38:27):
It's been good. I mean, the climate is suspiciously nice
all the time, especially coming from Colorado where we all
know it's crazy. It's been like sunny every day.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
In terms of the campus, I know it's got to
be different than high school where you're all kind of
trapped in really one building or very close to that
one building. This is much more spread out. Beautiful campus,
by the way. What's your sense of the makeup of
the student body or at least the freshman class that
you come up in contact with?

Speaker 3 (38:59):
I think the makeup, it's usually pretty predominantly white, I
would say. I mean, it's historically a white-serving institution, though
I think just this year they dropped below 50% white population.
But there's a large group of Hispanic students and Asians

(39:19):
and all of that stuff. But it's fairly diverse.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
What's your sense of how many in-state versus out-of-state, like
how many of the California fruits and nuts are there versus...
the cool kids from Colorado?

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Well, Cal Poly is a California state school, so it's
controlled by the state government, and they have a regulation,
I guess, where they can only allow up to, I guess, 17%
of the population of a school to be from out
of state. So of the student body, which is around,

(39:54):
I want to say, 25 grand or 25K, that would
probably be like... I don't know, a couple thousand people
from out of state.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Now, they require all freshmen to live on campus. Is
it two years?

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, two years.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
For two years. And I know I've been to your dorm.
You've got great roommates. It's a super cool environment. Although
those buildings, I think they say, these were here in
World War II as barracks or something like that. But
they've kind of, you know, they've put indoor plumbing and
stuff like that in there. I wanted to ask you,
did you see that thing I texted you, that poll
that was about from that group? And it's a group

(40:31):
that's called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. And
for the seventh year in a row, they've done a
ranking of schools across the country. And they do it
state by state, Jeff, which is to rank them on
their kind of free speech and free thought and all
this stuff. And then they ended up pulling like 62,000,
almost 63,000 kids across the country. And then they rank

(40:52):
the schools. And when I looked up Cal Poly, I
was I was hoping to see something great. They gave
them an F. And then I read some of the
description of why they gave them an F. And I said, well, look,
I've only been there a few times, but that's just
not the vibe I get. So I thought, well, I'm
going to ask you, like, what is having read that thing?
What is your sense of how accurate it feels to you?

Speaker 3 (41:15):
It's not that accurate, I'm gonna be honest. I think
from the outside looking in, you can definitely pinpoint some
problems that might have happened. I know the university doesn't
have an explicit free speech policy that they enforce with
their students. And they've revoked a few frat and sorority

(41:36):
house charters over insensitive things that they've done in the past.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Like what would they define as insensitive, do you know?

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Like there was a, from what I know, a couple
of years back, there was a frat party where they
had like an Indian theme, like American Indian. Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
And it was like, it's all white people in those frats.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
So it was like, but that caused them to lose
their charter.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Uh, yeah. There's also just like a lot of racist
stuff that they do.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
Oh my God.

Speaker 6 (42:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
It's, it's been a problem, but it's not like school sanctioned.
And if that happens, then.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Those, uh, So this is this is stuff in the
past that's taken place. Do you do you know kids
out there that are in the freshman class who are
Republicans or MAGA or any of that stuff? Or do
they feel like they have to keep it all super
secret because they're going to get jumped or something by
the libs?

Speaker 3 (42:31):
I don't think they feel like they have to keep
the secret on campus. There is both a college Democrat's. uh,
club and a turning point chapter. So it's like pretty
well represented. I know they have, uh, a ton of
speakers coming like the turning point club does later this month.
I'm not entirely sure who's coming, but it's like some
big names from the Republican party. Uh, and I know

(42:54):
the Democrats also do it. Uh, there's also a couple
other like political centric clubs. There's one that's like Mustangs
United for Israel. Uh, they have some things like that.
And then there's also a Palestine affiliated one. So it's
kind of just like, you know, there's a lot of
different ways to explore political things on campus.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Do those guys coexist together or do they like have
pitched battles like the Israel and Palestinian groups or do
they seem to coexist? Okay.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
I don't know. I'm like, you know, I'm pretty new here,
so I don't have like.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
A great relationship.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Grounding on the situation, but I do know a few
weeks ago, the Mustangs United Club for Israel, they had
a few IDF soldiers at the campus to the club,
and that sparked a ton of protests outside.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Did it really?

Speaker 3 (43:45):
30 people out there, yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Well, 30 doesn't sound like a bunch on a campus
of 25K, but still.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, there were like 30 active protesters and a ton
of people like watching, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (43:57):
It's a lot for.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Well, protesting is one thing, but were they shouting them
down or threatening in any way? Or is it just like,
protest is fine. I have no problems with that. That's
the American way. But was it that thing that you
hear about in other campuses where they're screaming kids down
and you can't have that person there and cancel stuff?
Was it like that?

Speaker 3 (44:15):
I don't think they were. I know they were just
like standing outside of the meeting room with signs and
stuff like that. But from what I know, they weren't
doing a ton of aggressive stuff or like really any
aggressive messaging or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
We're talking with my son, Jeff. He is a freshman
at Cal Poly, slow San Luis Obispo. I love the
slow thing. And I don't want to cut you loose
too early, but I don't want you to miss your
special class. You have to get there too. Do you
feel like, and it's only been a month, are kids
in your dorm or on the campus, do they have

(44:54):
open conversations about political stuff? Or do you feel like
it's kind of a verboten thing? And all campuses are
a little bit left to center, right? Unless you're on
an academy campus, they're all kind of left to center.
Do you feel like there are conversations that are taking
place between people who disagree about politics? Or are people
kind of like, I'm not going to say anything if

(45:15):
I'm a conservative?

Speaker 3 (45:18):
I think it's kind of a mix. I mean, it
depends on if you want to be politically active because
you can be on campus. That's kind of like one
of the things college is known for is political activity. But,
you know, if you're like a conservative in a, you know,
left of center campus or something, there's the TPUSA chapter.

(45:40):
There's other organizations you can join. You can also create
your own club, do your own events, all that stuff.
You can... do whatever. They have like pop-up tents on
Dexter lawn all the time, just like talking about their
political messaging and stuff. And like, you know, that's fine.
Cause that's free speech. I just don't understand how it

(46:01):
could be so like poorly rated because it's, it feels
like any other university to me, you know, just like
a bastion for being able to say and do what
you will if it doesn't hurt anybody.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
Well, it was ranked near the bottom of all the
California schools. And so I looked up, you know, University
of Colorado Boulder, because that's where I went. And it
only got a C compared to an F with Cal Poly.
And I thought that just can't be. And in part,
the campus can be a reflection of the community. And
as you know, Jeff, from being out there, San Luis

(46:35):
Obispo is not San Francisco or Los Angeles. Like it
is pretty moderately, right? Like they have a Republican district attorney,
a friend of mine who you've, you've met many times,
Dan Dow, Colonel in the, in the army guard out there.
And that community elects him to be the DA. And there's,
you know, a lot, I don't know. It's an interesting town.

(46:56):
They have no drive-thrus in San Luis Obispo. Can you imagine?
And they have every fast food restaurant you can think of,
but no drive-thrus. You can't have any drive-thrus, but it
seems like a pretty moderate. And in some places I
would say center, right kind of area. And the campus
just didn't strike me as something that was super political.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, I mean, it just like isn't really in nature. And,
you know, classes like the one I'm going to, African
American Studies, that's a pretty complicated issue with a lot
of political viewpoints on it. And so the professors are
trained to take a lot of that and, you know,
have like controlled, modest debate.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Do you have that? Thank you for saying that, Jeff.
Do you guys get honest debate, or do you feel
like the professor is trying to steer you towards a
conclusion or an outcome?

Speaker 3 (47:47):
I mean, in my class, it's kind of just going through, like,
objective history right now, but as we get into more, like,
modern events and times and stuff like that, I think
the way that he described it in the syllabus is
we'll have, like, debates where we can, like, openly share
our opinions while also having, you know, we should be

(48:09):
respecting other people's opinions too, which is how good political
debate works.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
When I come out there to see you, man, I
want to talk to you about how they define objective
facts for the history and stuff. But I'm at least
encouraged with that. You don't feel like there's anyone in
that class who seems like they're like, I'm not going
to say anything, man. This isn't my crowd, that kind
of thing.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
Well, I think people don't really say anything because it's
like a, 150 person class in a lecture hall. So
you kind of can't really talk, but I think we'll
do more like small group stuff later on.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
The other classes you're taking though are like, and please
accept this in the gentle term I offer it, super
nerd classes. You know what I mean? Like this crazy
calc stuff and the computer, the computer science-y stuff and
all that other stuff. My guess is there's just no
room for anything political in those classes.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Well, they don't really cover political subject matter, so it's
kind of not a thing that you talk about. And
I think that might be where some people are like, oh,
I'm discouraged from talking about my politics because they don't
have a class to talk about it in. But you
can take classes that.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Are rooted in politics.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
Politics here if you wanted to. You can take public
speaking or debate classes. You can do all of that stuff.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
No problem.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
I just don't know if anyone would be spouting up
about people's rights during Calc 2.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Yeah, well, yeah. I mean you either carry the 2
or you don't, right, like in the math stuff. Um, the,
the last thing is, uh, and I'll see you out
there in just a couple of few weeks, man. I
can't wait to see you again. I miss you. Um,
but the campus itself too, just didn't, when we went
there and they did the orientation thing, do you remember that?
And they had all the booths and stuff. I just
didn't get the sense that it was a campus that

(49:57):
had a large component of it that was designed to
make you an activist. I mean, hell you and I
went over and talked to the ROTC guy and I
was really trying to make that sound super sexy for you.
Did it work?

Speaker 1 (50:09):
No.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Well, listen, keep up the excellent work out there, and
you should pretend to be homesick enough that you call
your dad more often because I'm Jeff Sick, man. I
miss you from not seeing him.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
You can call me too, right?

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, but I don't know your crazy schedule with you
and your protests and stuff out there, whatever you're doing.
I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
I thought I sent it to you.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Well, buddy, thanks for making time.
Good luck in class. Speak up, man. 180 people, 150 people.
Be that guy that sticks his hand up and share
some thoughts. I love you, and I will see you
in the very near future, buddy.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
Yep, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, thanks, son. Hey, that is Jeff Brockler. He's a
freshman at Cal Poly SLO. I'm always encouraged to hear
his description of what campus life is like there. I'm
going to go through some more of this FIRE stuff.
That's the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expressions, and they're polling.
But I'd love to hear from you, too, at 57739.
Start it off with Dan, George's El Guapo, the rest

(51:06):
of your thing, or give us a call at 303-713-8255.
George Brockler filling in for Dan Kaplis on the Dan
Kaplis Show. George Brockler back with you here on 630 KHOW,
filling in for Dan Kaplis, who's in trial crushing it
for the little guy. My thanks to a kid named

(51:27):
Jeff helped raise that guy, but I cannot take credit
for the superstar that he is. He's out at Cal
Poly right now in his first month of his freshman year.
On his way, minutes from his African-American studies class, took
time out to talk to us about something that's important
to me because I got two kids in college right now,
and I got one more on the way here, a

(51:47):
junior out at Rock Canyon. also ridiculously tall, by the way,
that kid has exploded to six foot four, about 180 pounds.
I don't know what's going on there, but it doesn't
show any signs of stopping. There's an organization out there
called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and we'll
keep this going into the second half of the hour,

(52:07):
and hopefully with your participation. And they've got a couple
things going on here. They had a poll that they
had done back in December, and it talked about a
students from the campus where Charlie Kirk was assassinated, their
thoughts on violence and when and if it's appropriate. And
then there's another one that just came out, I think yesterday,

(52:29):
that was their ranking of college campuses by about 63,000
students across the country on how much they protect free
speech and free thought. And Colorado didn't do well. Nobody,
I think, did as poorly as an F and that's
where Cal Poly was, but that just wasn't my sense.
So I'm not sure how great the survey is, but
if you guys have kids in college, you remember being

(52:51):
there in the not-too-distant past, I'd love to hear from
you about your experience. And is there an answer to
this thing?

Speaker 3 (52:58):
57739.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
I say again, 57739. You've got to start off with
Dan and then get to the substance of your question.
I'll try to read it on air, but the best
is talking to people on the phone. That is a
big 303-713-8255. 303-713-8255. One of these surveys, and this is

(53:21):
what I want you to think about when you call in,
taken between October the 3rd and October the 31st, that's
Halloween of last year. Some of the key findings of
this were that half the students surveyed say that they're
less comfortable attending or hosting controversial public events on their campuses.
That could just be because it's their first time away
from home. They're a little nerdy, whatever. But it's the

(53:43):
beginning of a discussion of other stuff. Like one in
five students say they're less comfortable attending class. This is
at Utah Valley University where all this happened. It said
a majority of students opposed allowing all six controversial speakers
on campus they were asked about. Now we're getting into
a real problem here. And that is this idea of

(54:05):
prevented or cancel culture. where if something is being said
that someone finds offensive, they try to prevent it from
being on campus, let alone having to hear it. And
that is the death of free thought. I was encouraged
by what Jeff said in his brief call with us,
that they have an Israeli favorable organization and a Palestinian

(54:27):
favorable organization. Even though there's protests, no one's getting shouted down.
But we're going to go through this a little bit more,
but I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you're seeing,
what you're experiencing there on campuses. 303-713-8255. It's George Brockler
filling in for Dan Kaplis on The Dan Kaplis Show.

(54:58):
George Brocker back with you here for Dan Kaplis in
the courtroom swinging away for justice. I wanted to start
this conversation with you, and you can join in at 303-713-8255, 303-713-8255,
or hit us on the text line at 57739. A
lot of very nice texts, by the way, about the
interview I did with my son, Jeff. He is my
third child, second son of three, and he is off
to his first year at Cal Poly. Now, there's a

(55:30):
bunch of things going on. You even heard at the
bottom of the hour, the news that really touches upon
sort of this same thing. And that was that a
guy named Ed Sheeran, who has written a bunch of
songs that a lot of women and very few men
find to be super awesome. I'm kidding. He has a
big show, super successful show. And one of his opening

(55:50):
acts was Macklemore, who's had a couple of big hits
of his own as a rapper. And then there were
a bunch of other supporting acts and all that other stuff. Well,
at MetLife Stadium during his opening performance, he wore one
of those Palestinian kind of scarves. I'm sure I don't

(56:12):
remember the name of it, keffiyeh or something. And he
shouted out free Palestine super loud, saying he wanted his
words to be clear for people in Gaza and the
West Bank. And then he tried to address the Jewish
fans in the crowd saying, hey, look, just because I'm
anti-Israel and I'm anti-Zionist doesn't mean that I'm anti-Semitic. By
the way, that's super hard to wrap your mind around.

(56:35):
I hate your homeland and the government that runs it
and the only place you've ever felt truly safe and protected.
But that doesn't mean I'm bad with you guys. That's
kind of crazy. But nonetheless, Ed Sheeran cuts him loose
because some of the other venues that they were going
to go to were concerned about potentially making this so
political on this controversial issue that it created safety problems.

(56:56):
As soon as he does that, then all of these
other pro-Palestinian people who are band members and other acts,
they cut loose and they leave. But it kind of
feeds nicely into this conversation that has been generated by
several different polls that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, FIRE,

(57:16):
have put together over the recent past. They had one
that they had done right after Charlie Kirk had been
assassinated back in September of 2025. And it was one
where they looked at not just college free speech rankings,
but within that ranking, they had asked a question about
when is it acceptable to engage in political violence? And

(57:42):
back in 2020, that ain't that long ago, folks. the
national average showed that about one in five students, these
are college students, said that it was acceptable to use
violence to stop a speaker, to stop a speaker. That's
one in five. That's 20%. You should be outraged by that.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
I am.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
But wait, it gets worse. At the time of this
September 2025 poll, that number surged to one in three.
That's over a third of these college students that were
part of this survey said said that it was appropriate
to use violence to stop a speaker. Now, that's crazy,

(58:21):
especially given what had taken place with Charlie Kirk. There's
another study or poll that they had done, and it
was at that campus, UVU, and it was in October
of this past year. And it said a majority of
students opposed allowing, and they listed six controversial speakers on campus.
And this is the crazy hypocrisy. A majority of the

(58:43):
students that were polled from the Utah Valley University said
that they opposed allowing all six controversial speakers onto the campus.
Didn't even want them on the campus to say the
things that they disagreed with. But in contrast, a majority
of the students opposed firing all four professors from their

(59:03):
campus who had come out and said some pretty horrific
things about Charlie Kirk or in light of Charlie Kirk's
assassination So you can see that the political drift here
is the left, and it's clearly the left. The left-minded
are encouraged and support the use of political violence or
violence to stop language they don't like, but they're opposed

(59:24):
to taking any action against those who engage in other
controversial speech that might offend somebody else. But a majority
of students also say that political violence is a problem
among all groups. And I think that's true. And there's
no sense in debating whether or not this is a
creature of the right or the left. I think there's

(59:45):
probably parts of each side of the political spectrum that
engage in this. But I got to tell you, when
it comes to college campuses, it's not the right. I'm
not worried about the right. It's the left and shouting
people down and trying to cancel people. That's the crazy thing.
This recent study that they've done, a poll that they've done,
that FIRE has done, they found that half of students
surveyed said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was difficult to discuss

(01:00:10):
openly and honestly on campus. That's actually an improvement from
last year when it was 53% said that. Notable portions
of students also identified DJT, Donald Trump, 46%, Charlie Kirk, 44%, abortion, 43%, immigration, 38%,
and transgender rights, 38% as difficult, difficult topics to discuss.

(01:00:36):
I get that those are sensitive topics and I get
that there are strong and emotional views on each side.
But when you get to a college campus and you
lose the ability to have open conversations about the controversial issues,
two bad things happen. One, we stop exploring these issues
and we engage in much more tribalism. But two, you
have created an intellectually fragile group of those next educated

(01:00:59):
elites that are going to go forward. And I use
elites in air quotes because a lot of them turn
out to not be that elite after all. And if
you go back to what Ken Buck was saying about
how we fund a higher education where the federal government
makes all the decisions, you can see why we have
a lot of people who are in transgender women, minority
studies degrees that can't seem to get a job doing

(01:01:20):
anything other than teaching that one specific topic. And it's
a problem. I think the concern that I have with
college today is, and this is spearheading the move away
from college, and you can see enrollment numbers drop. In fact,
there was a recent story that came out. You may
have seen this University of Colorado, my University of Colorado, Boulder,

(01:01:42):
in particular, had a loss of students. Now, a lot
of those are international students, and there's a lot of
reasons why we have less of them today. But there's
a drop-off in applications to college campuses. And I think
in part, it's one, there's a growing recognition that they
are becoming less and less about education and trying to

(01:02:02):
advance thought and put people in a position to do
great things for themselves and the community than it is
about trying to train that next generation of activists or
people that think and speak a certain way, that kind
of fragility is only going to make us worse as
Shannon and I enter the home and we're paid for

(01:02:22):
by Medicaid or Medicare dollars. The other thing about that,
I remember back in the 1988 era, maybe when I
was at CU Boulder, clearly that was not a conservative school.
Even back then, that was not the most military friendly
school to take an ROTC scholarship to. And I did.

(01:02:43):
And I remember sitting in a couple of different classes where,
and I don't know if you know this, I kind
of say stuff and it doesn't matter if it's a
small crowd, big crowd, I just sort of speak my mind.
And I was that way back then. And when you
participated in class over certain issues and, Man, did you
get attention. But nothing that was so negative that I
would stop doing it. Nothing that ever put me in

(01:03:04):
fear that the professor was going to somehow impact my
grade or that students would shun me or shout me down.
But there was definitely controversial stuff. There was a class
we had that touched upon the settling of the West.
And this TA who looked exactly like you might think
a Boulder TA would. A lot of flannel, beard, bald, mustache.

(01:03:27):
And had an opinion. And what he said was, you know,
it's arguable that women back as they settled the West
were a little more than incubators for men's babies back then.
And I said, well, I stuck up my hand because
that's what you do. And I said, where did you
get that? What book did you get that out of?
Because last time I checked, man, these families that took

(01:03:48):
the Conestoga westward towards California. They don't make it without
each other. Women weren't just breeding babies. They were taking
care of pretty much every single thing that wasn't a
hunting activity by men. He then turns to the women
in the class and says, women, what do you think?
And I said, whoa, hang on. What special insight do
they have about that period of time that we don't

(01:04:09):
sitting here? Is there a book or something like why
is their opinion gender based or why does that even matter?
You can imagine the conversation that happened afterwards. But I'll
tell you what, even the people from the left in
that class as we're leaving came up to me afterwards
and they said, dude, that that took guts, man. Like,
I totally disagree with you, but that took guts. I

(01:04:30):
just don't know if that happens as much in school today.
And by the way, I didn't have guts. I just
couldn't shut up. I'm destined to be an attorney, I guess.
But that's how that whole thing transpired. I just wonder
what is going on in college campuses today. And I
get concerned about where these kids go. Thrilled that Trey's
at CSU, wonderful school, and he's doing biomedical stuff. Jeff

(01:04:52):
out there at Cal Poly doing all the voodoo science-y
stuff that he's doing. And then Graham, God bless him.
At least for right now, man, Kidd wants to go
to one of the academies, and so I'm not worried
about him either. But what about you guys, your kids,
your grandkids? Let us know, 303-713-8255, or give us a
text at 57739. Start the text with Dan and then
George's El Guapo, and then go from there. We're going

(01:05:13):
to cut away for our last break. We'll come back,
take your calls, your texts, and we'll wrap it up
and turn it over to, I don't even know who
comes after this, but it's not anyone as cool as
Dan Kaplis. George Brockler filling in for him on the
Dan Kaplis Show. George Brockler back with you here for
the final segment of the Dan Kaplan show on this

(01:05:35):
Tuesday in the Ides of September. Hey, listen, in the
little time that we have here, I'm going to try
to do a little bit of good for Colorado by
bringing someone on who's going to talk to us about
one of the eight trillion things on your ballot. But
this one's pretty important. Her name is Chris, but she'll
answer to Jen. Chris, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 6 (01:05:54):
You just revealed me, George.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Nobody knows. No one has any idea what I'm talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:05:59):
No one has any idea.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
No. Tell us about, this is Prop 83, isn't it?

Speaker 6 (01:06:07):
It is Amendment 83. It's the constitutional right to hunt
and fish. Yeah, it's an amendment. It's a constitutional amendment.
And the reason we need a constitutional amendment is currently
hunting and fishing is in statute. And as you and
I know, the legislature, all it takes is one legislative
season to bring down a whole bunch of new legislation

(01:06:29):
outlawing certain aspects of hunting and fishing. So we're wanting
to make it a constitutional amendment.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Now, this is something that other states have done because
they could see what you're talking about right now, which
is a leftward lurch towards restricting, if not outright banning,
hunting and fishing.

Speaker 6 (01:06:49):
Yeah, 24 other states have passed this amendment. And you
can see in Colorado why we need it. We've seen,
for example, Proposition 127, the mountain lion hunting ban. And
can you imagine if we weren't hunting and putting that
hunting pressure on mountain lions what the population would grow to?
You know, we've seen... fur bans, the attempt to ban

(01:07:15):
fur sales. We've seen, of course, wolf reintroduction into Colorado,
and that's not necessarily a hunting issue. But what this
amendment does is it puts management of wildlife squarely in
the hands of Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the state legislature,
as long as they're using reasonable methods of managing wildlife,

(01:07:36):
and that includes science-based proven methods.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Now, there's probably a future conversation about why we merge
parks with wildlife, but that's a different Oprah. That's a
different story. If this thing passes, if Amendment, not Proposition,
my mistake, if Amendment 83 passes and this becomes part
of the Constitution, will it allow Coloradans to, and I'm
going to use a term that they would choose, harvest

(01:08:01):
the wolves for wolf burgers or anything like that?

Speaker 6 (01:08:05):
No, it won't affect the wolves at all. You know,
they are still protected no matter what Trump does. Right
now they are protected by federal law under the Endangered
Species Act. No endangered species will be impacted by this amendment.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
No matter how good they taste.

Speaker 6 (01:08:22):
No matter how good they taste, George. Shame on you.
And look, I'm not a proponent for going out and,
you know, we hear from a lot of people who
say smoke a pack a day. I'm not a proponent
for that. I think this wolf program is a travesty.
and that it wasn't well thought through, and it wasn't
well managed. And that's why we have the issues that

(01:08:43):
we have today. Twenty wolves are dead. So we need
to allow the experts to manage our wildlife, and they
need to do it according to science.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
You had told me something else in the past about how, like, look,
this thing predates Colorado, the whole hunting. and fishing on
this land. And we're all we're really trying to do
is to preserve something that people have been doing here
for time in memoriam.

Speaker 6 (01:09:10):
Yeah, it's part of Colorado's heritage. You know, we had
indigenous people here in Colorado, the Ute Indians up in
the mountains. They hunted and they fished. They had the
right to do that. We had settlers come in. You know,
I'm from Gunnison County, and John Gunnison and his explorers
discovered the river. And what did they do while they
were there? They had to hunt and fish to eat.

Speaker 4 (01:09:32):
It is part of Colorado's heritage.

Speaker 6 (01:09:34):
I mean, it's no different than protecting the right to
fish in Colorado, going out on the Gunnison River. and
being able to cast a line and catch fish with
your grandkids. And you have a slew of kids, don't you?
So I'm assuming you're going to have a lot of grandchildren.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Have you been hunting, Chris?

Speaker 6 (01:09:54):
I am not a hunter. And that's why I really
feel that my voice is very important because although I
don't hunt, I support those who do. And I do
believe that it is a right and it is part
of our heritage. And we have seen how, you know,
Jared Polis and his spouse have made this a political issue.
It shouldn't be a political issue. Democrats hunt, Republicans hunt,

(01:10:20):
unaffiliated hunt. This is something that that that crosses all
party boundaries. And it's something really we need to protect.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
How about fishing? Have you done some fisher womaning or
whatever they would call it?

Speaker 6 (01:10:33):
I have done fish.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
I have.

Speaker 6 (01:10:35):
Fished and I fished with my daughter and I'd love
to be able to fish with my granddaughters. I mean,
it's just part of, you know, there's nothing like a
rainbow trout right out of the river. It's just a
beautiful thing. But, you know, I went to the Common
Sense Institute. They had their eggs and the economy this
morning and they've just come out with a study. They
say that hunting and fishing generates $ 6. 1 billion in annual

(01:10:59):
business revenue. That's huge. Hunting tags pay for wildlife conservation.
If we don't have hunting anymore, that revenue doesn't come in,
and the taxpayers are going to have to pay to
manage wildlife. You know, small communities benefit from hunters coming
in and going to the local coffee shops or the
local sporting goods store because they forgot their hand warmers.

(01:11:22):
This is really an important thing, and I know that
there's so many ballot initiatives to consider here. But this
one really.

Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
Should be approved.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
Chris, as we punch out here, tell us with all
the noise on the ballot, how can people find out
more about this?

Speaker 6 (01:11:38):
They can go to the website for YesOn83.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
We'll Google it. YesOn83. Thank you for making time to
chat with us. Hey, listen, I'll be back next Monday.
Of course, I want you to listen in between, but
until that time, Stay here on 630's George Brockler for
the Dan Kaplan Show.